HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

i was trying to figure out who killed the people the hound was with but then i realized i didn't even know where he was

xpost Not Arya, he meant Enya or whatever the name of Theon's sister is, right?

Er, yeah, whatever the hell her name is. Yara. (In the books it's Asha. WTG HBO.)

Dana had at least some ships a couple of weeks ago until somebody burned them in the harbor.

Thought it was odd that they felt the need to make her gay/bi, just because she happened to be a strong woman taking on a male role? Maybe being overly critical.

the implication was that the dudes from the Brotherhood Without Banners killed McShane and co.

which would indicate a bit of a policy change since we last saw them

Yeah, the Hound even said "They're from the Brotherhood." (Assuming the same guys came back, since it happened off-screen.)

Would news of the whole Tommen/Margaery alliance with the faith have spread already? If so, maybe given their belief in the Lord of Light, the BWB would consider it their duty to wipe out anything having to do with the Seven.

The plotting has been that transparent this entire season!

the boggledness on this thread is frequently boggling to me. Disappointed we got no Sean Bean in this ep though

BTW assuming the BwoB are competent raiders and paid their first visit to recon the congregation, you'd think they'd have wondered "wait where's the big one" after slaughtering everybody else.

i like how the hound was conveniently chopping trees Very Far Away when the attack happened

Not a good episode overall but so so happy to see The Hound again, Diana Rigg's scenes were good and I'm really interested in whatever is happening to Arya.

Considering there's only three episodes of the season left, it does seem like it's been treading water so far.

If Arya just bleeds out in the streets of Braavos and we never hear of the Faceless Men again it'll be a shaggy dog story for all time

literally the only person in braavos that arya has a sympathetic connection with right now is actress lady so i am assuming she will take her in, but not sure how arya recovers enough to be doing the extreme parkour teased (again) by the preview

Magic!

for some reason I was waiting for the dream sequence reveal re: Arya

anyone else disappointed that Arya Stark didn't die?

Someone at io9 posted a long and somewhat ludicrous comment to the effect that that wasn't Arya at all, but Jaqar, based mostly on the fact that she tossed the money right-handed rather than left-handed and seemed overly nostalgic about leaving Braavos. I'm sure the waif wouldn't have noticed the 2-foot height difference, so seems legit.

Something is definitely weird with the Arya thing -- why would she just be hanging out on that bridge after the end of last episode?

Even though I like the character, I was a bit disappointed by the Hound appearing. Way too many people coming back from the dead (I know that technically he didn't die, but this is basically the same thing).

Now it looks like Arya is going to have an almost dead moment. Was wondering if this was going to set up Arya joining the Lord of Light religion, since maybe they would be able to cure her? I could basically see all of the main characters independently converting to this religion. That would be a bit of a weird turn, but might work. Lord of Light worship would be this world's Christianity.

I was against johns return for the same reason - you ruin tension if a death is not a death. Of course there is lots of that in the books.

If Arya died right now it would have no effect on the larger narrative so she's definitely not going to die.

If you want to show the strangeness and brutality of power and monarchy etc, why not highlight the fact that an entire people's hope and fate can be tied up in one person who then just happens to die from food poisoning, or gets stabbed by his guards, and so on. That's not something to shy away from.

Yes but those deaths should effect the story going forward, otherwise it's boring commentary and shitty storytelling.

sucks to get stabbed and get dirty looks from a bunch of people with raver pigtails

Ugh, yeah tell me about it those days are way behind me.

hadn't considered the possibility of arya being the other dude -- i think that would be a better twist than the durden thing

an argument about an old master takes a sinister turn and lovejoy finds himself at the end of his tether, can he talk his way out of this one?

i didn't realize that swerengen was only going to be around for like, 20 minutes.

although I guess that's what they did with withnail too

They're running out of english actors. I hear next episode they're CGIing Oliver Reed in.

I knew Sansa would end up needing Littlefinger, obviously why she didn't kill him.

No way did I want Arya to die, she's one of the last characters I'd want to die. Say what you want about The Mountain, Jon Snow and Benjen but The Hound being back just feels so right.

Seen an interview with Jaqen and Maisie Williams. He called their characters "friends with benefits" and I'm not sure he knew what that meant until she was laughing.

i have zero problems w/ the returns of mountain, jon snow, benjen or the hound

the dialogue in the laddish lesbian scene was truly awful

i was watching this and an ice cream van drove by playing yankee doodle at precisely the point when jaime's army started marching. it added to the sense of silliness that surrounds the show.

I don't really mind about Jon, The Mountain or Benjen either but I'm just saying I don't feel as strongly about them being dead or alive. But Benjen seems quite promising.

i was watching this and an ice cream van drove by playing yankee doodle at precisely the point when jaime's army started marching. it added to the sense of silliness that surrounds the show.

― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Monday, 6 June 2016 17:04 (1 hour ago)

The one that goes past my house plays the Match Of The Day theme tune. Would have also sufficed in this scenario

Btw I just remembered that Sandor Houndo already killed Beric D once. You'd think at least one of the scouts would have recognized him (if they are indeed BwoB associates).

Didn't one of them have tower-formed clasps on his cape? I thought they were men from house Frey, who are in the vicinity dealing with Riverrun.

Confused about the brotherhood as I remember them as being relatively robin hood-esque as far as protecting the regular folk and only fucking w/ Lannisters. Wouldn't have imagined them slaugthering a ton of innocents.

yeah, I was confused by that as well, but then again I don't really remember a whole lot about them (and they were only around for about 10 minutes in season 3 or something anyway, so it's not like we got a whole lot of info)

No we were actually stuck with them for awhile at the time!

whatever happened to the dudes they were originally supposed to catch? i mean obvs the mountain is in kings landing but the other guys that were w/him? i want to say that they started using the bwob name to add to the confusion and to help them catch people unawares but i think i'm making that part up

So I actually think that's the most likely outcome, these aren't actual BwoB, but copycat astroturf BwoB appropriating authentic BwoB culture to disguise their hideous capitalist bandit ethos in a cloak of faux BwoB

Anyway I hope Sandor survives all of this so he has to live out old age being approached by random Westerosi on the street who recognize him and pester him until he says "fuck the city, fuck the kingsguard, fuck the king" at which point they clap and laugh and cheer and he hates it

In the books The Brotherhood's decline into senseless brutality reflects a...change in their leadership

Looks like they're following that here.

But they never really become as brutal as just straight up massacring peaceful citizens, right? I mean, they're brutal, but still.

The Brotherhood are firmly anti renaissance fair.

yeah I guess the massacre is probably to do with who McShane's character was before he got religion. His followers were just unlucky

the change in leadership is LSH right? i thought that was mostly about revenge.

IIRC (I might be fuzzy on the details) the Brotherhood basically devolves into a hardcore faction of fanatics lead by you-know-who and the rest just leave to be outlaws.