I'm not watching, but I am sad to hear of Tyrion and Varys being stupid. That isn't right.

I'm so mad that Jon ghosted Ghost.

Right?!?!

Tyrion is doing pretty well upholding the Drinking but not so great at the Knowing Things. I'm not sure what Varys is really good for these days, other than giving Tyrion someone to talk to. He used to be so good at intrigue and whatnot!

Also, since Bran can warg into crows and see through the weirwood he should have fucking told them that they had giant crossbows.

Why hasn't Bran warged into anything and helped?

side note: I'm reading Reddit threads on the Bloodraven theory which posits that Bran himself as the 3ER is the main threat, that the Night King only attacked because Bran went south of the wall, that the Night King didn't kill Jon when he had him pinned down because the Azor Ahai is the backup plan to stop the 3ER. tldr: Bran keeps saying he's not Bran anymore because he's literally been replaced by the original Three Eyed Raven who escaped the Weirdwood where he'd been trapped by transmigrating into Bran.

The New York Times recapper wasn't impressed with the character issues causing annoyance here either. [link]

GRRM, in retrospect is lucky/smart to not finish his books until after the show ended. Basically anything he writes is going to look like genius in comparison. He's just been immunized against a whole bunch of fan outrage.

True, Tom.

I'm actually tempted to finish reading the series now, to see the different paths the plot took.

For about a half a second I felt like the entire series had been worth it to see Jaime and Brienne together -- for a lot of reasons, for both of them -- and to hear her begging him to stay just killed it. Not that I don't sympathize on a purely "I'm in love and it's new and wonderful!" level, but the idea that she isn't joining the battle herself is just absurd.

Bah. But I guess Arya is off to kill Cersei (with nary a word to anyone in her family? okay), and we'll get Cleganebowl, so ... Whatever?

I feel like when they announced this season would only be six episodes, we should have known the shortcuts and compression was going to result in this. Plot points that would have gorgeously, intricately taken two and three episodes previously are now dispatched in 30 seconds. So stupid.

Burn the ships. Attack by night.

Make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight - wait, wrong fandom.

I just can't take Jon as a threat to Dany's rule seriously. It seems like such a non-problem.

It's not so much that he's a threat as the fact that there are no women writing this show is a threat.

Ah. Nail on the head, there, Jess.

Jaime is just, what the hell, Jaime? Maybe he wants to get back into the Kingslayer racket?

I can kind of see Brienne staying in Winterfell to keep Sansa safe, she will certainly be head of her Queensguard when Westeros realizes Sansa is the practical choice.

Jon and Ghost never have one scene together? Yuck.