If Davos can bring him back from Skagos, maybe he will end up being the one to take back the realm of Winterfell? I'd like to think he'll end up with having something real to do with the story, but then again if everyone GRRM has created needs a character arc the last two books will be thousands of pages long.

Fair enough but Rickon has been there from like the first chapter and he's a Stark. It doesn't make sense to create that character unless you're gonna him for something. His existence has been utterly purposeless.

It fits.

What do you guys think Tyrion's fate will be? I can't see GRRM killing him, but I can't think of an appropriate fate for him because I'm blinded by my desire to make him happy as he's my favorite character.

My bet is that Rickon will be the Lord of Winterfell when it all ends. He's the only viable candidate now anyhow. I'm fine with him not having a function in the story up to then as well, not every character has to be.

So I haven't been dropping these in weekly, but I'm very proud of this week's episode of the GOT podcast I co-host. We get into the series' relationship with death, morality, and fate.

That was going so well for 40 minutes and then they fucking blew it. The showrunners just hate Stannis don't they?

Total agreement. I know they can still have the moment with Stannis in the next episode, and it would still technically follow the battle's chronology (it takes place over a day and a half, I believe), but they already changed so many logistics in the battle, it doesn't make any fucking sense for Stannis not to ride in like a badass at the end of the episode and save the day. Doing it next week pretty much kills the momentum and impact it would have if it had happened tonight.

I saw a lot of people suggest that Brienne and Pod are the people who Arya and The Hound will meet next week. And I'm 1000% sure that we'll get Stoneheart. Especially now that Gwendoline Christie has been cast in Star Wars. They need an excuse to keep her out of the majority of season 5 so she can shoot Episode 7. Not to mention the teases I've seen of Stoneheart in interviews and stuff.

Anyway, the Stannis thing is basically what the entire episode should've been leading up to. It's such a limp-dick way to end an episode. Instead of "they fought the wildlings and just when all hope seemed lost BOOM STANNIS THE MANNIS," we got "they fought the wildlings and all hope seemed lost...the end?" There's so much stuff to cram into next week that it's better to close off this episode with the last major event for this storyline. It gives the episode a proper climax and it leaves room for more conclusive stuff for all the other storylines next week.

I'm just trying to figure out whether I was bored with this episode because I just wanted so very badly to get to next week's killer (pun intended) episode, or because it was badly written/directed (no real overall momentum, lack of having a sense of place in the action to see how close they were to losing from the various parallel attacks, etc.). Though truth be told I never really cared very much about this battle in the books other than the Jon/Ygritte story, and I didn't feel that was well handled either.

Yeah the books depict repelling off the wildling attack south of the wall a day before Mance lays siege, which is when Stannis shows up. I'm decidedly in the "nothing wrong with this episodes ending," camp.

I have many thoughts:

- STANNIS THE MANNIS, y'all. This is the version of Stannis I've been waiting to see. I loved his expressions when they were burning the bodies. "Oh...so you guys do this after they die? Weird."

- Jojenpaste is dead, long live Jojenpaste

- Cleganebowl lives! Long live THE HYPE.

- No "Wherever whores go"? No "Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moonboy for all I know"? Thank god. I got tired of hearing those lines over and over. It'll be interesting to see how Jaime's arc plays out from here though, considering that his distrust of Cersei stemmed primarily from Tyrion telling him about her infidelity. Maybe he's upset that she told Tywin? That would make sense.

- That Wight attack outside Bloodraven's cave was so metal. It was like a Led Zeppelin album cover come to life. I wonder how many non-readers will be confused about Leaf, though. It's kind of a non-sequitur and the Children of the Forest haven't been explained in the show. All of a sudden there's this little girl who can shoot fire out of her hands? That's pretty awesome, and it's a good mystery to leave people hanging on.

- Loved Brienne's fight with The Hound. The choreography really made them feel like an even match. And his final scene with Arya was great. I hope Cleganebowl is true (or at least that The Hound really is the gravedigger on the Quiet Isle) because I'm going to miss him

- I was worried that Tywin on the toilet was going to look too goofy but WOW did they nail it. It was chilling. Sad we didn't get the line about him not shitting gold, but I guess that's hard to do without narration.

- WHAT THE FUCK NO LADY STONEHEART FUCK YOU FUCKED IT UP AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I mean I liked the ending of the episode but congrats on getting a ton of non-readers spoiled on one of the best twists in the series, guys. Because now there'll be 10 months of book readers complaining about this and the beans are gonna get spilled for a lot of people. Unfortunate.

- All in all, good closer to a good season. Season 5 is gonna feel like a reboot in a lot of ways, I think. So many radical changes for so many characters, not nearly as much time in King's Landing, and a dive into Westeros' mysticism with Bran. Very excited.

On a minor note, is Coldhands the Tom Bombadil of Game of Thrones or what?   Maybe he just isn't that important and there's no big "reveal" to come in the books after all.