Those brief bots contain more great acting than most actors do in their whole careers. It's just amazing. I also appreciated the way the horror of his death is gotton across without being super-gruesome.

Agree.

Moreta is probably my favourite character in all of the Pern books, and "Dragonlady of Pern" is definitely my favourite novel out of them all.

I saw Anne McCaffrey speak about writing Moreta, whose destiny was predetermined in the original books. She had to imagine, over and over, one of her favorite horses that she had to humanely put down, in order to get through it. As she wrote the story, she grew to love the character and wanted her to live. But she…

"But," said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, "I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done."

Theoden: I know your face... Eowyn. My eyes darken.
Eowyn: No. No. I'm going to save you.
Theoden: You already did... Eowyn. My body is broken. You have to let me go. I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed. Eowyn...
[dies]

Snape :(

The first time I read this, I think I must have cried for about 2 days straight.

Given the major deaths in The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince, all I wanted out of The Deathly Hallows was for my beloved Weasley twins to make it out alive.

In my middle school sex-ed class (which was abstinence-based, in Indiana... I don't know how the teacher got away with even this small tidbit about consent), we were taught to fight through the "he couldn't have stopped even if he'd wanted to!" bullshit by using the following thought experiment: If the guy's mother…

You'll like this then. Charlie Brooker's take on Piers 'Blowhole' Morgan.

Harry Potter, Bartimaeus, Sabriel and Lyra Belacqua walk into a bar. Nostalgia ensues.

Illyrio! There we go, now that puts all the pieces into place. Hmm, now that I remember it, it does sound like that bit about Viserys wanting to rape Dany was shared annecdotally, and not from an internal monologue. Thanks!

Ohhh the wedding ring shawl stories. I can see myself giving up exactly 5 seconds into an attempt to get started on that. I'm kind of glad nobody in my family knits, that way my fair-isle gets unmonitored ooh's and aah's even though it's not actually that good until I block the hell out of it

Going with Scottish royal names could've been interesting, but they also could've gone very avantgarde and used a Scandinavian name. The British Crown includes the Isle of Man, and Scotland has long since subsumed most of the old Kingdom of the Isles. King Magnus wouldn't have been bad.

Maybe they'll be more ambitious…

Well, at least there's been 8 Henrys, and not all of them have been uxoricidal (possibly the worst sounding cidal word). The Williams however, they haven't really been great: tyrant, potentially gay tyrant who died in a hunting accident, the guy who really kicked off the Catholic/Protestant angst with the Irish, and…

The superior Prince George.

I love how this conversation about epidurals went down—everyone is like "Some people like them and some people don't, here's my personal experience, but you do what's right for you!" And you're all being super-careful to clarify that there's no judgement whatever you choose. It's a bit funny, because there's this…

I hadn't thought of that, but I bet it does help a bit to maintain an identity somewhat separate from the "Kate" seen all over the media.

Yeah, exactly. We had midwives with all three and homebirths for the first two; with the third, there were complications, so as per her training and policy, the midwife transferred us to a hospital and MDs until we were both able to come back under her care postpartum. Nobody advocates midwives/homebirths NO MATTER…