‘Game of Thrones’ 6.08 Recap: “I Choose Violence”

‘Game of Thrones’ killed (or allegedly killed) another major character off-screen this week. How long do you guess it will be before he turns up again?

Sorry, that’s just a pet peeve of mine with this season. The writers have made it pretty clear that character deaths cannot be trusted, and doubly so if we don’t actually see the character die on-camera. (Even if we do, that doesn’t necessarily mean much anymore.)

We’ll start with that storyline:

Riverrun

Under orders from Sansa to secure an alliance with The Blackfish, Brienne and Podrick ride to Riverrun and see the castle under siege by the combined Frey and Lannister armies. They’re approached by soldiers who demand to know their names and purpose. Brienne announces herself and asks to speak with Jaime Lannister (not The Blackfish). She says that she has his sword.

As he waits outside, Podrick is greeted by Bronn, who teases him about being amazed he’s still alive. Hilariously, Bronn pesters poor Podrick to speculate whether he thinks Jaime and Brienne are fucking inside the command tent.

They aren’t, though Jaime is indeed very pleased to see Brienne. He respects her greatly. Brienne tells him that her mission is to recruit The Blackfish to assist Sansa in taking back Winterfell. She wants to barter a deal between Jaime and The Blackfish. If she can convince The Blackfish to turn over the castle peacefully, she wants Jaime to allow him and his army to leave with her. Jaime doubts that she’ll have any luck at this, but agrees to let her try.

Brienne offers Jaime back his sword, saying that it accomplished the purpose she needed it for (rescuing Sansa). Jaime refuses to take it. He tells Brienne that the sword belongs to her. Before she leaves, Brienne warns Jaime that if the present situation should escalate to violence, she is obligated to side with The Blackfish, even if that means fighting Jaime himself. He would expect no less.

Brienne is allowed inside the castle to speak to The Blackfish. As Jaime predicted, she finds him to be incredibly stubborn. Though she’s just as pig-headed in return and eventually gets him to acknowledge her as an equal, she can’t convince him to give up his family’s home. Brienne tells Podrick to find a maester, because she needs to send a raven to Sansa admitting that her mission is a failure.

As night falls, Jaime speaks with the captive Edmure and offers to let him see the baby son he’s never met. (Impressively, the child was conceived on the night of the Red Wedding. Imagine the performance anxiety Edmure must have been under!) Edmure spits in Jaime’s face and asks how he lives with himself considering all the evil he’s done. Jaime compares his sister Cersei to Edmure’s sister Catelyn, which Edmure finds offensive. Jaime then openly admits to being in love with Cersei and says he will do absolutely anything to get back to her as soon as possible. If he has to kill Edmure’s son and every other member of the Tully family to wrap up this siege, he has no compunctions about doing that.

A bit later, Edmure walks alone up to the castle’s drawbridge and demands entry. Recognizing that this is an obvious trap, The Blackfish refuses to let him in. However, this causes a conflict with the soldiers in the castle, who have pledged their loyalty to the Lord of Riverrun, and that’s currently Edmure. Obligated to follow his orders, they open the drawbridge against The Blackfish’s objections. As soon as he steps inside, Edmure’s first command is that the army surrender and open all the castle’s gates. He also orders that The Blackfish be arrested and turned over to the Freys.

As the Frey army marches into the castle, The Blackfish helps Brienne and Podrick escape through a secret exit. Brienne begs him to come with them, but he’d rather stay and die fighting for his home.

The castle taken quickly and relatively easily, Jaime stands at the battlement surveying the land. A soldier informs him that The Blackfish was killed, though we don’t get to see the legendary fighter go down. As Jaime looks out, he spots Brienne and Podrick in a boat rowing downriver away from the castle. He waves and lets them go.

Elsewhere in the Riverlands

The Hound takes his revenge for the murders of the Septon and the religious commune he was living with. He finds and slaughters four of the men from the Brotherhood Without Banners who participated in the raid. As he’s working on the last one, he demands to know where the rest of the group is. When the man spits out a weak insult, The Hound tells him he can do better for his last words. The man stammers out another epithet. The Hound declares, “You’re shit at dying, you know that?” and finishes him off.

