Game of Thrones episode 9" Battle of the Bastards

It was a triumph of direction and cinematography and action over all else. Exciting. As good as Hardhome last season, again perhaps made all the better for the stark contrast between the book story and the show. (If anybody thinks that book Sansa is going to coolly watch Ramsay get eaten by dogs in the books, they are high.)

And yet, it worked for me.

And while the broad events of the Bastardbowl itself (Littlefinger’s rescue and Rickon’s death, Ramsay’s manner of death) were telegraphed well in advance by the never-subtle show(which does, after all, have to please idiots as well as us cream-of-the-croppers here), it was so well done and visually exciting that I didn’t really mind.

Really, the bit above about idiots and cream-of-the croppers is pretty much what this episode boils down to. There’s a lot of scenes in which an idiot converses with a smarter character—it is, oddly, the central theme of the episode.

• Daenerys(idiot) vs. Tyrion(smarter.):
  
  Episode starts with a bang, literally with the Battle of Meereen. Tyrion does a good show at being worried, Dany does a good show at seeming like she is on heroin.
  
  When you are confronted with a bunch of slave ships hurling (amazingly effective, by the way) incendiary devices at your sky-scaper fantasy pyramid, what you need is a plan. Dany’s plan? Crucify them and turn their cities to ash. Tyrion admirably shows restraint in not pointing out that that is a crap plan, as it is not technically a plan at all but an end goal.
  
  What is the plan to get to the point where you can crucify your enemies and turn their cities to ash? Instead of asking this, Tyrion just tells Dany that he has an alternate plan, which is to ask the slavers to surrender, it turns out. Also a crap plan, actually. But still, at least it is a real plan that will get them to the point where she can get her crucifixions/city burnings on.
• Slavers: (idiots) vs Dany and Tyrion(smart characters)
  The slavers, who all have a lot of eyeliner on, scoff at Dany and Tyrion’s demand to surrender. Dany raises one of her enormous magical eyebrows, and Drogon is summoned! Who’s the idiot now slavers?!
  
  She climbs awkwardly on board, and off they go bowling over slave guys. As if on cue the other two dragons, finally burst out of their cell, knocking a hole in the side of the pyramid which is totally unnecessary when you think about it seeing as how Tyrion opened the door to their cell in episode ten.
  
  Didn’t he say that dragons were more intelligent than people? I’m thinking that was hyperbole.
  
  Anyway, there is a really kick ass scene that only the most ardent of Dany haters wouldn’t love, but it seems oddly truncated. Of course the battle is a foregone conclusion, but then so is the Battle of the Bastards. But the sight of three dragons burning boats and splitting them asunder is definitely worth the price. Even if I hadn’t downloaded it for free. But then it’s just…over. The battle of Meereen deserves as much attention of the Battle of the Bastards. (And that’s always been the problem with this episode: we all know how it’s going to end up.)
• Two bad slavers(idiots) vs Grey Worm and Tyrion(idiots)
  
  OK, then all sense is thrown to the wind. Dany says to kill one of the slavers. An admirable compromise..So—they kill two? Does that make any sense at all? Did Tyrion plan that? Was he just lying, knowing that they would put forward one and then they’d kill the other two? What if one had volunteered? What would Grey Worm have done then? Kill the volunteer Just seems kind of…well, kind of a shitty thing to do. I lost a little respect for Grey Worm then.
• Jon Snow(idiot) and Sansa(smart) vs Ramsay(neutral): I agree that Jon Snow, book or show version, would beat Ramsay Bolton in a one-on-one fight. But how does Jon Snow have a reputation as the greatest swordsman alive? That belies everything the show has shown me. Jon Snow has dropped his sword in every fight they’ve given him. (Except this one, FINALLY.) Anyway, how does Jon Snow’s reputation as a great swordsman spread throughout the north? Like, who from Craster’s Keep went down and whispered in Ramsay’s ear?
  
  Shaggydog’s head is remarkably well-preserved considering that Jon and Sansa have presumably spent weeks to months gathering what little support they had. I guess that they had it on ice at Winterfell.
• Sansa(idiot) vs Jon Snow(slightly smarter idiot):
  
  Tormund is the idiot in the ensemble scene, though Jon Snow’s strategy is terrible. “Um. We’ll run and then get him to chase us to a defensible place.” Then he abandons it in the end anyway. I mean, this shows horrible judgement. Sansa’s right. She tells him not to do what Ramsay wants, and he does it and he almost gets them all killed. I’m getting ahead of myself, though.
  
