Game of Thrones (Book Spoilers, Srsly, Monkey)

I know it doesn't happen in the book, but in the context of the show, it made sense to me. It also filled me with rage and anger, but towards Ramsey and Littlefinger, not towards the showrunners; on the other hand, when Jaime raped Cersei, I was seriously pissed at the showrunners, because it made no sense and added absolutely nothing. Sansa's rape, while loathsome, makes sense within the story and raises the stakes even higher for her.

This is a really good explanation of how I feel. I hated the Jaime/Cersei scene because I could tell (and the aftermath showed this) that it was a total misstep. If it was a rape, they never followed up emotionally or with consequences - Cersei seemed totally cool with him later on. If it wasn't intended to be a rape, then they filmed it very very badly. So I hated that.

Whereas this was 100% intended to be disturbing. I don't think there is any wiggle room about that. Although within the culture of Westeros, I don't know if Sansa would think she was raped. From our modern view of course it's rape, but I think the implication throughout the show has been that many of these women have terrible wedding nights and marriage beds. Dany was raped on her wedding night as well, but because he turned out to not be a psycho and because she grew to love him, we are able to move on from how disturbing it was. But it was her "duty" as a "wife." In their world, women like Cat are the rare lucky ones.

And here's the thing. As was said above, I was hoping she would run away before they got married, but once it was clear that was happening I knew it wouldn't go well. And I think she did too. I know it's not "wily, play the game, female badass" empowerment, but I did think that her moment with Myranda was strangely empowered. Like, I have seen some shit you don't even know about, so don't even try to scare me. I know what I've signed on for, I hate it, and I hate you, but I'm going to handle it the best I can. That's entirely my own read on the scene, and people's opinions obviously vary. And none of that takes away from how upsetting it actually was.

I certainly don't expect an aftermath where we see Sansa process sexual assault the way that we would do so now. I don't think her world has the vocabulary for marital rape. But I certainly hope we see a renewed steel that will lead her to murder him in his sleep.

Totally agree, emrie. It's hard to believe that the whiny annoying"I wanna marry Jofffffreeeeee!" chick from Season 1 is the same person as the hard-eyed "I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell" young woman we saw last ep. I used to despise her; now she's one of my favorite characters.

Can I just say how sorry I was for Reek? He's done some horrible things, true, but man, the expression on his face as Ramsay made him watch the marriage consummation was heartbreaking.

Great post, emrie. You summed up why I wasn't quite as irritated at this plot direction as I thought I would be/should be, but with more coherent thoughts.

Now that was showmanship!

Yeah. That was a genuinely scary battle-- and probably even scarier because I had no idea what was going to happen.

It really says something though that the "boring" parts of the episode dealt with Arya's Faceless Man training and the long-awaited Daenerys and Tyrion showdown.

See I loved the shit out of both Dany/Tyrion and getting to see so much of Arya's story clipping along. To me every storyline kicked ass this episode and made it pretty much my favorite of the series. And nobody got raped even!

Seeing Cersei have to lick the ground was I will not lie DEEPLY satisfying. I guess I need to hold on to that feeling since FrankenGregor is nearing completion.

Dany, be grateful you've been spared the WHERE DO WHORES go version of Tyrion, because show Tyrion still possesses the ability to be a great advisor, and this is easily the best decsion you've yet made.

But holy shit Hardhome was brilliantly unexpectedly amazing, from the first meet n greet where Toramund beat a bitches ass, to the unbelievably bad ass Wildling warrior woman, to Jon essentially being confirmed as Azor Ahai!!! OMG when he killed the White Walker with Longclaw (duh for some reason I thought he had Ice), I literally WHOOPED. Maybe I really took that alone as confirmation he was AA, because though it makes sense that Valaryian(dragon) steel works as well on them as dragon glass, I interpreted the Walkers reaction to Jon especially at the end to mean they recognized him *as* AA/The Prince That Was Promised.

Well that was unexpected and badass! GRRM only WISHES he was as organized and on top of his plot as this season has been.

