Game of Thrones: The Wars To Come Show Only

April 12, 2015 10:29 PM - Season 5, Episode 1

Cersei and Jaime adjust to a world without Tywin. Tyrion and Varys arrive at Pentos. In Meereen, a new enemy emerges. Jon is caught between two kings.
posted by the man of twists and turns (76 comments total)

Maggy the Frog!
posted by Navelgazer at 10:44 PM on April 12, 2015

really though what did she think was going to happen, locking her dragons in dark windowless prison basement? of course they are grumpy.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:49 PM on April 12, 2015 [8 favorites]

One comment only? You're killing me!

All in all I was very pleased with the ep, I don't mind that it was mainly setting the stage, much rather that than the edgy option of following just one char for most of the ep. Appreciated that they checked in with pretty much everyone. Was so thrown by the boybum to boob ratio I had to check I was on the right channel. Loved the ambiguous "it's not my father you should be afraid of" line from obvious mini!Cersei. Didn't like the carriage passing so close to Brienne, it unfairly made her seem incompetent (or was that the point, to highlight the pointlessness of their quest?).
posted by Iteki at 10:56 PM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Will the king and I have children?"
"No. The king will have 20 children, and you will have three."

lol. The actor playing young Cersei got some of her mannerisms down pat; head and nose up in defensive posture, chin down looking up as the attack stance.

Emphasis mine.
posted by porpoise at 11:18 PM on April 12, 2015 [9 favorites]

I am very much looking forward to the Daenerys/Tyrion team-up.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:18 PM on April 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

We got butts but I'm not impressed. I demand more and better male butts on my fantasy adventure show. (why does a Westerosi nobleman have a distinct speedo tanline? I wasn't looking it was just super obvious, anyway.)

That being said it reintroduced us to everything nicely, not a whole lot went forward but everything is getting set up.

SANSA HAS GONE FULL GOTH AND IT'S AMAZING.

Loras remains an unsalted wheat cracker. Maggie is still super fun and scheming. Cersei is doing her Cersei thing of drinking a lot and being paranoid and meeting newly converted religious cousins she used to have sex with (his face had a serious case of Bioware RPG face generator, and I was just playing Dragon Age 2 before watching this so it was double whiplash)

Pod remains the curiously likable and attractive character. I want nothing but nice things to happen to him, which is more then I can say for literally any other guy on the whole show. (Jon Stark doesn't count cause that would require him to have a personality other than moping or grim. Even Stannis gets further than grim.)

So basically, everything is awful, no one knows what to do, and it's all primed to get worse. So, a GoT opening.

(Every time something dramatic happens I want them to cut to Bran in a tree with an old guy for 40 seconds.)
posted by The Whelk at 11:22 PM on April 12, 2015 [9 favorites]

they checked in with pretty much everyone

Except Arya. Maybe she can pick up Gendry along the way.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:24 PM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

The first episode should have been exciting, especially after such a long wait. This was boring, boring, boring.

The Imp was interesting because Dinklage is fascinating as an actor but that story line is DOA as far I'm concerned. Road trip? Really? Isn't that why we have Arya and Brienne? Sansa has been and always will be her father's daughter--a dumb, naive pawn. Cersei and her brother are only interesting when they're actively plotting or killing or screwing each other. None of that happened.

Jon Snow saved this episode. I could have seen his scenes alone and missed nothing else of importance in this episode. His killing of Manse without protesting the execution or asking permission is real character growth.
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 11:28 PM on April 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

Loras remains an unsalted wheat cracker.

I did like how Loras was all "what the fuck, everyone knows anyway." Also SO MUCH AWKWARD CONTORTING to avoid showing any peens.

Did they recast Sex-Cousin Lannister? I wondered if Cersei's "you look a lot different" was a handwave of that, but I don't remember what Lancel looked like before other than generically whitebread arrogant.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:31 PM on April 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Nope, Lancel is still the same guy. He's just no longer overwhelmed by long, luscious blond hair and sheer existential terror.
posted by KathrynT at 11:35 PM on April 12, 2015 [14 favorites]

Terror? Lust? Terror-lust.
posted by KathrynT at 11:35 PM on April 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

This was boring, boring, boring.

I don't think I agree, but there was certainly a lot of table-setting.

