i'm rooting for the night's king and his band of merry white walkers.

Well this episode did nothing to dampen the Mad King theories.

The episode wasn't all that great but atleast they didn't make a misstep on any of the major storylines. I'm glad Jaime is off to Riverrun to confront the Blackfish, will hopefully breathe some life back in to his character. That chapter is one of my favourites from the later books so hopefully they can do that one justice.

apart from the benjen reveal that was one trash ass episode

arya wasted all that time in braavos only to pack it in at her first assignment? nah blud

It's ridiculous isn't it? 2 seasons of the most mind numbingly boring scenes of her 'training' and we got fuck all out of it

They managed to make the confrontation at Kings Landing as uneventful as they possibly could too.

At least we got to see more Sam Tarly scenes though.

dont forget danaerys' rousing speech number 4378.

i hope her invasion of westeros fails miserably

There should be a red button option that lets us just follow Jon and Tyrion for 60 minutes.

I thought it wasn't half bad, though I'd agree Arya squibbing assassinating her target was really lame. I'd rather she became a master assassin then killed that assassin-girl who keeps giving her the shits.

The Sam, King's Landing and khalassar bits were all at least ok.

How would it make sense for Arya to continue serving those guys after finding out they're just mercenaries who kill for money rather than some higher purpose?

But they're not, are they.

They're servants of the Stranger-slash-Many-Faced-God, one of the principal tenets of their perverse faith is that they surrender their own volition as far as the act of killing is concerned to others. The being "mercenary" is in fact a key religious observance.

Absolutely.

Another key point the show hasn't addressed yet is the nature of the payment itself.

Either way she's known what they are for ages and it never really fit her agenda.

Klaus wrote:

But they're not, are they.

Maybe I misinterpreted episode 5, but the way I see it Arya once believed that they killed people who deserved it, but was then made aware that people basically pay them to do this, which makes them mercenaries in my book. What happens in the book is irrelevant - if they're something more than mercenaries there it doesn't mean that the series fails to show that, it could be that they've just changed it.

The show has already shown that they are a religious cult of mystic assassins who are murdering people in the name of the many-faced god.

The payment they were referring to is the price people pay to have someone killed. It's different for everyone and rarely involves money. The principle is that you have to give up something that you'll sorely miss. Whether the show feels the need to clarify that point or not is indeed irrelevant; they're still not portrayed as mercenaries who kill to enrichen themselves.

Yep, that was whole point of Arya's death chant.
The Starks are slowly all reuniting and getting their acts together.

Gazza M wrote:

dont forget danaerys' rousing speech number 4378.

i hope her invasion of westeros fails miserably

It was pathetic.

Me too.

goon wrote:

It's ridiculous isn't it? 2 seasons of the most mind numbingly boring scenes of her 'training' and we got fuck all out of it

They managed to make the confrontation at Kings Landing as uneventful as they possibly could too.

At least we got to see more Sam Tarly scenes though.

I bet killing the waif with needle is actually the last part of her training. Calling it now.

I actually liked some of Sam's scenes. The actor playing his dad was great. Shades of Tywin about him.

Also, Bran definitely has something to do with The Mad King's "Burn them all!" fun I reckon.

Oh, and while Dany's speech at the end was pretty pointless, I enjoyed it. I like Dany when she's channelling her old man. I like her less when she's acting like a normal person.