Game of Thrones 6-6 "Blood of My Blood"

This was one of the most geographically far-ranging episodes.

North of The Wall, Bran and Meera finally meet Uncle Benjen Stark. After almost dying at the hands of a whitewalker, Bejen has been at work slaying the undead with the help of an awesome flaming flail and magic acquired from the Children of the Forest. Bran has a vision that includes images of Ser Jamie slaying "the mad king" and of pyromancers mixing wildfire. King Arys's words "Burn them all" will apparently have some meaning later. Perhaps wildfire is the weapon to defeat the whitewalkers.

Down in Horn Hill in The Reach, the ancestral castle of house Tarley, Samwell brings Gilly home, and Lord Randyll proceeds to berate Sam for his weight. What Lord Randyll refuses to believe, but you and I know, is that looks are not everything, and that Sam, in spite of his soft looks, is now the real shit. He has been fighting for years up the frigid north against Wildling, Thens, Whitewalkers, mutineers and is more hardass than his father or any of his southron summer knights. Randyll then lets his prejudices show and insults Gilly for being a Wildling.
Later, that night, Lord Randyll gets the Tarly family's ancestral sword, Heartsbane, lifted under his nose by his own firstborn, before Sam and Gilly make their way in the dead of night for Oldtown and The Citidel. But don't feel bad for old Ranyll, that's what you get for being a complete dick. Besides, when the White Walkers come, Valyrian steel will be required AT THE WALL not hanging ON A WALL.

Talking about ageing lords who have had their day, we see Walder Frey again, who is apparently keeping himself alive simply out of spite for those who wish he would just die already, which is pretty much everybody. He is berating his sons for losing Riverrun to the Blackfish.

In the political chess game in Kings landing, we have check and mate. In a brilliant move, the combined houses of Lannister and Tyrell are outmaneuvered without a fight by the High Sparrow who's reformation is now the state religion with the conversion of King Tommen and Queen Margaery.

In the wildlands of Essos, Daenerys Stormborn gives her big "who wants to conquer the world with me" speech in front of her new khallassar from astride her mount. A mount which just happens to be a big fucking dragon.

In Bravvos, the girl fomerly known as nobody is now Arya Stark again. She blew here big initiation assignment. Her target was an actress, who, ironically, was playing Cersei Lannister in a bad satire. The actress mistakes Arya for a fangirl with a stage fascination, maybe a future actress, and asks "Do you like pretending to be someone you are not?" But, Arya was already acting, and the somebody she was not was the nobody girl. Arya gives the actress pointers in being Carsei, demonstrating a mature understanding of both herself and of her old archenemy. She knocks the poisoned cup out of the actress's hand at the last moment and fingers her understudy as the one who wanted her dead. Living with the faceless men has taught Arya not to be the hot and vengeful out of control killer she was a a girl, but, it also taught her that she is not one of them; scruple-less and willing to sacrifice anyone to the horrific god of death for the right donation to the House of Black and White. She embraces who she was meant to be all along, a noblewoman of House Stark with a sense of honesty and justice. That night, she trades her temple rags for a noblewoman's clothes, retrieves Needle from it's hiding place and then awaits in her chambers for The Waif who is sure to come that night to try to kill her. We know that when the Many-Faced-God is owed a death, he's not choosy. I think he will be satisfied with the waif.

After reading that Ian McShane will be on the show this season, I have been wondering when we will see him and who he will play. Since I have not seen him yet, my current guess is Archmaester Marwyn.

Game of Thrones: 6-5 "The Door"

Hold the Door! Hold the Door! Hold the Door! Hold Door! Hold Door! Hold Door! Ho Door! Ho Door! Ho Door! Hodor! Hodor! Hodor!

Wanted by Bureau of Temporal Investigations
Subject: Brandon Stark
Charge: Causing a predestination paradox
Note: Apprehend with extreme caution

I'm glad they gave our lovable simple giant the heroic end most people on G.O.T. do not get. It had echos of the last moments of another great-hearted giant in Dumas' bittersweet masterpiece, Man in The Iron Mask. Alexandre Dumas, it is said, cried when he killed off his personal favorite character, Porthos.
One almost forgets what else happened in this episode.

