The thing that makes the Davos / Shireen / Melisandre issue ridiculous is that it has been several months at least since Melisandre returned from Stannis' camp. Are we to believe that Davos never pinned down Melisandre as to what happened to Shireen during all that time?

Agreed. I expected Rickon to last until the end and wind up being the Stark ruling Winterfell. I am very surprised (and pretty disappointed) with the direction the show decided to go with Rickon. Smalljon and the Umbers were given little motivation to betray the Starks as utterly as they did.

Even giving his life wouldn't be enough considering he just watched Ramsay murder the Stark heir, especially since Rickon was under Smalljon's care and Smalljon completely betrayed him. Smalljon all of the sudden deciding to declare for the Starks minutes after that would be too jarring of switch to be believable.

Not a bad explanation.

I agree to a point- but I'd rather see avenging angel demi-God Jon Snow than "still essentially human but inexplicably able to avoid arrows in order to look cool and move the plot forward" Jon Snow.

That's part of why I'd rather have seen some of the arrows hit him and have no effect. That's much more satisfying than plot armor.

I think the resurrection of Jon Snow already burned all of those bridges.

Ah yes, Saramis, the great message board defender, swooping in to defend the defenseless! I have been well and truly called out! (psst… now I am belittling you).

There's been nothing in the show to convince me that Ramsay couldn't oversee such tactics. Given his characterization over the past few seasons, I think it falls within the realm of believable.

The primogeniture issue is why I thought Rickon would live. I suspect that R+L=J, and Jon will be on to bigger and better things than Winterfell. I don't think Sansa (or Arya) would be able to take Winterfell in their own name.

It would have been cool to see Jon hit with some arrows, but those arrows having no real effect on him. It would emphasize his supernatural status, and it could have been a way to cause some dissension in Ramsay's ranks.

Ramsay's military career consisted of taking very lightly defended holdings with tricks and overwhelming force.

I understood it as Ramsay being clever and a good military strategist who happens to also be a sadistic serial killer who loves torturing people.

One barely scratches the surface. Two can be sufficient depending on the circumstances. Three or Four is the sweet spot. Five or more would be gauche.

He started to ask Melisandre about Shireen a few episodes ago before he was rudely interrupted by Brienne. Then I guess he just sort of forgot about her until he found the stag. You could see it in his eyes- he was thinking oh yeah, that Shireen girl, whatever happened to her?

But you've inserted yourself into the conversation, so you've shown that you do care about the discussion. As I said, that makes two. And I note that I stopped dogging him an hour ago, well before your deep interest in my conversation took root. I guess you were too busy dogging Mirage below to notice the time…

It seems like it has been several months, at least. Jon had time to do his tour of the North.

I think that it would have been interesting to see Ramsay Bolton try to fend off a White Walker invasion. They're the one group that could not be intimidated by Ramsay in any way. It could have been interesting to see the crafty murderous psychopath vs. the inscrutable, unstoppable mystical army of coldness and…

At that point I wouldn't have been interested in seeing Smalljon turn. He had already gone beyond the pale.

You, for one. And I got a chuckle out of it myself. So that's two.