Epic episode. Loved the piano score (called Light of the Seven if anyone is interested). Cercei is a beast. I love that she has nothing to hold her back now. Queens about to do some damage.

I'm surprised Sansa kinda stepped back and let John assume control of Winterfell. You'd think Lady Stark > Bastard Snow but he has their respect and whatnot.

Lady Mormont is awesome. Can't wait to see that girl act in the future.

Arya is going to be fun as hell to watch.

Does Sam have any kind of plan? Why take the sword and have your father's men after you if you're just going to go where you told him you were going and do what you said you'd do?

Quote :

"also, I kept hoping we would see GRRM's fat face pop up after the show to announce the release of the next book. Should've known better."

lol right?

you guys are reading way too into this shit regarding timing. a lot of time has passed between these events.

Varys was en route to meet Olena/Snakes before the fire, which only Cercei and Qyburn could have really known about since there was like zero set up besides lighting a few candles. Maybe the kids (little birds) knew shortly before, but not in time to send a raven unless Qyburn is an idiot. More time had to pass for Jamie to make it all the way back from Riverrun (and for Varys to get back to Mereen) while simeltanously Arya made it from Bravos to Gulltown to the Twins (presumably). Granted, Mereen is pretty far but still there was time because they had to make all new black sails for all of their boats!

6/27/2016 9:33:54 AM

I'm not saying it's not believable, I'm more saying that the writing did a bad job of explaining it when in prior seasons it's done a pretty admirable job of it

6/27/2016 9:51:22 AM

I think it's just because they're off-book. GRRM gave them broad plot points and they're hitting them while trying not to constrain themselves and probably him too much with time. I doubt that this season covered all of TWOW. Hell, there were still pieces in there from AFFC and ADWD. Hopefully GRRM will put the book out soon before the next season goes into production and they can have some stronger material to go off of. I think we'll get more seasons of GoT than originally anticipated. Why wouldn't they want to make all of that money?

6/27/2016 10:00:34 AM

Anyone else notice that Bran's vision with exploding wildfire from before included the vision of wildfire exploding in episode 10.

Suggests he can see future too.

Or the show needed a very blunt mechanism to foreshadow and its not significant.

^Show is becoming more expensive especially with the battles to come. The plot is moving away from personal conflict to large scale conflict. More CG, more expense. D&D also are probably running out of gas. Its been 7 years?

Last I heard WoW is coming out in Jan? They will have written the scripts for season 7 by the end of the year to start preproduction. If Martin is that slow they wont have all the details.

[Edited on June 27, 2016 at 10:04 AM. Reason : fs]

6/27/2016 10:01:34 AM

he can see the future. the Three Eyed Raven could also, and now Bran is the Three Eyed Raven

^where'd you read that it was January? I thought it was going to be 2016 sometime but haven't read anything that points to a date. Crazy to think he was supposed to have the manuscript by last August, then they extended it to October and he missed that and they said if you get it to us by New Years we can still publish it before GoT starts back up and he missed that.

[Edited on June 27, 2016 at 10:07 AM. Reason : .]

6/27/2016 10:05:16 AM

Quote :

"I am interested in seeing someone, with a lot of time on their hands, put together a timeline of where everyone is during the last half of the season."

I am not interested in that at all. They're taking a story that's made up of many novels and compressing it into one-hour tv shows. This shit is bound to happen. If you're really interested in this...then read the books. If you've already read the books...then you'll just have to wait til the rest come out.

6/27/2016 10:20:17 AM

Quote :

"All we need is a scene where Jon survives some kind of fire. Perhaps the breath of a dragon."

But we've already been shown that he isn't immune to fire. When he saved Mormont from the very first zombie, he burned his hand very badly with the lantern, when he set the place on fire.

6/27/2016 10:24:58 AM

To everyone miffed that people are complaining about timing vs location as if we don't 'get' that the story is not presented in real-time or not even necessarily in chronological order: We get it. But that's not a good excuse. I think the timing vs location is a legitimate complaint this season. Mainly because GRRM handled it very well imo. And the show did a respectable job with it for several seasons (which can be tough to pull off).

