I could buy the poorly informed argument if this were the main pit in the city and she was in an "owners box" high above the crowd and far from the fighters, slave owners, etc.

Possibly. What does the slave have to lose? Chances are he's going to be dead in 5 minutes anyway.

There's no indication that she was unaware that they were slaves. Given that Dany insisted that the fighters in the pits be free men, then you'd think that she would do something to find out whether her dictat was being followed. She's sitting front and center in a tiny fighting pit, within speaking distance from…

That's still a plot hole- why would Dany consider that to be free?

Yeah, that was a plot hole. Daenerys (not Sansa) shouldn't have allowed that.

Excellent post. I agree with it in its entirety. I really disliked the Dorne story in the books. Even the best aspect of the AFFC Dorne story- Doran's reveal of his plan to marry Quentyn to Dany and support her invasion of Westeros- turned out to be a shaggy dog story given Quentyn's demise in ADWD.

I'm somewhat surprised by the general level of grumbling about this episode. With the exception of Dorne, I thought that the rest of the episode was fantastic. The High Sparrow is a formidable new player- Jonathan Price does a great job conveying the High Sparrow's intelligence and radical intensity through his eyes…

Isn't Littlefinger Lord Paramount of the Riverlands? I thought that came with Herrenhal.

As you note, some of this stems from problems with books 4 and 5.

The episode overall was tense- it featured Tyrion and Jorah's capture by slavers, the Dorne battle scene, the Kings Landing Inquest, and topped everything off with Sansa'a rape. I enjoyed the episode, but it was an uneasy enjoyment.

I thought that he was wearing some of Robb's formal wear.

That doesn't mean that he wouldn't cut away from it just as it started, similar to how the camera panned away.

Read some_fan's theory above.

Good synopsis

That was completely ridiculous. What was worse was that the Sand Snakes conveniently planned their raid at the exact same time. Terrible. Areo Hotah needs to improve palace security. Dorne has been a disaster so far.

I agree that your spin would be more worthwhile. For some reason, though, a significant chunk of the viewership seems to be getting bored with political intrigue. People complain that there's not enough action as is and wouldn't put up with more intrigue from characters we've never met before this season. It's one…

Exactly. I've pointed this out before- I think that the Sansa and Jeyne stories were combined because Harry the Heir is going to be a brute to Sansa. It's already being set up. D&D just beat GRRM to the punch on this, so they're feeling the brunt of it. Sansa wasn't going to make it out of TWOW unscathed. D&D…

There's a subset of people who love the books unconditionally while hating the show unconditionally. This type of deviation from the books gives that group of people a soap box to stand on. They conveniently ignore that the books were even more depraved.

That whole scene was way too abrupt. If they were going to truncate the Dorne story to that degree, I question why they included it at all.

I think it's too soon to write off the Sansa plot. I agree that she knew what she was getting into to some extent, and I think she understood that part of the long plan of revenge against the Boltons involved her consummating the relationship with Ramsay. However, I think that she was shocked that Theon was made to…