Game of Thrones, anyone?

The Brotherhood is my favorite faction probably.
if Tormond was in it, it wouldn't be a contest haha

 

Memes are coming LOL.

Spoiler: GoT Season 7 Episode 1

 

Tormond and Lady Tarth could produce an army that would conquer Westeros in a year.

 

Unstoppable.

 

Nice start to the season! There was a notable lack of major action, but I honestly like these episodes the best. Sorry for the several spoiler tags but one can never be too safe.

I like that we got a better look at the Citadel, however...unsanitary that glimpse was.

Spoiler: S7 E1

If there's any chance Jorah gets his condition treated on any level, it'll probably happen where he is, so he's off to a good start. Don't know how I feel about the whole touching Sam thing, though.

A parallel that I think has been around since last season and is getting clearer now is the situation between Jaimie - Aegon and Jaimie - Cersei. It's pretty obvious Cersei has been gradually losing her sanity and reason for some time and Jaimie has had to be the one to ground her ambitions and train of thought.

Spoiler: S7 E1

Example: Cersei pointing out how she has enemies all over the land only then to claim "I'm the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms!" and think herself unbeatable. Jaimie responds with "More like three Kingdoms, at this point." and being the one to realise they're in a much worse position than the queen wants to believe.

More drastic example: Cersei going overboard with wildfire in S6 finale. Jaimie comes back only to find out Tommen commited suicide because of that.

Now, Jaimie killed the last king who acted in such manners, but the situation is vastly different in this case with the queen being his own kin. I think the way this dynamic is going to evolve will be exceptionally interesting.

Spoiler: S7 E1

It would seem that the days remaining in the Wall's lifespan are numbered at this point. The way people like the Archmaester and Jon keep pointing out that it has always stood tall throughout every single winter and summer combined with Bran heading South and the Walkers on his tail are some fairly strong premonitions/evidence. Plus, the showdown with the Walkers has to happen somehow!

Confession: I like Sansa more now than I did in previous seasons. I believe that borrowing some traits from Cersei's character has helped her improve significantly as a character (as long as she doesn't go overkill, I guess).

Last observation, the Dragonglass mine being directly under Dany's territory is clearly the way to go as far as the East and North securing an alliance is concerned, though I do have a feeling that things will not progress that smoothly, and

Spoiler: Late Season 6

Jon being Dany's biological nephew

may play a role in that.

Side note,
This is the Archmaester:


This is Professor Slughorn:


The guy's job is to prevent a nosy young student from accessing forbidden knowledge from the library of an ancient castle largely dedicated to the study of the mystical.

Talk about being typecast...

 

https://www.hofmag.com/star-wars-8-star-john-boyega-slams-game-of-thrones/224609

 

I was actually having this discussion the other day with someone.

In my opinion, I do enjoy colorblind casting. However, if a franchise decides to go with the source material (or, at least what is arguably implied in the source material(, then I don't view that as inherently racist. The fact that almost all of Westeros is white (at least, as far as the major houses go) does indeed demonstrate a lack of diversity in casting, but I'd be extremely surprised to find out that it isn't in line with Martin's Westeros (based largely off of England in antiquity).

And I think that's one of the awesome things about Star Wars- It's not bound by history or fantasy tropes. The only thing opposing diversity is a small group of bigoted fans.

 

I had a discussion about this topic too.

I would suggest John to read first A Song of Ice and Fire. He would find out some parallels with the War of the Roses, which I would expect him to know about - being British himself.

I think that this obsession about diversity quota and political correctness has to tone down because it depends a lot on the media we are talking about. So now who do we blame about the lack of diversity in Game of Thrones? HBO? Martin himself from writing a saga inspired in the dynastic wars in Middle Ages England? Or do we blame the 15th century Plantagenet dynasty and the Houses of York and Lancaster for not having a diverse enough court?

So to each its own. (And I have a mixed heritage before someone thinks I speak from white privilege perspective).

 

Essos (so, close!) Guess Commander Snow doesn't leave the Wall much

And yeah, outside of Westeros the cast is a completely different story. It could be seen as slightly problematic (a "separate but not equal" kind of situation) but again, I'd just defer to the creator's opinion and reasoning.

Given how Essos isn't nearly as popular in the marketing (outside of the very much pale Daenerys), I wonder if Boyega has watched the show or not. Perhaps he simply isn't aware at the diversity in Essos, or maybe he's simply not satisfied (and perhaps justifiably so) with that as an answer.

 

For Force sake....

Same as I told John: study your History, boy!!!

But some people would love to complain about pretty much EVERYTHING.

Or he actually does not know what he is talking about. Something we just tend to criticise stuff from what we have heard or seen.

Of course the characters of Essos are not going to be as publicised as Daenerys or Jon Snow because the main action goes around Westeros.

And yet we have:

Khal Drogo
Missandei
Grey Worm
Talisa Stark
Oberyn Martell
Doran Martell
Trystane Martell
Ellaria Sand
Obara Sand
Nymeria Sand
Tyene Sand (Jessica Pava, anyone?)
All the Unsullied army
All the Dothraki army

 

Okay, I'm gonna go on a rant about the current state of the show.

Spoiler will be used in case anyone isn't caught up.

Spoiler

So, I know the differences between the books and show and unless they start explaining certain things it's just lazy bad writing on the show. Starting with Euron and his magical fleet of ships that are not only built in RIDICULOUSLY short times but are also inexplicably able to make long journeys then double back and still catch people before they have any chance to do anything about it. What the living fudge? In the books it's blood magic. But they've made no effort to explain it and I know why...but more on that later.

Is Jamie using blood magic too and we just don't know? How the hell is he going from King's Landing to Casterly Rock to get his troops then to Highgarden as fast as he does on land with an ENTIRE Maclunkey ARMY!?!?!? Jesus. The show has always messed with time but this is absurdity.

Why is it so absurd? Well, that's because it seems to only effect Euron and Jamie. Everyone else is moving at normal speed. Euron had time to catch Yara and the Sandsnake, get back to King's Landing. Show them off to Cersei. Then leave and catch the Unsullied off guard at Casterly Rock. The Unsullied should have been able to land, defeat and actually defend Euron instead of being caught off guard. That's just dumb.

Is Tyrion and idiot now? Why wouldn't they defend Highgarden? They have the damn gold. This is just dumb too.

Why is all this happening? Because the Lannisters are awful and were pit in a situation they couldn't win so the writers are taking shitty short cuts to "level the playing field" instead of working within a good story. Now we have to deal with this manufactured drama instead of getting actual results.

 

I know they are closing in on the end, but they aren't just covering at a rapid pace, people are just moving faster than they should for plot's sake. And that is just bad writing. It doesn't have to be that way, even with 10 episodes left.

 

The writers have said in the past that the various storylines in an episode don't necessarily occur at the same time. Think Dunkirk, I guess, if you've seen that (not really a spoiler for the movie, by the way).

That being said, I'm not a fan of that strategy on the TV show. Seems unnecessarily confusing, and it's not like we don't have characters who we set aside for a while, anyway. After all, Bran wasn't on an entire season of the show, and longer even for Rickon.

 

It really is starting to feel like they're doing the Winds of Winter storyline (from what we know from GRRM's excerpts with Dany taking the Stormlands) in an abridged way. I guess I can't fault them since they have so little episodes left before the end, but I cannot help but believe that Seasons 5 & 6 should have been done differently to make more room/time for the Season 7 plot.

However... do we really know if Euron was with his fleet at Casterly Rock? It's not a stretch to assume he just sent the fleet alone while he was off in KL trolling Jaime.