I assume Cersei's right to be paranoid about vultures circling King's Landing, though? Everyone knew that Tywin was both the Lannister patriarch and their best tactician; there's a big gap there now. Especially if word gets out about how much they're in debt to the Iron Bank. (And who would know that? Both of the recent Masters of Coin. Hmm.)

But yes, the Mance Rayder/Jon Snow storyline was by far the most interesting in this episode. (Although I feel like the scenes with Ciaran Hinds really show up Kit Harington's limitations: he relies a lot on gruff muttering, but Ciaran Hinds is so much better at it than he is.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:49 PM on April 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Basically the Lannisters are in the weakest possible position and Maggie Tyrell is sitting there smiling and Cersei is thinking about the prophecy she heard about a younger Queen ( oh now vague! It can be so many people, and for the record I'm still convinced it has to end with Queen Sansa.) and everything is bad.

I just keep thinking what it's like to be Tommen right now. He's totally Marie Antionette ...you where meant to marry a minor noble but then ALL YOUR SIBLINGS DIED ( or got disfigured by smallpox) so now you're QUEEN OF FRANCE ENJOY BY WISH WE EDUCATED YOu BETTER.

I honestly thought Melisdandra's religion would come up, maybe it will, but it looked like she stopped juuuust shirt of giving a sermon when setting Mance on fire.
posted by The Whelk at 11:54 PM on April 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

No Arya = first episode sucked as far as I'm concerned.
posted by mlis at 11:56 PM on April 12, 2015 [12 favorites]

I had to stop the show fives times for my wife.

"OK, this is Loras Tyrell..."
"He's gay?"
"Yes, and..."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:58 PM on April 12, 2015

...and BUTTS.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:59 PM on April 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

I do honestly forget, it's the same guy Loras was sleeping with from before, who was basically told to sleep with him to keep an eye on him right? Blonde is a spy right?

Also like, there was a lot of We Have To Plot The Plot Workmanlike story stuff: When Danni and the Second Sun dude are in bed talking about the fighting pits, yeah it's totally fine and it gets the information across but I expected a dialogue wheel to come up so I could select "The fighting puts are a cultural tradition" or "no, the fighting pits are immoral." Before we moved to the next cut scene.
posted by The Whelk at 12:04 AM on April 13, 2015 [8 favorites]

Yes, same dude (GoT wiki, currently this page is safe for future spoilers); one of Littlefinger's.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:10 AM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

Didn't like the carriage passing so close to Brienne, it unfairly made her seem incompetent (or was that the point, to highlight the pointlessness of their quest?)

I think it was just the writers' way of saying "neener, neener, neener!"
posted by homunculus at 12:28 AM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah it's a joke , and it's also to highlight how out of the loop poor Brienne and Pod are and now they're the best people! I want the adventures of the Knight Brienne and her squire Pod, she can teach him about murdering and honor and he can teach her about cooking and diplomacy! Compared to everyone else, they're both so earnest and obvious in what they want. Still holding out hope that Brienne turns out to be actual Captain America of Westeros or something.
posted by The Whelk at 12:39 AM on April 13, 2015 [9 favorites]

"Still holding out hope that Brienne turns out to be actual Captain America of Westeros or something."

As far as I'm concerned, she already is.

This episode (and the next, I think) was directed by Michael Slovis, who was the Directory of Photograph of Breaking Bad. He directed only three or so episodes of BB, however, and he's not that experienced at direction. That's about right for this episode in that some of the photography really caught my eye, but the direction was mostly just workmanlike.

I was a bit underwhelmed and disappointed at the lack of Arya -- which I realized was going to be the case with the lack of Braavos as a location in the opening credits (that did include Pentos).
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:54 AM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Brienne and Pod are literally Don Quixote and his squire. Do you remember in the musical where the squire admits to not knowing his job? Sound familiar?
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 12:55 AM on April 13, 2015 [9 favorites]

Was Maggy the Frog the first flashback we've seen in the series?
posted by Justinian at 2:28 AM on April 13, 2015

Yes, Maggy was the first flashback.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:26 AM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'll be interested to see if the statue on top of the pyramid is in the opening credits for next episode. More power to them if they take it out.
posted by Night_owl at 4:39 AM on April 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

In the opening, Winterfell is no longer burning and has the Bolton banner on it.

