Episode 5x10: 'Mother's Mercy' - READERS thread

Damn it, have to wait another year now!

Is there be hope to be taken from the fact that we didn't see Stannis die?

Brienne is terrible at keeping oaths, can't believe she gave Jaime so much schtick.

No, Stannis is dead- D&D say so in the behind the scenes clip.
Possible Jon Snow Parentage spoiler:
Season six will be an interesting one!

The battle scene was a let down... Dont know why they felt the need to be so vague with Stannis' death (or lack thereof)
Sansa and Theon escaping... Liked it.
Arya killing Trant... Brutal and easily the best scene of the episode.
The Cersi walk of shame was so far drawn out it was boring. Oh yay! Boobies... Sure I could have fapped twice and still had a smoke.
The Mereen scene were very confusing.... They were ok, not great.
The Dorne scenes were.... Well they were there.
The Jon Snow part was very bittersweet for me. My favourite character in books and second favourite in TV show... I was really hoping for a hint over if he is definitely dead or not.

A very up and down episode altogether but I am looking forward to Winds of Winter or Season 6... Whichever comes first... Heart says book, head says tv show.

Awful, awful episode and end to the season in general. It's very annoying as about halfway through I was at the point of not caring about the changes and just appreciating the good scenes when they happened. This was awful tripe from the start.

First, Stannis being abandoned, betrayed, wife dead, Mel hits the road. So why on earth was Shireen burned? Makes zero sense to drag a fan favourite through the mud like that, though he might be back in some shape or form at some point he is tarnished in most people's eyes. If he died a bit closer to Jon in time it'd have made it a bit more interesting about the resurrection theories. The battle of Ice was just a slaughter, Ramsey in battle with no armour again, snow melting in the north in winter!? Pure bull from start to finish. My hand was hovering over the x on my laptop but I convinced myself to keep going as I've put so much time into the show I might as well see it out. I was finished 3 books before I watched the show and I kind of wish I hadn't started but too late now I guess.

Then onto Jon and Sam. Sam admitting to the Lord Commander of the NW that he'd broken his vows and the LC just laughs. Then Jon is the one who wants Sam to stay rather than the other way around, lets him leave with his girlfriend on a cart to god knows where considering Sam is an awful fighter and has to travel through the 2 roughest places in all of Westeros and an untold amount of miles to get to Oldtown that way. Ridiculous stuff. I guess the 4 year old kid that's still a baby for some reason could get a sudden growth spurt and be a great warrior but I'd doubt it.

Brienne and Sansa then. Sansa uses a corkscrew to get out of the door, doesn't cover her face but still nobody recognises her. Brienne looks away right before the candle is lit in an almost comedic way. Myranda tells Sansa the information that she should have been using all along with the Boltons needing her but her and Theon instead do a snow jump that I feel is outrageously higher than in the books and would cause instant death. Presumably she's just going to bump into Brienne in the woods which will be even more ridiculous considering it's probably miles to the next town. Though they might go to the mill that theon killed the boys in I guess or something. Still very nonsensical imo.

Arya, not the worst scenes this week but still not really great. The multi-layered mask thing just looked strange and seemed like a cheap way of swerving people. Trant being portrayed as literally the worst piece of **** in the entire series in just one scene(2 I guess if you include last week) also felt a bit cheap to me but he got his gruesome death I guess.

I wasn't too much on the Dorne hate brigade but definitely am after this week. Hammy acting and now they have Trystane on a ship with Bronn and Jaime Lannister and have just presumably killed Myrcella. What in god's name did they think they were going to achieve? Just handing the heir of Dorne a death sentence. Yeah, really smart. Doran just allowing Ellaria and the Sand Snakes the freedom of Dorne after all that went down is hilariously stupid. The "I always knew" moment with Jaime and Myrcella was very clichéd but as a Jaime fan I didn't really mind that, but then Myrcella has a pointless cheap death. Ellaria and the Sand Snakes seem to have developed some cure all antidote too which I'm sure would be a good money maker around Westeros.

Then Meereen. The sulky boyband crew and their manager was actually ok. Tyrion was in good ball busting mood as usual. Jorah and Daario going off alone is a bit silly considering Daario still has a lot of sellswords on his team presumably and Jorah and Tyrion have only recently found how dangerous it is to travel Essos as a duo. Bit of a WTF moment with Varys showing up in Meereen as it means that despite the fact they've pushed ahead with a lot of storylines we're still going to be lagging in Meereen with a throwback season 2 dynamic for a good portion of next season. Didn't really care for Dany's one way interaction with Charizard...I mean Drogon. Just seemed a bit silly and she just walks off and predictably gets picked up by the fastest moving Khalasar in Essos. Was the ring one that Drogo gave her or what was the relevance? Not much else to talk about going on there.

The saving grace somewhat was the walk of shame. Brilliantly acted by Lena Headey and raw as hell! No punches were pulled in the treatment of it though I wouldn't have minded Robbie Strong cutting a few people in half who were getting too close to Cersei. I got a laugh out of Pycelle's creepiness though. Seems the Tyrells and Littlefinger have gone the Greyjoy, Gendry, Brotherhood, Tully, Frey etc. route and disappeared too until they're needed again.

The Ides of Marsh minus Marsh scene left us in no doubt about Jon's fate I feel unlike the small bit of doubt that we still have in the books and Mel just conveniently showing up a couple of hours before makes what has to happen quite clear. Just on her, she really didn't act like Melisandre at all in this episode though I guess it's fairly endemic for the show in general. Anyway, as far as the scene went it was what it was I guess. Well enough acted and every stab seemed to have a good bit of emotion behind it. For the amount of time spent at the Wall though the lack of developed characters is really apparent. They built Alliser Thorne in the show as someone very respectful of the ways of the Watch even if he dislikes Jon and then have him turn around and kill the LC. I'm not sure about the internal workings of the Watch and how it's been handled in the show but as I said it is what it is.

TLDR: very confusing in general, walk of shame good, everything else pretty bad. Basically at fan fiction level at this point. I know why GRRM wouldn't trust anyone else with the books if he died now

Awful episode, pacing and structure non-existent.

At last Stannis is still alive.

I don't really care what happens in the show now, they've kind of butchered everything that still has me gripped in the books, or at least made those storylines way less interesting than they are on the page.

Where are the Tully's, the Greyjoys, Nymeria, Stoneheart, Manderley, Freys, Brotherhood without Banners etc etc.

I enjoyed it. Not greatly but that's been consistent with a fairly poor season.

*Stannis and his army dead. Bit of an anti-climax and I can't see how Ramsey wouldn't be the one to kill Stannis.

*Sansa: How many times does she need to get rescued by a man. She's learning to play the game of thrones is she?

*Meeren: I like Tyrion as much as the next but a bit of action might have helped. It all seemed very subdued. They could have shown them releasing the dragons or the Harpies trying to kill them and failing.

*Walk of Shame: I enjoyed it. At the start I thought Cersei was like "this is fine" but then.

*Dorne: No idea what's happening here. The weakest part of the season

*For the Watch: Perfectly fine. I was trolled about the Benjen speak. Could have done with hearing Ghost howl though.

Overall probably the weakest Season so far. Only Hardhome really got into excellent territory.

Daith wrote: »

*For the Watch: Perfectly fine. I was trolled about the Benjen speak. Could have done with hearing Ghost howl though.

Ghost has had an odd treatment on the TV show. They should have showed him locked up and going mad, or at least howling as you suggest. The direwolves were so significant in earlier seasons, only job this season was deus ex machina rescue of Samwell.

I was also disappointed with Grey Wind's death on the show.