Game of Thrones

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Interesting. George R. R. Martin has sworn that in the books, Cold Hands is not Benjen, and his identity remains a popular fan-debated mystery to this day. It looks like the show decided to simplify things and introduce him as Benjen, though, who's whereabouts are still unknown in the books. While I don't mind this liberty being taken, I do question why they waited so long to reveal him when he should have turned up as far back as season four in order to lead Bran to Bloodraven in the first place. It kind of feels like Deus Ex Machina that he just happened to get to Bran and Meera in the nick of time rather than having been their travel companion for quite a while. It's a nitpick on my part, but certainly worth mentioning.

As for the play treating Joffrey and Cersei like heroes, it's important to know that while most characters that we know from the show and books think of them as terrible people (and rightfully so), the less educated commoners don't know any better, and thanks to Margaery giving to the poor and convincing Joffrey to do so as well, they actually have a pretty good reputation among many commoners. The same was true of Aerys II Targaryen (aka "The Mad King"), who in the books many commoners still think was a just and noble king. Add on to that the fact that Braavosi who live on a different continent entirely would be even more oblivious to the politics of Westeros, and it's easy to see how they have the rather skewed interpretation of reality that they do.

I have to question why Sam saw fit to take Heartsbane. It's like he's asking to have his father make good on his threat to kill him. I understand that The Watch needs Valayrian steel swords in order to fight the White Walkers, but it's not like one extra sword will make a difference, and I doubt that's what his logic for taking it was in the first place. That said, I also must question why his father hates wildlings so much. It makes sense for northern lords to hate them because they frequently raid their villages and cause havoc in their lands. Southern lords, with the exception of those who are actually members of the Night's Watch, have never had to deal with wildlings, don't even take them that seriously, and typically couldn't care less about them. In fact, while Sam hasn't met up with his family again in the books yet, he still plans to send Gilly and Sam Jr. to stay with them, and doesn't even contemplate hiding the fact that she's a wildling since he knows that nobody over there will make a big deal out of it.

As for the stuff in King's Landing, I'm pretty positive now that the High Sparrow is full of shit. He's totally a player in the game of thrones, and he has everyone convinced that he's a man of pure faith. Clearly he has ulterior motives, and real skills at getting what he wants by the way that he managed to manipulate Tommen to back his cause.

And finally, we return the the plot from the Riverlands. It's about damn time that we address the aftermath of the Red Wedding that the show completely neglected for the last two-and-a-half seasons for some reason. It's cool to see the Freys again and we know from the trailers that Jaime will be heading down to Riverrun just like he does in the books. Also we get to see Edmure again, and it'll be interesting to see how the show handles this version of the plot-line involving him and the Blackfish.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, the twist with Benjen did seem too by-the-books for Game of Thrones. Like why the Children of the Forest pick him? Why not other Night's Watch members? And why not more Night's Watch members so they could've defended their cave a little better?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, actually there is a reason for why they would pick him over others: He's a Stark. The Starks are supposedly the closest descendents of the First Men, who were well acquainted with the Children of the Forest. For whatever reason, Starks apparently have some special characteristics about them which make them more suceptibilities to the Children's magic.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I just realized for people who will watch this season in marathon format, Benjen arriving to save the kids happens only a few minutes after Hodor sacrificed himself. Kind of devalues that scene when viewed that way.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

 You could argue that Hodor's sacrifice bought them just enough time for Benjen to reach them, though.

[Peanutbutter]

I'm really liking where Bran's story is going. Now with Benjen it feels like a lot is about to happen. Such a nice contrast to those horrible Sand Snakes that have thankfully not shown up in a while.....

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, what exactly is the big rush for Jon to go into battle against the Boltons? It'd make sense if it was established that Ramsay and/or Lord Umber were marching forces against him, but it wouldn't make sense for them to leave the strategic stronghold of Winterfell, especially since they have Rickon as a hostage, and it's not like Jon moving to fight them any faster will change that fact. As dumb as Sansa has been in the past, including in this season, she's oddly enough the more sensible battle strategist here. There are still at least half a dozen other houses that Jon could ask to fight for him, and he really needs the men.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It does annoy me how "The North Remembers" now means "Remember that Robb broke a wedding vow but choose to forget that a flaying traitor and a literal troll with a bridge betrayed your guys". I know that was a dumb part on Robb's, but that's like watching a house go on fire and blaming the victims because they had to rush in and save an heirloom. Maybe Jon should have asked Melisandre to work some magic to convince the Northern houses. That said, I liked this episode. If only to see Sandor back. Also liked Lyanna Mormont's scene. Didn't like how Arya's Braavos arc is still slogging on.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