Sometime later, The Hound comes across Beric Dondarrion, the oft-resurrected leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners (last seen in Season 3). He has already strung up three of the men from the raid to be hanged for their actions, which he did not sanction. The Hound wants to kill them himself. He and Beric wind up negotiating for how many The Hound can kill and how he can do it. (He wants to use his axe and make them suffer, but Beric insists that they must hang.) Ultimately, the two of them hang all three men, just as Beric had originally planned. The Hound finds this unsatisfying.

Beric invites The Hound to stay for a meal and tries to recruit him to join the Brotherhood. “You can still help a lot more than you’ve harmed,” he says.

King’s Landing

While speaking to Qyburn, Cersei is informed that her religious nutjob cousin Lancel and a group of the Sparrows have entered the Red Keep and are demanding that she come with them. She’s disappointed to realize that her son Tommen granted them access. Cersei refuses to go with them. She tells Lancel to inform the High Sparrow that if he wants to speak with her, he should come to her.

When Lancel threatens violence unless Cersei complies with his orders, The Mountain steps between them. One of the Sparrows foolishly attacks the hulking knight with an axe. The Mountain tears the idiot’s head from his body, ripping out his spine like a ‘Mortal Kombat’ kill move. (Could that ever really happen? I’d think the head would detach from the spine first.) Lancel and the other Sparrows flee. Cersei is pleased. She doesn’t realize she’s just made a huge tactical error in playing her hand too soon.

Later, Cersei marches through a crowd in the throne room, where Tommen will make a royal announcement. She’s annoyed that she wasn’t invited, and more annoyed when told that she can’t stand with her son. She’ll have to watch from the gallery.

Tommen sits on the throne and announces a date for his mother’s trial. Further, he declares that the barbaric ritual of trial by combat is henceforth officially banished. Cersei must stand for judgment on her own.

For all her scheming and manipulating, Cersei continues to underestimate the High Sparrow. Frankly, she should have seen this coming.

As she reels from this blow, Qyburn sidles up to Cersei and informs her that a rumor she asked him to investigate may pay off. Though not specified here, I suspect she may have some leverage over the High Sparrow after all.

Meereen

His pact with the slave masters holding and the city in a period of recovery, Tyrion is pleased with himself. The Red Priestesses are also preaching the virtues of Daenerys Stormborn’s leadership to the masses as he arranged. Varys, however, remains skeptical about working with religious fanatics. He also tells Tyrion that he has to return to Westeros on a secret mission.

Without Varys to mediate between them, Tyrion has another awkward Small Council meeting with Missandei and Grey Worm. To break the tension (since all seems stable at the moment), he encourages them to have a drink and try to tell jokes. That doesn’t go especially well.

Their meeting is interrupted when an alarm cries out from the city below. A navy armada is heading straight for Meereen. For a moment, I assumed that this must be Yara and Theon coming to make their pact with Daenerys, but Grey Worm instantly recognizes what’s happening. The slave masters have broken the treaty and are coming to take back their property.

The fleet lays siege to the city. Trebuchets fling flaming artillery that sets half the buildings ablaze. A desperate Tyrion wants the Unsullied to mount a defense at the shore (which worked for him at Blackwater), but Grey Worm has had enough of him. He blames Tyrion for his fiasco and bluntly tells him that he knows nothing about military leadership. Tyrion defers to Grey Worm when he says that their best option is to fortify their defenses at the pyramid and make a stand there.

As they talk, they hear a noise from outside the room. An Unsullied goes to check it out. Suddenly, he and the other Unsullied kneel. Tyrion is shocked to see Daenerys walk into the room, obviously having flown in on her dragon. I imagine she’s disappointed with him.

Braavos

In the latest production of her play, the actress Lady Crane makes the changes to her dialogue that Arya had suggested, and gives such a moving performance that she brings the audience to tears – which is quite an accomplishment considering that she’s playing one of the most hated women in the world. When she goes backstage afterwards, she finds the injured Arya in her dressing room, bleeding profusely. The girl has no one else to go to for help.

