They are supposed to have an unmatched reputation that even people in Westeros know about them and fear them. Why would Jaqen send Arya to kill someone so close to her real life list? Basically Arya failed in task and revealed the client's identity and got the client injured and destroyed her livelihood. The intended target lived for awhile and the assassination was messy and the two assassins run around the City. Why would anyone want to hire the Faceless men after this? Why would Jaqen destroy the group reputation just to test Arya? It is not making sense at the moment.

I'm not normally one to complain about things not happening, but on some emotional/instinctual level, I find myself agreeing with those who complained about this episode. I suddenly found myself thinking, "There may only be 13 or so episodes left to tell the rest of this story." With all the families, characters, interactions, etc. I found myself thinking there aren't enough episodes to bring this to a fulfilling conclusion while paying off what's already been set up.

Game of Thrones established a BIG world. Somehow, it's making the world feel smaller. GRRM may have told them how everything ends, but he's who he is for a reason. And some book readers even accuse GRRM of making things too big and meandering.

With all that as backdrop, I've appreciated many Tyrion character moments, but not this time. There's a lot of important stuff going on in the background and I felt like I needed to see some of that stuff a lot more than the joking scene. Unfortunately, given limited time left to tell this huge story, that moment did nothing for me. Why do we need to see Grey Wolf and Missandei display their joking skills? We don't. Not everything in an episode needs to service plot, but this just felt so long, and it felt it came at the expense of something else we'd much rather see.

There may certainly be a reasonable explanation for letting Arya go, but we certainly didn't get it. Still, that was a little more acceptable to me because GoT has always been a series that didn't always give answers. And even when it does, it often doesn't give them right away. It did seem her state of health varied widely (and inconsistently) over the course of various scenes. I'm in the camp that thinks multiple stab strikes as delivered would leave her much worse for wear. In my own mind I wrote it off as we didn't necessarily get good cues as to how much time passed between various scenes. While there are certainly fantasy elements to this show, our humans are basically humans except when explained otherwise.

Obviously we can't judge the season until it's over, and we can't judge the overall show until it's over, but whereas GoT has many times left me feeling bad for (or about) characters, this is the first time I remember having any negative feelings about the show itself.

Onwards and upwards...

There are actually very few writers on GoT. Outside of Bryan Cogman, Dave Hill, and GRRM for the first few seasons, D&D write the bulk of the episodes, and this was one of them.

We are probably looking at 16-20 episodes left after this season. Hopefully Dany makes it to the shore by the end of season 7, so we can at least get a half season of her attacking, with a few episodes to end the series. I really do hope the series ends on a high note....

Because the writers don't know what the hell they are doing with this storyline.

I think the first question has an answer though...it doesn't matter who the target is, if a client has paid the price, the target is expected to die in order to appease the Many Faced God. I think Jaqen sent her as part of her training. He knew that this woman was playing Cersei and that she really wasn't a bad person who deserved to die, that Arya might have hesitation doing it...but the price had been paid, and Arya is supposed to be "no one", with no feelings and emotions about the person she's going to kill. She failed.

Everything else is just bad writing.

I didn't forget. Still, she was taught a skill while blind that the others don't possess. At least the Waif doesn't possess it. This never occurred to anybody? Especially the Waif, "Gee, she's learning stuff even I don't know".
The very fact that Ayra extinguished the candle to gain an edge and use her blind skills to best the Waif at least proves the Waif couldn't fight while blind.

I don't even know what point you're trying to make.

It's as simple as this:
-Arya wouldn't leave her identity behind and killed someone out of revenge
-Arya is blinded as punishment
-Arya is given her sight back after a long period of training and convincing the Faceless Men she has left her identity behind
-She's given her first contract, to kill the actress
-She doesn't, betraying the order
-Jaqen sends the waif to kill Arya
-Arya uses her blind fighting ability to kill the waif

Again, Arya was blinded as punishment, not as part of the training. This wasn't some grand, behind the scenes plan by Jaqen. "I will teach her to fight blind, and as a final test, she will have to kill the waif, hopefully taking advantage of her blind fighting skills. Then she's free to go" You're reaching.

Either outline is boring though. I liked the idea of her growing up and becoming a stone cold, fully trained, bad ass assassin, which is her current path in the books. She's even friendly with the waif in the books, who teaches her how to speak Braavosi, how to act/lie, and how to mix and create poisons.

Watched the behind the scenes. The writers explain it this way

The Faceless God is promised a name(Ayra). They always get their name. Ayra puts the Waif's face on the wall in place of her own. To Ayra this settles accounts with the Faceless Ones.

Ayra: You sent her to kill me.
Jaqen: Yes. But there she is and here you are. At last a girl with no name.
Ayra: A girl with a name. Ayra Stark of Winterfel and I'm going home.

A part of Jaqen admires her staying who she really is. A part of him also was hoping for this outcome because a part of his former self still exists within him.
This is the writer's explanation.

