Game of Thrones Season 6 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]

[Excited Penguin]

Podrick killed them while everyone else was busy with Brienne.
(Not really, but horse bigger than dog could work to get the dogs away, at least)

LOL. Sure - if Podrick can kill trained swordsmen in melee combat now - he may just as well be able to stealth-kill multiple dogs, while no one is watching...

And yeah - a horse might scare dogs away... Except these are hounds - they're bred and trained for hunts, they've been around horses all their lives. I mean - the Bolton men were on horseback in that very scene.

The hounds may have fled the scene and we'll see them return to Bolton thus showing the mission was a failure.

[Aegon]

What was disappointing about it?

I felt like nothing happened. I'm overly critical because I really hated most of Season 5, so I was hoping they would wow me with the premiere and they didn't.

In the books Doran appears weak but actually has a grand plan to fight the Lannisters. In the show he is actually weak, and now the worst characters in the entire cast are the only characters left in Dorne lol. I also found an insane amount of irony in the fact that they were mad at Doran for not avenging their family, and then they proceeded to kill Doran and Trystane...both members of their family. In order to avenge two Martells, you have to kill two Martells? I don't think this was very well thought out.

I don't know why they decided to give the Dothraki such high senses of humor, not to mention the fact that one of them worries about the intelligence level of the girls he lays with. That seemed....pretty un-Dothraki, since Jorah noted in the first season how they sort of just fuck anything that moves. It was funny but it didn't fit.

Those Bolton hounds are the worst hunting dogs of all time. "I've seen what those hounds can do," says Theon. Now I've seen what they can do too: run the fuck away from any conflict! Yeah, scary hounds those are. 

The ending implied that it is the choker that gives Melisandre's appearance, right? But she's taken it off before and didn't turn into a 400-year old woman.

[Homeless Nutter]

The hounds may have fled the scene and we'll see them return to Bolton thus showing the mission was a failure.

Well, yes - at this point the dogs silently retreating is the only possible explanation. Not a very satisfying one, though, considering that they're Ramsey's best hounds, that presumably have killed and eaten people before and they just spent some amount of time chasing prey, which is right there, defenseless and weak... But they just turned their tails and fled - without as much as a whimper and off-screen - as soon as they're released because some lady showed up and fell off a horse...

Hell - perhaps the dude holding the dogs just decided this wasn't worth his time and walked off, dragging the silent dogs with him...

Either way - I think this was very clumsy editing. A few sounds of dogs howling, growling, barking and/or scowling, with decreasing volume as the fight goes on would probably satisfy bored pedants, like myself.

[Clueless Morgan]

Just finished the episode - loved it!

Jon.... is dead.  Seems like he's taking a long time to turn into a White Walker, if that's what's going to happen to him.  Looks like Melisandre's faith has been shaken a bit, having seen Jon in the flames and him now being dead.  Ghost crying at the start of the episode was so sad - gave me the feelz - and I hope that whatever happens with Jon that Ghost isn't killed.  Too many direwolves dying on this show.

Brienne coming to Sansa's rescue was a great moment, glad Sansa finally has someone who is unabashedly on her side.  Hurray for Brienne's stubborn honorableness!  I'm really glad Theon wasn't killed in attempt to save Sansa, too.

Cersei.... hoo, it's hard to have sympathy for her.

Margaery is in a bad place but I hope Tommen's (perhaps misguided) love for her manages to free her.

Arya is in a pretty shit place - she seems beaten down.  She's not shown thinking at all about what Syrio taught her in that fight, so maybe that's coming up?

Dany is going to be taken to the Dosh Khaleen now?  Hmm...  All those Dothraki men looked like parodies of Drogo to me.

Tyrion is left in Dany's place to rule in Mereen while she's... kidnapped?  Time to prove his worth, his wit and his moxy to all the haters back in Westeros.

Is Jorah going to infect Daario with the grey-scale?  He's such an asshole!  "If I can't have her, at least I can make sure this other guy can't have her either!"

If your disappointed because the books will never be finished... then the show becomes the cannon. In this I'm more with you. It is a shame when fame and fortune hijack a good tale. But that's as much on the author and his lack of desire and motivation as anything. He's already the biggest thing in show biz right now. I sincerely think I'd be hard pressed to continue such an enormous task having stuck it big so early in the completion of said task.

