Didn't stop the body from having her face after Jaqen drank the poison and left Arya clawing away mask after mask after mask only to find her own face at the bottom.

Agree with others that this episode was disappointing after a bit of a letdown in the previous one. Was hoping for more meaningful scenes.

Some random thoughts in no particular order....

Glad to see the Hound alive. Didn't need all that time to show that nice people get killed for no reason.

Lady Mormont should be running the 7 kingdoms and that little girl stole the episode imo. Oh....and is there a relation to Sir Jorah? Or do they just have confusingly similar last names?

I don't think the Arya stabbing could be what it appears to be. We'll have to wait and see what the surprise is there but "as is"....would be ridiculous.

Jon Snow is still a bastard.

Theon must be getting awfully sick of the dickless jokes. Maybe he can get a new one by cutting Ramsay's (another bastard) off and using magic or something. Oh and he has a cool sister.

Margeary is smarter than Cersei.

Lyanna Mormont would be Jorah Mormont's niece/cousin/something. Jeor Mormont (the previous Lord Commander) gave the title away (when he joined the black) to his son Jorah, who got married and had it for awhile and then went broke spoiling his wife and fled town giving the title to his aunt and then passing that off to Lyanna. The title wasn't actually 'given' to his aunt by Jorah, rather it was taken away I think by Ned Stark and then given to her. When she died, Lyanna, the little girl everyone is raving about, took over. She was named after Ned's sister.

I thought this episode was really solid. Been enjoying the whole season. Each episode feels like it's only 20 minutes long.

I suppose it's a fine line between craving more and disappointment at not getting it.

The scenes are mostly well done and entertaining to me. And I also have to look at the clock because the episodes never seem long enough, even though they are the standard 50+ minutes.

Maybe it's just that I don't know what I don't know. But a lot of the scenes seem to introduce new elements that seem unnecessary in the larger scheme. So I want them to move on....unless of course I'm missing the reason for the new element.

Technically the 62 soldiers Lady Mormont gave which she said fight with the vigor of 10 men each is a big deal. Consider Jorah Mormont himself is a superior fighter and routinely has battled against many foes at once by himself. So if she gave Jon Snow essentially 62 Jorah Mormonts that's actually not so bad.

I was pretty stoked to see Lady Mormont in the camp with Snow and Davos, I hope she's intending to be involved in the battle....I'd like to see Sansa corner Ramsey Bolton at the end of a long siege, and just as she (and/or Theon) is starting to deliver some epic soliloquy about her due vengeance Lady Mormont strolls by and prison shanks Ramsey a dozen times.

Sansa is knocked up, right?

With a little Bolton? Ewww.

Thanks i figured it had to go something like that. So was Jorah ruling when Ned sent him off to track Dany? Or was that after he already relinquished his title?

Though technically it wouldn't be a little bastard right?

Ned exiled Jorah. It was actually Varys and the small council who sent Jorah to Danaerys, and they sent him to spy on her. He fell in love with her, then stopped accepting their money.

Yeah, they mentioned this when Jorah was getting pardoned for giving info on Danaerys. I *thought* his exile was because Jorah was using/selling slaves in Westeros to get out from under the debt his wife had accrued. Ned found out and allowed him to be exiled (instead of executed). I'm guessing either Jorah got exiled after Lyanna was born or that her mom used it as a tribute to Ned for giving Jorah leniency? Maybe someone who reads the books can give the actual explanation. They didn't spend a ton of time on it in the show. On the face of it, it seems odd that Lyanna would be open to joining with the Starks after Ned exiled her uncle. The Karstarks seemed pretty pissed about Ned executing one of theirs - and while exiling isn't as bad as an execution - you would think that would bother the Mormonts.

Ned wanted Jorah dead. Jorah fled to escape execution.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't Arya. I read a bunch of stuff and If you notice how her behavior changes it's very much like someone is "acting" like her. It was probably a test of the Waif "don't let her suffer".

My guess is that the waif will return to the house, and that Jaquen will stab her, revealing himself to actually be Arya.

Explain the Maergary thing. Does the drawing mean she's playing the sparrow?

That would actually be pretty cool and save "face" from the bridge debacle with the Waif.

I'm about 99% that's exactly it.

I also think the Sparrow knows it, and just doesn't care - he's getting what he wants.

Thats how I see it as well. Maergary's note was a sign of house loyalty (the rose) showing thats what she is putting first here.

I also don't think the Sparrow is fooled by her. But he's playing the game because that benefits him...for now.