Yes, I saw that and it doesn't support the arguments you had been making earlier in this thread, that Jaqen set up the whole thing, that the blindness was part of her training for a future showdown with the waif, etc. I haven't argued against what happened on screen, I've argued against your interpretation of it. I've also argued that Arya spending a 2 season arc in Braavos only to decide that she just wants to be Arya was a waste of time, and how lazy the writing was regarding Arya's wounds and the waif disregarding her lifelong assassin training to chase Arya in the middle of a crowded marketplace, etc.

Has Peter Dinklage done anything worthy of Emmy win or even nomination this season? Unless he has some great scenes in the next two episodes, I can't see him winning again this year.

that was earlier this season in Oathbreaker. I remember making a similar comment in that scene (the let's-play-a-game scene)

I didn't hate the Arya storyline but the whole thing could have been done in one season. I get why they did it.. Arya was a lost soul who found a chance to be a bad ass assassin, but in the end she couldn't give up her name to do it. It makes sense to the story and needed to be told. It just could have been told over one season. I think they would have been better off doing all of this last season and having no Arya at all this season like they did with Bran. And then bringing her back for season 7, looking older and being a more accomplished bad ass assassin.

I don't really have a problem with Terminator Waif. Yeah, she was exposing herself, but she wanted to finish off the job rather than slip back into the shadows and wait for another opportunity. She let it get too personal.

Not sure why Arya wasn't carrying Needle, though.

He's been pretty much wasted this season.

Because Arya was trying to set her up from the beginning. Even the first time when she was throwing out bags of gold and just pacing through the city, she was trying to bait the waif...and she didn't do a very good job the first time. Her plan from the start was to get the Waif into the spot where she hid needle and finish her off in the dark where her training while being blind is to her advantage.

Seemed to me like she was trying to get out of Bravoos the first time, otherwise why not be a lot more wary with strangers? She had her guard down and that was her downfall.

I don't get how putting the waif's face up on the wall allows the Faceless God to get Aryas's namemand lets her off the hook.

Yeah, I've been feeling this way, too. It's a problem with both the tv series and the books.

The problem is that, by the end of season four (third novel), all of the really interesting characters had been killed off and the major conflicts ended. Robbis dead and the War of the Five Kings is effectively over. Joffrey is dead and replaced by his passive, dull as dirt brother. The main schemer, Tywin Lannister, is dead. Tyrion is exiled with nobody to play off of and nothing to do (see his painful scene with Missi and Grey Worm last episode). And the pattern here is that really interesting characters like Joffrey and Tywin and Robb and the Red Viper are killed off and are replacd by boring as fuck players like Tommen and Kevan and Doran. It's like watching the JV team practice.

And then seasons five and six have been spent mostly cleaning house, and slaughtering most of the b-team players. Bye-bye, Stannis! Bye-bye, Hodor! Bye-bye, Barristan! Haven't seen Osha or Blackfish for three years. Let's bring them back and kill them off.

I mean, look, Joffrey executing Ned Stark set into motion the War of the Five Kings. It tore apart the Seven Kingdoms, and started this massive conflagration. The Red Wedding ended that conflict and... Tommen's playing with kittens. Arya's journey seems like it has been for naught. She, what, learned how to kill people? She could've picked those skills up in the Brotherhood Without Banners. Littlefinger, the great schemer, has mostly vanished and only resurfaces to sneer obnoxiously. Might as well kill him off, too.

the entire Nameless, No One, Faceless, whatever subplot fell woefully short for me. Seems at the end to have been a colossal waste of time for a show with a reputation for being tight and economical with their story telling.

I fear that now that the show has surpassed the books which once offered a nice blueprint, it will be more meandering and time wasting.

One theory I read (which I do not buy) is that Jaqen is Syro.

She was hoping to do both. Bait the waif, off her, and then leave Braavos. I'm not trying to make an excuses but in my eyes, that is what happened. After she got stabbed, she attempted the second try which was successful. I think they could have just cut out the whole stabbing part to begin with and they should have just had Arya take her out the next episode after she blew out the candle the first time. There was too much padding going on with those scenes.

With regards to Jaquen, He needed a face and as long as he got a face, it didn't matter if it was Arya. She brought him the Waif's face instead of her own and the tribute was paid.

They could have done all that with a classic South Park style montage.

Man, I know nobody really watches After the Thrones, but I put it on in the background. They have "experts" come in and tell the hosts what they got wrong and clarify shit. I wonder if they'd bow down to GRRM if he showed up randomly.

I watch it every week and have actually come to enjoy it. I think it's great at helping me put together the pieces and remind me of characters that haven't been seen in years.

Yeah, the reminders of stuff from the past is pretty good, along with the map/locations of characters. The hosts' pop culture references aren't funny though.

This fan theory is probably the most annoying of any theory I've read about GoT. It's been thoroughly debunked too, I don't know why it's still around.

does anyone know if Rory McCann had a stunt weiner for his lake scene?