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(sorry)

Good news for Tormund though. Brienne is single again.

Wow when the LOD play Red Rover they do not fuck around.

It would be too bad, I think. I'm sure he would do a much better job depicting her turn than the show-runners have. I would hate to see him cave in to what I'm seeing a lot of right now on twitter from GOT fans upset is so similar, but almost the inverse, of what we saw from Star Wars fans over Luke Skywalker. Note: This is not anything I'm seeing in either discussion here! The line is "They ruined her arc." or "They ruined his character." The word "ruined" gives away a lot. The writers can't ruin an arc. They can make a bad one, but they can only "ruin" one if fans have a pre-conceived notion of what they want a character to be or to represent before the actual story tells you that. And that's not reading or watching a story...that's demanding someone play-act a story you've imagined for yourself. In this case taking a story hostage and demanding it have a happy ending. This seems to happen when people either identify the character as a representation of themselves or of someone in the real world who they want to have a heroic role model for, or if they associate the character with moral traits that they value. The weird SW fans associated Luke with some sort of unyielding idealism and unbreakable masculine honor. Some really upset GOT fans seem to assoicate Danearys with an image of liberation and empowerment for under-represented people. Once those identifications set in stone, then any kind of complextiy of realistic failures inserted in the story become a kind of betrayal that is repaid with claims of "ruining" something. Weird side note is that this is in fact how Danearys "sold" her brand to people to convince them to follow her, so in a way, the audience just bought Dany's own line of bullshit (which she probably bought herself) even though she showed herself numerous times to be unable to control the situations she created without resorting to brutality. It is also how the Jedi sold themselves to people. I think there is something interesting in that somewhere when the audience becomes just another consumer of the story's own internal discourse. I don't like this kind of hostage-taking of characters by audiences based on the audience's desire to see a character be one way or another. I didn't like it from SW fans and I don't like it from GoT fans. Now I DO like it from WWE fans because I know it pisses Vince McMahon off. But that's a different story because it's contained to a very particular universe that is safely bracketed off in a Jurassic Park-like compound that only seems to leak out onto a few basic cable networks one every couple of decades.

They get what they deserve.

Good for them. It's hope for guys with little weenies everywhere.

Imagine what all the people that named their kids Khaleesi or Daenerys are thinking right now. They might be regretting that.

This could be a Renaissance painting

Class.

Yes. Tripe.

Ohhhh shit! Best Friends vs Angelico/Jack Evans. This card is the shit.

Dany's work rate has been comparable to Seth Rollins overall. Lots of highspots to get the crowd going, but when you think back on it, it was really hollow. Jon Snow is similar to John Cena in which he's wildly over, but his facial expressions can be a little over the top and his best matches were against better workers. Tyrion is kinda like Daniel Bryan in that he has perhaps the best skills on the roster, but bad booking has brought out some of his worst habits. If I could add polls to a thread after the fact I would.

I really want to not hate this because overall the show is taking some bold narrative steps that restore something of the original tone of the first few seasons (i.e. a "fantasy" show where there is no moral compass guiding the outcomes toward "balance" and there are no heroes, only strength and weakness and even strength is actually a weakness, etc.). But the fact that they are going back to that but botching it so much only makes me fear that others won't take these chances again on such a grand stage. There was enough there before the start of the season to signal that Dany had 1) created lots of problems for herself in the past and wasn't all that good at leadership 2) had a consistent pattern of craving adoration, not getting it, and then resenting that 3) Had backed herself into terrible corners a number of times thinking she was smarter than she is 4) Hadn't learned anything about tactics from any of those mistakes because her answer to them was always "fuck it, burn them all down" 5) Had always gotten away with it where the stakes were not as high as King's Landing 6) Had therefore never solved a problem without resorting to this mass-destruction weapon as a terror tactic It wouldn't have taken much to properly set this up in the first half of season 8. But I think they wanted to preserve something of the shock. But you can't do "plot twists" with main-character development. They're two different elements. Main characters should probably mostly react to plot twists, not be them.

Also, "I hope I deserve this, I truly do" is one motherfucker of a line.

There were definitely hints that she could go bad, but foreshadowing something isn’t the same thing as doing the narrative legwork to pay it off in a way that feels satisfying and earned. And I don’t think they even got close to that.

