The High Sparrow gives every indication of sincerely believing that; but the Queen of Thorns seems equally committed to the opposite proposition; and if the Father's Justice should be meted out too enthusiastically in the case of the young Tyrells, then the Mother's Mercy will be conspicuously absent when House Tyrell…

The guy seems like a true believer- he's probably trusting in the Seven to keep Cersei from having him executed. . .which, in a sense, they just might. The Lannisters are fighting too many battles on too many fronts as it is. The last thing they need is a popular uprising in King's Landing, which is almost certainly…

He'll most likely be killed when the White Walkers pour through the Wall and inundate the North with the undead. . . or maybe he'll cut some kind of deal with them like Craster did and survive unpunished forever.

I think that might be part of where the story is heading. Jon's death (which looked very permanent to me) probably sealed the fate of the Night's Watch. The White Walkers will now almost certainly breach the Wall and pour into the North (which is appropriate, considering the terrible decisions that have been made by…

True, but if that's all that happens in Oldtown, there's no need for the story to linger there (or for the producers to commission the costly art direction, set construction, location scouting, and GCI work needed to turn Oldtown into a living city the way they did for Braavos and King's Landing (and, to a lesser…

Hopefully, not much. Also, in this version of the story, it's possible that Sam never even gets there. The new management of the Night's Watch could easily send a couple of fast riders down the Kingsroad to tell Sam to turn around.

I'm rooting for Headless Ned.

"So, I guess Balon just sucks a big ol' bag of severed dicks in this adaptation."

Alister came to respect Jon enough to have him killed. . .for the Starks, that's about as close to victory as they seem to get.

The "Ice" half of the equation could be the White Walkers. . . although at this point they're probably insulted that nobody seems to be paying attention to them. Forget the Seven Kingdoms - even the Night's Watch itself is more consumed with internal bickering than with trying to stop the onrushing armies of the…

Postmortem is perhaps the wrong word. . .

Exactly! This was perhaps the one failure of Jon's instinct for leadership, and it came at the worst possible moment. But then again, the Starks now have a proven track record of falling flat on their faces a step before the finish line by making just this kind of mistake.

I think his point about the Tyrells is well taken. They've been spared the worst of the fighting so far, and their forces were never weak to begin with. At this point, their armies really might be more powerful than whatever is left of House Lannister's.

I like that he looked utterly pitiful and tormented. Seldom, even in fiction, has someone deserved a miserable fate as much as Gregor. . . and seldom, even in fiction, has anyone received a fate this miserable.

The Starks saving the day would be great. . . but there seems to be an emerging pattern of failure. For all their gifts (and their gifts are many and great), the Starks seem to be forever coming up just the tiniest bit short. Eddard Stark almost crushed Cersei Lannister before her plot to seize power took off. Robb…

Depending on where they want to take the story, they could spend 10 minutes showing the Night's King and his army of the dead overwhelming Alistair Thorne and Melisandre's pitifully weak defense of the Wall, and pouring triumphantly through it into the North.

I'm sure the story got around regardless. Jon Snow wasn't the only member of the Night's Watch who survived that battle. . . but you're right. Jon should have given a whole speech on what he saw at Hardhome. It wouldn't have just been good politics; it would have been vital instruction on the capabilities (and the…

You mean, if there are no legendary heroes, what's the story? Perhaps in the absence of legendary heroes, the ordinary mortals will be left to fight the darkness on their own. . .which is potentially the story GRRM has been writing all along.If the broken, flawed characters left behind (the Cerseis, and Jaimies and…

Right. But now Myrcella's dead, so their entire mission is moot.

That's an interesting point. What will the crew of the ship do now? They presumably knew nothing about the plot to poison Myrcella, but if the captain is even slightly clever, he'll know that the only result of completing their journey to King's Landing will be the execution of himself and his crew, followed by war.