Oh yeah, the other shite thing was Flashback Ned being played by some bloke and not Sean Bean. What is Sean Bean realistically doing that they can't hire him for a day to do a bunch of flashback scenes?
Oh yeah, the other shite thing was Flashback Ned being played by some bloke and not Sean Bean. What is Sean Bean realistically doing that they can't hire him for a day to do a bunch of flashback scenes?
In the flashback he was like 10 year old and heading off to the Vale, wasn't he? Would have been a little weird seeing Sean Bean playing a 10-year-old, however much makeup you put on him.
Oh was that meant to be Young Ned? I thought it was Ned and a toddler version of Bran. That would make Hodor about 60 when I assumed he was about 34. Although that wouldn't make sense either, now I think about it.
The grown-up was his father Rickard Stark, when they were about to send Ned (who'd be joined by Robert Baratheon) to the Vale.
I do sincerely hope we get at least one Sean Bean-containing flashback, though.
They've teased us enough with Young Ned, Child Ned and Dad Who Has The Same Hair Ned that surely it's on the cards. Although saying that I guess we've probably seen most relevant Bean-era Ned on screen in the first series.
Ned was shit, he just got killed off early enough for people not to moan about it.
He was a bit of a mug, but come on, Sean Bean.
Recasting the Night King must be a bit of a pisser for Richard Brake, by the way. They had him on a 'best of' thing just before this season started and he was going on about how that Hardhome raid was one of the greatest dramatic moments he'd ever been involved in and what an honour it was to be on such a brilliant program. He must have fucked someone right off to get binned after that.
I wonder if we're going to see more of him before he became a white walker, and that's why they recast him?
The bloke they've got now is primarily a stuntman. He was the stunt coordinator on the episode with Arthur Dayne donning it with two swords, so hopefully he was the one actually doing that stuff and they're gearing up for some serious action on that front.
Ah right, that makes more sense.
Nah, he was great. The bit where he doles out a rare bit of actual justice from the Iron Throne while he's Hand of the King is still one of my favourite scenes from the whole thing. Obviously it was this kind of relatively sound behaviour that meant he didn't last long, but still.Originally Posted by phonics
Before Littlefinger became Irish that, as well.
All the women around me at work were giddy over this. To the point where they're planing a 'Thronies Night Out.' Hell.
Madness... has had it's daaaay!
It was great to finally see the Mad King.
Decent episode overall. Not quite as good as the previous few, but still moved a few things along. Glad to see Arya finally moving on from the Faceless Men.
Enjoyed that. Tyrion really wasn't missed, which shows how far he's fallen this season. Gone from one of the best characters to one of the most boring.
That's one hell of a long game to be playing withToggle Spoiler
"That audience was shit!"
I don't think he's boring.
It's more that the show has moved on from being 45 minutes of filler per episodes and isn't hanging off the performances of about two actors any more.
He's still brilliant as an actor, and has delivered some great lines, but his storyline has been really dull this season. If he hadn't been in any of it we wouldn't have lost all that much.
They're just finding reasons to keep him about, really. Nothing's likely to happen in Mereen while Daenerys is busy poncing about.
Lol at this, Jamie's face was great when he was busy poncing it up.
Madness... has had it's daaaay!
Samwell's Dad is a right twat so I loved it when he stole his sword.
Nice to know that season and a half full of training montages for Arya was building up to her going 'nah' and not bothering. Also I'm pretty sure the dragon woman bits are just there specifically to annoy me now.
Still, I love that feathered hat. Top work Mace.
Randall Tarly (was that his name?) was brilliantly played.
They seem to be lining up for another totally chaotic war.
The other Tarly boy being called 'Dickon' is good. Thougt I'm fairly sure they've never mentioned it before and the lack of prior 'Dickon my brother' jokes is a bit strange.
