I dunno, I call him Grim because he kills a lot of people in his books.

 

What interested me about the last episode was that the events of just one of the story lines on the show was enough to basically carry a show of its own. Demonstrates how dense the material is (in terms of a lot of plot being packed in).

 

@Dark Syaoran
Could you also add in the First Post that the thread opens near the end of season 4 for those who haven't yet watched it and aren't up to date with the show? Cause spoilers are still spoilers and there are a bunch of them since page 1 of this thread for those who haven't yet watched the show.

Which hopefully heralds that more screen time will be devoted to White Walkers plot-line, after all, the Purple Wedding(the reception) took about fifteen minutes if that and Joffrey's death was a major event story-wise.

 

So... longest episode ever and it did not disappoint. It had a very much similar feel to the previous season finale, tying up loose ends and setting up new stuff.

Stannis showed up out of the fucking blue. Wonder what's gonna happen now on the Wall, with the wildling army dead or captured and Lord Antlers On Fire parading around with the eternal stick up his ass. Only one look at Melisandre, but it was enough to retain her creep factor.

Wondering who the old dude beyond the wall is. Apparently he's the three-eyed raven... Is Bran to be his successor, with the "you will fly" hint dropped? And I can't be awed enough by the production values of the show. The skeletons and dragons were better CGI than some big budget Hollywood movies.

Lannister twincest is back, Tywin died taking a shit and Arya's off to Braavos on a whim. Kinda hoping for he return of Jaqen H'ghar.

I really couldn't care less for Brienne and Podrick. Now that the Hound is dead (unless, by some miracle, he pulls a maester out of his ass and survives) and Arya's beyond their reach, they can choke on a chicken bone for all I care. Though I will admit that the fight between Brienne and Clegane was pretty good. Not great. After the Red Viper, fight scenes will be held to a much higher standard of awesomeness.

Damn, I'm fucking addicted to this show. I envy the people who haven't seen it yet because they can still see it for the first time.

 

Sandor-Brienne was better than Oberyn-Gregor, IMO.

 

The Brienne-Sandor fight was refreshing. Too often you see swordfights portrayed as precise, neat duels - though historically they were often brawls that involved trying to grapple your opponent to the ground, and then sticking them with a dagger, especially if they were heavily armoured and impervious to sword cuts.

 

Yes, fine, realism in fighting is good. I'm not expecting neat ninja duels from GoT, I know that both the show and the books try to create a realistic looking world and it's great. But Oberyn fight was more flashy, more rogue than hulking brawler and that's why I liked it so much. If I want to see more of that, I'll watch a Jet Lee film. Or play a video game. I'm not saying it was a bad fight. I just didn't enjoy it as much.

I must admit that it was a great example of combat pragmatism.

 

Don't know if anyone else felt this, but for me, Stannis having a conversation with Jon Snow was surreal as fuck.

Their two stories have, so far, taken place on other sides of the map, and it just feels weird to have them finally... meet.

Don't know why, but it almost feels like a crossover, they've been so separate throughout the course of the show.

Also, am I the only one who expected Arya to be at least a little nice to The Hound in his last moments? I mean, come on! He's dying! Give the poor guy a break.

But yeah, overall a good season finale. All of my 'Yes!' to Peter Dinklage and Tyrion Lannister.

 

The Stannis-Jon meet was... epic. It felt like things are changing, in a noticeable and relevant way.

Also Ned Stark being included in the conversation made me both smile, and imagine a Force ghost of Ned standing there giving an approving nod and smile to his son.

Then Melisandre staring significantly at Jon. I can't exactly discuss the significance of that here, as it's a no spoiler thread. =(

He talked about how he should have raped Sansa bloody before he left. It was one of his regrets. He killed Mycah, Arya's friend. Yeah real nice guy. Lets give him a break yeah?

What some people who only watch the show don't seem to realize is that Sandor is not a good guy, he isn't even a anti-hero. He's a horrible person, even it wasn't entirely of his own making and because of abuse from his brother. He's still a shitstain that lusts after a young, barely flowered Sansa. People hate Littlefinger for that but not Sandor? wtf?

 

He lusts after her but doesn't act on it, we don't know exactly why but you can't damn him for what he only thought about doing. It was pretty clear in this episode that he was talking about regretting not raping her to provoke arya into killing him. Don't get me wrong, he's done a huge amount of shitty stuff, but littlefinger's the only one of the two acting on child fancying.

 

Pretty sweet episode, though I am surprised at the amount of differences from the book. Not really major differences mind you, just stuff that's done to try and condense the story and characters.

Ignore this spoiler if you haven't read the books, as it's what the changes are that I remember.

Spoiler

Jojen doesn't die in the books, Unless I'm misremembering. Bran's chapters are very boring and bland, so it's possible. This is also ignoring the fact that the book has barely done anything with the walkers and children of the forest.
Brienne doesn't fight the Hound. I think he dies offscreen from a festering wound taken at the inn brawl.
Tyrion tells Jaime that he did kill Joffrey (though he didn't). He also makes a quip about Tywin not shitting gold in the end.
I don't remember Varys taking the same boat as Tyrion either, though he does disappear for awhile.

Next season is going to be pretty boring I think though, unless they combine the events of books 4 and 5 together since they take place concurrently, though I have a feeling that once we get to book 6, the show is going to be caught up, with book 7 still 3 years away or something.

 

Watching Arya turn into even more of a badass was almost as good as watching Tywin get his father's day gift.

 

http://uniladmag.com/video/game-thrones-90s-show-vhs/

 

So we've got a load of new characters, basically the Sunspear cast. Here they are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH2ri8RhSnw

They've recast Myrcella with a 15-year-old actress playing her. Given that she looked about 10 when she left King's Landing, it's a bit odd but never mind. It implies that they're planning to maybe flesh out her character.

Lol at the actress' name though. "Nell Tiger Free".