There's a whole world of unscrupulous mercenaries out there, and Dany made the mistake of letting the aristocrats keep most of their (non-human) assets. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the "Sons of the Harpy" turned out to be the "Independent Contractors of the Harpy," mostly, with a few noble diehards thrown in.

A Game of Thrones for the Game of Thrones reviewers? I like it! Who will survive and reign supreme?

I predict the opposite. I think the finale will. . .never mind. pogue won the thread.

Agreed. I almost can't believe Stannis actually went there; but having gone there, he's stuck there. Stannis and the Boltons deserve each other, to the point where I no longer have a strong opinion about which side deserves to win.

Well, I think her plan is to "smash the wheel" with an enormous army and three full-grown dragons. That alone ought to do it (see, e.g., Harranhal) Also, she thinks the common people will rise up and help her dispense with their noble overlords. . . which isn't as impossible as Tyrion seems to think it is, although…

**SPOILERS**

Arkady's much too important to have gotten his job without powerful friends of his own (and objectively, he's not an inconsequential person himself). I don't know where Minister of Railways really ranks in the scheme of things (although the title itself evokes -and I think is meant to evoke- a tiny note of horror in…

What was really interesting about that second exchange is that the waif wasn't being mean to Arya at all. She was performing a caricature of the kinds of things that people do when they lie: pausing, rushing, glancing away, glancing away while pausing, telling a story with logical inconsistencies. . . she did…

Littlefinger is getting the heck out of Dodge while the getting is good, but it wouldn't surprise me to see the exact sequence you describe narrated by Olenna Tyrell a few episodes hence. . .

It's a close contest, what with all the slave-traders, torturers, assassins, necromancers and psychopaths wandering around, but Ramsay Bolton might very well have just taken the prize for Single Worst Human Being in Westeros.

Yes and no. Don's hallucinations about dead people was a theme that never quite wrapped up. I'd have liked to see some kind of conclusion to that in the final episode.

Betty's delivery of that line was pitch-perfect too. She didn't wield that truth to wound him; she just let the leaden weight of it tumble from her arms from sheer exhaustion.

Randall Tarly: "Your mother insists that I'm forbidden to hunt you for sport, so you're to go to the frozen North and die like the spineless, useless, blight on this House that you are."

Then I concede your point, sadly.

I'd say the most significant death in the last 2 books was either Lysa Arryn or Oberyn Martell. . . although only Oberyn was really a shock. (But still, it was a shock, because of how that scene was handled).

Or it's the other way around, and Winter is draining her power. It occurs to me that Mance Rayder's army could have been brought to an (almost) bloodless collapse if she'd assassinated him with magic the way she did Renly. What else could have been stopping her?

I wouldn't bet on Jon being dead, but there are enough real deaths mixed in with the fake ones to keep me guessing. Did anyone really think he'd kill Eddard? Catlyn? Robb? Joffrey? Renly? Robert? Tywin? Ygritte? The list goes on.

I think Margaery has been nursing a grudge against Cersei for a very long time, and with excellent reason. Cersei is a ruthless, vicious, sociopath whose poor rulership decisions are rivaled only by those made by her monster of a firstborn son. She's also a regicide, which I suspect the Tyrells are sharp enough to…

I think Sansa changed her hair to disguise herself as "Alayne," which makes sense in terms of the plot and also provides a useful visual cue (one of a multitude of them) that Sansa has come a long way doe-eyed victim she played in Season One.

I got the impression that Margery's been waiting to have this exact conversation with Cersei for a very, very long time.