I don't think the show-runners or Martin are condoning it. There's a question, for me, of when constant depiction of disgusting crimes starts being just a kind of aesthetic seasoning.

They were (many of them) shithead ex-cons prone to responding to problems with disproportionate violence. They were also starving and freezing on a suicide mission. I thought Martin made both sides of that part of the story.

Up in horsey heaven? Legless, with their angel wings wrapped around each other?

Some are. Many aren't. The law is not exactly applied fairly to the peasant classes.

I really really hated the scene at Craster's.

That was just a fantastically weird viewing experience. Halfway through I realized it was the series finale. Then I remembered that I already knew it wasn't the series finale. But it basically did everything a happy series finale needs to do and closed with a vision of a future that leaves the stories open but makes…

I sort of loved Ruby Sparks, but I've never seen a film more ruined by its conclusion. It's a horror film that looks like a romantic comedy, and then it has a final run of scenes that imply it was actually a romantic comedy all along.

Just to follow up - people ignore Littlefinger in the books not because they don't know what a total creep he is, but because he's not a fighter or protected by a great house. People overlook him because of their medieval prejudices, not because they don't see him for who he is.

My theory on Littlefinger's prowess as master of coin is that he's basically running a pyramid scheme. No one can actually produce money at the rates he was supposed to be, and it fits his "rule the ashes" mentality perfectly.

Littlefinger *is* a scheming creep.

I think "mocking gender" is a bit more precise. Mocking both femininity and masculinity sounds a bit like "men drive this this, but women drive like this."

I thought that basically served to (a) put two really good actors unexpectedly in scenes together and (b) show us that Drew Thompson had really changed, that seeing him as simply an outlaw missed the ethical nature he had cultivated in years of hiding.

That was sort of what I had felt from Arya's progression through DWD but…

I likewise went into the finale really worried they weren't going to pay off everything that was excellent in the first six episodes, but I had a very different experience of it. This is why, in three points.

I don't think he "discovered that there really is something." I think he found a way to access the grief over his daughter's death in a moment of extremity. He's expressing it in cosmic terms, but I didn't feel there was any suggestion that Rust was going to start a Unitarian ministry in the bayou next month.

There's no such place as "Bethlehem-in-Nazareth." Nazareth is a town, it doesn't have other towns in it.

Abed specifically tells Hickey that people have told him he needs consequences before. He tells him that Hickey's not the first person to shove him in a locker—specifically noting that Hickey's form of discipline looks a lot like bullying.

I think it's wonderful that, among the principals in the espionage plots, easily the most decent human is the bureaucrat in charge of the Rezidentura.

I was not troubled by the leap of logic in the cliffhanger, I was too excited by the prime grade batshittery therein.

Yeah, it's horrifying how much I identify with Boyle. I bet there is great Sudanese in Brooklyn! And I know for sure that if you get a big bone in your stew, that's an opportunity to suck out the marrow!