It's definitely not true that there were only three episodes of build to the heel turn. There have been hints of her being too much like her father basically ever since she first got power. She usually rose above it eventually, but the hints have always been there. It's just, ever since learning that her claim wasn't the strongest, and losing two of her most beloved hanger ons... She's lost that ability to rein herself in And, if nothing else, she is doing exactly what Missandei said to last week. Dracarys.

Like Bebe's Kids.... Dothraki don't die, they multiply. CleganeBowl getting a dragon flyover before the start was great. If there was ever a time to ditch the orchestra and fire up some Dio...that was it.

Happy Mother's Day.

Anyone think that might be Bran finally making himself useful?

best tag team and dad fashion icons

OK, this may take a while but I'm going to try to address all my issues with the penultimate episode... First and foremost this was a beautifully shot episode of television. The Battle of Winterfell looked like shit, and everything was hard to decipher while watching it. There isn't much criticism I can think of about how visually engaging this episode was. Why are Scorpions superweapons in one episode and completely and totally useless in the next episode? Honestly, why didn't she just burn those ships last week instead of losing her entire fleet? Varys is the only person on Dany's small council who is worthy of respect. The Dany descent was poorly executed. It feels like they threw a bunch of bricks together but didn't put any mortar between them to actually build a wall. I just didn't believe she had been through enough in the last few episodes to actually have the kind of psychotic break that she would need to burn the entire city down. Honestly, the worst thing that happened to her was Viserion died, which was 100% her fault because she was flying so low that she didn't see an entire fleet of ships before they saw her when she was flying in the fucking air. The problem is that it feels like the only thing that she's legitimately mad about is that people like Jon more than her...and that shouldn't be enough. Honestly, she doesn't feel like a woman scorned by her tragic life, she feels like a teenager who is throwing a tantrum because she's not the prettiest girl at the dance. Seriously, if we go through the entire show and take account of all the trauma all of the characters have to go through, she's near the bottom of the list. If they are going to pull off the turn from someone who dedicated her life to ending tyranny to someone who is a tyrant, there needed to be a moment large enough that it feels almost justified. Seriously, this show had Sansa shrug off the fact that she was raped by a psychopath like it was no big deal, but Dany can't help that Jon told his little sister a secret. Whatever caused this change needed to be at the level or worse than Jaime pushing Bran out of a window, Ned getting his head cut off, or The Red Wedding. It makes no sense for the people who went through those traumas to be the ones less pissed at the Lannisters than the person who was too stupid to wait for backup when her dragon died. Why are Jon and Tyrion so loyal to Dany? Honestly, what has she done that would make either of them decide to back her more than each other or their own families? I'm having a hard time buying into the fact that our two heroes would go along with Dany's psychopathy. Between the two of them, they've seen evil, fought evil, and should be the first people in line to destroy that evil, except they decided to blindly follow her in a way that betrays their characters. Between the two of them, they should be very opinionated about what makes a good leader. Their entire lives have been shaped by the behavior of horrible leaders. Jon spent his entire life believing he was a bastard because his father Rhaegar decided to run off with Lyanna Stark who was already betrothed to Robert Baratheon. That one act led to the deaths of Rickard Stark, Brandon Stark, Aerys Targaryen, and Rhagar himself. The lie had to keep going because Robert Baratheon would have killed him. Robert recruited Ned, which led to Robert's death, Ned's death, Bran's crippling, Robb's death, Sansa's rape, and Rickon's death. All of those things happened to him and everyone he has ever loved, because of poor leadership. How is it when Dany starts going crazy his only response is, "She's our queen," despite the fact that he has to see where this road is leading. He's seen this movie before but was somehow surprised by the ending. Euron is pretty much the worst character in the entire run of the show...I mean worst than Ros, Locke, Karl from Flea Bottom, and every other goofy character they introduce for no reason. Am I the only one who wasn't invested in him as a character at all? He got into a fight to the death with one of my favorite characters and I couldn't have cared less. Speaking of, shouldn't Jaime have died before him? There is no way possible that Jaime gets those two stab wounds and then just walks around looking for Cersei for at least another hour. Jaime and Cersei's end felt forced and kind of stupid. There is no way in the world that Jaime should still love that woman. His entire character arc leads to him growing into the man he is when he is with Brienne...but nope...run right back to the personification of evil who sleeps around with everyone as soon as you leave the room. Not my favorite plot point. Cersei dying a relatively peaceful death is kind of anti-climactic for one of the best TV villains of all time. Cersei's story arc is the single best thing that the show has done in the entire run of the series. She is very different from the book character, but in ways that make the character more interesting on a television show. Cersei is a paranoid, incompetent, psychopath in the books, but her incompetence is insulated by brilliant people like Tywin, Tyrion, Varys, Littlefinger, Jaime, etc. We get her point of view when those people start either dying off or leaving her side. Until then, readers have every reason to believe that she's a capable leader, but once you get inside her head you can see that she's in way over her head. We get to see her descent and it's fascinating especially on rereads (seriously, if you read Feast for Crows once, it's your least favorite book, but if you read (or listen) multiple times Feast for Crows may be the best overall book.). It provides all the mortar between the bricks to make her descent into insanity work on the page that wouldn't work on the screen. OK, so this episode was full of unsatisfying character moments, but everything involving The Hound was 100% perfect. The Hound is a brutish ass, but he's a fundamentally decent brutish ass. His telling Arya to get the fuck out of Kings Landing before she ends up like him was the culmination of everything he's tried to teach both Arya and Sansa since the beginning of the show. Arya is still a child who looks at the world through a child's eyes, despite how many people she's killed. She thinks killing Cersei would actually mean something. Cersei is a runny nose, yeah it sucks to have snot dripping down your upper lip, but if you want to fix the issue you have to cure the disease that is causing your nose to run. If you just keep cleaning up the runny nose without treating the bigger problem, you'll always have a runny nose. Cersei is just the current runny nose. Dany will be the next one, then Jon, then Sansa, then maybe even Arya if she's not careful. Cleganebowl was also great. Gregor is a force of nature who only exists to cause pain and suffering to everyone he encounters. The Hound feels that it is his responsibility to put an end to that pain and suffering. After hitting his brother with everything he has, he notices the fire down below and he needs to end this fight where it started and spears Gregor into the blaze. I thought that fight was perfect. Sandor fully understood that he was going to die when he went looking for his brother, he just had to figure out a way to take his brother with him.

