What I find most annoying about this episode (and, if this continues, the show in general) is the fact that nobody ever seems to watch the freaking news. I get that it's a potentially expensive pain to create plausible news footage of an unfolding global disaster, and I also get that the directors want to keep the…

Fair. I should have kept calling it "the Crown", which at this point is probably Kevan Lannister, but which (you're right) has never, for a second, been Tommen acting in his own right to do anything at all.

As far as the Crown is concerned, King Tommen is his nephew. . . so presumably Tommen stands to inherit. (Not that Tommen couldn't just seize his lands anyway, for treason).

I can't believe he worked in the sex scene from Ulysses and it made perfect freaking sense. Happy Bloomsday, Colbhair. . . happy Bloomsday!

Exactly. Just about any variation would have been smarter than what she did.

Exactly. Just about any variation would have been smarter than what she did.

She does. Killing people at random does more than create needless enemies - it empowers the enemies you already have by telling them that you don't know who they are. For someone dealing with an insurgency that claims to be anonymous and untouchable, it's hard to imagine a better way to encourage them.

I think the White Walkers are going to breach the Wall and slaughter everyone left in the North, including the Boltons. (A delicious twist would be for Roose Bolton to cut a deal with the Night's King along the traditional lines laid out by Craster: the sacrifice of his son in exchange for his life).

Season 6 opening sequence: Medium shot on the corpse of Theon; the corpse of Sansa; the corpse of Jon; the corpse of Myrcella; the corpse of Arya; the corpse of Stannis. . . cut to Sam, just in time to watch him get stabbed. . . the earless corpse of Bronn. . .the corpse of Jon again. . .

Handle/Topic Synergy = +1

By now, I think we can all agree that the Westerosi justice system is flawed. . .

You mean, in the sense that the good guys suffered terrible losses and betrayals, were on the run the entire time, and counted it as a victory to have simply escaped with their lives?

This is probably a tangental question, but do you think Danaerys has realized that her plan to suppress the Sons of the Harpy by feeding random noblemen to her dragons was, in retrospect, slightly flawed?

I'd put Littlefinger in that category too. I'm hoping for a scene before the end in which all three of them get a chance to exchange competing threats.

There's certainly precedent for religious authorities forcing secular authorities to reverse themselves. King Henry II and (especially) King Edward II offer relevant examples; and there's even precedent for religious authorities causing secular authorities to be overthrown (the closest parallel here is probably the…

Medieval Europe saw its share of peasant revolts, but they were almost never successful. The nobility governed by cavalry, not by consent; and the vigorous application of the former to anyone reckless enough to suggest a need for the latter was typically more than enough to carry the day.

Exactly! Just look at Winston Churchill!

That kid who stabbed Jon Snow told a pretty convincing story about the wildlings' crimes. I don't think for a second that he was making it up. And then there's Craster. And the Thenns. All in all, the Wildlings are just as motley a crew as the Watch.

No. . it will still be filled with rapists and murderers until the zombies come. At which point, it will be filled with dead rapists and murderers. And demons. That's the North for you. . . which may serve to explain why the lever that set this whole gruesome Rube Goldberg contraption of rapey medieval warfare in…

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…