On the contrary, I think that Arya's story-line is being incredibly rushed. She couldn't have learned that much from the House of Black and White in such a short amount of time, as all we saw her do is learn to fight with a stick and use face disguises....which she no longer even has access to. Most viewers look at it and just get bored that nothing "big" is happening, but in the books it's a throughly fascinating character arc for Arya. In the show they just rush past everything to try and get to crowd-pleasing moments, but Arya barely changes at all from her time there, and ultimately it feels meaningless for her to have come in the first place.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, this is what happens when you veer off book way too much and then try to loosely tie into story-lines from the source material without actually having had the same set-up and circumstances as in that version.

Literally every story-line presented in this episode has glaring plot-holes. The Jaime Riverrun scene is in the books, but the character motivations are wildly different and actually make sense. At this point in the story, Jaime has outright broken up with Cersei and is undergoing the final phase of his redemption arc. You know, that thing that he was going through after meeting Brienne. That thing that the show writers clearly flat-out forgot about since any progress that Jaime made between seasons one and four has now been completely undone, begging the question for what the whole point of it even was in regard to the show. Why develop a character and then undo all of the progress that was made by that character?

Also, Blackfish on the show has pretty much been ruined. They turned him into an ass-hole for no reason and had him act like a total dick to Edmure for absolutely no reason at all in the earlier seasons. I'm sure the writers thought that it would make him look cool or bad-ass if he gave no fucks. That was just a shallow character trait that caused him to look like an ass-hole and their insistence on sticking to that personality for him really bit them in the ass in this episode. Now, for once again no good reason at all, he decides to stay back and die in Riverrun because he says that it's his home....except in both the books AND THE SHOW it was established that he was estranged from his brother and didn't even live in Riverrun for most of his life past his youth. So he should really have no strong attachment to that location. Furthermore, whether he has met her in a long time or not, Sansa is his direct family. She's some of his last remaining family. Even if he has no men to take to her, why not come and be a military adviser, which she desperately needs and which he is supposedly a genius at. For the record, Jaime does send Edmure into Riverrun in the books (though under different pretenses and without threatening to kill his family), and tells him to deliver them the Blackfish in chains in exchange for sparing the lives of him and all of his men. But since Edmure and his uncle aren't on such bad terms in the books since his Uncle actually respects his family, he lets him escape and just tells Jaime that he got past their guards, and there's nothing that Jaime can really do about it (and yes, he still spares Edmure and his men because he's not a cold-blooded ass-hole anymore). Also, Brienne does show up in the Riverlands and meets up with Jaime, but not at castle Riverrun, and once again under much different circumstances and serving a character that the show cut-out for no reason.

I could go on a bunch about how poor the quality of the writing and lack of logic is for all of the other story-lines in this episode, but instead I'll just finally give my thoughts on how they handled Arya's story-line: It's some of the dumbest writing that I've ever seen from a show as big as this. So, Arya clearly knew that the faceless men were after her yet went around in broad daylight gallivanting around the city? Well, how did that turn out? Oh, she got stabbed and almost killed? No shit. Then she runs into the only person who she knows in the city and who just so happens to have Maester-level healing skills, but even then she can only do as much as to stitch her up and dull her pain so that she can rest. Yet, miraculously in less than a day she is healed enough to run around the city and jump from pretty dangerous heights even for a completely healthy and uninjured person. Also, it's a really lucky thing that the Waif decided to kill Lady Crane but kindly wait for Arya to wake up so that she could talk to her like a Bond villain and then give her a chance to escape. After running around for a while and being incredibly reckless, it's only when Arya is strategically next to a point of tactical advantage that her stitches decide to open up, but it's OK, because now she's close enough to just limp her way into a dead-end. The Waif follows her like a clueless idiot and then it's another lucky thing that she decides to close the door behind her so as to block out any extra light so that Arya can put out the candle and fight her in the darkness so that she has a tactical advantage. What if the Waif didn't decide to close the door? Did Arya have a plan for that? And then once she delivers the Waif's face to the the House of Black and White, she is miraculously healed again. Did she redo her own stitches before coming there? Because, the last time that we saw her she was bleeding out pretty badly. Then she threatens Jaquen by holding a sword to his chest and says that she's Arya Stark and that she's going home. And....that's it. Doesn't she think that maybe, just maybe, Jaquen can still come after her, or even send someone else after her? (Or maybe not, since on the show he appears to be the only actual faceless man in existence). I mean, why wouldn't he come after her? What changed after she killed the Waif? But, OK, she just lets him go and he just lets her walk out. Maybe there's a clever, well thought-out motive for each of them here. Or, maybe it's all just lazy writing.