Very curious what they'll do for Dorne.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:55 AM on April 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

This was the first narrative flashback. When Bran connected to the weirwood heart tree in the cave in last season's finale The Children, he saw flashback glimpses of his father.
posted by zarq at 5:49 AM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Indeed. Those were flashbacks to things we had already seen. (Unless I'm misremembering.) This is the first flashback to something that happened before the events of season one.
posted by ocherdraco at 6:44 AM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

I actually shouted at the screen when Sansa just trundled by Brienne and Pod. Grarr!
posted by tilde at 6:48 AM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was wondering why Charles Dance was in the opening credits after his death but, of course, there was the scene of him laid out on the bier with those AMAZING stone-eyes over his eyes. I hope he got paid his usual rate and not scale for that.
posted by maudlin at 7:03 AM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Whelk: Still holding out hope that Brienne turns out to be actual Captain America of Westeros or something.

Ivan Fyodorovich: As far as I'm concerned, she already is.

Nah, she's Agent Carter - a badass in her own right, but dismissed because she is of "the weaker sex," with a few supporters who realize her capabilities.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:35 AM on April 13, 2015 [5 favorites]

If they could just get along (and get transported to our world), Cersei and Tyrion could get a smart-talking daytime show. I'd call it "Daytime drinking with Cersei and Tyrion." Subtitle: "all the boozy news you can use, with a double-dose of sass!"

I was interested to see that Jon didn't beat the little archer (solely) out of retribution, but also in training him.

And now we have a (partial) answer to "do Unsullied have sexual thoughts or actions," as debated in prior GoT threads.

Jamie: you're pretty dense if you only think that now your father is dead the realm will be torn apart. Have you forgotten the fact you were held prisoner? You weren't captured by magical elves who wanted you out of their faery kingdom, the realm is already at war.

Daario Naharis, second of his name, conveniently forgot the pile of corpses he climbed over to be a champion pit fighter, and apparently Dany didn't think of that, either. Sure, free people can now opt to fight in the pits, but assuming all the fights are to the death, there are a lot of poor people who will be doing one last thing for their families, knowing full and well that they won't make it out alive. Kind of like being in a snuff film, but for a live audience.

And if Dany needs chains for her dragons, they're not controlled, they're being restrained against their will (a jab at her stance on slavery, natch).

I rather liked Mance's discussion with Jon about his impending death sentence:

Mance: How will they do it? Hanging? Beheading?
Jon: Burned alive
Mance: Ah, fuck that (is what his look said)

And what does the Lord of Light think of having his sacrifices killed before hearing all their anguished cries?
posted by filthy light thief at 7:53 AM on April 13, 2015 [10 favorites]

I was really worried they had recast Grey Worm until they actually showed him.

Also, this episode was a pretty good display of how much better of an actor Dinklage is than anybody else in the cast. He didn't have a whole lot to do, but he was way more interesting while doing it.
posted by dogwalker at 8:03 AM on April 13, 2015 [13 favorites]

Yeah Dinklage was, on paper, just a few lines, but the actory acting stuff - pacing, movement, posture, 'being someone who'se been drunk and in a box for weeks' was amaaaaaazing.
posted by The Whelk at 8:27 AM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

Brienne should become Danaerys' Kingsguard.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:48 AM on April 13, 2015 [13 favorites]

The Whelk: "I honestly thought Melisdandra's religion would come up, maybe it will, but it looked like she stopped juuuust shirt of giving a sermon when setting Mance on fire."

Stopped short? I had been sure she said something ...

I found a quote here, emphasis mine:

We choose light or we choose darkness.
We choose good or we choose evil.
We choose the true god or the false.

posted by RobotHero at 10:53 AM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah there was that little sales pitch but I thought she would go full on mass conversion attempt.

Maybe that line was a compromise.
posted by The Whelk at 11:39 AM on April 13, 2015

Props to the Silent Sisters, Tywin looked so lifelike!
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:49 AM on April 13, 2015 [5 favorites]

The funeral stone eye business must be booming
posted by The Whelk at 11:55 AM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

It feels like the scenes with Daenerys are from a different show - the dialogue and plots are more cliched, the acting is wooden, & the pacing is low energy. The dragons are cool, and that's about it. Otherwise I almost suspect that they turn the writing and directing over to the B-team whenever they cross the ocean.