10 years ago, the biggest thing in show biz was the Harry Potter series and JK Rowling didn't have a problem finishing her series with the juggernaut of Hollywood barreling along behind her.  Only 4 of the 7 books had been published when they started filming the movies so JKR published the last 3 books in the time it took Hollywood to release 5 movies (one of which was the longest of the series), so not finishing the ASOIAF series (or at least publishing book 6 by now) before the show caught up to the books is GRRM's problem.

Ultimately, it's up to him whether to continue writing and/or finish the series.

All of a sudden Podrick - who's not a swordsman and a pretty feeble rider - is able fence on horseback against trained soldiers? Not to mention that the way they were fighting (banging sword against sword) was pretty lame, even by TV standards. 

Even tho it's totally unbelievable that Pod is suddenly able to hold his own with a trained soldier, in the moment I didn't really care - fuck yeah, Pod!  Beat their asses!!!

Also, Melisandre reactions! LOL
mashable.com/2016/04/24/melisandre-old-twitter-reactions/

Those are great

Best one:
https://twitter.com/MommyLovesWine/statu...5693294592

Maybe Theon uses his dried up hollowed out weiner for a dog whistle? Got it back from daddy and put it to use.

Time for my favorite GOT GIF!!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEmbzsQn2Iz/

Awesome!  I love that you can see the wave patterns in the strings as they're played!

In the books Doran appears weak but actually has a grand plan to fight the Lannisters. In the show he is actually weak, and now the worst characters in the entire cast are the only characters left in Dorne lol. I also found an insane amount of irony in the fact that they were mad at Doran for not avenging their family, and then they proceeded to kill Doran and Trystane...both members of their family. In order to avenge two Martells, you have to kill two Martells? I don't think this was very well thought out.

I thought it was given a reasonable explanation on the show based on what we know of the characters involved.  Ellaria is irate that Doran isn't avenging his brother's death, nor had he avenged Elia's death, and on the show Doran isn't shown plotting revenge on anyway but simply trying to rule his people.  Ellaria states quite plainly that he is weak, and so is Trystane, so she decides that if anything is going to be done about revenge on the Lannisters Doran and Tystane gotta go!

Made perfect sense to me....

The ending implied that it is the choker that gives Melisandre's appearance, right? But she's taken it off before and didn't turn into a 400-year old woman.

Perhaps it's less about the necklace being removed and more about the magic she possesses.  She seemed to not only be undressing, but intentionally doing so in order to see herself "in her true form" (if that is her "true form").

[/Speculating]

[Homeless Nutter]

[...]In the books Doran appears weak but actually has a grand plan to fight the Lannisters. In the show he is actually weak, and now the worst characters in the entire cast are the only characters left in Dorne lol. I also found an insane amount of irony in the fact that they were mad at Doran for not avenging their family, and then they proceeded to kill Doran and Trystane...both members of their family. In order to avenge two Martells, you have to kill two Martells? I don't think this was very well thought out.

Yeah, after the last season finale I was wondering - what clever, sneaky ploy the Sand Snakes were going to pull off in order to get away with murder of princess What's-Her-Face. Turns out - they were just going to stab to death everybody who might have a problem with it - by which I mean 3 people, evidently. Of course! How come I didn't think of that?

Conveniently - now the writers don't have to worry about Doran's plans. I guess the Dorne plot will now be just Sand Snake b*tches stabbing everybody in the back of the face... The show caught up with the books and now the TV writers have to come up with sh*t. And it - kinda - shows...

[...]The ending implied that it is the choker that gives Melisandre's appearance, right? But she's taken it off before and didn't turn into a 400-year old woman.

Yeah, well - it's magic, so who knows?... But anyway - that scene was a very, very cruel trick to play on fans. I saw Melisandre getting her knockers out, I got all excited, got the lotion out and everything... And then THAT happened... Very off-putting. I almost didn't finish...

[Homeless Nutter]

Even tho it's totally unbelievable that Pod is suddenly able to hold his own with a trained soldier, in the moment I didn't really care - fuck yeah, Pod!  Beat their asses!!!
[...]

Well, yeah, sure. I love Pod as much as the next guy, but I prefer him being more of a wimp, because it emphasizes his value as a squire and friend, if people like Tyrion and Brienne want to keep him around, despite him not being very useful in combat.

Also - Podrick is a guy, who gets to f*ck prostitutes for free, because he's so good in the sack. So he does not need to be any more bad-ass.... Hmmm... Now I'm thinking - Pod should be f*cking Brienne. I mean seriously - if there ever was someone in desperate need of a good shag - it's... me. But also - Brienne...

