All the talk of zig zagging to easily avoid Ramsey's arrows doesn't take into account the horde of archers that Ramsey has at his disposal. Sure you could avoid his arrows. But then he would give the "loose" command and you would have an arrow storm headed your way. Rickon was toast no matter what he did.

Pretty sure Tyrion used it all in the Battle of Blackwater.

Tyrion had the wildfire commissioned. It was newly made, I thought. I think what they're hinting at is left over from the Mad King.

Plus, given what we've seen in Bran's visions...

People are indeed buried in certain types of tombs ie. mastabas. Not sure where you got this. And it was the Crypts of Winterfell, vaults made specifically for burial.

Think I recall Melisandre saying her powers weren't worth anything anymore . Of course if that were true she would have appeared as an old crone.

Having a lookout and wanting the forces to commit is the one way I'm able to look past the dues ex moment. It's really a too often used device to arrive just at the right moment and save the day. What if Littlefinger had to stop and poop on the way? 10 more minutes and the good guys are all dead.

And damnit, I need to stop watching the opening credits but it's just too damn good and I was taking the episode all in. Saw Aidan Gillen's name so knew he was showing up at some point.

Like Varys said, "Littlefinger would see the realm burn if he could be king of the ashes."

The point she was trying to get across is that she on her own has no powers; what she is able to accomplish is via the Lord of Light. She was pointing this out to Jon Snow to say that the Lord of Light wanted Jon Snow back, otherwise he wouldn't have brought him back, regardless of what Melisandre wanted. This was all in the context of Jon saying, "If I die, don't bring me back." Melisandre still has her powers, such that she is fulfilling the will of the Lord of Light. Unfortunately, it's not always clear exactly what that will is.

odd question maybe, but i was wondering who the flayed men were, who were on fire on the battlefield. stark loyal servants?

Good question.

In some of the spoilers that were leaked it was stated that the burning bodies were known characters (they were shown in the season six preview trailer). I didn't read any of the spoilers for this season, so I'm not sure if it's significant or not. Not sure what known characters they could be outside of Stannis, Osha, Roose, and Walda.

*I was discussing this episode today with someone who has been reading spoilers, though. She just told me that the bodies were supposed to characters we know, and she didn't know any more than that. It might be revealed in the finale. She also that descriptions of the whole Snow-Bolton Battle had been leaked by an extra, right down to Wun-Wun getting shot in the eye and the details of Rickon's demise.

Also doesn't take into account that Rickon is not in the best state of mind, and surely isn't thinking straight.

I guess in the 1% minority as I thought the episode was OK. I always love the big battles in Game of Thrones but I thought the camerawork for this episode was just a bit too much.

I just feel this season has been very predictable, compared to the previous 5 seasons where I was always wrong about this and that. I didn't read any spoilers, but I knew before the episode that Ramsey would die and Sansa would be there at his death scene. You just knew Jon Snow wouldn't die in battle cause they already killed him last season. And the biggest cliche when there is a big battle is someone elses army comes in and saves the day.

I'm actually glad the creators have said they will only do 2 more seasons (possibly short seasons) because this is the first season of GOT where I feel it's been a drop in quality. Luckily, they are not going to drag it out like The Walking Dead and they can start tying up all the loose ends in Seasons 7 & 8.

Sorry guys I feel this way cause I have always loved the show, but just something feels off this year.

I sort of feel the same way too. I think it's because we're so close to the endgame that it pretty much becomes a paint by numbers situation.

I still enjoy the hell out of the show, it just doesn't surprise me too much any more.

You're not alone. While I agree with JTH182 that a lot of the predictability comes from the show reaching its endgame, this season doesn't feel like the show I feel in love with. I liked the glacial pace the show moved at early on, because everything that happened felt like the most important thing that has ever happened. Now, a ton of stuff is going down every episode, but I feel like I'm getting the cliff notes version of these events. I'm not even convinced this is a fair criticism, but for example it felt off to me that Yara is already in Dany's company.

The show is still enjoyable, and I'm with it to the end, but I do think it's fallen a rung or two from where it used to be where I would have argued it was among the best shows (top 3) on TV. Now, it feels more like a top 10 show or so -- I would guess. I don't watch enough TV these days to say.