  Sansa’s strategy, which seems to be “bitch about Jon’s strategy and hope Littlefinger saves her but don’t tell anybody about Littlefinger”, is even stupider, so no wonder no one takes her seriously. Really it all boils down to pre-battle jitters. They are just blowing off steam in the form of anger-charged expository dialogue.
• Tormund(idiot) vs Davos(smart character)
  Meanwhile. Davos and Tormund have a cordial discussion about defecation. It’s the kind of pseudo-profound, pseudo-poetic dialogue that Benioff and Weiss specialize in. Tormund is getting dumber by the minute: not only does he not understand what a “pincer movement” means; not only does he not understand that when Davos talks about Stannis’s demons, he is not speaking literally; he also takes Davos’s light hearted jest about shitting literally. “Happy shitting!”
  
  Which leads me to a question: Is Tormund on the autistic spectrum? Davos wanders off and finds Shireen’s little wooden stag.
  My feels are left curiously unhit. Ho-hum. Maybe he’ll slay Melly next episode. Or. Well, who cares?
  
  Tormund thought Mance was the man to lead us through the long night!! Finally!
• Jon Snow(idiot) vs Melisandre(also stupid)
  
  A short scene between Melly and Jon Snow: summed up thusly:
  Jon Snow: Do you have any advice?
  Melisandre: Don’t lose. (brilliant!)
  Jon Snow: If I die, don’t bring me back.
  Melisandre: I will.
  Jon Snow: Do not. I command you.
  Melisandre: You’re not the boss of me. If I want to resurrect you, I will. 
  Jon Snow: Don’t.
  Melisandre says: well, I can’t. Only the Lord of Light can do it. 
  Jon Snow: OK. But don’t…you know…cut my hair and sponge me off and stuff. 
  Melisandre: the Lord is not finished with you. Or Sandor Clegane. 
  Exasperated, Jon(first Sansa, now this bitch!) throws up his arms and wanders off shaking his head and muttering one word: “Wimmin!” He goes off, presumably to be bullied by Lyanna Mormont.
• Dany(idiot); Yara(idiot) vs Tyrion(smarter character)
  
  Meanwhile, back in Meereen another loose end is tied up when Yara and Theon give Dany their ships, making a deal that the Iron Islands will be Yara’s for perpetuity as long as the Ironborn foreswear the three Rs: Raidin’, Reavin, and Rapin’. I guess that Yara will henceforce only ”fuck the tits” off willing lovers, much to her apparent chagrin. Dany points out that both their fathers were killed by usurpers, which is just stupid. Her father was murdered by Jaime, not Robert. Tyrion winces at this historical inaccuracy but holds himself back from the pedantic nitpicking Daenerys so richly deserves.
  
  Tyrion’s like: what if everyone asks for independence? You’re going to be queen of jack! Then Tyrion grants Daenerys permission to grab Yara’s elbow and have her elbow grabbed in return. This signifies a pact, apparently.
• Jon(idiot), Rickon(idiot) and Ramsay(smart)
  
  It takes literally less than five minutes for Ramsay to (happily!) shit all over Jon Snow’s plan by loosing Rickon who is too stupid to weave or roll or anything. See, if I was Jon Snow, I would have told Rickon to dive as soon as Ramsay loosed the arrow and start rolling. I am a bit disappointed that Rickon didn’t, like, try to grab Ramsay’s knife or something. Rickon didn’t have a single line the whole season! So, Rickon dies and Jon falls right into Ramsay’s stupid trap. Presumably Sansa hangs back and says “I told you so!” Typical.
  
  The battle is really kick ass. Having Jon Snow trampled was a brilliant move on the part of the director. That works much better than having him drop his sword. Then he literally rises from the dead. He has a little mini-hero journey in this one episode! Director is very proud of that, I’m betting.
• The denouncement is cool. Jon gets his beserker rage on. A giant dies. (Great giant action really.) Melisandre refuses to resurrect anybody. She needs money first.
  
  Sansa scared me a little. Book Sansa would never do that, but who cares? She got off on that death. It reminded me of Joffrey or something. And I almost got off watching her get off on it. This show has got me lusting after people who have people eaten by dogs.
  
  And how did she get those dogs to wait for her cue? I don’t think she warged them. But who opened the doors? Let’s face it, that was dumb, even though it did work, viscerally. Which is all that matters.
  But Ramsay finally got eaten. And that’s all that counts.
• And now the women are in control of Westeros. Sansa has the North. Cersei has the South. Yara has the Iron Isles, well, officially but possession is 9/10s of the law. Dany is on her way. The Sand Snakes have Dorne.

Game of Thrones: Is Jon Snow depressed?