The Blackfish thing came at a fairly opportune time, given the lack of anything else really happening in Westeros. There's presumably a lot of things about to happen, but despite the shenanigans in King's Landing and Dorne, the whole country had actually been pretty peaceful until now. No real debate over who's the rightful King or anything like that.
Everyone is assuming that the Mountain's opponent in the trial by combat is going to be the Hound. But I do wonder if that's what they're going to use the Sand Snakes for. Maybe one of them will fight the Mountain, get revenge, etc.
I'm really annoyed with the Arya plot though. What a pointless shaggy-dog story that was. Two seasons of "I'm going to be an assassin" followed by a big nope. Could've been condensed more than a little bit.
The Sand Snakes can fuck right off, it's no coincidence this season has been excellent for the most part because they're nowhere to be seen.
The next episode is titled 'The Broken Man'
The Hound at 30 seconds?
I assume Arya is going to off that smarmy slag who's coming to kill her, and then become a freelance assassin going after the people on her 'list'.
I'm assuming the point of Arya's storyline the last season or so has been so she could get some sort of proper training.
She didn't, though. She's exactly the same headstrong, barely-pays-attention-to-her-surroundings, impulsive (albeit still pretty cool) twit she was two seasons ago. She was better with the Hound, at least he called her on her bullshit. But she hasn't learned *anything*. The series has completely ballsed her story up IMO. I still like her, don't get me wrong, but she should be a much more rounded character as a result of her time in Braavos and she isn't.
Samwell is such a boring, tedious character too. Honestly I wanted his father to just lop his head off at the dinner table to end his story, Jon's not even going to be at the Wall if he ever gets back there knowing anything about White Walkers anyway. Bran's made more progress stuck in a cave under a tree for six months than Sam's managed traipsing about Westeros. What a bellend.
I thought the show had learned it's lesson about giving characters "moments of badass" in front of three blokes and a goat but Dany's dragon must have taken up enough of the CGI budget that they couldn't afford to duplicate a few extra thousand Dothraki.
The other stories have got so bad I'm cheering for the fucking Lannisters.
She's improved her fighting technique
The Lannisters have gotten as tedious with their "hurrrrdurrrusagainsteveryoneelse" schtick as Dany's rousing speeches. Jaime and Cersei's scene together was comfortably the worst one this episode.
Arya's arc might still have some progression in there, depending on what happens now. Her rejecting the assassin training plus being so moved by fake Cersei's stage monologue might have signalled her turning away from her planned revenge spree. Too early to tell, though. But they really should have sped up her adventures in Braavos a bit, even if they have this conclusion.
I thought Sam's part was actually a welcome change of pace, I found the dialogues more believable than in other scenes and him gathering Valyrian steel might not be that unhelpful against the Walkers. Judging by the pace of their invasion, he can dawdle for a lot longer, too.
Surprised by how little was made of Uncle Benjens return. Quite a set-up.
edit: And one that doesn't seem to be in the books whatsoever. What?
It's not but there's another character in his place that could in theory still turn out to be him.
This was surely the obvious outcome of the Arya story. If she had joined them and become faceless 'n' nameless, what would be the point in following her?
The seethe when Benjen spoke in that episode, I really thought they had finally included him in the show.
Well, I thought the expected outcome went more like she'd get a full training & membership in the creepy assassins' guild, and then be sent over to Westeros to prove she's "no one", where having to kill someone from her days of being Arya makes her go rogue.
It is him. They used his name in the Inside the episode-video. Now, they might be different characters in the books, but in the show Benjen = CH.
I didn't realise that he was actually meant to be CH in the show. I'm cool with that then.
My suspicion is that the Arya storyline was 'dragged' to align the end of series five with the end of book five. There appeared to be genuine expectations that the Winds of Winter would be released before the sixth series, so they wanted to have everything there or thereabouts in relation to the books before kicking on. Now that the book has been delayed, they've clearly just cracked on. I think that's why she's been in Braavos for this long, and why they're now advancing her story at a rate of knots.