I also found this episode a bit boring. I enjoyed Varys and Tyrion, but the Season 5 trailer had already spoiled the big reveal of their scenes. And anything with Cersei, young or old, is compelling. But that was it for this episode - nothing else seemed very compelling.
posted by kanewai at 12:52 PM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Whelk: "Maybe that line was a compromise."

She doesn't strike me as prone to settling for a compromise.
posted by RobotHero at 12:57 PM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

I mean setting a guy on fire is not usually how you send the message that you're open to discuss these things.
posted by RobotHero at 1:03 PM on April 13, 2015 [11 favorites]

Mance: Ah, fuck that (is what his look said)

Yeah I really liked that scene too. I thought it was great how Mance wasn't all just pure stone-faced tough guy about it and you could see the fear and terror. To me that's how you do it; that kind of performance is what drives home that this guy is a principled badass.
posted by Hoopo at 1:08 PM on April 13, 2015 [12 favorites]

Oh man, Greyworm and Missandei are pretty much the HIGHLIGHTS of the Dany storyline to me. I love their actors, I love their chemistry, I love that the show is going places with them that aren't in the books at all, and I'm going to cry ugly salty tears if the show decides their perfectness can't last and murders one or both of them.

At the very least, I'm really, really, really hoping that this season will involve them boy-and-girl detectiving it up in the city to solve the mystery of Who Is Killing the Unsullied.
posted by joyceanmachine at 2:51 PM on April 13, 2015 [6 favorites]

It'd make a change from the mystery of So Do Unsullied Have Cocks Then Or What? that the Missandei/Grey Worm scenes are perpetually leaving unsolved.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:14 PM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

And what does the Lord of Light think of having his sacrifices killed before hearing all their anguished cries?

I seem to recall a previous burning-at-the-stake scene where the victims errupted into a massive, screaming pillar of fire, which Selyse took to mean that all their sins had been burned away and the LoL had accepted them into his loving, cindery arms.

Presumably by shooting Mance before that could happen, Jon doomed him to some sort of lukewarm purgatory.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:19 PM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

I wonder how fucked he is going to be for doing that. Are they going to make him peel potatoes and mend socks now or something? I can't imagine that's going to go over well with the Black Watch higher-ups.
posted by Hoopo at 4:34 PM on April 13, 2015

Not sure I agree that Dinklage outacted *everyone* in this episode. Ciarán Hinds' face was going through some end-of-The-Long-Good-Friday level contortion in his scenes.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 4:38 PM on April 13, 2015 [5 favorites]

Yeah, he really sold that burning scene. Now I know how Joan of Arc felt.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 5:35 PM on April 13, 2015 [8 favorites]

So much for my Mance/Varys slash.
posted by dfan at 5:48 PM on April 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

I can't imagine that's going to go over well with the Black Watch higher-ups.

I can't imagine the Black Watch higher-ups are that keen on the whole burning-people-alive business in the first place. Seems a little dishonorable.

(I thought the Black Watch was basically outside the normal rule of men. Does the Watch recognize Stannis's claim? Or are they making nice with him because he turned up with a big army?)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:00 PM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Kitty Stardust: "Now I know how Joan of Arc felt."

* slow clap *

Still laughing at "Sex-Cousin Lannister."

Not much to comment on, but there's one character other than Arya we didn't see (well, aside from the Bran gang, and I suppose Rickon, who's been vanished a long time): FrankenMountain. Over/under on what episode he (it?) will finally appear in? Wouldn't it be funny if he turned all gentle and went looking for his brother to apologize?
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:45 PM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

(I thought the Black Watch was basically outside the normal rule of men. Does the Watch recognize Stannis's claim? Or are they making nice with him because he turned up with a big army?)

They're neutral with regards to internal affairs of the realm, so if pressed I think they'd say they neither recognize his claim nor not-recognize his claim. If he wins the war, fine. If he loses, fine.

In practice the claimant who is actually at the wall with an army is going to get some extra deference, plus he's the only one of the major players who's paid any attention to what's going on up there, which has to endear him to them somewhat.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:37 AM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Not much to comment on, but there's one several character(s) other than Arya we didn't see

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Narrow Sea...
posted by ocherdraco at 6:54 AM on April 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

CTRL - F Hound, nothing.