Who wouldn’t have Posttraumatic stress disorder in his position? You don’t just get stabbed in the heart by the boy you took under your wing; stabbed in various internal organs, lungs punctured, arteries severed, to the point where you can only attempt to gasp your last dying gasp and come out of that whistling Dixie.

Those wounds would kill anybody. So most people who went through that would not deal with the emotional trauma it causes. Because they’d be dead.

Jon Snow got the best of both worlds: he got killed. He died. And then he came back and dealt with the trauma. He hasn’t been the same since.

Everybody looks at Jon like some hero, but what happened when he found his five year old brother—ok, more like 14, but still—Rickon was being held captive by a psychopath who enjoys flaying people and feeding them to dogs? What was his first response?
Was it: WE must rise up and rid the North, our ancestral home of the scum that is Ramsay Bolton!!!

No.

Was it: This cannot be borne!!!

No.

It was How can we even be sure it’s Rickon? His first instinct was to avoid doing what needs to be done.

Yes, Jon’s depressed. He’s horrified by death. He’s horrified by life. He’s horrified of killing. He’s horrified of being killed. He’s horrified of his loved ones being killed. He’s horrified of having to do something about it. He just wants to go far, far away. He wants to go to the Summer Islands and spend his days drinking coconut water and having orgies. He’s only doing anything at all because Sansa guilted him into it.

He killed four men, including a boy. He’s not a murderer. Normal human beings get depressed when they do this kind of thing a lot.

Jon Snow needs THERAPY. Big time.

He definitely doesn’t want to die. But if he does die, what is even worse than death is dealing with the trauma of whatever caused it.

I find his newfound caution most realistic thing about the whole resurrection, actually.

Written June 13

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ASOIAF: Why did Robb Stark not take Walder Frey seriously?

It’s not that he didn’t take Walder Frey seriously. He took him seriously enough.

Robb just didn’t want to be like Ned.

If you remember, Ned had gone off to war, fucked some nameless woman in the south and brought back a bastard, his own half-brother Jon. Robb was close to Jon, they were practically twins in the sense that they were the same age and basically grew up together.

Robb saw the pain that Jon felt growing up. The pain of not having a mother. The pain of having a stepmother who was distrustful of him. The way Jon was treated compared to Robb . He saw that tension that grew between them, the future Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North and the bastard who might get a castle if Ned Stark ever went through with his plans of re-settling the Gift. He saw Jon wonder about his mother. And he, with Jon, wondered how she fared? Had she just been abandoned? Was she highborn? A whore? What kind of man was his father really?

Robb didn’t want to risk making someone who had to grow up like Jon Snow. It was his father’s one black mark; his one mistake. He didn’t want to make the same mistake.

Yes, there is a bit of drama to it all, but Robb, precocious and intelligent as he was, was still a 15–16 year old boy. Technically a man grown, but tell that to the hormones. (Which is also why, incidentally, any love potion that her mother might have slipped in Robb’s drink was probably unnecessary.)

The smart move would have been to break it off with Jeyne Westerling, come what may, acknowledge any bastards made(and apparently there were none) and still marry the Frey girl, of course. But Robb could not dishonor Westerling.

Which is why, kiddies, you should always listen to your mother and not let your hormones decide your course of action.

Anyway, Frey might still have betrayed Robb.

Written June 17th

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What do Americans think about Canadians?

Most Americans like Canadians, insofar as we think about them, though online you will see nasty messages about both natonalies sometimes. The Internet makes everything worse, in this respect.

But the real truth is Americans think about Canadians and Canada about 1/10th as much as Canadians think about Americans. It just never, or almost never, comes up in conversation in the USA, and when it does it usually involves political systems, health care, etc, and next-to-never does it involve the culture or nation of Canada.

I have a Canadian acquaintance who claims that there is an intense rivalry between Canadian and American hockey fans. That may be true but since hockey is much more popular in Canada than it is in America, I can assure you that the average American is unaware of this ‘intense rivalry.’

My own dealings with Canadians have been positive in real life. I find that there the tone of American and Canadian humor is very close, closer than American and British humor, for example. This probably comes from growing up with a lot of the same TV shows and so on.

As a result it is sometimes easy to forget that a Canadian is even a different nationality, except for the fact that Canadians constantly bring up their nationality  when talking to Americans.

Online, Canadians sometimes annoy me as their famed politeness often gives way to a superior smugness, but I have to admit that Americans online are just as bad if not worse, so…like I said, the Internet makes everything worse.

Sometimes Americans make jokes about Canadians but there is usually a subtly ironic undertone that is as much about the US as it is about Canada.

Regarding Canadian political systems, Americans are split between admiration or condemnation/fear, depending on which side of the political aisle they fall on.

