I guess my point—it took me a while to realize where I'd written this bizarre half sentence because of how you copy/pasted it—is that as I read each book, I was never like "Oh, Martin's going to have to top THAT scene in this one!" It was more "He's going to push the story forward, and with that comes the natural…

He did—"you don't evaluate chapters of a book," etc. Except we totally do! We finish a chapter and think "I liked/didn't like that chapter." We can express that (and, when forced, give it a letter grade), and then move on, and then rethink that perspective. It's not rocket surgery.

True, although the episode doesn't really engage with that ambiguity, at least not directly—we'll likely get it next week, I know, but it left me in a weird place as far as what the show felt this was doing.

#EssosProblems (I mistyped. It's been fixed.)

I think that benefits from being so much more straight-forward: two sides, clear battle lines, no whammies.

I mean, I'm not really able to mount an argument up until petulant—the others are certainly matters of perspective/interpretation, but I'm gonna need some citations for petulant. (And yes, I realize you're going to cite this post where I'm getting petulant about petulance, but I'd characterize this as pedantry.)

I know where you're coming from—or, rather, I don't know where you're coming from, but I totally understand that.

As I note at one stage, the *episode* accomplishes lots of things procedurally, in that the result of the battle puts those building blocks in place.

"Yub Nub" is unimpeachable.

That's what the comments are for!

I don't know why Sansa is doing anything, honestly—I read it as Jon letting her do her thing with Ramsay, but the procedures of her actions were left too vague here. It's one thing to wonder "How did she do that?!" and another to not understand the what, how, or why.

I just don't think that narrative exists in the text. There's the speech with Melisandre about not being resurrected, but that seemed more to me like a discomfort with the whole Lord of Light situation than any type of death wish. His actions for me read as rote heroism, an extension of who he has been, and with…

I discuss this a bit elsewhere, but for me there was something a bit strange about Sansa's climax and Jon's denouement co-existing. I like this reading of the anti-climax of the battle being purposeful, but we spend only a few brief moments in that mode before we're jumping into the Sansa scene that sort of ignores…

I think it really comes down to how one structures their internal denouement—for me, the episode's actual denouement didn't sell me on this type of thematic dynamic, but I agree that it's there for the taking.

For the record, I may have issues with the episode, but Jon Snow doing something dumb like that is so in-character that I was just like "Oh, of course."

Does the review read like I was hoping for the final scene of Return of the Jedi? (This is a legitimate question, I absolutely did not intend that to be the case.)

I think sometimes people think that not liking an episode or questioning a decision or giving it a punitive grade—which a B is not, for the record, but I know that's a losing battle with those complaining—is in some way a sign that we as critics refuse to sit and wait. But all it is, ultimately, is us being honest…

I absoutely buy there being thematic value to the taking back of Winterfell, but I guess for me the denouement didn't sell me on it—I almost wonder if it would have worked better if they had left those elements of the denouement until the finale, and opened on the sort of "morning after" where everyone realizes how…

Irrationality is not in and of itself problematic, just so we're clear—the issue is when there's zero motive behind those actions beyond a defense of "well, everyone's human." That's true, and so the idea that Sansa would do these things is not "bad writing." But there's a difference between "That's not what she's…

I agree in the sense that, procedurally, this had to go down this way.