Lady Crane patches up Arya’s wounds, and explains that she has experience with such things. When Arya asks what happened to the young actress who wanted her dead, Crane implies that she fucked up the girl’s face pretty badly and she’ll never act again. The woman has a bit of a temper.

Crane invites Arya to join their acting troupe and come with her on their next stop to Pentos. Arya says that she actually wants to travel west of Westeros, to the edge of the world, and see what’s there. Crane gives her a drug to help her sleep.

Arya wakes up later to a loud crashing sound. She climbs out of bed and finds Lady Crane murdered, brutally. The Waif stands at the door and chastises Arya for making her do it the hard way. Arya runs and the Waif chases after her through the city. As if she weren’t already in enough pain from her stabbing injuries, Arya falls down a long set of stairs. Nonetheless, she pulls herself up and continues to flee, leaving a trail of blood behind her.

The Waif follows her trail, growing more arrogant by the step. It doesn’t occur to her that Arya might be leading her into a trap. She finds the girl cowering in a dark hovel, illuminated only by a single candle. Arya stands, her sword Needle clutched in one quivering hand. The Waif asks how many times they need to go through this. Arya has never beaten her in a confrontation, and surely stands no chance in her current state.

Then Arya uses Needle to knock out the candle, plunging the room into darkness. Oh shit…

At the House of Black and White, Jaqen finds another trail of blood on the floor. It leads him to find the Waif’s face mounted on the wall with all the other masks. Arya reveals herself behind him. Jaqen is actually pleased with her. This was all some sort of twisted test. He declares: “Finally, a girl is No One.” But Arya doesn’t want to be No One any longer. She proudly proclaims that her name is Arya Stark and she’s going home.

Episode Verdict

There’s no way The Blackfish is really dead. I don’t buy that for a second. Fool me once, ‘Game of Thrones’…

I also feel uneasy at the way that Arya running and jumping around so soon after sustaining a major traumatic abdominal injury reminds me of a particularly ridiculous scene in the idiotic movie ‘Prometheus’.

This episode has a few big plot developments. Namely: Jaime taking Riverrun, Daenerys’ return to Meereen, and the conclusion of Arya’s Braavos adventure. However, all of these storylines felt like timewasters and distractions from the main narrative. Ultimately, the only purpose they really served was to sideline some major characters so that they wouldn’t be around to help other characters. Hopefully, we can get back on track after this.

Despite my impatience with the show, I must admit that this episode is enlivened by some terrific character work in all of its storylines. At key moments, this is the funniest episode in quite a while. At others, it has real emotional impact. Jaime’s speech to Edmure about what he’d do for Cersei is shockingly heartfelt.

33 comments

  1. Timcharger

    Riverrun
    Josh: “Imagine the performance anxiety Edmure must have been under!”

    Edmure probably didn’t know a thing about the Red
    Wedding until the next morning. He probably
    expected to chat with Robb and share details about
    how their recent wedding nights went. Edmure
    was definitely planning to tease Robb that his fear
    of an ugly Frey wife was wrong. Imagine Edmure’s
    surprise that morning.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      It’s been a long time since I watched the Red Wedding episode, but wan’t Edmure still present during the slaughter? I thought he was taken into custody when Robb was killed.

      • Timcharger

        Edmure wasn’t present during the massacre.
        He was taken away in the wedding-night-
        bedding-ceremony before the band played
        the Rains of Castamere. When Edmure left,
        that’s when the doors of the room were
        closed by the Frey guards.

  2. Timcharger

    Riverrun
    Josh: “Brienne announces herself and asks to speak with Jaime Lannister (not The Blackfish).”

    Not the Blackfish? Why the emphasis? I think
    it’s just a matter of first speaking to the
    gatekeeper. You need to see the siege lord
    before the siege-ee.

    I’m sure Brienne wanted to see Jaime, but
    asking to see the Blackfish might have made
    the rear Lannister guards attack Brienne and
    Podrick.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      Point being that she came to see The Blackfish but first asks to speak to his opponent. Yes, you are correct about the reason why she did this. I just wanted it to be clear what happened.

