Wasn't ASOS divided into two separate volumes in Europe? They were still released at the same time, but maybe that's why the poster thought it was a long wait situation.

Or Charles II of Spain.

Needs more cowbell.

What's not to love about the Brotherhood targeting Freys and Frey pies being eaten at weddings?

Eh. The girl lives in a society that had an incestuous royal family for centuries. I can believe that she'd find incest less upsetting than someone from our culture would.

Yep. So did all of my non-reader housemates. From the reactions of the unspoiled, it would seem that the scene didn't make it look like there was any chance of them surviving that jump at all. Oops.

But what did the nice straw man ever do to you?

That's So Brienne!

Hmmm. Okay, fair enough for the books. But what we saw of the process in the cold open of the first episode of S4 sure looked like it was molten metal being worked to me. I guess we can resolve it by saying that the reshaping methodology of those guys from Qohor just looks like melting, but is in fact something…

If it's impossible to melt down a Valyrian Steel sword, then how was Ice transformed into two separate swords for the Lannisters? Surely it had to have been melted down, no?

You know, I can understand feeling some frustration with those who have a lower tolerance for unhappy outcomes than you do, and whose complaints about the show you therefore do not share. I often feel that frustration myself with this show, as I personally rather enjoy its grimness. But these condescending "if you…

Agreed. I've spent all year stressing over that scene and all the ways it could go wrong. I mean, it's a literal slut-shaming scene — and in a show that has often had problems handling such material with grace. But I think they knocked it out of the park. They kept the focus on the right things, and they kept the…

That's a good observation, and explains much. Thanks!

:nods: We talked a lot about that one, too. That focus on human sacrifice as the Thing Which Sets Us Apart gets returned to so very often. The five books of Moses are absolutely saturated with it. It was obviously a very important point to someone, somewhere along the line.

I wouldn't know. I'm not a Christian. Probably not, which is why I commented on the difference between the Abrahamic religions and their approaches to text. It's my understanding that Christians don't really have an equivalent to midrash. Judaism takes a very different approach to exegesis.

Yeah, the Dorne scenes really have looked amateurish. Very nearly school pageant level amateurish. It's weird. I was surprised to learn that they didn't have a different director than other scenes in the same episode. I wonder what accounts for that difference? The Dorne material doesn't seem very well-written to me,…

The scene plays out a little differently in the books, but the broad strokes are the same, so: Yup!. That is indeed why book-readers kept talking about the "fighting pits."

Yeah, sorry. It's not quite safe yet. Next year.

I was chilled by it as well, because I remembered Mel telling him that he would 'betray all that he held dear,' so it was hard for me to see his expressing love for Shireen as at all a happy thing.

Precisely. This is a Whodunnit from the book that people are mistakenly importing to the show (and then reaching the conclusion that it must of course be Hizdahr Whodunnit, because he's one of the only named characters it could be!). It's just goofy. The identity of the leader of the Harpies has not been put forth as…