From Sansa finally showing a fighting spirit to Dany burning down her enemies, with plenty of scenes from other female characters, a better title for this episode would simply be Badass Women.

And I was wrong to laugh about Emilia's lack of nudity in a previous episode. She simply wants to make it count.

 

See, now that Jon told her that there's nothing after death she's suddenly lost her fanatical vibe. When she said that Jon was the PtwP it didn't sound nearly as convincing as when she pimped Stannis.

I have my pitchfork handy for when she burns.

 

After thinking it over, a more serious title and a lot more fitting, if a little bland, would be Sisters and brothers. I mean, most of this episode was about sisters meeting their brothers - Sansa and Jon, Margaery and Loras, Yara and Theon.

By the way, pretty cool concept I read. Starks as a representation of the Seven and their fates as a twisted versions of their attributes.
- Ned - Father representing judgment and killed unjustly.
- Cat - Mother representing motherhood, embodying the concept of mercy, but resurrected as a merciless monster.
- Robb - Warrior, representing strength in battle, but killed in a conspiracy.
- Sansa -Maiden, representing innocence and chastity, but, at least in the TV show, her maiden's virtue was violently taken.
- Rickon - Smith, representing crafts and labor, but who became a feral child. He's the least fitting, but some speculate he may be the one to rebuild Winterfell once the books are done, so he would work in reverse to the rest.
- Bran - Crone, representing wisdom. He probably will make some massive mistake using his powers.
- Arya - Stranger, representing death and the unknown. I suppose her fate may involve saving a life of someone she wished to kill?

 

Pretty good episode, I say. Dany was great!

H̶i̶t̶l̶e̶r̶ Melisandre did nothing wrong.

 

I just hope when Bolton meets his end it's a painful one rather than a quick death. I'll also bet Dany will be upset when she finds out Tyrion allowed another seven years of slavery to go on in Slavers Bay.

All in all it's another solid episode that ended just as it was getting good.

 

Love all the stuff with Sansa. The moment where she turned up at Castle Black... chills.

On the other hand, no chills with Daenerys' end scene. In the past I've loved her big victory scenes such as when she won her army. But this one felt empty. Firstly because it feels like they've just taken the components of her past successes and recycled them in a slightly jumbled up form. Secondly because it was too easy.

 

Spoiler

I'm thinking, Dany now has probably in the range of tens of thousands of Dothraki riders (given that there were supposed to be a hundred thousand people in Vaes Dothrak), plus 8k Unsullied (give or take with whatever losses were sustained since Astapor) and Daario's Second Sons (2k). Basically, a big army. IIRC, big ships can transport a hundred people, so if she can find a few hundred of those (Yunkai offered her enough to ferry Unsullied just to get her to fuck off, and Stannis had like 4k men whom he sailed north, so I imagine getting the ships is not impossible), she could land in Westeros and with a bit of politics (Tyrion & Varys) she could maybe actually conquer stuff.

Is this the beginning of the endgame, or are we going to spend the next six episodes on Dany trying to teach Dothraki that slavery is bad and rape is bad too? I like the pacing in season 6 so far, especially with regard to Essos stuff, which moved at a glacial pace last season. Let's go kill the Lannisters already, please?

Then again, if Dany does bring her Dothraki pals across the Narrow Sea and say she wins everything, is she just going to send them back, or try to get them to abolish slavery? Cuz she's been doing that for years, with mixed results and the Masters of Slavers' Bay seem more, shall we say, worldly than Dothraki.

Also I want to see this Kingsmoot thing. I was surprised that I missed Yara when I saw her this season.

And if R + L = J is confirmed I think if they don't have Jon and Dany find out for a possible confrontation over claims to the Iron Throne then D&D would be missing a huge opportunity for awesomeness imo.

 

I'm pretty sure it was implied that they rigged the room to be more flammable. Plus, the fire pits contained oil, so once they were spilled, the flames would instantly ignite the oil and WHOOSH, up goes the wooden building in the middle of a desert.

 

Few more thoughts about the episode.

While I appreciate that we don't have to deal with people refusing to believe magical aspects of the show, I would really like to see Sansa's reaction to hearing if not about the Others, then at least about Jon's resurrection. She's a character that up to this point had no contact with a mystical side of her world.

Jon and Sansa's reunion was touching, but they better give us Jon and Arya's too in the last season, if only to have it mirror their goodbye hug from the first season.

Watching Dany emerging from the fire reminded me of V for Vendetta. And it's good they decided to keep her stay there brief instead of making in a season long adventure and this her big final scene.

Are there any Tormund/Brienne fics? If not, I expect there will be after this episode.

 

Well, Tormund fucked a bear once...

Why not make it two?

 

Thats just mean , though I would not be surprised to see some Brienne!Warg Bear / Tormund slash fiction coming our way now

 

Why didn't any of the dozen Khals in the room wring her neck the moment she threw the things down? Or when they saw the doors were barred? I hated that whole scene. And I actually like Daenerys in the books.

I loved the first scene of the reunion with Sansa and Jon.

This episode was a mix of awesome scenes and subpar writing.

 

I'm not sure if you've ever been in, or near a structure that is on fire, or been around a fire that is angry and growing.

But as a heads up, fire is scary and primal and death, and rational thought flees when you're surrounded by it.

 

Also, you needed to cross the fire to get to her. A bit tricky, without the nifty fire resistance.

 

Spoiler

If R+L turns out to be true, does that mean Jon will share Dany's abilities? It seems like it's a lineage thing about those who are worthy. Or is it just Dany?

 

Jon burned his hand in season 1, so not a true Dragon.

 

Fairly certain its the latter actually. Tons of Targs get dead by fire (see summerhall).

The real core idea is that being a Targaryen (i.e a Valyrian) means you potentially have strong inherent magic.

When Dany started to believe she was a 'true dragon' and that 'fire cannot kill a dragon', her magic began making it a reality. Magic in ASOIAF seems to be centrally structured on belief and believing you can do magic.

 

For what it's worth GRRM has said a few times that Dany - and Targs in general - have no immunity to fire, and that the end of book 1 was just a unique instance.

 

Also, we don't have to rely on GRRM's interviews, Dany was burned in A Dance of Dragons. In the show she's immune to fire, in the books she's not.

Whether the showrunners will extend that same immunity to Jon is unknown. I wouldn't put it past them to retcon Jon getting burned in season 1 and make him immune to help prove R+L=J to Dany and other characters. They've certainly ignored continuity before. Or maybe they'll make Jon's resurrection trigger his magical fire protection, perhaps like the pyre did for Dany.

 

But, in the show at least, it was hinted that she was immune for the entire season, before the pyre. The scalding dragon eggs and the boiling hot bath in the first episode.

Still, I agree, they might just pretend he never burned.