  3. Timcharger

    Riverrun
    Josh: “As soon as he steps inside, Edmure’s first command is that the army surrender and open all the castle’s gates. He also orders that The Blackfish be arrested and turned over to the Freys.”

    I don’t understand the motivations here. What
    is the deal that Jaime is giving Edmure? At the
    end of this, Edmure is back being a captive of
    the Freys. All the Tully men are prisoners. It’s
    not like delivering the Blackfish alone allows
    the Tullys to keep Riverrun.

    So Edmure doesn’t see Jaime catapult his son
    (that he’s never met). But what makes Edmure
    think he or his son’s fate is any safer after this
    deal?

    And the Tully army’s motivations are strange
    here, too. I get that they want to allow Edmure
    inside the walls. But Edmure needs to explain
    his arrangement to the men. The Blackfish is a
    legend. He lead these men to victory in
    reclaiming the castle and their homeland. How
    the army changes allegiance so absolutely
    needs to be explained. Having factions loyal to
    the Blackfish would make more sense.
    Especially after Edmure orders their surrender
    when these Tully men have experienced the
    horror of Frey rule. Sure, they don’t look
    forward to siege and starvation, but life under
    Frey rule was why they fought in the first place.

  4. Timcharger

    Riverrun
    Josh: “Brienne offers Jaime back his sword, saying that it accomplished the purpose she needed it for (rescuing Sansa).”

    George Bush standing in front of a Mission Accomplished
    sign. Return the sword in front of a Sansa Saved sign.
    Add in Jaime’s comment about how women like Sansa
    don’t survive long. GoT has duly warned us. We think
    Sansa has completed her transformation arc, but I’m
    wary of the how George Martin here is reaching down to
    the Sansa rug we’re standing on. Don’t you pull that
    George!

  5. Timcharger

    Riverrun
    Josh: “As Jaime looks out, he spots Brienne and Podrick in a boat rowing downriver away from the castle. He waves and lets them go.”

    River escapes must be an unheard thing in the
    GoT world? The Siege Field Manual doesn’t have
    a chapter covering this tactic? I imagine that
    aerial warfare isn’t something Westeros is
    prepared for, so no personnel is assigned to
    watch a radar screen. But no one has the job to
    survey the river? And that wasn’t a wide river
    with fast currents. Slowly rowing away in a
    narrow river?! I think the Freys and Lannisters
    could play frisbee over the width of that river.

  6. Timcharger

    Riverrun and Elsewhere in the Riverlands
    Josh: “As he waits outside, Podrick is greeted by Bronn, who teases him about being amazed he’s still alive.”
    and “He (the Hound) finds and slaughters four of the men from the Brotherhood Without Banners who participated in the raid.”

    Sadly it’s true. Many men find it funny. So
    twice in this episode it happened. Grabbing at
    another guy’s penis or butthole brings a hearty
    laugh to the prankster. Yes women, that’s
    humor to guys. If women were shown doing
    this, the viewer would be shocked. But men
    doing it, we almost forgot that it happened
    twice in this episode.

  7. Timcharger

    King’s Landing
    Josh: “he declares that the barbaric ritual of trial by combat is henceforth officially banished.”

    Tommen emphasizes that he consulted with
    the Faith to reach this decision. And with
    Cersei’s line: “I CHOOSE violence,” basically,
    we have another situation where a religious
    leader has taken a woman’s choice away.

    • Timcharger

      Whenever Tommen or the High Sparrow
      speaks, I’m like Bronn. I know what they are
      going to say, and I’m sick of hearing it.

      “Don’t say it!”

      “The Faith and the Crown are the two pillars…”

      “I said, not to say it!”

  8. Timcharger

    Braavos
    Josh: “Crane implies that she fucked up the girl’s face pretty badly and she’ll never act again.”

    GoT has such a way of WTF-did-she-just-say?
    We grow to like Lady Crane. She’s a caring,
    motherly figure for Arya. Puppy dogs and
    warm soup is what we’re feeling. And then
    Lady Crane makes me spit-take my beer.