I fully well know that Cersei deserves terrible stuff; but I despise religious fanatacism more than almost anything on this earth, and the violence and brutality of the things I imagine doing to the nuns/novices/Johnathan Pryce (not to mention Melisandre) every time they are on screen freaks me out. Maybe the Boltons could make themselves useful by coming down south and slowly torturing and skinning that whole group. (I realize that this is me falling into the same ugly trap as the fanatics. I hate emotions! LOL.)

Olly, egged on by Sam's "sometimes you have to do what you think is right, even if no one agrees", is going to do something very bad and/or stupid, isn't he?

That's what I figured, too. I also laughed/cringed at Sam's "Jon will come back, he always comes back."

So I found out that the last episode of this season is called "Mother's Mercy" which I'm guessing may refer to one or more of the following: 1) Cersei admitting her guilt and going on the epic walk of shame 2) Dany and her dragons and 3) the possible appearance of Lady Stoneheart, who is referenced in one of the book appendices as "Mother Mercy". If Lady Stoneheart DOES show up, I'm wondering if somehow she is going to get tangled in with Sansa's story line, instead of having her roam the Riverlands. That could be interesting, especially if she somehow gets to be involved in the destruction of the Boltons.

I know this episode has a lot of people willing to forgive some of the stuff that happened this season, but I'm still pissed about sending Jaime to Dorne. I want him back with Brienne, damn it!

Dany, be grateful you've been spared the WHERE DO WHORES go version of Tyrion, because show Tyrion still possesses the ability to be a great advisor, and this is easily the best decsion you've yet made.

For that, I think we are all grateful.

If Mother's Mercy isn't a reference to Lady Stoneheart, then it will be the biggest tease of all time. I went from not wanting LSH on the show to NEEDING it to happen, like, now. I need her to fuck up some Boltons real bad.

I expected Lady Stoneheart at the end of the previous season, so I am anxiously awaiting her arrival. I have a feeling it'll be worth the wait.

Hasn't Michelle Fairly said she has no interest in coming back as Lady Stoneheart?

Yes, she has. Maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but in the books does Lady Stoneheart really do much of anything that advances the plot? Other than hang Brienne and Poderick, which I could certainly have done without. Granted the showrunners have certainly gone significantly off-book at this point so maybe they've got an amazing story for her to be part of.

I hate everything about Lady Stoneheart, and I hope she doesn't appear on the show. I was holding out some hope to see if GRRM had something better planned for her, but as it was, it felt like a fate-worse-than-death situation for Catelyn, and that depressed me as a Cat fan.

So I guess if D&D did something better/different with her, then I might be open to it, but at this point, you'd have to introduce that whole weird Beric crew, and it just doesn't seem worth the time.

That said, I'm basically emotionally checked out of this show since the Sansa rape, but I did like the Hardhome battle last night. Probably would have been better to have something big like that earlier in the season, but it was still cool. The Dany/Tyrion conversation was good too. Now I really have no clue where Dany will go from here, because wandering the wilderness with her dragon seems unlikely, with Tyrion as an advisor. So, good, I hope there is a better story in store for her.

I don't recall Fairly saying she didn't want to come back, only that there was no plan for her to do so, and she did sort of dismiss it as interesting, but I thought she was just being coy.

My biggest issue with the lack of LSH (and also Lord Manderlay) is that there are no dead Frey's. It helped give some sense that while bad shit was still happening to our heros, the villains were starting PAY as well. I think the show hasn't done a great job showing how big a deal the magic in play in the world is, and that it's all interconnected.

There is some (really good interesting) speculation that Stannis will die in battle with the Bolton's, at the same time Jon is stabby stabbed, and that Melisandre will attempt to revive AA, and in the books we all but assume Jon's resurrection because we've seen Beric and LSH. We know that kind of magic exists and can be made to serve the heroes and not just the villians (White Walkers). Where as narratively on the show,  I think Beric is a distant audience memory, and LSH doesn't exist.

you'd have to introduce that whole weird Beric crew, and it just doesn't seem worth the time.

But they've already BEEN introduced, it was just dropped, by removing Gendry from their group, and not pursing LSH. Which I'm fine with really I don't NEED LSH, but I'm gonna need dead Freys, and soon.

