Fair point. (though he can witness events too, like Ned needing Howland Reed to survive the fight at the Tower of Joy)

Well, the Baratheon's officially died out with Tommen, right? People might have been too busy coming to terms with Cersei's blowing up of the Sept killing 1000's to really focus on Tommen's Baratheonishness. *Especially* since there were probably rumors about Tommen's parentage anyway.

Plus IIRC there is some dialogue about Gendry not being good with a sword, but being good with another weapon (his hammer) And then he proceeds to demonstrate that skill on the beach in King's Landing. He might not be seasoned in battle*, but he's done some training somewhere along the way.

I had rewatched that episode recently too. And one of the things that struck me was how he described the Tarly deciding to come at him, it sounded very similar to Jaime taking a run at Dany on the battlefield.

I think the catch is that while most people alive in Westeros today view dragons and white walkers as mythical creatures, that is not the case with the white walkers or the Night King. They may have fought dragons before, or at least have more knowledge of them than most of the other armies in Westeros.

But keep in mind we haven't seen her make an appeal to the people of Westeros yet. We've only seen her facing off with Cersei's soldiers, people who were pledged to fight against Dany.

Agreed. I'm trying to figure out how people imagined Dany's attempt to conquer Westeros would look in the early stages. It's not like the cities in Essos where she can come in and kill the Masters, free the slaves and ask them to follow her. She can't just catapult broken chains and irons at the Westeros army and…

Yeah, the whole conflict as they've presented it is annoying. And not just because it's one of those stupid tv conflicts that could be resolved just by characters speaking to one another and sharing information.

So, Gendry's back, finally!

I figured she just chocked it up to Drogon's telepathic link with her…if she's OK with Jon, Drogon's OK with Jon. So she completely missed that Drogon would have been OK with Jon even if she weren't there.

I think the original reference was to Sarah. When she came to Mrs as an infant, she was described as an orphan "in the black", meaning from questionable circumstances and coming through S's deep, secretive network. (or I could have just read down the thread before posting, as other people have already answered :P )

Hence the cockroach reference.

IIRC the "black" part was described by Siobhan to be about the fact that Sarah was a hidden clone. She was an "Orphan in the black" Neolution/etc knew the mother was pregnant with a clone, but not that she was pregnant with twins. So the infant S took in was from off the grid from questionable circumstances.

Yes, bubbler in Massachusetts too.

I'd imagine some people might be skeptical of a spacey teen they haven't seen for years suddenly claiming that his "half-brother" was secretly heir to the Iron Throne, based solely on visions. Bran's claims about Jon's heritage could be seen as self-serving.

Well, not everyone is saying there is no chemistry between Dany and Jon. In the "after the show" thing, D & D went on about the "heat" between the two.

I'm thinking it's Varys too. I don't see him backing Cersei, but I wonder if he's got another player he's backing and is just using Cersei and Dany to knock each other out.

I hope John remembered to tell Dany to be sure to burn all the dead after the battle.
Though, then again, she probably took care of most of them during the battle.

I love that both of them now have a training partner who is worthy. It will just up both of their games, and Podrick's too, if he pays attention.

The battle scenes in this episode were great! And even better because I actually cared about so many of the characters involved. For example, when we had Greyjoy v Greyjoy on the high seas, I was sort of bored with the whole thing, and was sort of "meh" when Yara, Theon, Euron and Ellaria all lived through it. …