Written Jun 11 

What will be the fate of British expats in Europe if the Brexit goes through?

Nobody knows.

Here is what I think and all of this is on the assumption that the EU doesn’t completely unravel within a couple of years, which I think is much more possible than people think.

• I think expats who have some kind of legal residency in their country (and too many don’t bother) will be allowed to stay at least for the present. I certainly don’t think that the EU police are going to be suddenly kicking in doors with their jackboots and forcefully deporting all Brits. Mainly because jack-booted EU police don't exist; and the immigration authorities have bigger fish to fry than Nigel on the Costa del Sol.
• There will be a period of confusion in which the expat situation will be low priority.
• Eventually laws will be drafted that define a process by which British workers who wish to work in the Schengen Zone/EU can do so .
• I don’t believe that the EU is going to “punish” Britain in this. I think that's hysteria from the 'In' crowd.  At most, I could see the EU putting up sanctions: but look at who've they've sanctioned in teh last ten years. Russia and Iran. Does anybody really think that they are going to punish Britain similarly for a democratically achieved exit? Civilized countries don't punish countries like that nowadays. Anyway, if the EU did do something like that, it would spell the quick end of the EU as I'm sure many countries would just ignore it. Britain's too big a customer to lose. Full stop. Eventually, I think that the British legal ability to work in the EU legally will be no different than, say, Americans. Hopefully it will be better than that, because it is definitely a pain nowadays for us Amiks! But its not insurmountable.
• I expect that Britons already living on the Continent, especially if they’ve taken the time to get legal residence, will obviously have an advantage, as they will aready have local contacts and so on and should hopefully therefore be able to navigate the waters of visa bureaucracy.
  
  I have two English people who have been working for me for two years, and I’m a little worried about their status. But believe me, if I have to go through the rigamarole of getting a visa and so on for those two so they can continue working for me, I’m going to do it, no matter the inconvenience.
  
  However, regarding future prospects….well, I need English speakers and I prefer not to hire outside the EU unless it’s somebody I’ve worked with before.
  
   The Irish passport will have gained a lot of value for me if Brexit goes through.
  
  Let’s hope it all blows over.

Written 15.6.2016

ASOIAF/Game of Thrones: Will the Bastard Bowl, aka, the Battle of the Bastards, take place in the novels like it will in the show?

I don’t think it will.

The Northern battle storyline is mostly fan fiction, very, very loosely based on Stannis’ story arc in A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter.

They’ve gone this way because they’ve built Ramsay into an indestructible super-villain, and therefore, they want an indestructible super-hero(Jon Snow) to take him down. Having Stannis win the battle(as I believe he MIGHT) would confuse and dishearten the audience as they villainized Stannis quite a bit more in the show than in the books, where he is…well, complicated.

The books well…it is an understatement to say It’s complicated. It’s more than that. The coming battle is total cluster fuck.

• Stannis is not dead, though he is in dire straits, stalled by a snow-storm that has claimed most if not all of his horses and some of his southron men.
• But he has a force of hardy northerners working for him who endure the cold better(not the fickle sell-swords he bought in the show) that he has persuaded to come with him—including the Mormonts, as in the show, but some other small houses as well—the Flints, Wulls, Norreys and Liddles, known as “The Mountain Clans.”
• He’s also been joined by the Karstarks, who are secretly supporting the Boltons! But in the Theon chapter from the Winds of Winter, Stannis has discovered their treachery from his captive, Theon Greyjoy, who he has decided to execute.
• He’s also been joined by Mors Umber. The Umbers themseves are split with some supporting Stannis, some the Boltons. Mors supports Stannis, but will not fight his brother.
• Stannis also marches with House Glover, who refused Sansa’s plea for assistance in episode 7. Stannis freed their castle from the Ironborn earlier.(In the show it was the Bolton’s who freed it, apparently.)
• The scattered remnants of survivors of the Battle Outside Winterfell , which occurred at the end of A Clashof Kings, are with Stannis. Hornwood, Tallharts and Cerwyns.
• Tycho Nestoris of the Iron Bank of Braavos has just shown up, and Stannis signed his name(in blood) for a large bank loan to procure sellswords.

Stannis is in dire straits but he’s in a very, very, very defensible position, between two natural frozen lakes that they have been fishing in.

The Bolton side:

On the Bolton Side things are also a bit messy.

