So...Rhaegar got an annulment. Hoping that is TV show only. Seems a bit too convenient for the books.

 

Well... it's clear most of the script effort and budget for this season went into last episode.

Spoiler

The casual reveal of Rhaegar's annulment and remarriage to Lyanna was sloppy. And Gendry's reappearance was awkward as fuck. "Hey Gendry it's me Davos. Thought you might still be rowing. *herp derp meta fandom wank* Come fight with us. Oh yeah this is Jon. You'll be best friends now. Okai cool let's go capture a zombie."

 

Explains why Ghost has become a literal ghost. CGI budget wad has been blown away the last two episodes.

 

I'm a whore for spoilers so I knew what was coming scene by scene and I really don't mind how they handled it. I loved Gendry and Davos's interactions, even if Gendry's warhammer looked like a shitty plastic toy and the "casual reveal of "Raggar's" anullment won't seem casual at all to anyone who doesn't obsessively read the books or pick apart the show scene by scene.

I enjoyed the episode for the small interpersonal awesome moments. Tyrion and Varys was just great. Varys is so tired of all the shit and he's worked so long and hard. People are wondering what has happened to him this season.

He's not putting up a front anymore.

Jon was... Quietly badass in every scene. It's almost as if the show are afraid to overuse Kit Harrington but the scenes he had with Driving and Gendry we're both great. Watch them again and watch his expressions. Dude is good.

5/5 would burn Dickon Tarly again.

 

I'm not quite sure how, but I'm actually rooting for Cersei and Jaime to survive all of this. Hell, if I'm honest I'm actually rooting for her to win all of this on the Iron Throne, but that's in part because she's the underdog.

Also Dany turned into a real dick. I'm increasingly becoming convinced that Targaryan insanity is hereditary.

Good episode overall, though episode 4 was really fucking fantastic and probably hard to beat.

Still happy with the season overall, if only because the Sand Snakes got themselves killed.

And for all that characters teleport to where they need to be, I'm honestly pretty happy with how quickly events are moving apace. It's a return to standard TV form, perhaps. But it does show that standard TV form has some merit to it, and seeing Jon row all across Westeros for an entire season would frankly be incredibly dull.

Just as it was when the rest of the cast was doing just that in the earlier seasons.

 

Are we sure they're teleporting? I just assumed it was the POV time skip shenanigans. I just assume that not everything is happening in a set timeline.

 

Anyone else think Jorah was trying to alpha dog Jon at all? Like he was sensing competition for Dany with him? It's destined that Jorah is going to die realizing that he once again lost the love of his life to another guy.

 

Good episode, but D&D will be hard pressed to top Ep4. I generally liked all the developments here, but I'll touch on the highlights.

Arya thought she was so sneaky, but of course Littlefinger is an old hand at this game. I couldn't make out most of this - presumably - fabricated message which I imagine is meant to set Arya and Sansa against each other. Finally some good old cloak&dagger fuckery. Littlefinger has been wasted this season. He was the most entertaining when he still had to climb the chaos ladder, but he's not done.

Jon is a motherfucker. I'd have been jumping off the fucking cliff, not petting the dragon. Why does he need the sword at all with those Valyrian balls? *John Cena trumpets*

Gendry was just meta fanservice, but a little fanservice never hurt nobody. Ultimate bro team going beyond the Wall: Jon Bro, Davos Broworth, Genbro, Houndbro, Tormundbro, Ser Friendzone... It's gonna be real. Bets on who will die in Ep6?

The point of the Sam and Gilly's scene was the annulment reveal, but it almost got lost in Sam's awesome rant. I honestly cracked up, it was hilarious.

Dany is insane. "I'm not here to murder, but kneel or die kthx." Way to go, giving the survivors such a magnanimous choice right after walking them through a field of ash Drogon left behind. But she's hot and she has dragons, so I forgive her. Dany is my girl, I don't care what you say. I'd already made a sacrifice last season when Ramsay got eaten, I'm not giving up on all my favorites.

Oh, just remembered. Bran wargs the ravens to scope out the Night King. Night King looks, scattering the ravens. Bran goes "We must send the ravens." Dude, you just warged the fucking ravens beyond the Wall. Think before you Raven, dummy.

 

This is the most underrated post in this entire thread.

 

That irritated me, since Littlefinger is an experienced operator but Arya is an actual supernatural assassin. The message wasn't fabricated as far as I can tell, since it looked like the message that Sansa sent Robb telling him that the King was dead and that Ned had tried to steal Joffrey's throne. It encourages him to come south and pledge fealty, so it won't fly well with the Northern lords.

The annulment felt like an asspull to me. Unless the Archmaester specifically arranged things such that Sam found it, the odds of that being a scroll in such poor condition that it needed transcribed are low. In addition, some of us have been waiting for this for years, if not decades. Just give it to us, balls deep. There are what, ten episodes left in this entire show? Stop pussyfooting around the issue and make some real forward progress on Jon's parentage becoming relevant. Sam not recognizing the name of Rhaegar in the writings of a Maester who was alive in the last fifteen years annulling his marriage felt contrived.

Wild ravens versus the trained ones who go to particular castles and back.

 

People do know that there's a difference between crows and ravens, right?

 

Spoiler

Promo has the Hound fighting with Gendry's hammer, so looks like we know at least one who dies in the wight hunt.

 

I had half of the Unidan copypasta edited up before deciding against it, ha. You're probably right given the number of them that were together. I'm not willing to load the app back up to look at their tails, so we'll chalk this one up for you. Crows and ravens are very similar visually though, to be fair.

 

Spoiler

I hope to god he's not. I've been waiting for him and Arya to meet for too long for his dumbass to die in the north of the Wall.

 

Spoiler

Not going to die, I read he is supposed to be some sort of a messenger so he might have left his hammer with the wight-hunting party: Thoros, Beric, Jon, Tormund, The Hound.

 

I don't think that's Gendry's hammer the Hound is wielding in the promo. Looking closely it looks more like some sort of dragonglass makeshift club.

Also Longsword's info is accurate.

 

It would be very Game of Thrones tho. Reintroduce Gendry with a badass hammer, give him a scene with Jon that practically screams "Ned and Robert Reborn, Now More Badass" and then kill him off in the very next episode, probably with Thoros remarking that rowing a boat does not a warrior make and the Hound calling him a dumb cunt.

 

Looked at it again with a better screenshot and it does actually look like Gendry's hammer.

Major spoiler ahead.

Spoiler

But we know Gendry rides off to back to Eastwatch to fetch Dany so...

 

In an episode where the Fellowship of the Badass is formed, the quiet hero of it was Dickon Tarly. In a situation where there were no right options, he took the least cowardly.

 

"It was Glorious."