Look, I'm a fan of the show, and I clearly spoke up in defense of things that other people have complained about when I felt that it was unjustified or unwarranted. I have praised the things that I like about it, so this isn't just me being a nitpicky book reader. That said, I bring up the books because while the show is clearly trying to follow the back-bone of that story, there is a clear difference between something that was carefully thought out and written with much more detail and with many other plot-lines and characters over the course of two decades as opposed to something that literally three writers came up with in just a few months and with less than ten hours of screen-time to cram in well over a thousand pages worth of content. And I get it, making a show is hard work and I don't fully blame the showrunners for all of the show's problems. Some things are just unavoidable. That said, I'm going to call out when I think that something is of poor quality or outright shit, and this episode was just dumb. I didn't like it at all. It's not as bad as episode two was for me, but it's still pretty bad, and I had to get that off my chest because it really pissed me off as a fan of the source material.

Having said that, I'm still looking forward to BastardBowl next week, even though the set-up itself is already rife with plot-holes and gigantic lapses in logic. I'm just going to turn off my brain for that one and enjoy the carnage.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I was watching the episode while on a skype call, and everyone could hear me groaning at the Jaime and Arya scenes. I heard someone suggest that Jaime's threat to Edmure was just all talk and he's secretly developing, but there's nothing further to believe in such a notion.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, that was a fun turn off your brain sort of episode. Not a whole lot of logic there, but to be fair, the big battles scenes in the show have always been more about Hollywood style convenient timing than the more realistic strategies of the books.

Ramsay playing that little game with Rickon really irritated me, though. He should have killed him outright. Letting him run off just on a chance of luring out Jon Snow and killing him early was one of the most idiotic things that Ramsay could do. I mean, yes, he did actually kill him because, again, convenience; but what if he missed and didn't succeed at killing either Rickon or Jon Snow? He would have just let his most valuable hostage AND biggest threat wander straight into his enemy's hands. That's just cheap writing, IMO.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I'm intrigued by the growing trend of the fan theories for more questionable decisions being dashed. Like the one that suggested the Waif had stabbed a fake Arya because of the latter's odd actions beforehand, or that Shaggydog was alive because that head was far too small to be a wolf's head.

For the episode itself, I thought it was the show trying to repeat the successes from Blackwater and Hardhome but only getting a fraction of what made those episodes great. It was entertaining, sure, but felt like everything that Game of Thrones was meant to subvert back in the early seasons. A Jon Snow who's been resurrected and has amassed his own following of lowborn free folk has to go up against a unquestionably evil man who will shoot arrows at his own troops and takes pleasure more in reveling in his villainy than actually getting the quick kill (he had two chances to shoot Jon Snow, but decided to shoot Rickon and Wun Wun instead because we need to be reminded that he's a dick). There's no moral gray area in there, or anything that makes you think deeply about how both sides are going into this. But that said, the directing was wonderful and it's nice to finally see the Bolton subplot get resolved. It's just that comparing this to earlier, more strategic battles from the show feels like comparing Abrams Trek to show Trek. More focus on blood and action than a focus on tactics, leading to a battle of who can punch the hardest than one of wits.

On a lighter note, even Rickon agrees that he should've serpentined.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

https://youtu.be/3xSeUl66rXM

That basically sums up how little any of this battle makes sense for anyone actually paying attention to logic.

Really, with how much critical acclaim this series still gets despite the writers clearly being lost without George's material to ape from, I'm just waiting for the day that we get a remake more accurate to the the novels, once those are actually finished, called Game of Thrones: Starkhood. Everyone will then call it the greatest show of all time and everyone who claimed that the first show was a perfect masterpiece will suddenly turn on it and say that it sucked ass whereas the remake is flawless and anyone who doesn't love it is immediately a vial shadow demon-spawn and must have had their brain rotted by greyscale.

Anime has proved that this is the way that people think.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Watching Preston's videos right now. He reminds me of SFDebris if he sounded like hbi2k.