• besides the Boltons themselves there are the Karstarks, who are pretending to be for Stannis—but Stannis has discovered their ill intent, unbeknownst to the Boltons.
• They have half of the Umbers, who are fighting for the Boltons mainly because the Freys hold their leige lord the Greatjon Umber prisoner down at the Twins. The Umbers may be secretly supporting Stannis.
• They have the Manderlys but they are definitely supporting Stannis; indeed, they may have Rickon Stark nearby.
• Various other houses: Ryswells, Dustins, Cerwyns, Lockes. The loyalty of these houses to the Bolton’s cause is questionable.
• The Freys, led by Hosteen Frey. He leads the Bolton’s vanguard and is known as unintelligent.

It is uncertain how the Battle will play out—but many guess that Stannis will lure the idiotic Hosteen Frey onto the icy lakes where the weight of their armored forces will crash through the ice, where the Freys will perish.

Stannis may have the advantage in the battle due to so many double-crossing and triple crossing northerners. But it may be evenly matched.

I don’t know—but I believe that Stannis will survive the battle and somehow take Winterfell.

Notes:

• Sansa is not in the North. She is safe in the warm Vale of Arryn, last seen dancing with Harry the Heir, teenage heart all a-flutter.
• No Knights of Arryn riding to the rescue.
• The Wildlings are not taking part in the battle.
• Jon Snow, if he has been resurrected, might march south anyway. But travel times are more realistic in the book. It seems unlikely that he will have the time to make it to the battle through the raging snowstorm..
• Rickon Stark is not a prisoner of the Boltons. Rickon’s precise whereabouts are unknown, but he was at the Isle of Skagos. I presume that he will make an appearance with Davos soon.
• Shireen Baratheon is still at Castle Black with her mother and Melisandre. None are with Stannis. If Stannis is going to burn Shireen, it will not be before the battle, as in the snow.

Written June 15th

Game of Thrones: What are your predictions for episode 9, The Battle of the Bastards?

At first, I declined to answer this, having read spoilers online elsewhither for the battle. But I will anyway. The spoilers I read might be wrong, so I will predict an “alternative” Battle of the Bastards that is not in line with the spoilers I’ve read. This is somewhat less plausible than what I’ve read.

Let me add right now that Battle of the Bastards is BY FAR the stupidest episode title in Game of Thrones history. I’m not sure what would have been a better title. But you have to admit it sounds like something a stoned redditor would come up with in his dorm-room after a particularly pungent hit off a smelly old bong. Which may, actually, pretty much describe the writing process of Game of Thrones. I bet even GRRM gets in on that action if only for the inevitable pizza that follows. But I digress.

So anyway, here are my predictions.

1. Davos finds Shireens wooden horse, or whatever, in a pile of ashes and human child bones.
2. He confronts Melisandre. She confesses. She says: I thought he was the one to lead us through the long night. Guess I was wrong.
3. Davos draws his knife and she immediately takes off her dress exposing her perky, shapely bosoms so that he can plunge it into her.
4. But Davos can’t do it. He tells her: we’d better win this one because if we don’t, I’m blaming you.
5. She says “The Lord’s Blessing upon you, Ser Davos. I have seen the battle in the flames.” He says: “who wins? She says: uh. i didn’t get that far.”
   ** Cut to commercial.**
6. Ramsay is putting his armor on watching his dogs eat a child. He brings Rickon to him. Rickon growls like a dog. Ramsay laughs and says, don’t think that the dogs won’t eat you, wolf boy. Rickon bares his teeth.
7. Meanwhile, Jon Snow looks at a fire, morose. Sansa tells him that the battle is about to be joined. Jon Snow has a pretty crap monologue wondering ‘why we do it? All these battles? All these Wars? What is the point? What are we tryin to prove?” He drops all his ‘ts’ when speaking, like a good northerner. Sansa puts her hand on Jon’s(again!) and says: “We’re doing it for Rickon. We’re doing it for Winterfell. We’re doing it for…HOME.”
   *Cut to commercial*
8. The armies square off. They form shield walls, insult each other.There are some ribald disgusting jokes—of the finger-in-anus variety we saw last episode.
   
   Jon and Sansa are pitifully outnumbered. It is obvious. Some character nevertheless says: “We are pitifully outnumbered.” Various reaction shots ensue. You see everyone steeling up for the inevitable.
9. In Ramsay’s camp, Ramsay laughs. “They are pitifully outnumbered!” He says. Rickon snarls at him.
10. Ramsay’s army advances.
11. Jon Snow’s eyes get really wide then he gives a girlish squeal, throws down his sword turns tail and RUNS for the Wall! Sansa rides after him.
12. Tormund looks into the camera and says: I thought he was the one to lead us through the Long Night. Guess I was wrong.
13. Davos glares at Melisandre and makes a knife-across-throat movement and shakes his index finger at her in warning. “Don’t mess this up”, is the silent and understood message.
    **cut to commercial**
14. Meanwhile Sansa has caught up with Jon, who is sitting chewing on a blade of grass looking out over the Scottish heath. “I just can’t. I’m nothing but a wet girls blouse.” says he. “Girl’s wet blouse”, she corrects him. “I’ve lost something,” says he. “No, you haven’t. You are Ned Stark’s son. You are Ned Stark’s son. .” She squeezes his hand and puts it on her breast.
    
