There was no need for a "last stand", though. The garrison just surrendered. The fight was over. He didn't even have a chance to at least face Jamie or a Frey to try to take with him to death.

Brienne presented him with a very good reason to fight the real battle, one that counted much more than the futile attempt to hold the Riverlands. Also, by getting away he would have had the opportunity to do what, according to the books, he does best - fighting a guerrilla war. He does in the books, and I dare to predict he did the same in the show. We've had more instances of off-screen deaths that turned out to not have been permanent.

Also, Brynden Tully is way too clever and popular in the Riverlands to be left "dead in a ditch". As a guerrilla, at least he would have had the opportunity to fight on his terms, and actually accomplish something.

Edit: also, he would have had the chance to fight earlier on the ramparts, where his action might even have prevented Edmure from entering the castle, and thereby preventing the surrender. He chose not to and shoved the partially drawn sword back in his scabbard. I don't believe he was merely thinking about Brienne and Pod at that point. Brienne would have had no problem getting out of there alive, and Jamie would not have detained her, anyway. She was more or less an emissary.

Committing "suicide by guards" is a despicable way to weasel out of one's responsibilities as a leader.

I don't see Edmure as a "turncoat traitor", btw. He knows that Lannister occupation is at best temporary. Jamie wasn't lying when he said he needed to go back to King's Landing, and he would not go without his army. Which leaves only the Freys to deal with later.

Also still not convinced that the Waif actually ever lived in flesh and blood. Could still have been a struggle in Arya's head, where "Tyler Durdan" was trying to kill Arya's personality - turning her into "no one". Arya prevailed, by (symbolically) "killing" the Waif, and so remained Arya Stark. Killing the actress could have been her "peace offering" to the Faceless Men to leave her alone.

Nah. Imaginary friends do not beat you up with a stick until you look like a Mr. Potato left too long in the sun.

They just wrote a situation they did not know how to handle.

They did not have to make Arya stupid. They could have had a fight that showed that Arya knew the old woman was the Waif, but still get hurt and escape in trough the canal. No other events were needed to be changed, and our suspension of disbelief of Arya being a trained assassin would had remained.

A trainee in a thousand year old order of assassins chasing her target trough crowded streets with a bloody knife in hand...just...embarrassing.

The scene where Aria kills the Waif is so badly directed. Maybe they wanted to show a transition from Arya playing stupid to badass Daredevil Arya that can fight in the dark, but it just does not work.

I've got to agree with Bib here. I am ok with the resolution of the Arya arc here... I am Arya of house stark... but how we got there seems half baked. As a matter of fact, with so little that has actually happened this season, the whole story line seems 'random'. I don't know if it is the script writers trying to tell there own story or having a hard time translating 4000 more pages of books into 3 seasons (this one being the last 10 episode one).

1. We've got Tyrion, who despite his nephew was able to save kings landing. He comes up with a scheme to save mereen. Whelp, that failed terribly...queue the dragons.

2. Snow who helped save the wall, now decides to march a group of wildlings down to take the strongest castle in the north WHILE outnumbered. Wtf? I guess he is in a hurry to be dead again. Whelp, that probably won't work, queue the Vail.

3. Arya, trained by the first sword of brazos, trained by the faceless ones. Decides this is not the life for her THEN forgets all of here training. Gets ambushed and totally outclassed by the waif. Whelp this is a disaster...queue off screen action.

I can't go on any longer with this discussion. To many points and I am out of time. The f'n blackfish, Brienne continuing her pointless tour of all of westeros. Is the hound being alive a replacement for caitlin stark?

As far as the faceless men go. The faceless god is given a name, and he will always get that name. Since Arya was allowed to leave, I am guessing that the name given was the Waif's. She was far to emotional and hate filled to work as a faceless man.

Oh no, I fear you're on to something. I can see it now: Hound gets mortally wounded in some skirmish, Dondarrion gives his life to him, Hound becomes Lord Stoneheart. Because since Dondarrion is still very much alive, and the Red Wedding has been "years" ago (according to Edmure Tully's line about the length of his captivity) so Caitlin's body must be quite decomposed by now, there will not be a Lady Stoneheart like in the books.

And

That would neatly fit the trend of the show to get rid of/ignore popular characters that the show runners nevertheless deem to be redundant, or "too confusing" for what they perceive to be their ADHD-plagued audience (Barristan Selmy!).

While I agree the whole arya/waif story line was really badly done, I think they were trying to show that Arya had become a faceless assassin. She planned the killing of the Waif. She prepared the killing room and lead the Waif there. Every killing is planned out "how will you do it?". Arya planned out the killing of the Waif and carried it out. It did however leave way too many question marks.
The writing has been very poor this season, I feel the writers are rushing, too fast, towards a finale.

