Clearly the Night King had been busy having his minions forging those giant chains to bring the wall down with, but when a dead dragon landed right in his lap, he elected instead to use them to dredge it up from the frozen lake.

They’re probably pretty tough folks. I mean, you would be too if you lived on an island where you had to dodge out of control Mustangs flying by every time you tried to walk or drive anywhere.

Wild but semi-informed speculation - Bronn follows Jaime. Why? Because he’s not going to hang out with Cersei at all. Notice that the two have never, ever been on screen together? And even when they might otherwise be, Bronn suddenly finds an excuse to leave, like how he went off to randomly drink with Pod instead of…

Because people weren’t paying attention and just assume.

My first car had a white/cream/ish interior. Every smudge, shoe mark, scuff, splotch, etc, shone out like a beacon.

Yep. Dude was messed up, badly. Royal inbreeding gets bad enough just due to much smaller Gene pool (see Queen Victoria and hemophilia among European road) without throwing actual inbreeding into the mix. Madness is really the least of your worries there.

Benjen is Coldhands.

They said as much, in the post-episode comments. While I certainly liked the scene itself, the lead up to it was... yeah. Entirely contrived.

In fairness, I’m pretty sure Lyanna didn’t foresee her father and elder brother getting roasted alive by the Mad King when they went to ask where she was (though maybe she should have).

Benjen showed up to help Bran, as well.

I’ve also read speculation that Bran passing through the wall with the Night King’s mark could weaken the magic, the same way that it allowed the walkers/etc to enter the Three-eyed Raven’s barrow.

Or definitely trying to make Tyrion *think* that she’s pregnant.

I remember reading somewhere (don’t recall, so take it with a grain of salt and all) that Elia was 100% as nuts over prophecy as Rhaegar was, and was in on the whole plan somehow. Though that was before this ‘secret marriage’ thing was tossed into the mix, so that part may just be a detail added by the show that won’t…

Agreed - Bran isn’t omniscient. He’s not going to bother observing every bowel movement of the High Septim, to paraphrase Sam’s complaining over the amount of detail in the diaries. It’s only when he realizes that something is possibly important that he’ll go back and view it.

Which is reasonable, given that they were brothers, and all.

That would have given away the game that the writers were trying to play with being all subtle and setting us up to think it was Arya vs Sansa, though, even if it would have made for a more coherent plot.

That was my understanding as well, though I can’t remember where I read it. Essentially he was absolutely gonzo obsessive over prophecy. I also recall reading that his original wife, Elia, was 100% in on being a prophecy nutjob too, and thus was in on the whole plan to have him father a third child with another woman…

It’s a fair point. I do think though that knightly types haven’t exactly been good for her, and with this last episode’s ‘fuck loyalty’ statement, maybe she’s catching on to the fact that the whole knightly ideal is kinda BS. So who knows?

Tormund lives!