It's season 6 and this is the first real time I've complained about it being a consistent issue over the course of 5 books and 5 seasons. I liked the last two episodes, but it is also obvious that they feel a bit rushed now and that is something that suffered vs previous seasons. It makes the world feel a bit smaller which is unfortunate.

6/27/2016 10:26:12 AM

Targaryens are not all immune to fire. And even if they were, Jon is a bit removed from being a 'true' Targ anyway with his parentage.

The show has mentioned two different Targs that thought themselves to have some power with fire who killed themselves. Aerion for drinking wildfire and Aegon V for trying to hatch dragon eggs via fire (like Dany) who killed himself as well as others in the process.

The whole Dany being immune thing is new-ish (possibly re-birth of old abilities from her bloodline) along with the dragons due to some re-birth of magic in the world.

[Edited on June 27, 2016 at 10:43 AM. Reason : ]

6/27/2016 10:37:36 AM

^^ it is a good excuse. It's really not that hard to understand...

show = 1 hour. They can either wrap up plot lines or they can show people walking and having one on one conversation. The fact that they have so many different people "jumping around" is actually a testament to what's being done correctly. if just one person moved quickly, while everyone else had these long treks, then that would be sloppy. However, the very fact that everyone has moved from location to location shows that a lot of time has passed everywhere.

It's not that hard and if it bothers you that much then I'm really sorry for you because you're clearly looking for reasons to complain about a show while the rest of us sit back, enjoy the show, and try not to over complicate aspects that require very little suspense of disbelief.

6/27/2016 10:56:53 AM

Dany coming out of fire the first time was specifically explained as blood magic. The way the show did it the 2nd time with the Dothraki will probably not happen in the books unless there was somehow blood magic involved in killing the men. She is not immune to fire in the books. She specifically gets burnt in the books.

So if you want to say she is immune to fire, thats fine, but only in the show.

6/27/2016 10:57:17 AM

^^you're right, it's not hard to understand at all. Never said it was. It's just inconsistent with the narrative style of earlier seasons which can be a bit jarring now. The juxtaposition to the narrative pace of earlier seasons makes things feel a bit rushed this season.

I think it's a stretch to say that I'm clearly looking for reason to complain about the show. I've been a big fan, and if you read the thread, a supporter of many of the changes the writers chose to make over the seasons for the sake of the show vs the books and the time and budget they have to work with. The writing this season wasn't as good and the pacing was odd at times but I still enjoy the show. I wasn't in here complaining much at all.

If anything, the writers could have done a better job contextually dealing with the passage of time (which is what Martin tended to do pretty well). I agree it is better that they have everyone moving at a similar pace at least. But there are still times this season where, time-wise we have to assume as viewers that several weeks or a month or more has passed for the pacing to make sense yet dialogue-wise or scene-wise it seems as if the characters are picking up closer to where we last saw them.

6/27/2016 11:07:23 AM

Excellent episode, particularly the first part.

I think the big Jon flashback reveal suffered a bit from the fact that everybody has been hearing that theory for years. Nobody who follows the discussion of the show or books even a little bit would have been all that blown away by it. But they responded intelligently, I think, by making it a fairly low-key scene.

---

As to the speed with which Arya and Varys moved, I thought it was a bit jarring. Not show-ruining, not something to write angry letters over, just out of synch with how the show and even books have previously handled long-distance travel. It's something I haven't noticed happening before, and the novelty of the jump made it more noticeable.

---

Question/concerns:

The clear implication is that Cersei is now at the apex of her power and menace, and that she is a/the main antagonist for next year. But, um...is she? Compared to the forces arrayed against her, she seems pretty weak. The Lannister army wasn't up to the task of defeating the North on the battlefield before, back when it was still fresh and intact. Now it has to face the North...and Dorne...and Highgarden...oh, and 100+ ships filled with the whole Dothraki horde and all the Unsullied. Of those, only the North might be similarly depleted.

Point is, they're selling Cersei as a mighty foe, and I'm curious to see how they pull that off. The Knights of the Vale are about the only intact fighting force left that isn't 100% opposed to her. Maybe a rejected Littlefinger seeks proximity to the throne through a marriage alliance? Just spitballing here.

