Game of Thrones

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^Brienne is rocking. I feel slightly ashamed I'm rooting for the Jaime/Brienne obvious unlikely bedfellows thing, but the bath scene was crazy cute.
I changed my mind about Dragon Girl Danaerys, she is kinda cool now. And the fact that she seems to be in danger of arrogance to the point of obnoxiousness makes it more interesting.
Still hate Robb, with more hate for his girl (I don't understand, am I even supposed to like her? For what?)
Also the whole Jon Snow storyline, still can't see the point to it.

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My new top lists:

Oh Yes:
1. Tywin Macho Grandpop - bad ass and ruling, I loved it when he put Tyrion down, he is like hard rock with a nice white beard. All his cruelty is weirdly impersonal, which makes him hard to dislike, because he lives by the same rules too. He is not evil per see, just domineering and cold.
2. Grandma Tyrell - that scene with Sansa, and the one with Tywin. I want one like her.
3. Tyrion - well, he is up there because I like him from past seasons, but truthfully the dedicated lover thing is getting boring.
4. Aria/Brienne/Jaime - always entertaining plotlines to follow. Totally failing for Jaime's 360 'I'm a good guy at heart' thing, even though he was slightly sexier with a sprinkle of vice. Brienne, who can not love Brienne. Aria, way better than Sansa, so cute when she said "I can be your family" to the Baratheon bastard, good girl.
5. Joffrey - such a vicious batshit crazy little turd. I really enjoy the Joffrey/Tywin interaction too.
6. The fat eunuch/Cersei - enjoyable enough.

Hell no:
1. Jon Snow - that boy seriously have had that one single expression, slightly stunned open mouthedness, stuck to his face since episode 1. I don't understand his motivation, I don't understand the point of him, I don't understand what his story is supposed to convey. So annoying. Always skip his scene resulting in me not following at all WTF s going on the wall. All that budget for fake snow going to waist.
2. Robb - about the same as Jon. Although in his case I think it's just plain not being a good actor enough to make me care for what's looks like a pretty important plotline. At least in the case of Snow, it can be argued that the constant 'i don't know what I'm doing here' vibe is relevant to something like a journey of a bastard meeting his fate. But Robb, it's like just going through the motion, 2D acting.
3. Stanlis - There is something very dark and twisted that is starting to shine through his plotline that has potential, but still largely a bore, that guy has born looser written all over his face. Which I guess is actually good acting.
4. Tyrion's whore - I liked you ok before, but you are just a jealous bitch now. At least do something batshit crazy so it's entertaining.

I think overall, although I've enjoyed it so far, there is not enough infuriating characters that you just love to hate this season. To the exception of Joffrey, but alas my fav little turd is not getting much screen time.

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Very satisfying, two of the biggest bores on the show got the humiliating death they deserved. Mr. Filch was a deliciously salacious and revolting. And Little Cripple took a level in bad-ass. Even Snow kinda did.

SPOILERS AHEAD

This episode was a revelation about the psychology of Robb's character to me (previously totally obscured by pretty face godawful actor's play). The central character in the entire army of the North story arc was never Robb, but his mother Catelyn as demonstrated by their respective ends - she got the hero's death, not Robb. In fact the point to Robb's character was the struggle of a son to free himself from the influence of his mother and established himself as a man and king, and his patently retarded decision to marry that lame girl (who cares about your stupid love, your sisters are held hostage and you've got a war to win) a symptom of that latent rebellion - cue little boy's last word "mother". I think not laying it on too thick was good, but it is a shame the blatant bad acting and total lack of chemistry between Robb and his girl just failed to convey the nuances of a potentially interesting character - he just looked wooden and erratic. Lot of blame on the girl part too, in retrospect I liked the fact that she didn't play it as a cliche femme fatale and hinted at something deeper, but as a catalyst for the climatic drama of the entire arc, the actress just wasn't charismatic or lovely enough.

This made me think that there really is a surprising amount of girl power in that show: Grandma Tyrell, Dragon Girl, Catelyn, Arya, Red Lady, Brienne, even Marjorie - Cersei doesn't count anymore, she was downgraded to wifey rank since that drunken rant in season 2.