    “But I’m just a bastard”he says, the tears streaming down his cheeks. She says: “You are my hero. My greatest hero. You are everything I wish I could be.”
    
    He looks up at her and meets her eyes. “Really?” he says, with that fearful vulnerable soft cast in his eyes. “yes.” He stands up and wipes the snot from his nose with a mail-clad sleeve. “Let’s go kill a bastard!” Sansa winks and says “Now you’re talking!”
15. Big battle scene. Blood. Gore. Chanting. Horses running into each other and violating all sorts of animal cruelty laws. Ramsay striding confidently through the thick of battle, not even touched, casually slaying all and sundry like a god. Tormund bitest it. That Mormont girl gets eaten by dogs. The giant kills about a thousand soldiers but he eventually falls to his knees in defeat. Ramsay sticks a sword into him viciously. “The Last of the Giants!!” He roars.
16. Our heroes are hopelessly outnumbered. Littlefinger comes to save a day. He rides up and says: “psych!! You two are traitors to the crown. Attack the Starks, men o’ the Vale!!” His accent, inexplicably, is the broadest Brooklyn accent you can imagine.
17. Davos glares at Melisandre.
18. AT that moment, Rickon whistles from his cage. All of Ramsay’s dogs come up to him. Rickon has a St Francis of Assisi quality going for him. The dogs love him. They lick his hands. He bares his teeth at Ramsay. Ramsay gulps.
19. The dogs attack Ramsay!! And not only that. They are joined by a huge ARMY of wolves, led by Nymeria, Arya’s long lost wolf!! The audience, long since having forgotten about her says: “what’s going on?” Sansa and JOn look at each other. Sansa says: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jon nods, dumbstruck. Then they both say simultaneously:” NYMERIA!!Arya’s long lost wolf!!” The Winterfell theme plays with martial drumbeats and blaring horns. It has a triumphant feel where moments before it had been mournful.
20. The battle is won. Sansa personally beheads Littlefinger. She is covered head to toe in blood, like Carrie in Brian DePalma’s movie. She, Rickon and Jon get together and exchange high fives with Ghost and Nymeria jumping up and down. The three of them look up at the moon beginning to rise.
21. They howl like wolves. Cut to credits and the sounds of real wolves howling.

Written June 15

Game of thrones: review of episode 8, No One

Directing/Production: 5/5. Great cinematography. Exciting action. Good sound design. Great lighting and costumes.

Acting: 5/5. Even the Missandei/Grey Worm/Tyrion action was well done.

Writing: 2/5. Terrible dialogue, just terrible. Facile resolutions. But at least we didn’t have Syrio Forel rescue Arya. Thank God. Or gods, whichever side you’re on.

We fans keep devising these complicated storylines to explain what’s going on, and we forget that they’ve just written themselves into a hole more often than not and write themselves out in the simplest way possible.

• Riverrun: . Probaby because the scene took its cue from A Feast for Crows, it was OK. But that line about turning cities to ash…in fact, that whole monologue of Jaime’s was cringeworthy stuff.
  
  Terrible faux-poetic dialogue from the masters of faux-poetry, Benioff and Weiss. They still got it! I bet they had pointy little beards in the nineties.
  
  I guess they might as well kill off Blackfish. He’s got no one to rescue in the prologue of the Winds of Winter, after all. They really screwed up his characterization in the end, in my opinion.
  
  Why did Brienne escape? Couldn’t she have just walked out the door instead of going down the river? Seriously? She’s Jaime’s bud. He’d’ve let her go.
  Stupid. I guess they felt like they had to give a river escape to someone.
  
  How the heck does Brienne/Pod send a raven to Sansa in the North when Sansa is pretty much just homeless, traipsing from castle to castle?
  
  And what the heck was the point of Brienne going south in the first place? It’s like they went: Pointless Brienne wandering: we forgot to do that last year, so let’s do it this year.
  
   I guess that whatever happens with Stoneheart is going to happen to her still. Who Stoneheart’s role will go to is anybody’s guess. I guess it’ll be Beric and his Merry Men, and the Hound will be happy to see her hang.
  
  FORESHADOWING, unsubtle as always: JAIME AND BRIENE WILL FIGHT. Put money down on that.
  