6/27/2016 12:00:45 PM

Quote :

"Dany coming out of fire the first time was specifically explained as blood magic. The way the show did it the 2nd time with the Dothraki will probably not happen in the books unless there was somehow blood magic involved in killing the men. She is not immune to fire in the books. She specifically gets burnt in the books. So if you want to say she is immune to fire, thats fine, but only in the show."

"only in the show" can describe ALL the talk in this thread.

That said, all 3 times in the show where she was immune to fire involved killing someone (witch, blue guy, khals), so still could be blood magic in a way. Immunity requires a sacrifice.


Also I was ok with all travel except Varys getting back to mereen in time for boat launches in the last 20 min of the show. Also why would he even go back at that point? The assumption is she will land at Dorne now, why not just wait?

Also, I guess Jon and Jaime are the only male figures left with any real power in GOT world? Cersei is queen, Yara over Iron, Sands in Dorne, Olyenna in the Reach and Riverlands are basically a power vacuum. Plus Dany of course.

[Edited on June 27, 2016 at 12:24 PM. Reason : Cc]

6/27/2016 12:19:39 PM

there were house tyrell and martel ships in that launch, of course he's back

not everything is happening concurrently

6/27/2016 12:23:25 PM

hmm didnt realize that. If she already hasd enough troop transports, seems like a huge waste to sail more ships halfway around the world only to turn around and sail back.

so how much time has passed b/w sept exploding and end of episode? months? At least a few weeks passed b/w seeing varys in dorne and then ships leaving Mereen.

6/27/2016 12:36:13 PM

In the first season Dany also picked up dragon eggs right out of a fire without being hurt. One of her handmaidens even touched it got burned. She also took a bath when someone said the water was still too hot.

As far as men in power, Euron is still the king in the Iron Islands FWIW

6/27/2016 12:41:26 PM

there's going to have to be a big ass sea battle at some point, right? if dany reaches shore with that army it's pretty much game over

6/27/2016 12:43:32 PM

^^thats right, forgot about Euron.

Also i think Dany can handle hot much better than others, but everytime she was straight up in a fire, someone died.

^right but that sea battle will happen of the southern coast of westeros most likely right? Why did they need to go all the way to Mereen?

[Edited on June 27, 2016 at 12:47 PM. Reason : aaa]

6/27/2016 12:45:51 PM

So why did Qyburn kill Pycelle? Pycelle has been loyal to Cersei the whole time he's been around. I guess he's the only other one that knew about the wildfire but A) Given his loyalty its not like he'd go around telling everyone and B) Even if he did, so what? She's the queen, she has the power, its not like anything would come of it?

Pleased with the episode though. Was expecting the death of a major character but was NOT expecting both Loras, Marjaery, AND Mace. Or that Tommen would off himself. I guess Tommen died the way that Jaime wanted Bran to back in Season 1. So who is the lord of Highgarden now?

Even though Jon and Dany haven't actually met or anything, I'm wondering what's going to happen when they inevitably do? They both are against the Lannisters true, but it seems like the North still wants its own king and I'm not too sure that Dany would be willing to allow that. Maybe Jon will recognize that the dragons are the only way to stop the white walkers and will bend the knee? Even after clearing out the Lannisters, unsullied + dothraki + Dorne + Tyrell + Greyjoy + dragons wouldn't have much trouble taking on whats left of the wildlings + Northerners + Knights of the Vale.

6/27/2016 12:48:56 PM

qyburn/pycellle, wonder if that was just a personal vendetta. Pyecelle always trashed qyburn, Cersei doesnt need pycelle anymore. I think he was more loyal to Lanisters than Cersei herself, qyburn is 100% cersei.


As for Jon, Dany needs a husband, needs the north, and Targaryen's like to marry other Targareyen's.....

6/27/2016 12:59:22 PM

i think it's inevitable that the jon & north ally up with dany & co. only dany seems to want the iron throne, while jon/sansa want the north back, and the greyjoy's the iron islands, and everyone else their own lands. However, littlefinger will urge sansa to be shady and take the iron throne for herself, at which point he will suffer a dose of dracarys and everyone will applaud as the wall cracks behind them.

6/27/2016 1:20:06 PM

^^^ pycelle was loyal up until Kevan became hand. He was very much part of the plot to edge Cersei out of controlling Tommen.