On other fronts, I'm not too keen on the whole witchery thing, looks visually bleh to me - I dunno add some cgi around it instead of just sticking opaque contacts into poor kid's eyes, but Bran getting somekind of active power is nice. And Snow finally redeems himself as having any substance at all by riding off without even looking back, leaving that other girl deliciously crestfallen. This is good story because the Bastard, defender of the savage tribes would have been so cliche.

Still hate Robb, with more hate for his girl (I don't understand, am I even supposed to like her? For what?)

She has a pretty good girlbutt.

Hooray bitch is dead. The fact that they went for her belly first was really a nice nasty twist.

I'm so fucking over seeing fucking Theon get fucking tortured every fucking week. SERIOUSLY? WE FUCKING GET IT, MOVE ON NOW, OR DON'T SHOW HIM FOR A FEW WEEKS.

I think the point to it is live action TV purgatory, because they plan on redeeming the character at some point and feel obligated to make him suffer enough before doing so. Personally, I was in "omg, just kill him already" mode even before they got his balls tweezed off.

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I'm done.

Nah, we've still got Brienne, Jaime, Tyrion and Arya.

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Well I'm not too optimistic, Jaime is too much of a romantic character to ever win anything without making it all look dumb. Brienne is not a leader, and her best destiny is probably a heroic death. Tyrion is such an ideal king that not milking the potential drama from him would be a story writing faux pas.

BUT IF ARYA EVER DIES GOT CAN GO FUCK ITSELF IN THE ASS.

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Well the book series is called song of Fire and Ice, not Stark vs Lannister.

My overall prediction for the entire cycle is that every major house will get dwindle down to the brink of extinction by the war, then the Icicles men will invade, at which point everyone will be like "oh fuck, we better ceasefire and join force or else everyone dies", cue Dragon Girl reach mainland just in time to melt all that snow and becomes rightful queen to the throne, everyone drink meads, fade screen, a glimpse of a supposedly dead Icicle moving its finger, abrupt black screen with "winter is coming", credits roll.

So yeah it is a matter of not who wins , because as the premises indicate -probably no one, but who get to survive. My prediction is that Littlefinger will do really good for himself amidst chaos becoming a major house. Lannister get wiped out, leaving behind some infant child filled with revenge. Stark remains king in the North under Bran, but only because no one wants to deal with the shitty weather (Sansa becomes a nun, Arya is her asskicking self and set on to become Lara Croft). Tyrell are relatively unscathed and go back within their own territory to be fancy ponces. Baratheon becomes a theocracy under Stanlis, but everyone give them a wide berth because of the obvious crazy. And Greyjoy decide they never want to deal with the continent ever again but becomes filthy rich by inventing sushi.

At this point I don't care anymore that Dragon Girl get the throne, she is still a very 2 dimensional character but you can't argue against someone untainted by the moronic fighting when winter comes.

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Hum, I don't believe the overreaching goal of the narrative is to demonstrate what works and what doesn't in political intrigues. The tone is to me more contemplative, and will in the end reflect the futility yet cyclic nature of men's struggles (which is not that novel an idea).

I do think Ned stark was presented as an exceptionally moral figure, but I don't think you can say that he failed, because he never demonstrated the desire to seize the throne for himself and accepted to be Hand only grudgingly. His death resonated as the vespers bells of a relatively stable era, where morality such as his could be upheld. But beside him, the Stark family doesn't share that much morality in common. Robb was pretty much a clueless brat who was arrogant enough to betray his own word, that's not moral. There always was a fatal coquetry to Sansa, which one true ambition was to be wed and become a queen because she is pretty (I tell you, she is going to become a nun).

I vehemently protest that Arya is short-sighted. What should she be "long-sighted" for? She has no pretension to play any game, her motive is rather simple, she is a girl who adored her father, and saw him decapitated and accused of being a traitor, what moves her is simple revenge, by blood. Whether it is moral is arguable. I don't even think she is naive, Sansa is the naive one, believing she'll get her prince time after times because someone told her so. Arya to the contrary, kicks ass, when she get screwed, she knows, and she has demonstrated that she was capable of getting herself out of situations.

