If Looks Could See

Ah, how nice to wake up in the afterglow of HBO's five or six drips of story from Game of Thrones. There were some satisfying moments last night and a few disappointing missed opportunities.

Spoilers after the screenshot

Just as she was about to become Zatoichi with a quarterstaff, Arya's given her sight back. Already! Three episodes in. It makes it all feel a bit pointless. I can understand, though--she's the point of view character in a place that already messes with the senses. It's hard to have a blind point of view character in visual media--you can do it in books or audio plays but whenever you can see things a character can't that immediately puts you on different footing from them. I wonder if Arya's blindness might last a bit longer if George R.R. Martin ever publishes a book again, though.

Yeah, I'm beginning to doubt he ever will. Not that I've read any of the books he has published but I feel kind of sorry about it because the show was much better written back when it had plenty of source material to burn through.

So we still can't see Jon Snow's penis, which is purportedly smaller than Jesus', but that's okay because we also can't see Daenerys' breasts due to her refusal to show her body from now on. She giddily expressed her reasons recently on a talk show as being a lack of balance between the number of women's breasts and men's penises. Which reminds me for all the dragons we've seen on the show we've seen no comparable number of basilisks, which is obviously a crime. We have seen some penises and I'm pretty sure we've seen zero vaginas. But who's keeping score? I suppose I might be too jaded to know how breasts rank on the immoral meter.

The real disappointing thing, though, was seeing Melisandre look so excited to see her magic actually worked but before she could say much of anything Davos inexplicably kicked her out of the room--with which she inexplicably complied--just so he could say, ain't this shit weird?

And then, after all the trouble they went through, Snow hangs up his cloak and stalks off. Why did they go to the trouble, anyway, especially after the Wildings had taken over Castle Black? What did they need Jon for, exactly?

Well, I should talk about the good stuff. Nice to see Diana Rigg and Julian Glover back though Glover being reduced to a fart joke was pretty sad after the trouble the show had gone to to suggest there might be something more to him. Jonathan Pryce was wonderfully effective in his creepy sit down with Tommen.

Apparently Varys' "little birds" were children? So he's had time in Meereen to give out enough candy without anyone noticing and develop a network of kids? Good thing suddenly the Sons of the Harpy aren't able to pop up anywhere they want in gold masks. Blocked by Tyrion's mojo, I guess, or the writers, as usual, not being interested in thinking through the logistics.

Skyrim sure has paid off for Max von Sydow who after his voice in the trailer, along with the great music, basically sold the game for Bethesda was quickly cast in Star Wars and Game of Thrones. His role here is much better than in Force Awakens. I still don't care about Bran but it's cool having the knight from Seventh Seal guiding us through flashbacks of the show's lore.

Finally, yes, it was nice to see Ramsay finally being slapped down by reality a little bit. Of course, realistically, the bearded guy shouldn't have a hard time organising a coup against a prick whose duplicity and sadism is well known. Roose was right last week in his line about a mad dog being put down but in this case the mad dog has somehow been able to coast through several fox hunts. The sooner Ramsay is written out the better.

Is there any reason for Ramsay to keep Rickon alive? I suppose he probably will but I can't think of a reason currently. To torture him? I guess Ramsay might be that stupid. Not sure why Ramsay was meant to care about Osha.

Twitter Sonnet #869

A beige and black spherical bean came down.
Identical the belt was looped for farms.
The last red sequin broke the backless gown.
We call the straws what polls would call our charms.
Two pines have redefined the fruit of lungs.
The upside down echo condensed a thumb.
A finger taped beneath the desk expunged,
The team can now proceed into the crumb.
An ashen knee surprised the picnic bad.
They thought somewhere within the bog were ghosts.
A small construction crew revealed the lad.
Around the bones were packed the peat and hosts.
A stutt'ring internet in protest drools.
The shining tape reluctantly unspools.