Voicechat is really hard to do well. For one thing, it seems to work very badly for women. On the other hand, the curated, third party model (vent or skype groups, for example), gets me way too connected with total strangers. I just want to sit down and clickity click for a bit, not get a window into other people's…

Prisoners was fantastic. I was a little put off by how on the nose it was while watching it, but it has only grown on me in with time.

If I could choose to be like a couple feet taller and also strikingly green in court, I definitely would be. You can't buy that kind of presence.

Hey everyone, rap is dangerous and New York is gritty again, isn't it great?

I understand that you think you know what's right and what's wrong, and thus feel no conflict thinking that the people condemning the Ghostbusters remake while applauding the people calling for changes to Frozen. I think it's a murkier subject. I can't tell you where the line is, which is why I wrote that "it's a…

To be fair, the role had him playing an alcoholic cokehead. If his character had just been given an Irish accent, the only acting would have been remembering that his name was supposed to be Ray.

I understand that you believe that censorship isn't censorship unless it has state power behind it, but I (and many others) disagree. There was a time not so long ago in this very country where popular opinion made it hard to impossible to make or distribute films featuring homosexuality or interracial relationships.

Presumably because letting the mob dictate what can and cannot be in our fiction is an uncomfortable place to be, even if we happen to agree with the mob on this or that change. If the hashtivist frenzy were aimed at making sure the Frozen ladies conformed better to traditional gender roles, settled down and popped…

Wanting to see a book faithfully translated to the screen is often a kind of doomed and futile hope, though. Different media have different strengths. Book are capable of communicating tremendous detail and depth more effectively than almost any other form, but struggle with time and spatial composition. Movies, by…

They're both purple big bads, but the comparisons pretty much end there. Thematically, Apocalypse is supposed to represent the worst of Darwinian, eugenicist thought. Ideologically, he's pretty close to Hitler, minus the nationalism. Thanos is an avowed nihilist. He doesn't want to see the strongest survive—he…

Henry the VII's reed was bolstered by a sizable army and by killing Richard III on the field of Bosworth. Sansa, even if she unified the North and Riverlands, would pose no realistic threat to the Vale, the primary strength of which is its defensibility. The mountains surrounding it, the impervious gates and the…

The late Lady of the Vale did not have a hereditary right to the throne of mountain and vale, so I don't think that being her niece could qualify one for descent. The Lords of the Vale are proud and safe and have no reason to seek out some Northerner to be their ruler, let alone a Northern woman. Of the Seven…

Oh man, that's a real forehead slapper. Of course: Nixon ends up on the Iron Throne.

It's also worth keeping in mind that the title is clearly a reference to the Frost poem, which is all about how either can destroy the world. ("From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire, but if it had to perish twice…"). This is not a "cold baaaaaaad, fire gooood" story.

The White Walkers returned before Dany's dragons were hatched. Also, it seems that magic never left, given what we've seen of the Red Priests.

Aegon the Conqueror arrived in Westeros about 300 years before the start of the action. The Targaryens' dragons died 100 or 150 years later. The dragons alive toward the end of that period were small and deformed; the last ones were no bigger than dogs.

I get that, but how did that start? Was the Night's King just kicking around up there alone for 8,000 years waiting for someone to be enough of a bastard to throw his boys into the woods?

This show turned into Mary Gentle's Grunts! so slowly I didn't even notice. Though there was an awful lot of rape, come to think of it.

If I had to guess, I'd say the Starks now have a navy and an alliance with the True Heir to the Salt Throne. Where else are they going to go? The Iron Throne will subjugate them, the Westerlands, Dorne and Reach hate them, the Stormlands and Riverlands are too far, and the Vale is both too far and surrounded by…

Khaleesi, I swore I would do anything for you, but higher education and student loans are too far. You cannot ask that of any man. I may become an adjunct, Khaleesi. You cannot lift me from slavery in the arena only to cast me down to that fate.