Kinda now want to see a Charlotte/Andrade vs. Becky/Seth mixed tag. ?

What a difference.

I'm pretty sure she did it all to inspire massive amounts of fear so no one will ever dare ally with Jon against her? That tempered by a strong desire to get revenge for what Cersei had done, the dragon more than the interpreter. I mean, whether that's a sound reason to do anything or whether it's something any of her advisers had ever preached? Beats me? I bet Khal Drogo would have been cool with it though.

PCO on his way to becoming Not Human.

The rest of the Million Dollar Corporation made fun of him for losing to LT and he got mad. Seriously.

So my gut says that 1) this is where Martin was leading things all along and he made it no secret to the producers/writers and 2) as the books will never actually be released, conventional wisdom will always be that whatever ending he would have done would be far superior and more justified to his characters than this. It is now in his best interest to never finish the books.

Also I kind of really hate that we don't get to see Jorah react to all of this. It seems like a huge waste of time to go through the whole thing of having him get cured of Greyscale just to have him mope about in the background for awhile and then get killed before having to actually deal with this. How great would it be to see him dealing with his love/idol becoming a horror show?

Not sure if we're still in spoiler mode here.

Imagine its 1991 and you turn on WCW Saturday Night and they are hyping a Main Event of Vader v. Bill Irwin in a 30 minute Iron Man Match. You watch Irwin throw everything he's got at Vader for 10 minutes followed by 25 minutes of Vader just beating the living fuck out of Irwin, but never going for a pin or submission. He can get one fall at any point but always opts to torture Irwin instead. Then the last 5 minutes are just one long drawn out hope spot for Irwin until he finally says "Fuck it" and as he is about to eat that Powerbomb, he shifts his weight so they both tumble out of the ring as time runs out with no fall being scored. That was Clegane Bowl James

Seriously, for all the faults this season, they've done terrifying really fucking well twice now, in two totally different ways.