The problem with that is what are they going to do with Dany while we're waiting a season or 2 for Yara to get there? They've dragged maybe a seasons worth of adventure out of the Slavers story line and stretched it into what 4 seasons? So unless the show runners are willing to take one of the stars off the table while they stretch out the Iron born story line it's just not going to work.

Completely Disagree.

I disagree as well... This season has been fantastic and the pace of the show with all that is going on absolutely amazing. I don't want a stretch out show just so we can have a season explaining shit going on like in the iron island, or more slave shit.

I have high hopes that it will be tied up well, in the next two seasons? and then just let it end.

I can agree with this, and feel much the same way.

Where the series once seemed to have a lot of surprises, it's now seemed to devolve in to established tropes. Oh, look, saved at the last minute by the Vale. *EXPLOISION SOUND* by the elf-people. "We're here to talk about *your* surrender." etc

I'm torn. Is it because the endgame just works out that way or is it because of the lack of Martin and the over-influence of shitty Tv writers?

That's the same with me. My post wasn't to crucify the show as many people do on the internet, it was more of just I think the quality dipped for the first time this year.

It happens to 99% of the great shows, as probably Breaking Bad is one of the few where the quality never dipped. I have noticed that I have been getting right many of predictions before the episode happened, and that never happened before on this show. Once I saw Jon Snow/Sansa vs Ramsey Bolton, I knew that Ramsey wouldn't make it out alive in the episode as there was no suspense for me.

The writers are in a damned if you, damned if you don't situation honestly. They have written many great dialogue scenes this season, but some of you currently are just choosing to fixate on the ones they missed. There are a million theories out there, of course someone is going to guess what happens, people read it and theorize, then when it happens it becomes "predictable." Can you imagine the backlash if Ramsey lived? "All I wanted from this episode was for Ramsey to die a gruesome death and they couldn't give me that? Ugh, poor decision by the writers." I don't envy the writers at all. I mean, I've heard a few people complain about the way the two other dragons broke out of the dungeon in mereen. C'mon. The only thing that really bothered me was the arya storyline.

I agree that SOME of the writing this season has been much more standard TV fare than previous seasons. For example, this episode's unambiguously good guy underdog against unambiguously baddie superpower only to be deus ex machina'ed at the last second was very un-GoT trope-y fare.

However, below the surface there's actually a lot going on this season:
- Bran's destructive impulsiveness and the fatal consequences of his actions
- Jon (more understandable) hotheadedness about his brother and his typically Stark-ish dumbassery
- Sansa developing more coniving leadership instincts and being unafraid to go very non-Stark and literally feed an enemy to the dogs
- Tyrion getting in over his head and then coming back around to effectively managing a difficult ruler
- Daenerys becoming an even more ruthless and much more believable conqueror
- Tommen being a child and Margaery's long game
- Cersei continually being abused, belittled and humbled
- The mysterious motivations and very clever gambits of the High Sparrow
- The (terrifically handled) reemergence of The Hound as a particularly conflicted character

Only Arya's plot has really been meaningless and nonsensical to me this year and even that had a wonderful play-within-a-play set in it.

IMO, this is a significantly stronger season than last year. Last year's unending, grim march of (IMO) unnecessarily harsh audience sadism and Dorne pointlessness was only really saved by the fantastic Hardhome episode to me. Seasons before that have had very uneven pacing (remember Qarth?) and questionable setpieces (the battle of Castle Black).

This year has been far more interesting, much more spectacular and is allowing the show to collapse some story lines with efficiency and realism. IMO, it's one of the better seasons.

Agree with a good amount of that Hiro. Good post.

knowing the character, would Littlefinger handle it any other way? He would absolutely wait until the last minute.

While I thought the battle for Winterfell certainly had some impressive individual moments, I also didn't think there was any suspense to it. I think most of us figured how it would end once Littlefinger took the Knights of the Vale north. Since you know going into the battle who has to win and how they are going to win the only thing left is which of the Snow side supporting characters will not make it alive (i.e, I figured Jon and Sansa were locks to survive). That's just not enough to sustain the tension in the scene, especially a battle scene as long as that. It's kind of the same thing as the battle for the wall a few years ago, only at least that had the emotion of Ygrette dying.

Personally, I think reuniting Dany with Tyrion made the Meereen scenes the better scenes in this episode.

As for the season as a whole, while there is still time for episode ten to pull something off, to me it feels like this year the show emotionally peaked at the end of the fifth episode.