Agree with Lewis - it seemed obvious she'd leave the assassins guild or whatever the hell it's called in order to pursue her targets once they made it clear she'd have to let go of the past and therefor her list with it. It's been dragging a bit (surely she could have offed a 'deserving' target first or had more interesting training?), but it never felt like her story arc would allow for her to do the bidding of the many faced twits for long.
Bit weird that it is apparently a two person outfit too.
Everything else this episode was alright, but felt a little slow in comparison with the rest of the season so far to me. Having said that, they've clearly set up some serious action from here to the finale.
The book version of Temple Jaqen was 'The Kindly Man', more in the Mr Pastry mould and would have worked better but you need to minimise the number of TV characters I suppose.
It was always really obvious that Arya wouldn't end up a faceless "man" in the end. You knew that from the moment she hid away her sword when they explicitly told her to throw it into the water, and how they would blatantly zoom in on her face every time they asked her to forget she was a "Stark" girl. There's also the fact that her Wolf is still alive, supposedly, somewhere.
Anyway, that was a bit of a shit episode compared to the others. I'm really tired of Denaerys now, I used to think she was pretty awesome but she never fucking does anything fun anymore (except show up at the end of each episode and do something ridiculous).
Also really obvious that she'll be taking over the "1000 ships" that Euron Greyjoy wants to build. In the books, I'd say she'd marry him, but in the TV-series I reckon she will just have a dragon eat him (Edit: actually come to think of it, in the Books that's some other Greyjoy).
Anyway, building 1000 ship is FUCKING retarded. Why? Their islands are about 50 feet across and don't have any fucking trees on them. 1000 ships would hold something like 100.000 men, 50.000 if they were small, and that would assume the Iron Islands houses maybe something in the region of 2-300.000 people at least. Given that the Lannister army was, what, 20.000 men? - it doesn't really seem to compute very well. Add to that that Yara fucked off with a bunch of people (which, by the way, looked like about 20 people sailing about 50 ships, so maybe that's how it works...).
Anyway, the only good thing with this was that Coldhands finally showed up. Although I'm disappointed he was riding a horse and not a stag.
Hopefully we'll see some action next episode. Brynden da B is a bit of a badass.
Also, Sam stealing what happened to be a Valyrian steel sword two episodes after he talked with Jon about how it's the only thing coupled with Dragonglass that kills white walkers (which Gilly pointed out he was good at by the way) means that 99% Sam is gonna kill at least another White walker at some point, and then probably cry about it.
I never thought of the 'THOUSAND SHIPS' as being literal.
The ones he explicitly said he was building specifically for her? With the sole intention of sailing them to Meereen and giving them to her? Yeah, I'd imagine she'll take over those ships at some point.
Well, Dario Nahaaaaaaaris is right though, to get like 15.000 horses, and about 30.000-40.000 men across the sea they'd probably need something in the region of 700-1000 ships, mainly for the Horses I suppose.
It's mainly that the Iron Islands look like they have about 200 people on them. I mean, given that they drown people when they become teenagers and just hope they happen to survive - you'd have thought they would have pretty much offed themselves anyway by now.
I said it was really obvious, didn't I?
The Dothraki would presumably be fucking useless in Westeros. Not only would half of them probably bail just at the maritime stage, but what are you going to do with a bunch of Mediterranean horse lords in the sodden Riverlands, the snowy North, and wherever else doesn't have enough food for that many men and horses.
Realistically she'd need two or three full regions behind her, which isn't going to happen because most of them have some interest in Tommen staying king, although saying that I really can't see how his pretty inbred face isn't going to get caved in quite soon anyway. Surely Margery is playing them all and hasn't actually been turned by Elliott Carver and his merry men?
Maybe she's just hoping that if she lobs enough dothraki at the problem they'll find a way.
Given that Robb was shitting on the Lannister army with a small force because he was a MASTER TACTICIAN, they'll get fucked by anyone in Westeros with half a brain.
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