I thought even young black dragons had an AC of like -4.
Or maybe Mereen is one of those bullshit high-level campaigns where even the commoners and merchants are like level 12 just to keep the PCs in check.
Yeah, no way old Davos Seaworth stays loyal when he finds out about Shireen, and I’m thinking Eddard Stark would have backed Renly after all if he’d known the lengths to which Stannis would go.
Also, re: Ser Meryn, how badly do they want us to want him to die again? He’s not only a general A-hole, but a pedo as well? Lovely. And no way he didn’t recognize Arya there at some point. Of course, she has grown quite a bit since the interrupted “water dancing” lesson, so maybe not.
Just going to post this here for extra heart-wrenchingness:- Shireen’s song.
Teiman
6504
I have not watched the episode, but judging by the comments here, religion is special type of hell for humans, one of their own making. If you trough a kingdown where theres a food shortage because farmers has been killed or raised in armies (and killed there), theres a years long winter coming AND a combination of a mindless army you can only flee from and competent generals directing them. Westeros is totally screwed. But on top of that, the people that is going to survive is going to live inside huge castles, living constant fear of the gods, and internal purges. If theres any survivor, is going to be somebody too crazy to call him or her human again.
Coming into this episode, there was only two options for Shireen: daddy burns her, or Davos steals her away. No matter how much they tried to show Stannis’ reluctance, you knew he was going to do what was necessary to keep his campaign alive. No matter how hard it was to watch, I’m glad they went this route, since it keeps hope alive for Stannis to string the Boltons up by their unmentionables. Plus, they could do all kinds of cool stuff with ol’ Onion Knight now. Personally I’m hoping he hears about what happened and decides to take the black; he’d make a good addition to team Jon.
I hate to nitpick scenes with dragons eating and frying people, but man, I thought the “we’re surrounded, all hope it lost” bit just before Drogon showed up was awful. They have what, 6 or 8 people against dozens, and there’s no bum rush to wipe out Dany’s party? Supposedly these Harpy people are fanatics, what are they hesitating for? And before that, I was really disappointed that they had Jorah down and out, and randomly saved him. Dumbass with the spear just had to wait another 5 seconds for him to die, then stab the other guy in the back. I get the building of dramatic tension, but this was a subpar effort, especially obvious since the Shireen scene was so well done.
Looks like Arya is going to get her chance to put on a face, since they couldn’t have telegraphed “Arya is tomorrow’s girl for Meryn’s pedo fix” any harder if they’d been shouting it, and that’s the obvious way to avoid the recognition issue. Maybe they’re doing that to set up a surprise, but I doubt it.
We should get a good chunk of Sansa and Cersei next week, since they weren’t around in this episode.
Arya was on track to be pretty formidable with a blade, but after last night she definitely isn’t cut out for doing anything even remotely sneaky, so I don’t know about her future as an assassin. Or more likely of course, the show just failed to portray it convincingly. Add that to the growing number of scenes this season (mostly with the Harpies, as we’ve discussed) where I’d probably buy what they were trying to convey if they explained it to me in person, but they did a bad job of bringing it to life on the show.
Yeah, my wife and I were joking about how bad Arya is at being an assassin.
Yes, stop in the middle of the avenue in broad daylight in front of the target and fumble with the poison in your hand. Please make eye contact with your target a few times.
rowe33
6508
It seems that the Syrio=Jaqen theory could come to be after all, right? Looks like Arya’s being set up for a huge test - I think she passes if she doesn’t take revenge on Meryn and truly lets go of her past.
Everything with the harpies pisses me off.
The harpies are the 1%. Say there’s 50,000 people who live in this dust bowl called Meeren. That leaves 500. Out of those, say 200 are young enough to fight with stupid little daggers. I think the dragon barbequed about 50. This arena fight we assume has every harpy left, some sort of all-in attempt. There were about 10 throwing spears around. Assuming the rest of the harpies ran, seems there’s only about 100 left in the city.
