Well, musing on all that, but perhaps reflecting more so how the attempt to contact/contract Gaad was not such a great idea from the get go. Arkady was visibly contrite when he learned of Gaad's death.

It was a counterpoint to Misha's grandfather (Fyodor?) and grandmother spying on Irina and Philip kissing. For the parents, it was cute and amusing.

Lady Stoneheart lead a vendetta against the Freys in particular and not the Lannister clan, per se. That said, there was no love lost betwixt her and Jamie Lannister whom she wanted dead.

What? Why? The riders who approached the congregation earlier sounded like they were adherents of R'hllor (viz., 'the night is dark and full of terror'). It seems to me that Sandor is on the trail of the Brotherhood without Banners.

I would not say lazy writing because there is something clearly and entirely wrong with Arya's appearance in the episode. So I think there is something more than meets the eye here.

Why are folks so excited over Clegane joining forces with the High Sparrow? Look, I understand why it would be fun in a conventional story for the Clegane brothers to face off with one another. But I have issues with the High Sparrow and I am not anxious to see Sandor Clegane enlisted into his cause.

Mendoza? Like the Mendoza Line?

I think the point of the scene has everything to do with emphasizing how broken Theon is and incidentally to show how Yara and the other Pyke mariners are lusty sailors. And it worked for me because it makes clear that Theon has a way to go before his psyche is, if ever, repaired.

Perhaps, but I suspect she nicked the money from Meryn Trant.

Actually that would have been Jaquen's line. (BTW, I hate auto-correct when writing about Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire.)

Sandor Clean is on the move! But I feel confident that Kings Landing is not his immediate destination. If there is to be fan-service and a 'Clegane Bowl' I cannot see how it can happen this season. Ironically, I think we are more likely to see Gendry return this season because there is a confluence of major…

In the last episode, Jaquen tells Arya that the first of the Faceless Men was a slave and that he took contracts from other slaves on the lives of their masters. These slaves then escaped to found the Free Cities of Essos. (Although I think 'free' here refers more to their independence from Valaria than to their…

To my way of thinking, the Faceless Men are indifferent to the purposes of a contract. A contract is a contract and when they take one they have every intention to complete it. That is my read.

Coldhands helps Bran, Meera, & Jojen get to the Children of the Forest and the Three-Eyed Crow in the books and that is about it. So I agree that for the purposes of the show that Coldhands and Benjen have been merged. That said, who is to say that when we finally meet Benjen again in the books that he is a creature…

So it has been reported that GRR Martin dismissed the notion that Benjen Stark and Coldhands are one in the same entity. As far as the books are concerned, who is to say that this is still not the case?

Is it lazy writing to have a dangling plot thread. Because if they followed every thread to its tortuous conclusion then folks would complain about the plot being bogged down in details to the exclusion of the exciting espionage tales to be told.

Thank you, Wash. :-)

Summer's demise was heroic. As was the fall of the Children of the Forest. How much more drama and sacrifice does one need from that act? Hodor's fall is the capstone and is moving in so many ways. I like the wolves but Hodor's sacrifice meant more to me: he went out a hero in epic fashion.

So how about Meera and how she dispatched that White Walker? That was significant (well, it was to me). How old is she, relative to Jon?

What was pointless or gratuitous in Summer sacrificing himself for Bran? It was a last stand.