Mirado

@bladededge: You don't have to convince anyone; everything you've typed out is at least backed up by your reasoning, so post away. You simply aren't seeing the forest for the trees, and I'm too preoccupied with the forest itself. I don't think either of us are wrong; you'd like more detail to explain how we got to where we are, and while I'd love that too, I'm more concerned with getting everywhere that needs to be gotten to before we run out of episodes. If that means we have to be a bit confused by Dothraki stealth technology or Littlefinger's teleporter, then I can deal with it if shit goes down in a satisfying way, and you have to admit that (barring the aforementioned lack of setup or context) when Drogon opened up for the first time on those hapless dudes, shit was very satisfying indeed.

In a perfect world, we'd both get what we want, because I'm on your side (read a few pages back about my proposed solution to Littlefinger sneaking five thousand Knights of the Vale through the North to Ramsey's doorstep). As it stands, I hope you can get some enjoyment out of the big set pieces that this breakneck pace will hopefully provide.

I didn't follow the thread that far back, so I misinterpreted what you were going for, sorry. Ah well, I'mma leave it up because that took a fair bit of time to plot all that out, though.

I mean, if your main concerns revolve around the jetpacking and the stealth armies/boats, people have been bringing that up and shitting on it since season two, so you've either lost your tolerance for it or never noticed what was always there to begin with. I was just responding to what you laid out in your previous post and why I didn't agree with your observations about what made this season feel so different, when in all reality that's always been GoT. You've either gotten used to Littlefinger zipping up and down the countryside on a steam powered jetpack or not, but he's always done it and is just an example of how inconsistent time can be between scenes and episodes.

@devise22: Y'know, you're 100% right. She did spend the better part of her screen time rationalizing why antagonizing Dany after their latest defeat was a bad move and that they should play it more like their dad, and it kinda just slipped my mind.

I think some of the naysayers would probably love a pure medieval drama on a smaller scale (I've never seen The Tudors but it might fit the bill), as a lot of what we seem to be fine with (magical shit acting as an override for plot holes, people jetpacking around to keep the story flowing, etc), people seem to have a problem with. There's always been an undercurrent of magic to the show (Dany's dragons were borne way back in season one, after all), but as the focus has switched from house politics to Dragon War and Ice Zombie War, I'm seeing more grumbling.

That's not to discount all of the problems, of course (no magical bullshit made Dorne suck), but I can see where you are coming from.

@cornfed40 said:

Well, let's look at it step by step:

1. Bran is tossed from the tower. Ned assumes Bran was pushed as he's climbed all over Winterfell a thousand times without falling. If he was pushed, it had to be because he saw or heard something he wasn't supposed to. Cat later finds a golden hair in the tower.
2. Ned is sure Jon Arryn dies because he learned something; he doesn't seem to buy the "he took a fever and died" line at all upon investigation. He learns that his last words are "the seed is strong."
3. Ned, with a bit of reading and sleuthing and some armature weird Westerosi genetic investigation, discovers that the kids aren't legitimate. At this point, we still can't draw a conclusion on the father(s) beyond "not Robert." It also sets a precedent for certain houses having overriding genetics, with the Lannisters not among them.
4. The three children, born over a period of years, all have the same features. The father(s) had to have access to Cersei for a long period of time (or multiple smaller periods), and had to be able to do so in secret without being found out (or not, as I'll get to). The father(s) had to have similar features to Cersei in order for Westeros' wacky genetics to work out, meaning it probably had to be a Lannister, even if it wasn't specifically Jamie.
5. Jamie fits the bill on all counts, and was also left behind with Cersei when Ned, Robert, and their buddies/bannermen/servants went on a hunting trip during Robert's visit to Winterfell, exactly when Bran fell. He was then attacked by a guy with a Valyrian steel, dragon-bone handled dagger, ruling out most if not all of the other, non-Lanninster people in Winterfell as who has that kind of money? (Turns out it was Joffery and not Jamie or Tyrion who sent the killer, but hey, it doesn't have to be THE Lannister to cover up for a Lannister for it to work)
6. Finally, Ned still really isn't 100% sure it's Jamie until Cersei confirms it. The scene in the Red Keep's gardens leaves Ceresi room to deny it, but she doesn't. Ned seemed to act on the assumption that it's 100% not Robert and 80% probably Jaime, or something like that, with Bran's fall tipping the scales.

Furthermore, the books add a bit more detail in that both Littlefinger and Varys are apparently aware of the relationship, and Jamie and Cersei were once separated as kids because they were caught fooling around. Ned's not really a Sherlock Holmes kinda guy, so I like to think at least some it can be chalked up to feeling/instinct (a lot of the above is circumstantial, but they do live in an era in which you can have two other people fight to the death to decide guilt, so it's not exactly CSI: Westeros), but it's the perfect motivation for lobbing Bran out a window.