6/27/2016 1:31:31 PM

Apparently, someone on Reddit isolated the audio from the tower of joy scene and pickup up what R and L actually named him.

Its not John. Seems Ned renamed him to protect his identity.

6/27/2016 1:41:28 PM

I thought it sounded like aemon, which I think would make sense since I seem to remember Rhaegar corresponding with Maester Aemon

6/27/2016 1:47:09 PM

yeah Pycelle is only as loyal as he has to be as Grand Maester. Cercei has always hated him. He's definitely not on Cercei's side. plus Qyburn will pretty much be rewarded for saving Cercei's ass by being Grand Maester, which might also be telling of things to come in Old Town (the Arch Maesters usually elect the Grand Master to the king in King's Landing). There's also a lot of rumors that the Maesters secretly control shit via an information network.

6/27/2016 1:52:43 PM

Quote :

"As for Jon, Dany needs a husband, needs the north, and Targaryen's like to marry other Targareyen's....."

Only issue there (I think someone else brought this up) is that she can't have any more children. Also, Bran is the only one alive that knows he's a Targaryan.

6/27/2016 2:13:21 PM

^^Qyburn has been appointed Cersei's Hand. I don't think he can hold that post and that of Grand Maester at the same time.

6/27/2016 2:28:05 PM

^^ for now, there is always the chance she regains the ability to have children.

6/27/2016 2:31:50 PM

As for Pycelle, I just figured Cersei wanted to wipe the slate as clean a possible. That meant clearing out all of the small council. Not to mention that there was never much love lost between the two, Pycelle was always in it for Pycelle.

Also, what claim does Cersei have to the Iron Throne? That she was Queen so it reverts back to her in absence of any other claim?

6/27/2016 2:43:27 PM

who else would it go to? Her and Jaime are the only Lannister's left, and she was the mother of the king.

6/27/2016 3:08:19 PM

I think its the old riddle of who has the power. Who in Kings Landing was going to stop her? Oleanna could have challenged her, but decided to get some help. Now the only question is who recognizes her rule. Seems like she is only queen of 1 of the 7 kingdoms, plus KL.

Quote :

"Only issue there (I think someone else brought this up) is that she can't have any more children. Also, Bran is the only one alive that knows he's a Targaryan."

The first part doesn't affect what I said. She JUST said she needs to marry. Also how long do you think Bran will keep that knowledge to himself?

6/27/2016 4:07:38 PM

If Cercei wanted to torture but not kill Septa Unella shouldn't she have left her with Qyburn instead of the mindless zombie?

6/27/2016 4:47:23 PM

I think it was implied he was going to rape her with his giant mountain dick and that this would be an ongoing thing

[Edited on June 27, 2016 at 5:44 PM. Reason : .]

6/27/2016 5:44:37 PM

Yeah maybe. I guess I just assume since he is basically dead that his cock probably doesn't work anymore

6/27/2016 5:54:27 PM

They only really used travel time to build either a character or a relationship between characters.

Not much of that left at this point so I don't mind not seeing the characters until they are where they are needed.

6/27/2016 7:40:55 PM

He took his helmet off then you hear him undoing his armor straps. I assumed he was going to rape her.

6/27/2016 9:31:14 PM

Dany has children. This shit is ending with a dragon on the iron throne.

6/28/2016 12:58:12 AM

That was really a great episode, the opening sequence leading up to the explosion and immediate aftermath was closest this show has come to "masterpiece". Yeah, I agree with some of the sentiment that the big moments in this episode weren't really "earned" from a story and writing perspective, but it was still great TV. Miguel Sapochnik (Hardhome, BotB, this episode) should be directing every episode from here on out, dude is by far the best talent they've brought on since the start of the series.

[Edited on June 28, 2016 at 9:14 AM. Reason : .]

6/28/2016 9:12:50 AM

The only time travel shit that was ridiculous to me was the Varys on the ship thing. I'd have to look at a map again to see where Dorne is and where exactly Dany and the ships are going. Because I guess it's possible he could have sailed with a small fleet from Dorne and met them in the middle of the ocean or something? Other than that, I guess you could say that he did his business in Dorne and that final scene was weeks later after he came back to Mereen.