Ha, I first wrote "reintroduce Beric" but then I honestly couldn't remember seeing them at all, so I changed it and never looked back to see if they had in fact been on the show. So...

But your point about magic returning to the world, not just Beyond The Wall, is a good one. And yeah, I want some dead Freys too. But maybe there's a way other than Lady Stoneheart to accomplish either or both of those things.

The thing about magic is SUCH a good point especially the warging.  I mean, we haven't seen any warging this season at all (right?) and if they just casually reintroduce it (like in a "previously on GOT" thing) before Jon gets stabbed, it will be such a giveaway.  I have been wondering what they're going to do about that storyline all season - I think it will be extremely shocking if they go for it, but if they don't, it's basically saying that GRRM let ADOD end on a huge cliffhanger for no effing reason.  

AA significance/the prophecy of AA has also been very downplayed for me so I hadn't even thought about that potential of his being raised from the dead.  Generally I like seeing the show better than reading the books, because I feel that GRRM has completely lost his way, but the thing that I think you miss by not reading the books is all the prophecies/dreams/things of *~mystical significance~* seem to get lost.  Dany's 3 betrayals, AA, Cersei's fear of a "younger, more beautiful queen", all of Bran's shit (not that I'm complaining on that front, mind you) - none of these things seem to be given much weight in the show.

BreezyK wrote:The thing about magic is SUCH a good point especially the warging.  I mean, we haven't seen any warging this season at all (right?) and if they just casually reintroduce it (like in a "previously on GOT" thing) before Jon gets stabbed, it will be such a giveaway.  I have been wondering what they're going to do about that storyline all season - I think it will be extremely shocking if they go for it, but if they don't, it's basically saying that GRRM let ADOD end on a huge cliffhanger for no effing reason.  

I guess it wouldn't have been for no reason if he goes another way though than the show does.

To hell with Lady Stoneheart! After last episode I want Ash to come crashing down on the army of the unliving in his Oldmobile!

Heh. "You said I was beautiful once, Jon Snow." "Yeah, but honey ... you got REAL ugly."

Incredible episode. Might have even topped last week's.

Poor Shireen. Right up until the end I was holding my breath that someone would save her. Those screams were horrible.

And the scene is the fighting pits is one of the few highlights of DwD, and the show made it even better. Jorah's redemption, the death of Hizdar, Daario being all sexy, Tyrion watching. And mostly the CGI was incredible (the actual dragon riding was a tad cheesy but whatever, the rest was great.) What a well done scene.

Wow.

How sad that I could barely focus on the one good storyline--Dany, finally--because everything else is so horrible.

So, uh, anyone have some sort of fan theory as to how Shireen somehow survived that and will emerge from the woods in the end and kill her father and her mother and most of all Melisandre? Because I could use one of those theories right about now.

Knowing what is undoubtedly coming in the finale for Cersei, and what it feels might be coming for Arya (not that I think it will get that far, but I definitely think she's going to be in a threatened position), I don't know how anyone left watching can continue to deny the misogyny here. It's been a truly disgusting season of television. I can't wait for it to be over.

You might want to read Arya's preview chapter from WoW Carrie.

It says a lot about the storytelling, and the way that they structured this episode, that I couldn't give two craps about Dany flying off on Drogon, despite wanting to see her fly a dragon for four years now. And I know why they did it, because after ending on Sansa's rape a few weeks ago, ending on Shireen's murder by her parents might have been a step too far. But it happened, and sticking it in the middle of the episode only undercut everything that came after it. I knew from that first scene between Stannis and Davos that Shireen wouldn't live through the episode. I hoped against hope that something would have drawn Davos back to save her, but I knew it was unlikely. My only wish now is that when Davos comes back he murders Melisandre and Stannis and then goes back to join the Night's Watch to support Jon.

The stuff with Meryn Trant was also gross. I hope Arya kills him, but given that she lied to the Jaqen H'ghar, I'm guessing not.

Despite the fact that the Dorne storyline has Jaime, Bronn, Ellaria and Dr. Bashir, all of whom I adore, I just don't care.

I do care about Dany, Tyrion, and Jorah, and I'm sure in any other episode I would have liked the end, but today, I barely noticed it was happening.