I got some problems with your problems! :D

1) "This season? We see 180 on believe in walk-walkers, a random romance with Jon blooming, and a "is she evil?" plot. Why? Because drama!" I'm actually surprised it took any convincing at all to get her on the white-walker train, as she's seen some weird fucking shit first-hand (first dragons in a hundred years, she's totally fireproof, weird warlock dudes, blood magic witch lady, etc). Dead people coming back to life and legendary enemies returning sound exactly like the type of strange, fucked-up nonsense that she's been dealing with for years now.

The "is she evil?" plot has been brewing for far longer than just this season (her decision to nail up all the slavers, melted a few "wise masters", the history with her brother's/family's madness), and is more about the worries of Tyrion (who joined her after she's been through a lot of the shit that made some of those previous actions justifiable) and Varys (who is really worried he's looking at The Mad King 2.0). I think you're not giving the long set-up of this arc as much credit as it deserves.

Jon's hot and not a shitbag or castrated so that automatically makes him a thousand times more desirable than 99% of the guys she's ever interacted with. Sorry Jorah. D:

2) "Cersei has turned into a one dimensional villain over night. Where as in past seasons she was evil and awful, but there was pathos for it. Protecting her children, revenge for their lose. Now? She's just evil." I mean, she is still getting her revenge (the whole first part of the war gave us the deaths of Olenna and the Sand Snakes/Ellaria, who were responsible for two of her three children eating it), and beyond that I can't actually tell you what she's done to warrant the one-dimensional criticism this season? She's fighting a war and hasn't committed any Great Sept-level atrocities lately; I just think she doesn't give a fuck now that she has no children to worry about (and that may change now that there's another on the way). I do agree with your point about not letting Tyrion go if she knew about the meeting (forgot about that whole "she'll just fly in with dragons and roast us if we take Tyrion" bit, so that's out the window too, sorry. D:) but other than that I disagree with the rest of your Ceresi points.

Hey everybody, it's show da...shit, I actually kinda forgot it was show day until five minutes or so before it came on. Oh well.

This is the main thing I want to talk about (beyond the GoT version of The Magnificent Seven, of course), mainly what this throwaway line means for claims, both in theory and in practice.

A Crash Course on Primogeniture

When talking about medieval rules among the nobility and monarchs for passing down lands, power, titles, etc, there were a couple of modes that were used by the Western Europeans at various time periods (and as Westeros seems to be most closely modeled off of that area and time, it's probably the most relevant thing we have to look at from a historical perspective). Westeros seems to most closely follow the law of primogeniture: the oldest child inherits, with the first son's sons becoming heirs over the second son, and with the oldest daughter placed behind the youngest son. In the case of Done, they seem to follow a slightly different version called Absolute Primogeniture which simply means that children inherent in order of birth without respect to gender. There also seems to be the option to simply nominate the heir of your choice, including members of other families, and the King also has the option of stripping lands and titles for whatever reason he can conceivably justify and giving them to other people.

So, just following the theory (as you'll find out, things were rarely that simple at any time period in real life), what does this mean for Targaryen inheritance now that Jon is seemingly legitimate?

1. Aerys II (the Mad King) had the following children, in order, who survived infancy: Rhaegar, Viserys, and Daenerys.
2. Rhaegar has the only child, which is Jon.
3. Rhaegar and Viserys are dead.
4. Keeping in mind that the sons of the first son come before the second son (or any daughter in non-Absolute Primogeniture), the proper order of succession is Jon and then Dany.

Clear cut, right?

None Of That Really Matters

When asked about succession laws in A Song of Ice and FIre, G.R.R.M. had this to say:

The short answer is that the laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms are modeled on those in real medieval history... which is to say, they were vague, uncodified, subject to varying interpretations, and often contradictory.

Keep in mind the state of things in Westeros:

1. Aegon became the first Lord of the Seven Kingdoms via conquest.
2. Things passed down to his great-great-great-etc-grandson Aerys II in the show, or with a bit more...detail and bloodshed and coup attempts and rebellions in the books.
3. Robert rebelled, now he's king.
4. He dies, his kids are all illegitimate, so it's supposed to go to Stannis, then Renly.
5. They both die, and Stannis burns his only heir (poor Shireen), so.....????
6. Cersei takes over some of the kingdoms?
7. No one (left) seems to like Dany all that much?
8. Everyone still thinks Jon's a bastard and not a Targaryen, but he's already King in The North (for now), so....
9. ????

