also, im 90% certain that bran is the night king.

I'm thinking we'll learn about the primordial sin that created the Night King as the season wears on, the curse that affects the walkers will be lifted, and there will be some scene where a huge army of zombies collapses to dust.

Burnwinter wrote:

It was ok. I'm struggling to feel much for most of the characters—I think Sansa was the most compelling in this episode, poised between the damage that's been inflicted on her and her taste for power, making her authority known but showing the wrong instincts. It will be interesting to see how Littlefinger gets his just desserts. The Hound is in second place in that episode.

Didn't mind the Ed Sheeran bit, as it served to set up Arya's arc for the season ("I'm going to kill the Queen.") That kind of thing is important in an opening episode.

Really the only part that was desperately bad was the arrival of Daenerys and her fleet at Dragonstone. The scene went for too long, the animation was beautiful but lifeless, the empty castle felt unrealistic, and the bareness of the production design really reminded us all, for minutes on end, how poor some of the costumes and character concepts are.

I find it odd that you criticise the unrealistic castle and constumes but are absolute fine with Ed Sheeran - basically playing himself - in the middle of the show. That's far more distracting!

Ed Sheeran's a bigger deal for you lot I guess, I've barely registered his existence.

Lol. I wouldn't have known who he was if it wasn't for the ensuing social media storm

Exactly. I didn't mind so much because I don't know who he is.

He's the world's most important ginger.

In fairness, I expect it's a lot easier to ignore him elsewhere.

If Ed Sheeran wasn't such a mugging, smiley dope it might have felt less egregious. He looked like he wanted to shout "look I'm on Game of Thrones". The whole thing was far too twee for the shows usual tone.

spoiler

in the scene with cersei/jamie and the map, cersei is standing on "the neck" portion of westeros, and jamie is standing on "the fingers"....fingers....neck....etc....

How is that a spoiler? Can you elaborate?

well maybe its not a spoiler, but a popular theory is that jamie is going to kill cersei, and if they are trying to foreshadow it, id say thats pretty big foreshadowing.

I see, kind of makes sense if that's what happens. Then again Jamie standing on the fingers part of the map could just be a symbolism of him losing his hand previously.

I try not to speculate top much when watching and just avoid these theories hoping to just watch and be surprised when something happens.

Cercsei's fortune she was told as a kid said her younger brother would kill her. So Tyroin or Jamie. Seems unlikely it'd be Tyroin.

mdgoonah41 wrote:

spoiler

in the scene with cersei/jamie and the map, cersei is standing on "the neck" portion of westeros, and jamie is standing on "the fingers"....fingers....neck....etc....

Yeah, I've seen people discuss the map in that scene. I think that's a really contrived theory, especially since he isn't standing on the fingers at all. He's literally standing in the Narrow sea.

I'm convinced Jaime will end up killing Cersei in the end, but I doubt that the map was a reference to the prophecy. If anything it was used to symbolise the distance between them which has been growing over the last couple of seasons. It was basially Citizen Kane: Westeros edition, with Cersei plotting her dominion while Jaime is lost at sea.

id certainly never expect you to agree with me on anything.

Yeah I've subscribed to the echoed kingslayer/queenslayer ending for jaimie

mdgoonah41 wrote:

id certainly never expect you to agree with me on anything.

It wasn't aimed at you. I watched a youtube video earlier today where they almost word for word said the same thing though. One might as well point out that the region of the sea he's standing in is named The Bite, so maybe it means he'll bite her throat off then? Or maybe Sheeran's lyrics about how "hands of gold are always cold" from the same episode was foreshadowing... except it's actually a line that comes from a song Tyrion composed about himself and Shae in the books.

There's a tendency to really overanalyse the show that in itself is a continuation of how people have overanalysed the books for decades now, rummaging through pages while looking for the most obscure details to support ideas. The books aren't that clever, and the show is less than half as smart as the books on a good day. Most of the stuff needs to be taken at face value. I.e. if Jaime is standing on water he's probably not meant to be standing on the nearest landmark.

Just watch and enjoy the ride and see what happens when it happens.