[FatAndFaithless]

Gotta remember pod is a squire, trained to fight and specifically being groomed to become a knight in the future. The Bolton soldiers could just be some man-at-arms peasant who knows how to track prey with dogs. We've already seen pod hold his own, he was right on the middle of the battle of blackwater bay with tyrion and one-shotted a kings guard with a spear.

As for the Dorne stuff, I think this episode was like ripping off a bandaid for their story line. The overarching goal of the dorne storyline is to get ellaria in power and dorne supporting a targaryen restoration. I think the writers saw how little dorne was liked last season and thought 'shit, we need to get this wrapped up quick'. Hopefully this means less of dorne in the future unless necessary.

[Clueless Morgan]

Well, yeah, sure. I love Pod as much as the next guy, but I prefer him being more of a wimp, because it emphasizes his value as a squire and friend, if people like Tyrion and Brienne want to keep him around, despite him not being very useful in combat.

FAF makes some good points that play into why I don't personally find it totally unbelievable that Pod might be able to kick some ass. I guess this is one of those cases that I don't have a big issue with inventing a bit of backstory as to why Pod might miraculously be good in a fight.

Maybe the guy he was fighting was injured in some way so not in top form? Has Pod been training with Brienne? She's a good enough swords(wo)man to go against Jaime Lannister and hold her own (granted, a tied up, weakened Jaime), the only barrier in the way of that situation would be Pod getting up the nerve to ask to be trained - or, showing what a crap swordsman he is that Brienne herself decides he needs lessons.

FAF points out that Pod did survive the battle of Blackwater so maybe he's just a guy who can deliver in a bind?

[Excited Penguin]

What was disappointing about it?

I don't know why they decided to give the Dothraki such high senses of humor, not to mention the fact that one of them worries about the intelligence level of the girls he lays with. That seemed....pretty un-Dothraki, since Jorah noted in the first season how they sort of just fuck anything that moves. It was funny but it didn't fit.

Well, it's probably because of Daenerys's demeanor. People will often challenge alien authority in that manner, even when it's only superficially perceived. In other words, it's got much to do with subliminal reactions and may not even be a conscious effort on the part of the writers to have put them in but it's good writing nonetheless.

10 years ago, the biggest thing in show biz was the Harry Potter series and JK Rowling didn't have a problem finishing her series with the juggernaut of Hollywood barreling along behind her.  Only 4 of the 7 books had been published when they started filming the movies so JKR published the last 3 books in the time it took Hollywood to release 5 movies (one of which was the longest of the series), so not finishing the ASOIAF series (or at least publishing book 6 by now) before the show caught up to the books is GRRM's problem.

Ultimately, it's up to him whether to continue writing and/or finish the series.

First of all, HP are for children and young-adults, ASOIAF are for adults. ASOIAF is way longer and more complex than Rowling's wizard world story, not to mention clearly better written. 

I understand many of you feel frustrated because you love the story so much and want to have someone to blame, but writers are artists and the really good ones especially have a very tough job to do. You can't rush creativity out of them and you shouldn't blame them when their books don't come out as soon as you want them to. Besides, I thought his books always had these huge intervals between one another's date of publication, what's so abnormal about it now?

[SteelCurtain]

Well, yeah, sure. I love Pod as much as the next guy, but I prefer him being more of a wimp, because it emphasizes his value as a squire and friend, if people like Tyrion and Brienne want to keep him around, despite him not being very useful in combat.

FAF makes some good points that play into why I don't personally find it totally unbelievable that Pod might be able to kick some ass. I guess this is one of those cases that I don't have a big issue with inventing a bit of backstory as to why Pod might miraculously be good in a fight.

Maybe the guy he was fighting was injured in some way so not in top form? Has Pod been training with Brienne? She's a good enough swords(wo)man to go against Jaime Lannister and hold her own (granted, a tied up, weakened Jaime), the only barrier in the way of that situation would be Pod getting up the nerve to ask to be trained - or, showing what a crap swordsman he is that Brienne herself decides he needs lessons.

FAF points out that Pod did survive the battle of Blackwater so maybe he's just a guy who can deliver in a bind?

https://youtu.be/8lSs3meWfe0

Brienne trained/is training Pod. (1:34 in the vid above, you have to watch it on YT, apparently)

Also, I'd imagine the Bolton contingent was men from the kennels who were familiar with the dogs. Probably the best trackers, also likely not the best warriors.