I mean, Aegon's original claim was "I have dragons and you don't" so you have to decide if you even want to use the word legitimate for any of this, including the parts where you get to be king because your father was. It's hard to say if there really is an "official" true heir; it certainly isn't Cersei (how she'll keep hold of any allies with her army toasted is beyond me), it's probably not Gendry (he seems to be 100% bastard and that's a no-go outside of Dorne), it might be Jon but I'm not sure if he wants it (or if he'll even be KItN by the time he gets back), and it may very well wind up being Dany by virtue of her just re-conquering everything, in which case claims go out the window.

If Jon and Dany hook up (how very Targaryen now that they are related), that'd probably solve most non-Cersei non-dead people related problems, which is how most things went in real life.

If you haven't checked out the behind the scenes for The Loot Train attack, you really should:

The amount of prep required is crazy, and it makes a lot of the nitpicking (mine included) seem a bit silly when you realize just how many little things you aren't noticing.

Y'know, I think you got it. When it's framed like that, it makes perfect sense, and with the little touches they are fond of, I wouldn't put it past them.

They could have done a better job with this one. Ramsey's face is one of shock rather than triumph melting into shock, meaning he didn't expect them to be there. If they implied he was assuming Littlefinger was riding north on his behalf (he gave him Sansa, after all) only to have him descend on his troops, that would have worked better. Show Ramsey getting a raven from Littlefinger saying this very thing, have him hint that reinforcements are coming to Jon (he loves to gloat), have him say "Guess we don't need them" as they surround Jon, the knights appear, Ramsey looks very pleased anyway, and then he's stunned as they run his men down.

All neat and wrapped up with a bow, no stealth cloaking for thousands of men required. We get to the exact same point, but without any head scratching. You could even make it seem like a classic Littlefinger betrayal; after being rejected by Sansa in the north, have him appear to switch sides in order to get in a juicy backstab. It practically writes itself!

Now, Ramsey's North is one of chaos, with quite a bit of it loyal only in theory, but I find it hard to believe that there wasn't a single Bolton loyalist who spotted that many men heading north. Hell, there's only one way to go at the start, so he's nuts if he didn't post at least one man at or near Moat Cailin, aka the only way through a giant fucking swamp known as The Neck which separates the North from everything else.

But whatever. We'd wind up in the same place anyway. It just goes to show that, for all the little details and callbacks that they get right, they seem to flub a few big things from time to time.

I've found some different references to oxybeles hitting the size we see in the show (9 to 15 foot arms), so I'm going to give them a pass. It certainly isn't a scorpion (not torsion and too big), and not a ballista (right size but still no torsion), but it does seem like a plausible thing, as they were capable of hurling a 30 pound stone over 300 yards or two six foot spears at once. That'd do some damage to a dragon.

I've been on the fence with calling this Qyburn's new invention; the books clearly reference Dorne using ballista to take out a dragon (shot in the eye) during Aegon's Conquest hundreds of years before the series starts, but those are the books and I don't think they mentioned it in the show. The scorpion props are a bit of an oversight in that case, and I find it hard to believe that a world awash with crossbows wouldn't have at least one guy thinking "what if we made a really, really big crossbow?" before now, but as it stands, I guess he gets the patent.

Well, if we really are going to nitpick, it's like they took an Oxybeles and slapped some extra bits on the front and added a sweet-ass suspension system to let one guy whip that baby around like he's in a drift competition. So yeah, it kinda is just a big crossbow, although those were apparently real and the Oxybeles is sort of the ballista's forerunner, with the invention of torsion springs being the main difference.

Thanks for the correction, though! You made me go back and rewatch to see if there was any torsion mechanism (nope, good catch) and also made me look up to see if there was any real-life analog to a impractically large crossbow, which there kinda is! I love learning new shit like that.

The Arya vs Brienne fight was everything I always wanted Arya to turn into; a bit of a shame that the road we had to take to get here was so rough, but I can't complain with the results. It's probably my favorite non-big battle scene to date.

The ballista (it's not a scorpion, Jamie! Far too big for that, although technically both are supposed to have multi-man crews and that shit swiveled like Qyburn pimped it out with hydraulics but whatever) was far more dope than I think most of us gave it credit for. I've got no doubt that both Jamie and Bronn will survive, although Bronn's "I don't wear armor because it makes you slow and you sink in it" bit from way back seems fairly prophetic now. The whole dragon battle scene was pretty great, especially the stunt riders.

Bran telling Meera to more or less fuck off was sad, but it goes to show that you can't download the history of the world into your brain without it changing your perspective and skewing your priorities a bit. I understand that he's being played as deliberately distant and emotionally broken, but it's probably the only part of the last few episodes that really hasn't worked for me. Until he either hijacks a dragon or starts dropping some truth to the major players, Bran's only worthwhile contribution has been his ability to generate cool flashbacks.