The High Sparrow has quickly moved way up my list of characters I want to know more about. Where did he come from? How did he get to where he is? He's far too good at the game to be some random person. How much did Littlefinger have to do with him getting to where he is?

I just want to see him and his followers dead.

Where do you get that?

I think it is implied when Sansa is scolding Littlefinger around episode 5 or 6. She says " I can still feel what he did in my body standing here right now."

Well, that and the show-runners seem to revel in treating her like a punching bag. Her story has been like the history of Russia: "and then things got worse." I don't know about being pregnant, but I suspect she'll find Rickon has been flayed.

So, when Ramsay dies, does she become the queen of the north? It seems like a unified north, especially under a Stark, might be the only chance of slowing down the White Walkers until the dragons get there.

You get that kind of rhetoric sometimes from women who have been raped. The idea that they can't get clean, that they can still feel the rapist, etc. It COULD be a sideways hint at pregnancy, but it could also just be "I was used brutally and I still feel that pain."

She also said sth about “other than my face everything was fair game“ and with Ramsay tendencies i expect the pain is also embedded onto her skin in the Form of cuts and scars ...

Absolutely agree. When I first saw that scene, that is actually how I took it and nothing at all to do with a pregnancy. Fan theories out there though brought that up and you know...theories are fun :)

"I made this new outfit"

Cause her clothes don't fit well anymore?

Yep. Jorah fled. Lyanna Mormont wouldn't have been pissed at Ned because Jorah was engaged in slaving, one of the worst things you could do in Westeros. On the other hand, Lord Karstark killed Lannister prisioners in vengenance against the death of his own kin. The other Karstarks probably thought he was right rather than Robb.

+1

From the promo for this week, Zombie Gregor is at the very least partially on that.

I am on this wagon. I cannot stand the fanatical religious nut and his high moral ground that he is walking. I do not care about is background. I want him gone.

Unless he's secretly Howland Reed (one of the more crackpot out there theories).

Really?

That's almost as crackpottish as the whole Arya and the Waif are actually the same person and Arya is suffering from some kind of psychotic break.

Google High Sparrow Howland Reed. There's...I guess some supporting evidence.

While I don't subscribe to this one, one does have to wonder what Reed *is* doing. I find it odd he's really been just sitting on his ass through all of this, considering he's the only living person to know The Truth (tm) about Lyanna & Rhaegar.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comm...infoil_theory/

That conspiracy is not valid if only because I think they mentioned Howland Reed's name once (this season by Bran if I'm not mistaken). Other than that the person isn't known enough by non book readers like myself to make for a really good "ah HA!" reveal. If high sparrow were to say "little did you all know, I was Howland reed the whole time" ppl would simply go "who?". So, yeah, feel free to dump that conspiracy.

Who played Reed in the Tower of Joy flashback?

Leo Woodruff, apparently.

Anyone keeping up with the preview chapters GRRM reads at Cons? The new Damphair chapter about Euron seems like quite a read!

Was Reed the one that helped Ned in the ToJ fight?

Doesn't seem farfetched to learn the Sparrow was somebody of significance from the past. Especially if his goal was to tear down the Lannisters after what they did to Ned. And delaying the ToJ scene seems to fit better with that in mind.

Just as a show watcher anyway...this story seems to be entirely about pieces that ultimately fit together in otherwise inconspicuous ways.

Yes, that was Reed.

If I recall correctly, there is a fan theory out there that the High Sparrow is Howlen Reed.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...2vzqqovmbk.jpg

That. Is a very Syrio looking shadow there. Just sayin'

It's a little less ominous when you see that he's facing away from her. Still, it does look like his silhouette. I wonder if the show-runners are having a little fun with the audience.

Isn't another theory that Howland Reed took Meera from the tower of Joy and and Ned took Jon? AKA they are twins?

I don't think it would be that hard to tie the whole thing together. Might only take a few scenes here and there and it would all come together nicely if they were going that way.

Also if we only have something like 16 episodes left and a ton of stuff probably needs to happen.

Episode titles for the rest of the season

Episode 9 title seems a little too obvious. Looks like possible misdirection on the show's part although I'd love to be proven wrong, the show needs a good battle episode. So far my favorite episode of the series has been the Wildings attack on The Wall.

Its felt like we've been heading towards the Battle for Winterfell as our giant action episode all season anyway. Ep 9 is frequently the "big one" (last year's Hardhome an exception which was in Ep 8), so that's what I would have assumed Ep 9 was going to be heavily focused on regardless.