Cat was to marry Ned's brother, Brandon, who was executed by a Targaryen when he tried to save Lyanna from the Targaryens, and plus Lyanna was asking Ned to do what he could to keep Jon safe—a pretty solid indication that the child was not the result of rape but of a consensual relationship. So telling Cat that he…

yes, so few people had the capacity for understanding it after years of seeing endless explanations of it pop up on the internet every five minutes. the only thing that could make it better now is if the subject of jon's parentage doesn't come up one single time for the rest of the series.

my favorite part was how how arya looked down and smiled after cutting the throats of everybody who won't stop talking about how lady stoneheart is going to show up any minute now.

they are showing us the same character in two different places over the course of an episode—that in itself is the clue that a chunk of time has passed. they probably just assume we're at least smart enough to figure that out.

i'm curious as to whether they feel like the need to get rid of melisandre at this point because (as indicated in her conversation with jon this episode) her presence kinda makes jon invincible, and as viewers we need to see him as having some vulnerability.

the wildlings are loyal to jon, but that's not necessarily going to translate into their loyalty to house stark (or any other house) if something happens to jon. plus, the knights of the vale haven't fought wildlings (and weren't successful in fully suppressing the hill tribes) and perhaps haven't fought in the…

someone here mentioned that they might be the key to sansa overthrowing littlefinger.

the reason roose made him a legitimate bolton, after initially being repulsed by his fascination with torture (e.g., what he did to theon), was that he realized ramsay's habits were far more strategic than simply enjoyment in watching people suffer—one of those strategies being that his reputation for barbarity was…

a littlefinger betrayal could still be coming soon. if sansa doesn't agree to marry him (the previews indicate he will try), he's got this huge army outside winterfell, and the season could end with jon and sansa within, under seige.

we've seen him hunt people before, and miss on purpose to let people think they are getting away. he's been doing it since he was a kid, so he's good at it, and he's done it so much that he can predict what his target is likely to do. we've seen what he did to theon; we don't know what all he did to rickon,…

the point at where he actually hit rickon was exactly where he wanted jon to stop (he knew jon would run to try to save him). he was getting jon into a very specific zone (the 'sweet spot' for his archers) on the battlefield, creating the point where the armies would clash and then his archers would shoot jon's men…

"Really though, the totally-predictable last-second arrival and Sansa joining him as they rode in seemed like something made for TV more than something made to really make sense."

"oh, by the way, Littlefinger offered the Knights of the Vale and I sent him a raven accepting."

"I never told you this, but Littlefinger offered me his allegiance and the use of his army, and i turned him down because i'm still a child and put my personal resentment ahead of our need to win this battle, so instead we had to run all over the north to try to scrounge for help, and now if we lose it's all my fault,…

why do people think littlefinger showed up with the army of the vale and turned them over to sansa to command?

i thought there was a cool parallel in sansa appealing to jon about underestimating ramsey and the previous discussion (also in a battlefield tent, i think) where catelyn tries to convince robb that he doesn't know what walder frey is capable of if he reneges on the marriage agreement.

well, now littlefinger sits at winterfell with an army that is that much larger than jon's (the potential of that which might help him convince sansa to marry him) and with fewer wildlings in the north that he wants to ultimately control.

yeah, littlefinger just showed up with the army of the vale and handed them over to sansa, a master of battlefield strategy. they showed up, and she made them all wait in the closet, like on 'three's company', so she could pull them out when jon wasn't looking.

littlefinger had appealed to her, and she sent him away because she felt betrayed. then she wrote to him in desperation, when it was obvious they wouldn't gather enough people to fight. but she had no reason to be confident he would show up, did she? she knows how vindictive littlefinger can be when he doesn't get…

the preview implies that he's going to expect that in return…