I know he was wounded pretty badly, but is he dead?
posted by bricksNmortar at 7:51 AM on April 14, 2015

RECAP!
posted by Sys Rq at 8:00 AM on April 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

bricksNmortar - yeah, it was a given that Sandor succumbed to his infection and his open displaced femur break, which would get infected pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, there's no moldy bread or boiled wine around.
posted by porpoise at 8:51 AM on April 14, 2015

The boiled wine thing drives me bonkers. Alcohol has a lower boiling point than water! Boiling wine makes it LESS alcoholic, not more! You're thinking of DISTILLING which is an entirely different process which argh
posted by KathrynT at 10:12 AM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

That was pretty funny, Sys Rq!

I liked this exchange from the episode (paraphrased):

Varys: We need you, you're empathetic!
Tyrion: Empathetic, I killed my former lover with my bare hands and shot my father through the heart.
Varys: I never said you were perfect.

Dany is fucked with the dragon situation.
posted by JenMarie at 10:55 AM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Given that she hung out in the middle of a funeral pyre while the dragons were born, I was expecting her to stand there while one of the dragons flamed her and then just give them a "yes, and?" expression.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:59 AM on April 14, 2015 [9 favorites]

Yeah, I know, right? Also, if moldy bread preparations of antibiotics was so effective... they must have a different kind of mold in Westeros that makes an incredible amount of super antibiotics. I'm guessing that GRRM thought that it was a neat idea (penicillin is produced by bread mold, plausible, but the concentration is too low to be effective on Earth).

As for boiling the wine, yes to evaporative loss of ethanol - but it's much less than most people think. You can selectively drive off (distill) ethanol from an ethanol/water solution but it has to be right about 78'C. Actually boiling wine (>100'C), you drive off almost as much water as you do ethanol (depending on how long you boil); seafood pasta with a wine base still has a not-insubstantial amount of ethanol in it.

The only reason to boil the wine would be to kill any bacteria/yeast that manages to survive in wine (7-14% abv?) before using the (now more diluted) ethanol solution to sanitize the wound.

Interesting; a eye salve recipe from "Bald's Leechbook," one of the oldest medical textbooks residing in the British Library (~1000AD), is actually effective against MRSA (and I suspect a lot of other pathogenic bacteria).

Equal parts garlic and onion/leak, finely chopped and crushed in a mortar for two minutes, with 25mL of English wine. Add ox gall salts (stuff from a cow's gall bladder, aka, bile) dissolved in distilled water. Chill for 9 days at 4'C.

The ingredients, individually, do not exert antimicrobial activity.
posted by porpoise at 11:00 AM on April 14, 2015 [5 favorites]

Sorry, to elaborate, I used the term sanitize rather than sterilize. Boiled Wine, I guess, is the Westerosi equivalent of sterile saline solution to irrigate wounds, which only serves to reduce microbial burden.

For sterilization, you need around 70% ethanol (interestingly, 100% preserves the bacteria) for a certain amount of time. 70% ethanol or 70-99% 2-propanol (isopropanol, rubbing alchol) can also kill bacteria - but only during evaporation (some of the alcohol gets inside the cell, when it evaporates, it dehydrates the bacteria and kills it).

Sandor's bite wound is beyond treating, it's likely gone systemic (bacteria into his blood) causing sepsis with symptoms that probably include fever and myasthenia (muscle weekness). Burning it when he first got bit might have increased his chances of survival by reducing the initial bacterial burden in the wound, giving his immune system a chance to hold the infection back. Irrigation with boiled wine when he initially got bit might also have helped, but burning likely reduces the bacterial burden more effectively.
posted by porpoise at 11:16 AM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

They could also try magic.
posted by davidjmcgee at 11:22 AM on April 14, 2015 [7 favorites]

The helpfulness of moldy bread really rather depends on the type of bread and the type of mould.

(If it's rye, you can die.)
posted by Sys Rq at 11:38 AM on April 14, 2015

Surprised that after Tywin's death Loras Tyrell wants to marry Cersei after all... so he can take her to Highgarden so that Margaery can be Queen without Cersei's interference. Yeah, that plan has about a zero percent chance of working out. She'll totally murder him in his sleep.
posted by hush at 12:11 PM on April 14, 2015

I always assumed it was boiling wine. That is, wine brought to a rolling boil then poured on the wound to sanitize/cauterize in a horrifically painful manor.
posted by Eddie Mars at 12:12 PM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Loras seems to think Cersei is a reasonable person who will accept living in palatial Highgarden in quasi retirement, drinking the day away and not someone who would rather burn every city to the ground then let someone take what she feels entitled to.