Sansa finally cuts Littlefinger down a few notches for leaving her with psychotic Ramsey Bolton. Littlefinger loves Sansa because she reminds him of his childhood love, Catherine.He sghould have been there to protect her, but he was not. This was the first time that he actually saw that his political tinkering hurts people. He needed to lose some of that ego. The former lady of the vale and future lady of the north is not to be trifled with.
Tormond is still giving Breienne "Do I make you horny?" looks.
Sansa sends Brienne to recruit her cousin "Blackfish" Brynden Tully. Knowing what lady Brienne finds in The Riverlands in "A Dance With Dragons", or what finds her, I'm truly frightened.

The scene that grabbed me was when Danerys ordered Ser Jorhah find a cure, heal himself and return to her. A knight needs a quest, and finding a cure for Greyscale is a worthy one.

Interesting Camera Review: Olympus Trip 35

Pictured here is the Olympus Trip 35, which was produced from 1967 to 1984. It is a 35 mm point and shoot and was designed as a sort of photographic travel notebook, hence the name. It has a nice Olympus Zuiko 40mm f/2.8. In spite of it's looks and simplicity, this is a real camera with a glass lens and a metal body, not some plastic lens hipster toy. It's a lovely camera and has developed a cult following. It's easy to find sites which cater to Trip 35 fans that sell accessories such as custom leather or leatherette covers, flashes, new light seals, lens caps, etc. Check out http://www.tripman.co.uk/

The metering is quite clever. Light is gathered by the selenium cells surrounding the lens. This meters the light and creates just enough charge for a very simple elecromechanical exposure system that uses, and to send a signal to the flash shoe. Depending on the light measured, the camera switches between just two shutter speeds, and then picks the aperture. The camera uses no batteries. If there is not enough light to take a photo, the shutter will not trip and a little red flag pops up in the viewfinder. The aperture stops on the ring are used for flash calculation. For normal daylight shooting you keep it set on "A". You can still set the ring to an aperture to fool the camera into thinking that it has a flash attached to make fun nighttime street photos and cityscapes. The focusing is just a four-setting range-focus system. For close-up portraiture, you have to look out for the parallax between the lens and what you are looking at through the viewfinder. Sometimes I forget to use the frame lines in the viewfinder and find that I have to do some cropping after I get my scans back.

The black camera I purchased at an estate sale for $5.00. The silver one came from eBay for about $30. I "steampunked" the Ebay camera slightly so I could shoot photos of people at these events while still being a fully costumed part of the action and not be "Mister Photographer Guy" with a bazooka-sized DSLR getting between me and full participation in the festivities. Some of my steampunk photos taken with the Trip are in the second post below this one.

I've been to a few of these cosplay type events. While some of the official "Mister Photographer Guys" have some truly outstanding work, others (that you see walking around in t-shirts and shorts with thousands of dollars worth of photo equipment), tend to just upload their entire SD cards without editing, so you see all the boringly composed shots and the ones washed out by too much fill flash. Film forces you to think. This is a brilliant little fun mechanical camera to take with you when you don't want to carry a full SLR.

The Trip 35 and the others that I will eventually show are cameras for the rest of us. I'm not a Professional Photographer. I don't make money off my work. Manytimes I'm off the mark, and I'm always willing to learn from someone willing to teach, but I believe that I have a pretty decent eye for composition. What I hope to show with these camera posts is that you don't need to schlep around fifty pounds of techno-wizbang equipment to make some decent photos for yourself, whether you do it for art's sake, or to just capture some memories.  

Game of Thrones 6-4

All the plotlines seem to be moving now. Sansa has grown from "person who things happen to" to  "person who makes things happen". And, Littlefinger's former protege is assuming her leadership position in the House Stark.  If Sansa has not convinced the vacillating Jon Snow that the time is now to make his move on Winterfell, our good Lord Ramsey's charming little epistle certainly did.With house Aran forces coming up from the south, I think the Starks will prevail for once.

Are we going to see a thing between Lady Brienne and Tormond Giantsbane? Tormond was definitely looking at her with that "now that's my kind of woman" look in his eyes.

Feel the Burn! The Dothraki hordes now all belong to the queen of dragons, after Emilia Clarke's badass fiery nude scene.