I’m annoyed how useless the Unsullied seem to be the entire season, and how effective a stupid bunch of dagger-wielding civs can be. Seriously shouldn’t they be skewered long before they get in range? Are they all rogues with 4x backstab bonus? Pfft. Don’t the unsullied have freaking shields?
rowe33
6510
Not to mention that the Unsullied are apparently the worst guards ever. Suddenly the arena is full of masked harpies and no one noticed until they made a move on Dany? The act of putting on dozens (hundreds?) of masks went completely unnoticed? Bleh, there’s just nothing to be gained by going down the Harpy Criticism route as none of it really makes sense. Just have to accept that they’re doing a bad job of showing what happened and go with it.
And of course the fact that somehow all these nobles smuggled their big harpy masks into an arena that the Queen was going to be attending. Where’s the 9/11-level security?!
Exodor
6511
Davos knew exactly what was going to happen to Shireen while he was gone - it’s why he gave her a gift and said his goodbyes before leaving.
It will be interesting to see if he returns to Stannis or if his story goes a different direction.
Damn Cloudflare!
I’ll just make it short and sweet.
I don’t think Davos “knew exactly” what Stannis would do. I think he hopes his king will do the right thing when pressed, but his idea of “right” and Stannis’ are often at odds.
rowe33
6513
Yeah, I can’t see Davos just letting Shireen die without doing something about it. He loves her like his own daughter (oh, the irony…) Davos is too good of a man to just let that happen.
I’ll be severely disappointed and let down by his character if he knew Stannis’ plan and left without her.
Thing is, they’re the 1% who control everything. And the guys attacking are doubtless not the ones actually pulling the strings, just paid muscle.
I understand why the TV people did what they did with the Harpies - make the threat visual for a visual medium - but they kinda dropped the ball in terms of conveying the problem Dany confronts. The TV show made it look like all Drogon needed to do is breathe a couple times to eliminate the Harpies as a threat. The book, by using poisoning, makes the point much more effectively: the Harpies are everywhere, run everything, and Dany has completely failed to neutralize them. Her sudden exit is not a victory lap, but rather her fleeing because she realizes she done fucked up and she no longer controls the city.
What if there are 200,000 people in Meereen? Have they said how many people live there?
Teiman
6516
Maybe these are not literally the 1%, but the Pinkertoons, the Goon Squad, … In my experience the 1% always have goons ready to fight for them,even people that do so because honestly think is the best thing for them. Thats why something like Fox News exist, to brainwash people to convince them to fight for the 1%.
And yes, all the good guys in this show are imbecile, seems. And their armies inefective.
By the way, from the GoT Inside the Episode, Shireen’s fate is from G.R.R. Martin.
Fantasy or not. How Stannis and his wife could watch their little daughter get burned by witch bitch is disturbing. I got sick to my stomach. I love the show but this just turned me off big time. I don’t care if it’s just fantasy or not.
I felt this way as well, especially coupled with the earlier scene of an underage, confused, and scared girl being forced into prostitution.
Maybe he didn’t know but I don’t see how that can be. “Doing something about it” like what? They are stuck in the snow. If he grabs the girl and horse and runs for it, what’s the likely outcome? They get chased down, he gets executed, the plan proceeds. He could not do something about it, unless dooming everyone to death is anyone’s idea of doing something about it. If he kills Stannis or Melisandre for that matter, he dooms them all to die. That’s why I think he did say his goodbyes to her. He thanked her for helping him, he gave her a parting gift. He knew he was being sent away for this reason and he left because he could not stop it but could not be there for it either. He has a strong sense of duty so I’m not convinced he’ll abandon Stannis because of this, however this could change. If he gets a look at the threat from the north then his sense of duty may cause him to stay at the wall. Not so much as a move against Stannis but because Stannis vs Bolton is irrelevant in the face of that other threat.