  Oathkeeper is also Lightbringer. 
  More convinced than ever. He says it’s Brienne’s, but after Brienne dies in the fight it will be Jaime’s again. Maybe he will deliver it to Jon Snow as it is half of Ice and therefore technically, well, the Starks and Jon is close enough.
• Brothers without Borders: All that thinking everybody did and it turns out that Lem Lemoncloak is just a rogue good-outlaw, which makes him a bad outlaw.
  
  The good outlaws are still commanded by Beric Dondarrion, which definitely puts Lady Stoneheart to rest for good.
  
   How the heck do they know about the Cold Winds Rising? Seriously? No one else in the 7 kingdoms knows about that. Yet this homeless band of outlaws knows it? I guess Thoros of Myr saw it in his fire. Then why haven’t they already gone north? What are they doing? They got zombies to fight in the north!
  
  Jesus, a child could pick holes in this.

On the plus side, we did get a glimpse of the Hound’s penis. Definitey could have done without the weird homophobic jokes. Yuck.

• King’s Landing: Mountain Smash. Wildfyre plan is a go. King’s Landing to blow in t-minus two episodes. I guess The Queen of Thorns made it out in time.
• Braavos: An Actress had to die. I really liked that actress playing the actress. I liked her face. Which reminds me why didn’t A Bitch take her face? What the heck? You don’t just murder somebodyd without taking their face off. NO wonder she had to go. She is terrible at her job.
  
  
  The director got his Marlon-Brando-at-the-greengrocers Godfather-rip-off shot on as Arya tumbled ddown the steps, conveniently hitting every orange being sold(even though orange trees don’t grow in Braavos, Dany is totally wrong.). Staring Arya as Marlon Brando as the Godfather.
  
   Perhaps that foreshadows Arya going back to Westeros and sticking a knife in her father’s killers, like(Spoilers!) DeNiro in Godfather Part II.
  
  Arya’s bedroom: I like how she put out the light. Get it?She killed her trainer who trained her to fight blind. Who’s got the advantage now, A Bitch?
  So, it’s like, she totally used the force to kill her trainer. It’s so..trope subversive! In a way that totally would work a lot better if I was still a 20 year old weed smoker.
  
  A Man has a sword at his heart, so he’s all like:
  
  AMan:
  Hey!!! hahaaha!! A girl is no one!! Totally no one!! Congrats!!!Arya’s like:
   I ain’t no one! I’m Arya Stark of Winterfell, I’ll have you know. And now I’m going home.A Man, sword at heart:
  hahahah! It’s cool! It’s cool! Hey, no problem, Arya Stark, No One, whatever! I can dig!! Let’s not get caught up in technicalities, hey? Whoever you want to be. I’m cool with it. Congratulations! You totally passed the test. Good luck!!

She moves off, A Man heaves a sigh of relief. A Man is actually a Big Wuss.

• Meereen: Tyrion is totally trying to seduce Missandei, trying to get her drunk., telling her racist Scottish jokes, which are not even funny in the real world and definitely even less so in the show. And it’s working. She’s totally into Tyrion. And Grey Worm, not having a penis, feels powerless, poor guy. He smiles at Tyrion’s dumb jokes, but it’s all just playing along. ’ I mean, Missandei deserves some actual penis action. Grey Worm doesn’t like it. It pains him. But he loves her. If having sex with Tyrion , who is after all a possessor of a marvellously mellifluous voice, will make her happy, he will allow it. He can understand. If you can’t beat him join them. Which is what he does, gamely joining in the pre-fuck joke-a-thon. Menage a trois by bottle’s end.
  
  Incidentally, anybody notice that Grey Worm’s English seems to have stalled? He started learning at about Episode 5 in Season 4, if I’m not mistaken. He got to intermediate in like two episodes. then he hit the famed Intermediate Plateau
  
  Lots of ships show up to hurl fireballs at Meereen. All is dark. Then Dany shows up. The angels sing. Will there be a big set-piece battle here too? Or will they save it for next season? Or will it happen off screen because it will cost too much money? Tune in next week.

Written June 13

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ASOIAF: Why didn't Arya kill the Hound?

She had mixed emotions.

Partially becasue leaving him in such a state (wounded, infected leg, gashed neck, already feverish and too weak to even defend himself) was abandoning him to a fate far worse than the quick death a dagger to the heart would have given him. Imagine being eaten alive by wild animals—and indeed, that’s exactly what she thought when she left: she wondered what a pack of wild wolves would do to a Hound(which echoes what he had said earlier in the book: Ever seen what a pack of dogs do to a wolf?)

So she wouldn’t do it.