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Huh, of course there is a "rationale" to the story, it is the inner logic of each character within a given environment, which lead them to their fate via their actions. Whether a motive fit one's own view of what is a rational course of action doesn't mean each character isn't following its own inner logic.

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She got herself out of Harrenhall, and succeeded in liberating her mates. She escaped from the Brotherhood when she saw that they couldn't be trusted anymore. She didn't back down before the Hound, who could crush her with his pinkie, and actively attempted to rescue herself. All that while being a kid. Contrast to Jaime/Tyrion/Theon, a full fledged knight and men, taken hostage right and left. Ass-kicking is as much in her attitude of not accepting the shitty hand dealt to her than her effective achievement (which are quite ok for her age and ability). She doesn't have no bloody dragons as a deus ex machina plot device at her disposition.

Good and Bad are mutually exclusive by definition, whether to compromise is a matter of moral choice. Naivety would be to believe that the shades of greys don't exist and fail to recognize that men majorly operate within, trying to maintain one's own sense of moral is not it. The only thing naive about her is that she is still surprised when she get screwed over. But she does know when she is getting screwed over and know where to hold the grudge, contrast Sansa led to jump loop after loop without it ever sparking up there.

I don't really know what you are referring to when you say that she doesn't factor the motivation of others into her judgment though.

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Well as far as the reactions to the RW go, it is explained by the fact that two staples of TV narrative get upturned: 1)good guys vs bad guys (with people majorly casting starks and lannister into those roles) 2) protagonists driven narrative (with people asking 'will the Stark get the throne?', instead of 'who will get the throne?').

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Arya aside(really liking how she is pitted with the Hound. Hopefully he erodes her values and grooms her in this brutal world

How can you like Arya and want her to be eroded at all. I want her character to be played straight, and maintain its brand of innocence. The only acceptable resolutions to me are a) she get the skill to extort revenge and make things bloody b) she get the skills to extort revenge and decide to raise above it for higher ideals. Anything less would need a lot of convincing me.

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I dunno how politically convincing it is for the Bolton to cut a guy's penis in order to get territories back. The point of taking hostage is to threaten a rival's bloodline, what Bolton did seems counterproductive to me so it does look like a trap. However Greyjoy's reaction seemed out of character too, there is basically someone telling him their intention to piss all over him, he should be at least acknowledging that the guy needs to be dealt with in some way or analyse the motive of the threat at least, whether it is his son's testicles he is looking at or not. If Greyjoy suspect ulterior motive too, then why did he let his daughter ship off?

It is also not clear to me what the whole make Theon escape then recapture him was all about. Seems pointless.

Also it occurred to me it is not perhaps to redeem Theon that there is so much scene of torture, since clearly no one cares about him anyway, but just to set the Boltons as villains. And set Yara as an hero. But the Greyjoy are kinda utterly unconvincing to me. They have no alliance and no prestige, so who cares?

Anyway, at this point I just want more Tyrion and Arya. Shame there wasn't enough Jaime. Am I the only one who thought about incestuous stump-fucking at the reunion scene with Cersei?

Also, why does Bran want to go beyond the wall again? I missed that part.

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I like Varys, there is a benevolence to him that Littlefinger lacks. He'd be a good king. I don't know what's Pycelle's function on the council is, somekind of monk it seems.
I think Tywin would be pretty decent as king actually, in a patriarchal, suffocatingly rigid way.
His prejudice against Tyrion is kinda extraordinary. I like to imagine that he was really in love with his wife but didn't realize it until around the time before Tyrion's birth when his wife fell out of love and tried to elope with her chariot driver; Tyrion brought her back and engendered Tyrion by force, leading to the tale of birth and death. As such Tyrion is a living reminder of not only his wife's death breaking over his grey little heart made of stone, but also of the true viciousness prowling beneath his facade of relentless impassivity.

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I knew the stark were getting killed in some terrible fashion but I was rooting for Robb to be dead asap before knowing.

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I don't understand the eunuch chart.

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also I've decided Arya shall be my beacon of hope and happiness and if a single bad thing happens to her I'm going to find GRRM and gut him like a pig

His wife made him promise that he won't kill her.