2014 year end awards. Male wrestler of the year: I feel bad for Tyson Kidd because any other year he might have won this. Adrian Neville deserves a mention too. Both have done really good work this year. If I was doing separate heel and babyface awards, Kidd would definitely be my heel of the year. But the male wrestler of the year can only be Sami Zayn really. Not only has he been the most consistent in-ring over the year, with the most high end matches, and not only has he been one of the most enjoyable characters, cutting good promos an being consistent and believable, but his 2014 has been a great story, going from the people's favourite who always came up just short when it mattered, to redemption, and ending the year as NXT champion. I didn't go into this project with any emotional connection to Zayn, but I really brought into his journey watching it all unfold. Female wrestler of the year: There are 3 candidates for this, the way I see it. Sasha came on strong late, finishing the year with the most entertaining character on the whole roster, and knocking it out of the park every single time she performed. Charlotte has the best resume of good matches (Vs Natalya, Vs Bayley x2, Vs Sasha x2), which is definitely to her credit, although I think she's been the lesser performer in each of those matches. The award, then, goes to Bayley. Over the course of the year, she's been the most consistent, the most popular and, through her character work has told the best story. It was close between these 3 though. Character of the year: Once again, this is probably the hardest category to judge, because character work is such a focus of NXT. Up and down the card you can point to examples of guys who got over on character work alone, from Breeze to the Vaudevillains to Enzo to Sasha. For me though, the best character of the year has been Tyson Kidd: entitled douchebag. I can't tell you how fun it's been for me, as a Kidd fan, to see what a promotion looks like with him as the top heel. Great. It looks great. Tag team of the year: Eh. Not a stellar year for the tag ranks again, although it's a step up from last year. I think it's between two teams. The Vaudevillains have one of my very favourite gimmicks, although I don't think they've really put it all together in the ring yet. The Lucha Dragons have consistently better matches, but aren't the most interesting. I'm gonna go with the Dragons, if only because they freed us from the Ascension reign of terror. Non-wrestler of the year: William Regal. The best commentator in the history of NXT, by far. Underutilised as GM, but that's maybe for the best as this show really doesn't need an authority figure showing up multiple times a show. Shout-out to my girl Devin Taylor. Keep shooting for the moon, baby girl. Match of the year: Sami Zayn Vs Cesaro from ArRival. Honourable mention to Sami/Neville from R Evolution. Feud of the year: Definitely Zayn and Neville. I really loved this rivalry. Very nuanced, and constantly defied expectations. Leo Kruger award: Konnor repeats. Transitioned from holding the tag division hostage for most of the year, to killing the momentum of Hideo Itami. Show of the year: All the specials have been good, but I think R Evolution has to take this.

Looks like it's the Yankees game and finishing night 1 of the Best of the Super Juniors.

Brienne, Tormund and Ghost living happily together in the North is my dream spinoff.

I'm just excited to see someone else behind the wheel and hopefully some fresh new presentation.

Simmons totally gave up on the last play. If he played until the buzzer, that shot would've been almost impossible to hit.

The Northmen also sacking the city rung hollow for me as well. My only guess for why they were written to do that was because otherwise they'd be fighting the Unsullied and Dothraki which would lessen the impact of the sacking. It's not a good reason.

With the official name in place, I've re-named the thread. Yes, we know how you feel about this card, this venue, and the regime of the country thereof. Enjoy driving your car. Carry on.

The Dothraki and Unsullied acting as they did is basically supported by... every city sacking ever, so I don't need much to justify that. Dany, I don't think is practically motivated. That is, in that moment she isn't thinking that this will help her keep the throne. I think, instead, she sees the people as avatars of the rejection she's faced and feels--rather than thinks--in that moment that they are all present or potential conspirators against her, and thus should be treated like traitors. If you wanted to take it further, she's breaking her toys so no one else can play with them.

Paul London I did love Xavier's Fight Without Honor against John Walters at Final Battle 2003.

Yikes, the radically different treatment of the scorpion threat this week makes it even more clear that they totally screwed up Rhaegal's death. They just needed to make it clear that he was targeted so easily because he was beat down from the battle at Winterfell. Dany still could have freaked out at the loss of her next-to-last 'child' and fled (as she did after Viserion was killed), leaving the Grey Worm fleet to get sliced and diced by Euron. Then it would make more sense that Dany/Drogon can wipe the floor with the Iron Fleet etc as long as Drogon is healthy and they get the drop on the scorpion-wielders rather than vice versa.

You can actually see that point when Jon and Tyrion both had the same "oh man, we fucked up" look at the same time.

You know what helps him look less generic? Maria

1) Starrcast tries to have a screening of the Bret/Magee match, WWE uses the idea 2) Charlie Ebersol tries to buy the XFL IP to start a new league, WWE uses the idea 3) Starrcast tries to screen Shawn/Hall ladder match with commentary from both, WWE uses the idea Quick, someone start a promotion with logical booking, a fresh format/presentation, great characters utilized to the best of their ability, and coherent angles, with no authority figures!