6401

I think the scene at the wall where Jon was all like “Let’s go get the wildlings to help us fight the white walkers!” was met with complete silence was a pretty good indication of his support amongst the night’s watch. I think it is weird they keep focusing on the little kid. I don’t think you need to foreshadow something this much.

6402

I imagine sometime early in next week’s episode we’ll see the kid vehemently stabbing his Lord Commander voodoo doll with large extra-sharp needles so we’ll know for sure that he’s Not Happy with this new alliance.

6403

By the way, here’s a look at where Hardhome is in relation to The Wall.

The Wall is 300 miles long – one of the few things we have a true scale for in Game of Thrones. That places Castle Black around 120 miles from Eastwatch-By-The-Sea. Hardhome is around 300 miles (as the crow walks) from Castle Black, but only 150 miles from Eastwatch. Assumng the dead walk slower than the living (2 miles an hour rather than 3), but need no sleep – the army of the dead could reach Eastwatch in just over three days. However I’m going to guess that’s not what the immediate future holds.

This is by the artist that actually made the maps for the official atlas.

One small inconsistency between this and the original maps in the books is that the forest reaches out along Storrold’s Point all the way to Hardhome. This was changed to be consistent with the army of the dead pouring out of the Haunted Forest to assault Hardhome – slightly different to the last episode in the HBO series.

6404

So, with the latest episode: yep, we can now see why 95% of this season has been interior/closed-spaced dialogue scenes and shite fights. It appears the last three episodes ate the budget.

There should be a “kiss your children as you send them off = you are dead” TV trope.

Ashe needed to bust through this deadite army in his medieval Classic.

I wanted to see the Giantkin mowing down deadites with dual-wielded dragonglass.

Both otherwise easily the best episode of this season, which has otherwise been mostly forgettable.

6405

So great an episode because so much went on, and stuff was getting advanced. Actually felt pretty good. The Hardhome battle was great, so unexpected. I expected the Fenn group to do something crazy, I totally didn’t expect the White Walkers to crash the party (I was half expecting the one WW Jon was fighting was BenJen or something actually), and their appearance with the sudden storm was pretty amazing.

Also: it’s pretty clear The Wall needs The Moat, since the walkers apparently can’t swim.

— Alan

6406

I liked everything in this episode, yes even the part where a giant clumsily uses a big tree on fire as a weapon.

The Dany/Tyrion part was good shit. They need to trust each another, but that is not going to happend quick or easy… but Tyrion want it to happend, and now Dany too. They need each another and they can help each another.

Poor bastard Jorah. Love is the most sadist feeling of all, Love is the most truly horrible thing that can happend to a human being, the Indignity.

And then Cersei, I look forward for her to face the trial, to be in a position where se can’t brush to the side her own failures, maybe to realize exactly how smart or idiot she herself is.

The long battle was great, and very fitting for the serie and episode.

6407

Apparently some of the members of the band Mastodon got to be killed in that battle:

6408

Jon Snow knows something now, something about his sword. If he tells Sam then maybe Sam, with all his reading, can put it all together. Or maybe Sam will need to do a Gandalf and go running off to do some more research somewhere.

6409

Evidently you can kill The Metal.

Mastodon \m/

6410

Someone refresh my memory. Where did Jon Snow get his sword? What’s its significance?

-Tom

6411

Lord Commander Mormont gave it to him. It’s made of Valyrian steel, which in GoT is some badass special alloy that cannot be made any longer. Smiths can only reforge existing Valyrian steel swords and knives into new versions.

It’s name is Longclaw.

6412

As far as TV watchers know, there are three Valyrian steel swords out there now, right? Ned’s sword was reforged into two blades, Jaime has one, Brienne has the other, and then there’s Longclaw. Is that correct?

6413

There’s a dagger too.

6414

I still don’t understand how the crazy religious people wield so much power over the monarchy that they can imprison a sitting queen. How does that shit happen and why has the crown allowed them given they have no qualms of going after royal blood?

Also I lived that ‘my bacon is saved’ look on Tyrion’s face when Danny said she’d take him on as an advisor rather than chopping his head off.

6415

Was that in the show? I remember it from the books, but can’t recall seeing it make an appearance.

6416

Cersei gave the Sparrows that power when she thought she was using them to ruin the Tyrells. King Tommen is a kid, and he was given shitty advice from Cersei, so now he has no idea what to do.

Cersei made her own trap. If she’d even taken a moment to consider what was happening, she might’ve put the fact that Lancel turned into a religious fanatic and knows all her worst secrets together.

6417

The crown armed the religious folks in the first place as Cersei expected them to meekly follow her orders in all respects. When that didn’t happen, it was too late to rein them in.

RH - the dagger is the one that was used in the Bran assassination attempt (Tyrion’s dagger originally, lost to Littlefinger in a bet.)

6418

Easily the most entertaining episode of the season so far. The arrival of the undead and the battle itself were nicely done. But it wasn’t just the action; the non-action parts were interesting as well since things get set in motion at last. Jon got to talk the wildlings into joining him, Dany and Tyrion get to know each other, and so on. No unnecessary nudity or boring pillow talk.

I never really liked watching fantasy tv shows, e.g. Xena, because they felt cheap and came across as a bunch of LARPers acting out mediocre fight choreographies. GoT had production values that went way beyond that thanks to HBO’s investment. I assume that the season 5 budget was bigger than the previous seasons, but there were moments where the show really disappointed. The often mentioned garden scene really looked like it was done by the B crew. And didn’t Dany’s husband hype up the pit to be a significant event for the town? When we finally got to see it in the previous episode, it seeemed like the audience consisted of 20 or so people. I’m fully aware that they can’t pull off a massive battle every second episode, but, so far, the season had been rather underwhelming in terms of pace and plot development.

6419

Mel has talked about Lightbringer on the show, and Stannis supposedly has it. (Though nobody in the books believes for a minute it’s actually Lightbringer, and the show seems to have forgotten all about it.)

6420

The religion has always had a lot of presence and therefore support, that religion gets mentioned all the time by pretty much everyone. What they hadn’t had was a para military wing, which had been suppressed. Cersei, being of tactical mind(short term) and not strategic(long term), allowed the high sparrow to re-form that wing. It worked, since short term Cersei got what she wanted, Margaery out of Tommen’s life.

Now though she’s seeing what a long term mistake it was. Now she’s understanding the answer to the question that should have been in her mind before she spoke to the high sparrow for the first time “Gee, why hasn’t everyone been using these militants to do their dirty work all this time?”.

They, the militants, are not all powerful, but it would take a concerted effort to stamp them out again. Too bad for Cersei that any kind of concerted effort is impossible right now, everything is in disarray. She wants to see Tommen in order to tell him what to do, but even if she could give him step by step instructions, it’s Tommen! He’s weak, he’ll wuss out the first time he sees blood. With everyone who is anyone jockeying for position re the throne, these militants are essentially unopposed right now.

Another part of Cersei’s mistake was counting on that “A Lannister always pays his debts” mystique. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours carries a lot of weight, but only with people who fear you or need something from you. Now that they are in operation again they don’t need her. What reasons do any of those militants have to fear Cersei? If she was so badass dangerous to them she wouldn’t be sitting in their prison.