Beyond The Wall – Season 2 – Episode 10

Ah here it is, big thanks from the UK guys! Been a great addition to the show all season. Be listening to it soon!

Hmmm, there are a lot of points of contention. I'll have to think on this and weigh in.

Soon…

I'm done listening, ready to comment some more. First off, you guys really put in a detailed summation and analysis of the episode, and thumbs up to Chooch for his predictions about the possibility of Valar Morghulis being Jaqen's name, or Benjen being Mance (I am not confirming or denying those statements, I just applaud and encourage such predictions.)

By the way, "dracarys" is not a dragon's name, from the books it's just High Valyrian for "fire". Near the midpoint of the season, we saw Dany training Drogon to singe meat on command, and she was using the word as a prompt. In the books, it's explicitly clear that Dany is using a non-common tongue, non-Dothraki language word to train the dragons, so they wouldn't set fire to things accidentally. So your consensus of it meaning "set the bald dude on fire" was pretty close.

I was thinking about the House of the Undying stuff from the books. PG brought up betrayals, and by the end of book two, Dany had a prediction of a certain number of betrayals that she would suffer. I think that the reason we haven't had that is she's already had betrayals that weren't in the books, and so they'll probably not adhere too close to the plot point of Dany obsessing over any future betrayals.

Dany's story in Qarth was substantially altered in the show, but if they had been too faithful to the book, it would have been pretty uneventful. Qarth was like a long luxurious summer camp for Dany in the books.

I think the pinnacle of the episode was Jaqen and Arya's interactions. Jaqen is such a cool character, and the actor played him very well. Jaqen, before leaving Arya, tells her that a Man has Duties to perform (or words to those effect.) I can only imagine that viewers would be wanting to know more of what those duties entail.

Last thoughts on the final scene, with Sam witnessing the march of the dead, being shepherded along toward the Fist of the First Men by the Others aka White Walkers (on zombie horseback.) I'll have to watch the episode again to see the chained undead, that was a good catch.

I really liked the look of the one blue-eyed Other that locked eyes with Sam. I've heard it described as kind of looking like a Yeti, it certainly had that cool Wendigo look about it. I wasn't really happy with the implication that it saw Sam but ignored him. I'm not sure what the show creators were trying to communicate with that. I would have rather that Sam had just been a witness, and had not been witnessed.

Logistically, the three horn blasts was kind of unusual. Sam, Gren, and Edd are some distance from the Night Watch encampment, but appear to be closest to the approaching enemy. The White Walkers (on zombie horseback… another reason to call them Others) and their walking wights appear to be obscured by wintry mists, so I'm not sure how visible they'd be from the Fist.

Also, and this kind of irritated me this season, it seemed like Sam was the only one that knew that 3 blasts were for the Supernatural Menaces ™ that the Night's Watch were really there to serve against. Luckily, the guy on horn duty had been briefed by Sam, but I wonder what the other Night's Watch guys would be thinking. Three Blasts? What's that? If only we brothers had been briefed on what three blasts mean!

Yes, yes, I know we needed Sam to say stuff that everyone knows so we viewers would know too, but it was just something that was bugging me.

Great Podcast thanks 🙂
Is there a possibilty to do an abo of the thing? Like get a mail for everything new that you post?
Cause I kinda missed the episode by weeks ^^;

Just some thoughts on the episode itself.
About Ross even without having read the book am completely in the dark why Varys thinks she's fit to be some kind of ingenious spy. She has no special wits so far, maybe I just haven't noticed, she doesn't seem to have a good view on "who's who" – she even took quite some time to realize who Varys is -, she's even not so good at being a whore. According to the lecture stuff and all those issues at the brothel and there are better looking women around. She even somehow managed to get kicked out of Cerseis dungeon. My guess was for unimportance. Plus thanks to the Ross/Shae confusion she's well known at least to Cersei.
Am looking forward to see which plan Varys has.

And regarding to plans, am even more curious about Catelyns idea of Briennes travel to the south.
It strikes me as either a tremendous outright stupid idea or a suicide mission.
On the one hand Brienne, as much as I like the character, is not really ordinary. More like a a giant extraordinary warrior women, wandering around with no obvious lord. On the other hand I took it that Jaime the Kingsslayer is, for better or worse, something like top 1 of Westeros List of most hated/most admired/sexy celebrities. So they are somehow on their way south, more or less through the front lines right to Kings Landing which is like swarming with Lannisters.
Somehow I came to fear for Briennes safety @.@
Maybe they will think of something better for the next patrol / people they pass. Some names, some convincing Backstory and maybe some disguise for Jaime (maybe if she'll cut down all his nice blond hair he wouldn't be as recognizable).
And am wondering how they actually plan to hand him over "Hello, that's your beloved brother. I release him if you give me Sansa, if not, uh, you wouldn't come to the idea to use those gold cloaks and red cloaks and stuff on me? That would be most dishonorable Cersei? Oh and I did so not kill the ex-husband of your beloved wife Joffrey! … No of course it hasn't been the Others, It's been a big strange shadowbabything"

As a smaller side comment, I wondered what Melissandre was referring to when she mentioned that Stannis will lose everything, more then he already has. Hum, as far as I got it from the show Stannis didn't got a lot if anything left?

Anyway thanks again for the nice Podcast.:)

Best wishes on the parsec awards, and for everyone going to D*C, I hope a great time is had by all. I've been once, and I'd go again in a heartbeat.