  9. Timcharger

    Elsewhere in the Riverlands
    Josh: “Beric invites The Hound to stay for a meal.”

    KFC or El Pollo Loco must be contacting
    Rory McCann’s agent. Rory is going to make
    bank, with his “I prefer (Popeye’s) chicken”
    commercials.

  10. Timcharger

    Elsewhere in the Riverlands
    Josh: “He and Beric wind up negotiating for how many The Hound can kill and how he can do it.”

    Josh, stop complaining about the Hound’s
    return. I didn’t realize how much I missed
    him. The Hound is arguing about who gets
    to kick over the stumps holding up the men-
    to-be-hung. The Hound is shoe shopping
    while the bodies are still thrashing. Josh,
    you should be complaining why the Hound
    wasn’t brought back sooner.

  11. Timcharger

    Meereen

    Hey Josh, it looks like you deleted “Mereen”
    from your customized spellchecker word bank.
    It’s not important, so I didn’t mention it, but I
    did notice the fix, so a tip of the hat here.

  12. Timcharger

    Meereen
    Josh: “He also tells Tyrion that he has to return to Westeros on a secret mission.”

    And the whole “most famous dwarf in the
    city,” “in the world,” stuff. I fear for Tyrion.
    It’s just not smart walking around Meereen
    unprotected. We are shocked that Arya
    walks around Braavos casually. Tyrion is
    equally stupid doing that too. He’s the
    most famous dwarf in the world, a wanted
    murderer of a king. Both Arya and Tyrion
    should have been smarter about this.

    • Timcharger

      At first I think Varys is going to meet Yara
      and Theon, maybe in Volantis. But if Varys is
      going to Westeros, then maybe it’s Dorne and
      the Sand Snakes? Yara & Theon + Dorne &
      Sand Snakes = 1,000 ships?

  13. itjustWoRX

    This episode just pissed me off. Too much disappointment, too many things that didn’t make sense at all.

    BROUGHT THE HOUND BACK…to join the BWB? (also effectively killing-off any chance of Lady Stoneheart with the return of a very much alive Beric)

    BROUGHT THE BLACKFISH BACK…to refuse to help his family, and be overruled by a random soldier. Lose-lose-die

    TOUTED THE MOUNTAIN/ROBERT STRONG…to rip one head off then effectively be rendered useless

    SAVIOR DANY RETURNS…just to give everyone a dumbfounded look

    ARYA GOES FULL BOURNE vs the T-1000…why the hell did we spend two seasons in Braavos then?

    BRAN SEES THE TOWER OF JOY, HOLD THE DOOR, COLDHANDS!….hasn’t been in an episode since.

    We’re going to get a fantastic battle episode next week, but it will likely leave no time to return to other story lines. Then there’s supposed to be an 80-minute finale, but honestly that’s still not enough time to tie things up in any rational manner. THEN there are the rumors that there are only approximately 12-13 episodes left for the series. As much of a blow-hard I think GRRM is, it’s obvious that the writers and showrunners (while capable), weren’t completely up to the task of finishing this without his writing as the groundwork.

    • Timcharger

      “BROUGHT THE HOUND BACK…to join the BWB? (also effectively killing-off any chance of Lady Stoneheart with the return of a very much alive Beric)”

      I can safely assume that you’ve read the books right?
      I think much of how you feel stems from that. I
      haven’t read the source material on Lady Stoneheart,
      but from what has emanated from the internet, I
      think she may not translate that well on-screen.

      If you love the books, it stands to reason that if the
      show closely follows the books, it would likely please
      you.

      But if the real role of Lady Stoneheart is enact vicious
      revenge, I think that story can be fulfilled by other
      show characters.

    • Timcharger

      “TOUTED THE MOUNTAIN/ROBERT STRONG…to rip one head off then effectively be rendered useless”

      I actually like this. Political maneuvering rendered
      the mighty Mountain useless. The Mountain’s
      master, Cersei got outsmarted by the High Sparrow.