I mean it's not like being Queen and remaining Queen hasn't been her one and only goal since forever or anything.

(also, isn't this all the Tyrell family's plan? Loras didn't come up with it, right? Cause he's ...not ...smart.)
posted by The Whelk at 1:37 PM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

(also, isn't this all the Tyrell family's plan? Loras didn't come up with it, right? Cause he's ...not ...smart.)

Grandmama Thorn laid down the law, if I remember correctly.

(I'm so sad Tywin is dead. So goddamn sad. The Tywin versus Queen of Thorns throwdown last season is a legend in our household.)
posted by joyceanmachine at 1:52 PM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

How long until Littlefinger finally springs whatever intricate trap he's pursuing on The Tyrells? He knows Olenna ordered the hit on Joffrey. Plus he knows everything his guy Olyver is presumably telling him about Loras' pillow talk.
posted by hush at 2:01 PM on April 14, 2015

>horrifically painful manor

Right, I think we spent some time there last season.
sorry, but what a great typo
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 4:20 PM on April 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

We had a deal, Kyle: (I thought the Black Watch was basically outside the normal rule of men. Does the Watch recognize Stannis's claim? Or are they making nice with him because he turned up with a big army?)

vibratory manner of working: They're neutral with regards to internal affairs of the realm, so if pressed I think they'd say they neither recognize his claim nor not-recognize his claim. If he wins the war, fine. If he loses, fine.

In practice the claimant who is actually at the wall with an army is going to get some extra deference, plus he's the only one of the major players who's paid any attention to what's going on up there, which has to endear him to them somewhat.

I imagine they recognize him as 1) visiting nobility(and Night's Watch turn to any and nobles for financial, food, and personnel support), 2) the guy whose visiting army possibly saved them from being overrun by wildlings, and 3) the guy with a large trained army, as compared to the rapers, thieves, and assorted bad apples with some semblance of arms training that make up the Night's Watch. So you have a triad of respect, thanks, and appropriate consideration for the stronger force. "You want to burn a wilding? Sure, we have plenty of 'em!"

Plus, Alliser Thorne and Janos Slynt are both politically-minded guys, so siding with a source of power and support is definitely something they'd do.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:46 PM on April 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also, they sent requests for help to everyone with an army and Stanis is the only one who showed up.
posted by LizBoBiz at 5:50 AM on April 16, 2015 [7 favorites]

Behold the fate of those who choose darkness
posted by homunculus at 10:00 AM on April 20, 2015

there's one character other than Arya we didn't see (well, aside from the Bran gang, and I suppose Rickon, who's been vanished a long time): FrankenMountain. Over/under on what episode he (it?) will finally appear in?

Since he's presumably Cersei's pet now, I suspect we'll see him when she decides to have someone eliminated. My money is on Lancel.
posted by homunculus at 8:09 PM on April 20, 2015

Another thing about the dragons: it looked to me like they've grown too large to fit through the door, so how was she planning on getting them out of there eventually?
posted by homunculus at 1:12 PM on April 26, 2015

It was interesting that Stannis' proposed solution was already shot down here in a thread from last season (or for me, two days ago)...amnesty for the wilding army if they join the fight and land for everyone south of the wall. Jon Snow however didn't point out that the wildings are hunter-gatherers, not farmers, and who exactly is going to cede their land.

Speaking of land, Sansa and Little Finger are heading "west", out of Cersei's reach. Wouldn't they be better off following Tyrion and Arya out east?

Varys thinks Daenarys is the one true queen? He's in for a shock. Also I'd hoped for a glimpse of Roger Allam since they were staying at his house but I guess he was off filming Endeavour.

Finally, at Tywin's funeral (what? no sibling sex?) Cersei is laying the blame on Jaime and he looks like he regrets his rapprochement with Tyrion instead of throwing it back in her face, that her insane hatred of Tyrion was the real impetus.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:07 PM on October 6, 2018