You know who would have been a great Daario? Sting. That's right, I said it: fucking Sting. Just think about it for a few seconds.

I don't even buy that Roose would allow it. Sansa is his ticket to sustaining power in the North.

The High Sparrow is kind of the anti-Ned: an incorruptible character driven by his code, who's also very good at playing the Game.

How I want it to end? Two seasons of Tyrion, Varys, Olenna and Tywin's ghost sitting around shooting the shit. With occasional cameos by Aemon, Syrio and Hot Pie.

The Lannisters have a gift for self-delusion. Tywin was genuinely surprised when Cersei forced him to see the illegitimacy of her children, his heirs. And Tommen and Myrcella seem to have no clue that they aren't Robert's kids.

I'm betting that someone is Varys.

| "Tell me what did this the character do that was so vital to the story telling?"

Given that bag of dragonglass, it seems like Jon's next plot stop is advancing the storyline of the White Walkers.

Goddammit, this is starting to feel too much like Lost.

I really hope this is marks the end of the mid-season lull and it kicks back into high gear at the end.

And even more improbably, Aemon earned that death by voluntarily giving up power, fighting the good fight, and being a pretty decent fellow. Let no one say GoT is all nihilism!

Yeah, in the GoT world, the fanatics would have to be the atheists.

I'm starting to think this ends with the White Walkers just killing everyone. Like the ultimate twist of convention is that nothing the humans did along the way actually mattered.

"I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow to the… aw, never mind."

Exactly. In practice, the robber-baron Targaryens/Baratheons/Lannisters will likely be replaced by even more parasitic warlords, and even scarcer resources for the ordinary people. At least, until the ice zombie hoard eats them all.

Ugh! Did they really? (I never watch the previouslies.) Figures that just when I'm inclined to give them extra points for subtlety, they (or someone at HBO) screws it up like that.

Many thanks for the link to the pied piper site. It's a gold mine:

Littlefinger might even have a third contingency, which is if Stannis wins convincingly, and meanwhile Cersei let's KL go to hell, LF might try to join Team Stannis for the march to KL. A seat back on the Small Council with a whole new regime in town that doesn't know his tricks would be a decent consolation prize,…

And particularly great because they didn't telegraph it or overly explain it. Half the audience was likely going, "Who's Jorah's dad again?"

1) Sort by Oldest until Disqus crashes. 2) Sort by Newest until Disqus crashes. It's the stuff in the middle that gets buried — argh!