If anyone is bored or looking for something to listen to on a drive or while they work, I think this is a good listen.
Some quotes I liked:
-On Winterfell"You have to actively forget everything for Arya to be angry at Sansa. To say I saw you up on that stage with a pretty dress. Like I’m sorry, I seem to remember a scene in which Ned’s head got cut off and she’s screaming in pain, like bawling, because her father died. I also seem to remember a scene in which Ned himself is playing along with the Lannisters. And Arya herself played along with the Lannisters at fucking Harranhal when she was Tywin’s cupbearer. So to sit there and blame Sansa for writing this letter under duress when Ned and Arya herself did this, it’s so aggravating and mind numbing.
The motivation makes no sense. These two sisters fighting. It’s just hard to imagine two sisters that have been through what they’ve been through - even if they didn’t even like each other in the first place. They did have a problem with each other obviously but at the same time they didn’t have that much of a problem with each other. A lot of us don’t get along with our siblings but at the same time, if your parents both were killed, and your brother, and then you go back to see this sibling that you dislike, would you be really accusing the other one of their death unjustly? Or would you kind of you know, at least tolerate each other or band together having been through so much crap? It’s just not believable that they would be at each other’s throats.. over a letter that wasn’t even in Winterfell."
-On director Alan Taylor's comments about the show being criticized. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/arts/television/alan-taylor-director-game-of-thrones.html "I’ve only looked at one review online, and it was very much concerned with the speed of the ravens. I thought, that’s funny — you don’t seem troubled by the lizard as big as a 747, but you’re really concerned about the speed of a raven.""It’s disingenuous because we all understand that there’s in-universe logic and when you violate your own in-universe logic you’ve established - like that’s the whole thing about fantasy, right? You first establish a setting with in-universe logic and then you play by those rules. It’s the same thing where like Imagine if I was playing a game of chess and half way through the game, I picked up one of my pawns and I moved him accross the board and I took your king. You’d be like “Well you can’t do that.” And i’m like “Well I’m sitting here in a game where Rooks do that.” You’d be like “You’re a fucking idiot." The rules of the game are that rooks can do this and pawns can’t. We’ve established the rules beforehand. You don’t break your in-universe logic. So for him to be like “Oh, this is a universe with dragons.” No, because you fucking established that this is a universe with dragons. You did not establish that this was a universe with super sonic ravens. And it’s not just the one thing. It was a fucking pile of shit."
-On why the internet turned on the episode"I think it was a perfect storm of mistakes. On one hand, in a macro sense the mission doesn’t make any sense. I used my mother as an example. She is calling me on the phone going “I don’t understand why they would go north of the wall.” I’m like “Well, they’re supposed to be picking up a white walker for Cersei.” And my mother’s like “But it’s Cersei. She’s crazy. And didn’t they destroy her army last episode?” My mom is only a casual - a couple seasons ago she was confusing who Ramsay and Theon was - she’s not insanely into the details, but she’s sitting there going “This just doesn’t make sense”, on that macro sense.
With Hardhome you could say “Well yeah Jon Snow wants to save the Wildlings. That makes sense.” With the Battle of the Bastards, you could say “Jon Snow wants to save his little brother.” That motivation makes sense. A lot of other things about the episodes didn’t make sense, but you get the macro motivation."