Partially because for better or for worse, he was part of her pack. He had held her captive, beaten her, tied her up at night; he had failed to do anything remotely heroic at the Twins when the Northern Cause was dying; he was a brutal bully and a thief; he had killed Mycah; but he had also taught her how to survive in the wild and saved her life multiple times. And deep down anyone could see that there was a human heart beating inside him.

And she couldn’t do it.

Written June 10thUpvoters227

Game of Thrones: Why does Jaqen H'ghar, "A Man", smile at the end of Episode 8? What is really going on?

Honestly, I think that thinking too hard about it will drive a person insane. Because I really think there is no explanation. Or rather the explanation is a rather unsatisfying one.

• Arya was in a hole in Braavos, plotwise.
• They needed her out of that hole to rejoin the main plot, which is clearly coalescing around Winterfell.
• They wrote a weird story that doesnt make a lot of sense but ends with a relative bang big enough that they hope people won’t notice it.

I don’t feel GRRM’s fingerprints on this at all. Maybe he himself didn’t know how Arya gets from Braavos to Westeros in the books when they sat down with him. But his advantage as a novelist is could always just have her show up to Westeros and the reader could understand through a few expository passages that her training was complete, or she went AWOL or whatever. And the show can’t do that. They have to show something specific.

It doesnt make much sense.

So they plastered over it all with A Man’s enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile so people can speculate on the mystery of it all.

Of course there is the possibility that something much deeper is going on but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to be explained.

Written June 13th

What is the most profitable lie ever told?

Well one part of me wants to say the Iraq War or something political like that, but while I’’m sure an anti-Bush rant would go off well among some people, it's just so, you know, so 2005.

Anyway, I think more profitable lies have been told.

As an American who has moved abroad, I’m often surprised at the things which are regarded as necessities by Americans with a middle class income. And what’s interesting, sometimes they are necessities in the race to keep up with the Jones’, or whatever.

The latest gadget, the newest line of clothes, a car less than five years old, they have all these things. They are nice to have, I’ll admit—as long as you’re not putting yourself into major debt to get them.

• The idea that an engagement ring must be two months’ salary is something Americans have been sold and have swallowed hook line and sinker. Believe me, such notions do not exist everywhere. It's ridiculous when you think about it. How on earth does such an irrational mathematical equation somehow equal true love? I get that an engagement ring is a symbol and I approve of that, as far as it goes.  But it does not have to be two months salary. That's absurd.

• The idea that all of us got sold on the idea that we needed constant access to internet and a Smartphone is something that I think is a big lie. And look at the havoc it’s wreaked on social interactions. People have sex with their spouses less, spend their time with their loved ones staring at their phones—and I understand why. Its addictive! I myself do it. I was walking in the country on the hill above my house yesterday, and I stopped to check my phone.
  
   I’m not sure if anybody actually told this lie, or if it’s something everybody in the world just took up and started believing in instantaneously, but nearly all of us have one. I’m actually planning to go back to a stupid phone after my holiday. We don't need to be connected all the time, people! 
• But to me the biggest lie that has cost the most money to people and made the most profit is this one:
  
  The expense of the American health care system is a necessary evil if one wants quality health care.

This one is the big one. Billions of dollars a year are made of it. It’s a lie told by politicians who are literally paid to tell the lie; some of them probably believe it, ,because Americans are brainwashed about it.

They’ll sell their house, max out their credit cards, ruin their emotional well-being, stress themselves out, start seeling speed with their ex-students…anything.

Meanwhile, in Europe, I had a heart bypass, a long ambulance ride, 25 days of hospitalization, care that I considered great for a whopping 75 bucks.

And what burns me up, is that the politicians always bring up countries like Canada and Britain when they are warning about the perils of health care systems in Europe. It’s funny that they never talk about Italy, France or Germany who have by most measures, the best health care systems in the world. Not to cast shade on Canada or the UK; I’m sure their systems are adequate—it’s just that they are not the models to pursue, and the politicians know it.

What good is higher income in America when they have to pay so much for health care anyway?

I think this is the most profitable lie I’m aware of. Every year, billions more get poured into it.

Written June 12th

Game of Thrones: Who can help Arya?

Three possibilites.

1. The Faceless Men themselves, using magic. (Why?)
2. Crane, the actress whose life she saved(you’d think the FAceless Men would have found another way to get rid of her by now, but A Show moves in mysterious ways. (how?)
3. Lord of Light priests using magic. (convenient)

ETA: There is a new rumor going around that Syrio Forel will return to the show and save Arya. or, you know, someone with his face. Based on some stills from episode 8.

Updated Fri • View Upvotes • Answer requested by Matt Jordan

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