    • Timcharger

      “ARYA GOES FULL BOURNE vs the T-1000…why the hell did we spend two seasons in Braavos then?”

      I’m with you here. I wanted Needle to claim one
      more for the Many-Faced God. Pierce a hole
      into Jaqen.

      A small smile from him is what ends the whole
      Faceless subplot? What the f*ck does that smile
      even mean? Take a life, any life will do. As long
      as the tally is accurate, for the Many-Faced
      religion, that’s their justice?

      It’s the GoT IMF assassin force, who choose to
      accept impossible missions like workplace
      jealousy of traveling troupers. Arya should have
      disavowed the Braavos IMF by disemboweling
      Jaqen.

  14. Timcharger

    Episode Verdict
    Josh: “There’s no way The Blackfish is really dead. I don’t buy that for a second.”

    I bought it. He’s a minor show character.
    Prior to learning this season that he
    recaptured Riverrun, his greatest
    accomplishment in the show was to go
    wee-wee before the Red Wedding band
    played Walder Frey’s request.

    I was disappointed how he went; I hoped
    for more. Certainly the show can bring
    him back. I’m not opposed to that. But
    if he’s gone, then goodbye. The wars to
    come should be fought by the younger
    generations of Starks and Tullys.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      A minor show character? He’s certainly a bigger character than Benjen Stark. Any character we don’t explicitly see die on screen is still alive. That’s the lesson from this season.

      • Timcharger

        While Benjen’s on-screen time was limited
        (as was the Blackfish’s) Benjen’s role in the story
        was much bigger. He being in the Night’s Watch
        contributed to Jon joining. Benjen’s disappearance
        led to Jon traveling north of the Wall, enabling Jon’s
        befriending of the Wildlings.

        When you say, “there’s no way the Blackfish is
        really dead,” that line is apt for major characters.
        After last season, most fans were echoing, there’s
        no way Jon is really dead.

        To equate that for the Blackfish is such hyperbole.
        You say, no way. I say, way.

        • Josh Zyber
          Author

          Prior to his return this season, Benjen appeared on screen for a total of about 3 minutes in Season 1 (split between two episodes) and was not seen or heard from again. The Blackfish has been prominently featured in several episodes and is a major player in the current storyline.

          • Timcharger

            And let’s make a precise count. It’s not
            “3, 4, 5.” And the 3 you’ve hinted at don’t really
            support your gripe.

            1?
            Jon, we shouldn’t count. If the story has him
            become the messianic savior, then that “death”
            is the mythology, and a rebirth story has been a
            motif throughout human history. And that’s
            quite fitting for a metaphorical fantasy story like
            GoT.

            2?
            The Hound, can only be claimed to have died by
            one person. And Arya doesn’t kill him. She
            ABANDONS him. It certainly suggests death due
            to his injuries, but the show didn’t lie to you.
            You’re factoring in the actors’, showrunners’
            lies, when they are supposed to play Hollywood
            poker with the audience. I really can’t believe
            that you didn’t know that actors shouldn’t be
            spoilers.

            3?
            Benjen has always been a missing person story.
            Certainly being lost in dangerous lands with
            Wildlings and White Walkers suggest death. But
            even the show characters when speaking of
            news of Benjen, say he’s gone missing.

            Do you have a 4 and 5? Or was that hyperbole?

            If the data isn’t accurate, you should change
            your mind about this gripe you have. When the
            “facts” end up not being factual, I change my
            previous conclusion. I don’t look for new “facts”
            (no way the Blackfish is dead) to hold fast my
            opinion.

  15. Timcharger

    I figured out Braavos.

    Arya went to college and studied abroad for
    2 semesters (or seasons) at Braavos
    University.

    She went because earlier in her life she met
    a mysterious foreigner. Someone different
    than the same boring guys in her hometown,
    Starkville. He had a sexy accent. He had
    talents none of the local boys possessed. He
    was so much more sophisticated, learned,
    worldly than the friday nights at 7-Eleven,
    and go swimming at the levee riff-raff who
    cheat on all their girlfriends.