So she won't die physically. But killing Sansa will break her stoneheart, set your watch and warrant on it.

Sansa is part of the Arya Awesomeness Protectorate by association, and as such a protected specie. Rickon and Bran can both die though.

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I didn't get to enjoy much of last season because there was too much Wall stuff, and I can't be bothered. The duel between the Mountain and the Viper was great though.

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I'm 2 episodes behind, but anyone noticed how the characters getting their plotlines developed are overwhelmingly female this season? And all pretty much in position of power/empowerment?

Sand Snakes, Grandma Tyrell, Cersei, Dragon Girl, Greyjoy Girl, Red Witch, Arya, Sansa.
Doesn't that account for the majority of the power players on GOT's geopolitical map?
Does it mean that a feminist apocalypse is upon us?
Am I a bitter, cynical person, if it somewhat un-suspends my disbelief?

That said, my biggest concern right now is that I think Arya's gonna die.
Because her vendetta list is so short, and she got competent so quick, and there hasn't been any new element that indicates she has any plausible purpose beyong her life mission.

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Yullo Iece!:D

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Tyrion: Tyrion says 'I believe in you Dany, be my queen'. Dany says 'sure, you can be my pet, here's a scout's badge'. Tyrion and Dany both act as if a tremendous moment of dramatic realization has just taken place. So, Tyrion Lannister - the midget who shot his father in the guts while he was taking a crap - is now cured from cynicism because of Dany's magic boobs and will be from now on rooting for dragons and horse people with a straight face. Yeah. Right. Doesn't it grate you at least a little (a lot) to discover six seasons in that all you've ever been, really, is a sad little boy who wants a pat on the back for a job well done. Weren't you supposed to have outgrown that by killing your father. Will I be cheering for the bitch when Cersei cut your tongue and make you watch her eat it. Yes.

Dany: As much as it pains my staunch feminist inner child who rooted for the blond girl in Sucker Punch, I just can't root for you. There is a total amount of sub-zero dramatic tension in your entire plot. All you get is crowning moments of awesomeness, with bonus dragons, one after another. At least Misandei (???name) or NoDick, or both, should have died during your absence. But no. The scene where you return to the ziggurat, it was just plain ridiculous. We all knew you were coming back, why bother with the waste of screen time. Then the negotiation for terms of surrender scene. Yeah, we haven't seen that one before. Clearly you've got the curse of cliché awesomeness on you and I fear it's lethal.

Jon: You are kind of a badass now, I guess. But sorry, it's just no amount of determined hero frowns can convinced me that you aren't a bore. I hope Sansa put poison in your vegan-soup (because if anyone is vegan in that show it's gotta be Jon Snow) just for the lulz. You are still better than Dany though.

Arya: Alright, I see where this is going. You and the Hound (the one with the burnt face, right?), you guys gonna meet again. Hopefully to make truce and have a philosophical discussion about the vanity of it all. Then retire in the deep forest of Sherwood to built a rustic utopia. With treehouses.

I'm feeling meh about this entire season. The only thing that was developed plot wise was the Jon Snow storyline (and by extension the Sansa one). Everything else feel very filler-ish. I mean Cersei is literally in the same position as just after Joffrey's death. Same for the Greyjoy. I definitively think Martin is a better writer.

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I think I've cometh to be sentimental and mellow with old age: watching the 'story so far pre-show' thingy to season 7, being reminded of Tomen's suicide actually made my dark twisted heart throb in pain a little.

The question I have in mind right now is what will happen when Arya meet Sansa again now that the later is a power hungry bitch and the former a cut throat assassin who knows only hate.

Bah, the now sentimental me wish love upon them both.

(Still think Dany is a cartoon character though.)

On to catching up with season 7.

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Episode 2 of season 7

Alright, I see where this is going. Danaeris Targaryen, the freedom fighter from the West.
The best thing is, Danaris has an army of ex-slaves fighting for her, for a territory where slavery doesn't seem to exist.

I'm rooting for Cersei.

Episode 5

Dany says she wants to help people. But help them with what? Did I miss something there?