But that would have meant trimming Sand Snake time in Season 5, and no one would have wanted that to happen! We might have lost the "bad pussy" line! </sarc>

John reviving with a panic-stricken look on his face should have been the last scene of Season 5. The cliffhanger was stupid- in both the show and the books.

Glad to be of service.

GRRM is pretty extreme from the fantasy I've read (although there's plenty I haven't read).

—This episode's Dorne material was like an apology for last year's even if the Sand Snakes are basically naked Power Rangers villains

Thanos definitely worships the Many Faced God. Maybe he'll show up in Braavos.

GRRM introduced so many new characters in AFFC and ADWD that I can't really remember most of them unless they were a POV character. For the most part, the only new secondary characters I remember are the grotesque ones (like the Yellow Whale) or the women GRRM introduced in all of his pervy GRRMness (e.g., Myrrish…

Which reminds me - Trystane was a lousy Martell.

The Oakheart chapters were GRRM's excuse to pervily describe Arienne's nipples in extreme detail.

While Essos does suck, I'd rather read 10 chapters full of X'raz noz Skgraaxz than 1 plodding Areo Hotah POV chapter.

Counterpoint- Areo's inclusion in the show was unnecessary, because Areo Hotah was probably the dullest character in the entire ASOIF saga.

No way they bring back Mance Rayder on the show. Way too much water under the bridge; there's no real point to bringing him back now. Tormund has taken his spot. Show Mance was much less of a presence than book Mance anyway.

She's in prison for suspicion of lying under oath. And if she confesses her crime, then she's incriminating her brother.

Were those two Sand Snakes on the pier? I know that some were, but I can't remember if all of them were. I fast forwarded through the Dorne parts during my Season 5 rewatch.

But Trystane was painting a funeral eye on a stone, presumably for Myrcella. The timing doesn't make sense. Trystane was killed some time after Myrcella. The only thing that sort of works is that those two Sand Snakes (Whippy and Speary) were stowaways or otherwise disguised.

The Aegon subplot is by far the worst thing about ADWD.

Ten years and two books, about 2000 pages (really one book that was real big)

Those looked more like bloodhounds / tracking dogs than attacking dogs. I think Ramsey has other dogs that he uses for killing people.

His full title is Shagga, son of Shagga, Mr. Boombastic, Lord of the Storm Crows.

Show Ellaria is basically a mixture of book Arianne and Darkstar. That's an interesting way to combine three marginal book characters into one marginal show character. At least we don't have to put up with Darkstar on the show- I see him as a 1990s Lorenzo Lamas meets Gerardo Mejia looking guy with a mullet who…