    Arya got some coin (okay, just a coin) and
    sailed away to study abroad.

    There she met that man again. Not exactly
    the same man. His face changed somewhat
    (or a lot) . That guy had her try some new
    drugs; you have to, studying abroad requires
    it. She feels transformed from that
    experience. She wants to move there
    permanently and join that culture (cult, same
    thing).

    Arya thinks that she found her calling. He
    will be her soulmate. But wait. Arya learns
    that he has another girl. A Waif, a typical
    ultra-skinny modelesque European hottie.
    How can Arya compete with her? How
    could he not tell Arya about this Waif all this
    time? Arya traveled abroad for him.

    So Arya and the Waif are rivals, and he lets
    them battle to win his affection. But Arya
    finally comes to her senses. Studying abroad
    didn’t really amount to anything. Sure she
    picked up some unique life experiences.
    But this guy wasn’t worth it. The whole
    thing, the Braavos study abroad program,
    was really just a waste of time. Arya just
    wants to go home now.

    George RR Martin knows the typical college
    studying abroad experience.
    🙂

  16. Timcharger

    Meereen
    Josh: “(Tyrion) encourages them to have a drink and try to tell jokes.”

    Tyrion sharing his dream of one day having his
    own vineyard, his own winery. Something seems
    off here. Kind of reminds me of when Barristan
    Selmy out of nowhere talked about how he would
    accompany Dany’s brother, Rhaegar, in disguise
    and go sing in the streets to earn some change.
    And Barristan and Rhaegar once got drunk with
    those donations. Reminiscing on good times or
    dreaming of future good times. And in the next
    episode Barristan dies.

    No, no, no Martin/Benioff/Weiss, don’t f*ck with
    us on Tyrion’s life.

  17. Timcharger

    Episode Verdict
    Josh: “it has real emotional impact. Jaime’s speech to Edmure about what he’d do for Cersei is shockingly heartfelt.”

    Heartfelt? Yeah, Jaime displayed his emotions,
    but I don’t get the emotional sympathy he’s
    getting from some viewers. Jaime has not
    redeemed himself. Show-Jaime is a monster.
    I read that book-Jaime has undergone a more
    redemptive path.

    “The things we do for love,” he says.
    Catapulting Edmure’s infant son is what he’s
    willing to do for love. Definitely agree with
    the SHOCKINGLY part of the heartfelt.

    Yes, show-Jaime is kind to 1 person in the
    whole Westeros world. So we like that he is
    nice to our noble knight, Brienne. But is that
    all it takes? Our standards are that low?
    Throw a child off a building, kill his own
    cousin, incest/twincest, willing to paintball
    splatter an infant.

    Guess when you’re good looking, some GoT
    fans are more forgiving.

    —–

    Jaime’s tactic with Edmure should have
    backfired. Edmure should have said, Jaime,
    you did say that you admired what MOTHERS
    are willing to do to save their children.
    1) start wars
    2) burning cities to ash
    3) free their worst enemies
    Yeah, and I’m a dad (or so they say, I’ve
    never been outside a cell to see my kid). So
    F-you and your offer. Happy Father’s Day.

  18. Timcharger

    Meereen
    Josh: “His pact with the slave masters holding and the city in a period of recovery, Tyrion is pleased with himself. The Red Priestesses are also preaching…”

    Noticed that this new Red Priestess is of African
    descent. We’ve recently seen an Asian. Kinvara
    is played by an Israeli. Now a Black Priestess in
    this episode. Melisandre can appeal to the over
    80 (or 800) crowd, and these new Priestesses run
    the gamut of ethnic preferences.

    I don’t know if inclusiveness is a trait of the Lord
    of Light. Burning people usually indicates the
    opposite. But these evangelistic priestesses
    certainly know that diversity is important to
    market/reach a wider audience.

    • Timcharger

      Good luck. I can’t play this time.

      Can’t watch this episode while traveling abroad.
      HBO Now has licencing restrictions in different
      lands. I sent HBO Now a raven asking to enable
      my account to allow for streaming across the
      seas in Essos. Nope.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *