He selected D&D from many other showrunners to tell the story on TV. And he does write episodes, so he does have a certain amount of say in the adaptation process that surpasses the license many other writers are given by the studio over their creation.

God forbid someone think something is not good and doesn't coddle their reader's delicate sensibilities when they say so.

No. All reviews are opinions, that's implied. It's a reviewers prerogative to be authoritative in their opinion otherwise why should anyone value it or listen to it?

"In your opinion."

Well, GRRM is a producer as well as a writer on the show. It comes with his seal of approval. They have also written scenes into the show that match to quality of the books if not surpass it (the Oberyn and Tyrion dungeon scene being a good example of that).

I find it a little weird that people are so upset about a character whose total impact to the story hasn't even really been revealed in the books yet. LSH always seemed like she was produced wholly for shock value and the GRRM really didn't know what to do with her after that shock wore off.

Audiences have never seen Tysha and are not privy to Tyrion's inner monologue where that territory is most covered in the book. It's very hard to get a tv audience emotionally invested in a character they have never seen or had described in detail. Dinklage sold the whole seen perfectly with enough anger and passion…

This might be because I am one of a handful of book readers that never actually found the LSH development that compelling, but I am ok with it not being including. There are book readers who seem to be convulsing with rage over her being left out, but I understand why they did it.

Actually it's probably lyrics in High Valyrian that David Peterson (HBO's linguist for the show) wrote, just like he did for the "Mhysa" song.

Steak dinner please!

Fans (both show-onlys and book readers) have been speculating about what "The Children" specifically refers to. It probably has several overlapping meanings since "The Children" could be alluding to several characters or themes that exist in the show both figuratively and literally.

You do realize that stretching this battle out for an entire episode and then rendering that decision useless by not including Stannis means that this episode was Michael Bay filler right? The showrunners were throwing glitter in your face to distract you from the fact that the plot wasn't actually going anywhere.

Funny. All the comments coming in on the Newbie review are like "Wow, that was really cool!!!!! What was the point?" Their sentiments seem to validate what Todd is saying here.

The official synopsis heavily implies Stannis is coming in episode 10.

I feared the same thing, but the official synopsis heavily implies that we will get Stannis is episode 10.

PREACH

I thought the only way they could justify stretching this battle out over the entire episode was to have Stannis come in at the end, since that would have actually moved the story forward. We just got an hour of filler. I thought it was a little pedestrian compared to how well they've economized other story lines.

This episode was fodder for people who judge the value of story telling based on whether or not something is "badass" or not.

"But…but…mammoths!!!!" - Michael Bay

True. But that's akin to arguing about who is the tallest dwarf.