I was trying to think of a way suitable for the death of Ramsay Bolton, I was hoping he would be flayed alive.



Awesome episode, pity they weren't all like this.

Mick.

Oh that had shivers running up and down me, watched it with my son in the cinema it was Wow on the big screen with the surround sound turned up, I had recalibrated the sound just for this episode too

I'm gonna miss Wun-Wun.




The Jedi Master

I hear you knocking but you can't come in...

Jon should turn over all military affairs to Sansa.

She outsmarted both Ramsay and Jon. Old-school Cersei 2.0.

Anyway, one of the best episodes of the series.

Why didn't anyone think of giving him a weapon of some kind? With a medium sized tree he could have easily made a nice gap in that shield wall, Ent-style.

Of course, the arc of suspense would have suffered quite a bit, but oh well.....

He is now knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door....

She did?

You realize she just played into Littlefinger's plan? For someone warning Jon not to do what the enemy expected...GEEZ!

She might be the current heir of Winterfell (until Bran shows), but Lord Baelish has an agreement with the Crown to achieve the very same thing he just did, in exchange to become the Warden of the North.

I think this week's Hurrahs will turn into next weeks dark times pretty quickly.



And yes, awesome episode in terms of writing and cinematography.

Of course she did. Jon and his troops were the bait for Ramsay to expose his army to the Knights of the Vale. A cavalry attack, against a proper shield wall supported by archers, is costly, as Stannis found out the hard way.

So the Bolton army needed to be lured into the open, with their backs exposed. Hot-headed Jon's temper complied, and Sansa arrived with the Knights just in the proverbial nick of time? What a tremendous coincidence! And Sansa just happened to stumble into them and guide them to the battlefield?

They must have had their camp nearby for at least a day, because you don't ride for days and then immediately join a battle. Especially not on the same horses.

Sansa is learning quickly, and I would not put all my eggs in the Littlefinger basket just yet. Her smile at the end of the doggy feeding session was pretty telling: I believe she's had enough of being anyone's pawn, and Ramsay left a cruel and cunning streak on her character.

I bet she's had correspondence with Littlefinger and knew he was there, just neglected to tell Jon about it all. She did not tell Jon about the Baelish offer to lend her the Kights of the Vale, and didn't tell Jon when she changed her mind. So to keep that information from Jon was not one of Littlefingers schemes. That was her own idea.

Littlefinger's immediate fate depends on how well he can manipulate Robert Arryn. Sansa also has had quite some influence over "Sweetrobin" back in the Vale, so there's an opening. Sansa no longer trusts Petyr Baelish (and wait until she finds out who betrayed her father - Sandor knows, maybe he'll run into Brienne again and tells her, who in turn would be honor-bound to tell Sansa), and he still sees Sansa as the young Caitlin Stark he fell madly in love with. And that is his weakness.

Edit: I don't understand it anyway how Littlefinger could have made it all the way up to the north alive anyway. If I were that Lord he snubbed a couple of episodes back, I'd have fragged his arse the minute we were out of Sweetrobin's sight. "Oh, terrible tragedy, my Lord, but your Uncle Petyr fell from his horsy, you see. Nothing we could have done."

I agree with the "Hurrahs"...it wouldn't be Game of Thrones otherwise.

Jon will most certainly have some questions for Sansa regarding the miraculous arrival of the 7th Cavalry. And Ser Davos most likely will have some questions for Melissandre regarding the toy he's found in the remains of that pyre.

BTW, social media is ablaze with claims that Sansa is pregnant by Ramsay. Him saying "you can't kill me, I'm a part of you" supposedly is proof of that.

Maybe I'm a simple man, but to me that would be unconvincing writing. How could Ramsay possibly know that? And even if she were pregnant, I'm sure Melissandre can brew some concoction to abort that - I'm assuming highly unwanted - child? I don't know about the old god's stand on abortion, but they seem not to be too morally squeamish up in the north. Also, she told him that she will eradicate every trace of him and his House. That would include any of his offspring as well, I assume?

Also, my interpretation was more along the lines of "some part of my character is now a part of you as well, so a part of my personality will live on within you". Which she promptly proved when he had him fed to his own dogs.

Thoughts?

On the big screen that looked less than convincing, it looked like I was looking at a Jon Snow standing in front of a big screen, you could see the edges. That was the only real bit where the effects broke down.

Sometimes watching on the screen in the cinema reveals a little too much.

But I loved the tracking shot with the horses galloping towards Jon, as in your second picture, that was well done.

No green screens in that cavalry charge.