I didn't think it ever recovered after the trough, but the first two seasons are some of the best television I've watched.

This isn't an argument in favor of torture, per se, but I've always been puzzled by the view that death is somehow preferable to torture. Death, after all, is final. Torture may destroy the rest of your life, but that life exists, and you have the hope of overcoming the trauma. Is it that we're removed from the…

I binged the whole series. There's an appreciable, almost immediate downturn about halfway through the third season. I don't remember which specific episode, as it's been years, but it's there.

Perhaps the last one, but a smarter man would have dangled legitimacy as a carrot to keep him in line with no intention of legitimizing him unless he was left with absolutely no other choice.

There are a lot of little things like that that bug me (Tyrion's dialog is far less clever now that the writers are off script, for instance), but most of the plots held together this week, and I thought they cleverly used Bran's warging, something about which I was not optimistic.

It reminded me of the trebuchet scene in Ironclad, which wasn't a very good movie. But flinging people against walls with siege engines makes up for a lot of flaws.

It was clearer in the books, since Thoros explains he did the standard Red Priest funeral rites only to find it brought Dondarrion back from the dead. Wait, maybe he did that in the show, too. Season 2 was a long time ago.

I view what Martin did as deepening and expanding his world, and I dig that kind of thing in fantasy series. That said, I absolutely understand why others don't.

And given that they are mostly on their own now, my fear is that my dissatisfaction with certain parts of the show will grow until I find myself just trudging through to the end or even worse, hate-watching it.

Since they didn't show it, I wasn't sure she actually killed him. I'm still not sure.

Am I the only person who fully expected someone to come riding in to save Sansa? I expected it to be Stannis and a couple of survivors, but generic Bolton men were not going to capture them.

She should just go topless altogether. At least there'd be boobs when they cut to that awful story.

I don't think he has no idea where he wants to go. I just think he is meticulously trying to get there. Robert Jordan did something similar, only even more of a slog. I also think fantasy writers fall in love with their worlds. They want to dig ever deeper into them. Unfortunately, if you do that, you tend to wander…

Or they could have made Doran intelligent enough to anticipate the Sand Snakes and secure his power, setting the stage for any kind of interesting plot involving the place. Instead, it looks like we're in for more ridiculous nonsense.

Varys did send a message to Mormont that he was pardoned just before the assassination attempt. If you can accept that Varys knew he would get the message in time and that it would alert him, then you have your explanation. It's a bit convoluted, though.

There was no other way for it to be done. With child labor laws and everything, you can't have half your characters played by people under 18, and with some of the adult themes, you'd never get away with 16 year-old actors and actresses.

They are, but it's based on medieval history. Life expectancy was under 50. Odds are, you'd have adult responsibilities as a commoner by age 12. Lord of a house in your mid-teens is reasonable. Especially when your extended family was largely eradicated by a war.

And wouldn't it have been fun to watch Bronn dealing with domesticity and scheming against his in-laws? Oh well.

Are hats some kind of food? If so, yes.

Yes, I think he knows marrying Ramsey to Sansa severed his ties to the Lannisters. Plus, Tywin's dead, so he probably doesn't see much point to that alliance anymore. I can't recall if any dialog last season covered that stuff.