6/28/2016 9:14:51 AM

The stories are not all going along in parallel and its perfectly fine to have him make that trip back and forth. I think we all realize this. But the way it was presented in the show was eyebrow raising. It was the first thing people noticed in that shot and really took everyone out of it.

[Edited on June 28, 2016 at 9:19 AM. Reason : fsd]

6/28/2016 9:18:55 AM

I still think it would be cool to see a timeline of where all the main characters were in relation to each other during the last few episodes. Not to debunk anything on the show, just to see how spread out the different events/people were. Guess I'm all alone on that one

6/28/2016 9:32:20 AM

Warning, book talk coming.

For those of us that have read the books, I don't think the Varys thing is that big of a deal. Why?

Because GRRM wrote one giant book, and in order to maximize profits (blamed it on publishers and different languages or something) decided to split the book in two. But rather than doing the sensible thing, which would be to have all of the character chapters take place in linear fashion, he decided to take half the character chapters and publish one book, then take the other half of the character chapters and publish the second book. Both books cover the same timeline. This is GRRM though, so the books came out years apart.

So, quitcherbitchin.

6/28/2016 10:30:34 AM

Can I vent again how awful A Feast For Crows was to read?

6/28/2016 10:44:00 AM

But isn't the show past the books? And hasn't the show been bucking that technique the whole time?

I've assumed the show has not really been jumping backwards and forwards in time, was I wrong about that?

6/28/2016 10:48:12 AM

From what I understand, most parts are past the books, a few things are still behind them.

6/28/2016 1:15:45 PM

For those that were talking about the music score in the last episode, the Season 6 soundtrack is out. I enjoyed it. It's also on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/29zyqYXwLn4nNTPkRNSOuJ

6/28/2016 1:42:50 PM

---

**Below mentions the books but I really don't think there are spoilers - more about timing.**

Quote :

"But isn't the show past the books? And hasn't the show been bucking that technique the whole time? I've assumed the show has not really been jumping backwards and forwards in time, was I wrong about that?"

certain things are out of sync. I wouldn't say the show has been bucking it, nor would I say it's back and forth. things are generally happening at the same time or within a few months of each other.

the show follows book 1-2 virtually identically in the first two seasons. If you feel like reading the books, you're not really going to learn anything new that isn't in the show in book 1-2 besides getting some perspective.

In some editions, book 3 (storm of swords) was split into two books like part I and part II since it's so long (1300 pages) and the show generally followed those plot lines in season 3-4, respectively iirc. If you do read the series, reading book 3 is your reward - it's awesome and moves fast.

Season five generally followed most of books 4-5 (a feast for crows) but that's where the timeline gets kind screwy since he's covering mostly Kings Landing stuff in book 4 (Cercei, Brienne, Jamie, Arya, Greyjoy, Sansa and a few Sam chapters) and there are elements of book 4 that didn't make their way into show until this season (Hound sighting, the entire Greyjoy arc, etc). The first half of book 5 (Dance with Dragons) covers the other characters we missed out on in book 4 (Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Theon, etc.) and then finally everything merges all back together and you get the whole cast of characters as viewpoint chapters.

Quote :

"Because GRRM wrote one giant book, and in order to maximize profits (blamed it on publishers and different languages or something) decided to split the book in two."

I thought he had originally intended a major jump forward in time after the purple wedding but then he decided to write it all out? Also, it was a lot of material for one book.

Quote :

"Can I vent again how awful A Feast For Crows was to read?"

I thought Feast was pretty good minus maybe the Sansa chapters. Not as good as Storm but what are you gonna do?

[Edited on June 28, 2016 at 2:56 PM. Reason : .]

6/28/2016 2:54:00 PM

Wanted to post this in case anybody plays piano and wanted to learn the song.

Here's the sheet music also

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hc7mkijdtgg79bf/GoT_LightOfTheSeven_HalyconMusic.pdf?dl=0

6/28/2016 3:31:28 PM

Oh one thing I was wondering, and maybe I just missed an earlier explanation

Is it only the faces in the House of Black and White that Arya can't wear? Did she make this last face herself from some dead woman?

6/28/2016 4:22:50 PM