Throat

Jon, Sansa and Arya are such idiots. From the start of the series, the plot has been propelled by Stark stupidity. They take after Ned. Maester Luwin instantly knew Sansa's note was written under duress. Arya's just clinging to an old feud her and Sansa had when they were both children. She's picking up exactly where they left off in season one despite how much they've changed. Littlefinger's playing these dopes like a fiddle. I've seen people try to explain away their stupidity like they're actually playing him, but he wasn't in that room with them. If it's all an act, they'd probably want to make sure he witnesses it. Do they just assume he's always listening under the door? So that means Arya's cool with him knowing her Faceless Men secrets? And what if everyone in Winterfell found out that Arya was once Tywin's cupbearer? She had no choice there, but neither did Sansa. She also failed to kill him. She had a master assassin willing to kill any three men for her and she wasted it on a few nobodies. How many Stark bannermen died because of that missed opportunity? Not to mention her mother and brother. Let all the lords of the North know about that when you spill the beans about your sister. It's only fair. Going beyond the wall for a wight was a horrible idea. Seeing a zombie is not going to stop Cersei from scheming, and the plan was poorly executed. Bring more men. Bring some ravens. Send out scouts beforehand. Put a little thought into it before walking through the gate. EDIT: Also, why didn't everyone who went north of the wall have a dragonglass weapon? YOU JUST CAME FROM A DRAGONGLASS MINE!

I don't think anyone really thought Lynch would drag it out this long, or at least they hoped he wouldn't. Each week I was thinking this was going to be the one where he snaps out of it. Instead, it was more of the world's luckiest imbecile stumbling into good fortune again and again. He's a complete moron yet somehow manages to do everything right. It's like watching Forrest Gump. I'm glad Lynch didn't do 18 hours of fan service. It wouldn't be like him to just rehash the old series. But I thought at the very least we'd get more than four or less hours with the central character. I didn't expect him to be 100% the same old Cooper after being trapped in limbo for 25 years, but I did expect more than a fraction of a percentage point. He was such a unique, dynamic character, and it's a drag to watch him stumble around mindlessly while we get teased week after week with him going back to normal. The problem isn't the choices they made for the character, it's that it's taking so god damn long. Dougie's been spinning his wheels for weeks. I've liked a lot of the rest of the show. I'd rather have this than no third season, but if Cooper really does come back in the last episode, then there damn well better be a fourth.

Too little, too late.

Both Lynch and Showtime have said they'd be up for more. Nothing official yet. It would be nice to have another season that actually has Dale Cooper in it.

Do the spoilers confirm my prediction that Jon and Beric will swerve us all by siding with their fellow undead?

It has been hard to keep track of since it's changed so much. Some died, some were added and some were dropped for no reason. This article I read ahead of this season's premiere helped sort it out: http://www.vulture.com/2017/07/game-of-thrones-arya-kill-list.html Although it's not entirely accurate. Her list is now just Cersei and The Mountain. Ilyn Payne seems to have been written out because the actor got cancer, which he now no longer has. Melisandre, Beric and Thoros were also dropped without explanation.

I found it really frustrating that Jaime and Bronn didn't become prisoners of war. Tyrion obviously didn't presume them dead, since he later arranged a meeting with them. Why didn't they have the Dothraki surrounding that lake waiting for them to surface?

Sansa was never on Arya's kill list.

Rewatching the series from the beginning has made me realize I miss Salladhor Saan and will be very disappointed if the show ends without him fucking Cersei. I don't need to see it happen, but I would like to see how he talks her into it.

That would actually be pretty awesome. Imagine how frightening wolf-headed zombie Robb would be.

I was about to sarcastically say "Let's bring every character back from the dead!" and then it occurred to me that that might be how the show ends.

Arya never really earned her badassery. She only trained with Syrio for a brief time and was a total screwup while with the Faceless Men. I'm sure it wasn't intended that way, but her saying she learned to fight from "no one" is like a meta comment on how the writers just handed her this ability.

He sure has come a long way. He once wanted to stop a rape, and now he has raped. At least in the show.

I would argue that that's the case. Maybe if he loses the other hand, he'll do a full face turn.

That's just what I was asking about earlier. Is there any evidence he wasn't so awful pre-Kingslayer? Maybe in the books? Otherwise we're just going by what he told Brienne. I'd spin any of my past indiscretions in a positive light while discussing them in a bath with a girl I liked.

I'd watch it. I miss him.

That's so Tywin.

The way he spun it in conversation with Cat in season one, his vows clashed. He couldn't obey the king, obey his father and protect the innocent, so he had to pick and choose. I would think if they provided knights a ranked list of vows in order importance, obeying the king would top everything, but then that would mean he'd have to forsake two other vows. Better to forsake just one, right? That's what he thought. Saved himself and his father along with a nice bonus of saving thousands of innocents. Was Jaime such an asshole before this or did he double down on that after his reputation was shot and he got no credit for sparing the city from a fiery death?

The other option was going up in flames with his reputation intact. Not much of a choice.

Did Jaime really kill Aerys because he wanted to save everyone in the city, or because he wanted to save himself and his father?

The best of the worst is a great way to describe him. I think people get the idea that deep down Jaime's a nice guy because throughout the series there have been moments where he's looked regretful after doing or saying something awful. Like he wishes he could drop his swaggering prick persona and be a decent human being. But he never drops it, so he really is just a piece of shit. A piece of shit with occasional pangs of guilt. He did save Brienne, but that's seriously outweighed by all the horrible shit he's done out of love for the worst person in Westeros.

Well, this was awful.

I'm not sure how much killing the king factors in to Jaime's rep as a great swordsman. How good of a warrior do you have to be to stab someone in the back? Sam did it to a white walker. EDIT: This reminds me of the time Joffrey was giving Jaime shit for having such a short entry in The Book of Brothers. All that he did of note was kill the king, and so he became defined by that one act. No great battle victories. I wonder how widely accepted his rep as a great swordsman even is. Seems like most we've heard of how great he is has come from his mouth.

Yeah, what purpose did rehashing that Jacoby scene serve other than filling up the excessive amount of airtime Showtime gave Lynch? Is the slow pacing even a stylistic choice as many seem to think or is it something they had to do when they realized they didn't have enough story to fill 18 hours?

My biggest problem with this episode was how much time was devoted to characters we just met talking about characters we've never seen. We're introduced to some deformed nebbish Audrey inexplicably married, and all they talk about are Billy, Chuck, Tina and Paul. Who the hell are they? Then we go to the Roadhouse, where new characters Natalie and Abbey talk about Clark, Angela and Mary. WHO?! Why the hell should we care? I'm guessing Billy is the guy Andy talked to whose truck Richard mowed down the kid with. But they said it was Chuck who stole the truck, not Richard. And the truck owner was credited as "Farmer" in episode 7. Maybe they just didn't want to reveal his name was Billy yet? At the end of that same episode, someone runs up to the Double R and asks if anyone has seen Billy. I hate that I care enough to try to make sense of this bullshit. This show seems glacially slow now that I'm watching Game of Thrones on the same night.