Couple of things, having watched it a few more times (I never do this, it's normally very digestible, but this week was special).
I see the Kingsmoot being picked part. Whilst I get how underwhelming it may be, consider:
- Euron says he paid the iron price when referring to Balon's death. All this mockery of kingslaying...is it not legitimized in their society, that by seizing the salt throne by force he is being true to their nature? A messy road to go down I know.
- Euron says they stole their best/fastest ships. It's not totally obvious if the fleet that's anchored offshore is all being hijacked. It seems more plausible that Yara and Theon have commandeered a few vessels rather than an entire fleet. After all, we've only seen them flee with enough men for what, two, maybe three, ships?
Bran:
- All the hate for Bran...I think falls on the Three Eyed Raven. Firstly, he's a shit greenseer, and should have been the Night King coming. Secondly, he rushes the last lesson with Bran.
I think he knows he needs Bran to "create" Hodor, and so pushes him. He tells him to listen to Meera, and I think it's been established his season that Bran is still learning, is naive and doesn't fully understand his powers, or the role he will play. Does beg the question, if TER knows Bran needs Hodor to Hodor, then he surely knows about the impending attack? After all, he told Bran, along with Leaf, that he won't be at the tree forever, but also tells Bran that he needs to become/replace him. Just where the hell does Bran fit into this going forward? He wargs into Weirdeood.net without touching the tree, and continues to interact/witness the past without any physical contact, so as I joked in my initial reaction, he's installed a wifi adapter and can now pick up hotspots, I guess. At least we should see the ToJ conclusion, but I wonder where else it's heading.
Every other character and their build up this season, you can see the broad strokes of what's to come. With Bran, and the can of worms opened this week, I have no idea whTs in store. I do doubt, however, that they'll avoid fucking about with the history of the world and we won't have any weird time loops or restarts or Bran becoming Bran the Builder or TER. That just seems TOO messy in a show that's trying to be concise and has been constantly trimming the fat.
