Let's see, we had the guy who slept with all of his daughters (which I'm fairly certain was also rape, but I don't recall the outcry), the same guy also killed babies, we've had children slaughtered on camera, soldiers killing babies slightly off-camera, rampant homophobia (now culminating in a religious inquisition),…

I'm fairly certain this is exactly what happened. The show has established, in several scenes now, that Sansa is a mentally strong woman and that she knew what kind of man Ramsay was. She knew what would happen on the wedding night, but instead of escaping it, she went through with it.

It makes sense and I actually fully agree with your views - the scene was certainly placed and filmed for maximum shock value. I don't think there's any arguing that. I do wish they could have toned it down a little. Yeah, we get it - it's a horrible world they live in and horrible things happen to everyone all of…

I don't mean that so much in a legal or cultural sense. The show had established that Sansa is a much more powerful woman at this point - the bath sequence, numerous 'the North remembers' interactions, and her position with Theon to name a few She knew what she was doing and knew what the consequences were to marry…

Three thoughts about the latest GoT Rapegate.

I think it's less of an Iraq metaphor and more of a 'every force that has ever tried to occupy a large city in the history of forever' metaphor.

I'm a month late to the party but I couldn't hear the buzzing either and was entertaining your original thoughts as well. Can't wait to see the next few eps!

Great episode and a great season. I'm not even sure exactly what it is about this show that drew me in so quickly. It just seemed to nail real life, in all of its highs and lows, so well. I found myself naturally wanting to take sides and root for a happy ending, but I don't think that's where this is going - at…

Those were two of my favorite episodes. They were incredibly tense, they made the weight of the decision they had to make as mature as it should have been (Walt's list), and they fully served as great contrast to the monster that Walt eventually turns into.

Player of Games always seems to be someone's favorite or least-favorite Culture novel. I can't quite put my finger on why it's divisive like that (and I mean that softly - when I say 'least favorite' I'm still implying that people love it), but I think you might be kind of right in that it's 'designed' differently.

Wait, so does this mean JJ Abrams has the show now? Is Breaking Bad even canon anymore?

I totally agree based on our standards today. I don't think the same value was attributed to animal life back in Edison's day.

I reached pretty deep in the minutia bin for that one: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/…

Besides a random post a while ago saying that GRRM told D&D 'how the story ends', I think we have to be careful making any assumptions as to how the show-writers view the importance of characters whose arcs have yet to end in the actual books.

At this point, B&W are probably purposely screwing shit up because of the legions of fanboys that have declared war for screwing up major shit like the standard colors of house Uller.

I'm with you - we have to stop viewing the show characters and book characters as being the same at this point. There are reasonable constraints to TV - the average watcher won't remember a vague scene from season 1 and connect why that enrages Tyrion in season 4.

Same here. The 'cult of Tesla' thing was cute for a time, but that one took it over the top by being way too kind to Tesla and far too demonic to Edison.

And the 'Edison is a dick' thing can almost be replaced with '[insert famous CEO here] is a dick'. I think it's a common personality trait.

I agree - at one point during the finale I found myself letting my mind wander as I thought, "C'mon, let's just get to the Tyrion scene already" and I didn't like it! As a book reader, you become kind of anchored on the scenes you remember from the books.

I love the way this one ended, too. Logistically speaking, Lady Stoneheart doesn't make sense (as you point out). Furthermore, from a narrative standpoint, you don't really need her thrown into this episode. I get that a lot of book readers want all book 3 stuff in seasons 3&4, but it doesn't need to happen.