Cersei is correct. The high sparrow wants to overthrow all the traditional institutions. His tale of how he rejected his own bourgeois attitudes, which he held as an upwardly mobile a young man shows that underneath "that poor religious brother" affectation of his is a sort of Trotskyite monk, who, after bringing down the religious hierarchy, is now aiming to do the same to the Westrossi class system.

Some people from Steampunk World's Fair 2016

Game of Thrones 6-3. "Oathbreaker".

In memory of Allister Thorne and Ollie (now their watch is ended) and Shaggydog.

At castle Black, Jon Snow shows us how to quit like a boss when he hangs the conspirators, hands "Dolorous Edd" Tollett the Lord Commander's cloak and exits stage right announcing "and now my watch is ended". We'll see now if he marches on Winterfell.

Ser Allister, at least was an honest enemy, a knight who always let you know exactly where you stood with him, even as he was committing mutiny . His last words were to the effect that he knew that Jon thought he was doing the right thing, which is fitting because we can say exactly the same of him. Like some of my favorite villains, Ser Allister believed himself to be the hero of his own story.

Meanwhile, at Winterfell, Smalljohn Umber delivers Asha and Rikkon to Ramsey. This may have been a ruse to get a male heir to house Stark back inside Winterfell, but if so, killing Shaggydog (assuming it was) was a pretty grim sacrifice. I can only note that Smalljohn declined to swear to house Bolton, which saves him from being an oathbreaker when he eventually turns against Ramsey. At the least, he is keeping his options open.

If you haven't been keeping track of the direwolves:
Ghost (Jon's): Still with Jon
Summer (Brandon's): Still with Bran
Grey Wind: (Robb's) deceased
Lady (Sansa's): deceased
Shaggydog (Rikkon's): deceased
Nymeria (Arya's): In the books, she is currently the alpha female of a pack terrorizing the Riverlands.

Speaking of Bran, through him we are slowly piking up clues to the past. This week, we witness the the famous fight at the Tower of Joy, but Max von Sydow, I mean the Three Eyed Raven, pulls Bran and ourselves out right before the R+L=J fans get what they have been waiting years to get because Beinoff and Weiss know what we want and are playing the long tease.

Meanwhile, in Essos, things are starting to move along. Danni is in Vas Dothrak with Darrio and Ser Jorah hot on her trail while attempts at nation building in Slaver's bay seem an utter failure.

Speaking of utter failures, we get another brilliant Peter Dinklage scene when Tyrion the Dragon Whisperer attempts a bit of small talk with Greyworm and Missandei who do not win any life of the party awards. The big winner in Meereen was Lord Varys. His scene with the harpy spy was a master class in how to speak softly and be ruthless.

Game of Thrones 6-2 "Home"

I missed writing about episode one of this season. I just have to say, though, that Brienne of Tarth (Human Female Paladin, Lawful Good), is so awesome, she's becoming one of my favorites.

I usually get a Game of Thrones post out within a day or two, but, I've been a little busy. I'm really trying to get my shit together. today I've been filing and I'm no-where finished. I lost the registration renewal for the Thunderbird, and I may or may not have let my life insurance lapse.

Fair warning: My Game of Thrones recaps are written from the perspective of a reader of the books.

Let us now remember the dearly departed: Balon Greyjoy, Roose Bolton, and poor, innocent Walda Frey.

You knew what was coming in this episode before it happened, there WERE hints. A big part of the episode revolved around the Greyjoys, with repetitions of the Drowned God's prayer which ends with "What is dead may never die". We even see Euron "Crow's Eye" Greyjoy, apparently risen from death by drowning.

As resident psychopath Ramsey Bolton is adding patricide and infanticide to his long list of offences against the gods and against common decency, up at Castle Black, Jon Snow rises,  but not quite the way I imagined. Firstly, Jon has been operating two or three steps ahead of everyone else at Castle black for some time now, and also, he's already seen his predecessor killed in a mutiny, so I didn't expect him to be stupid enough to invite a mutiny upon himself without already being in cahoots with Melesandre. But, the episode also had to do with Mel and her crisis of faith, so I can see why they might have wanted to go this way. Jon is a warg, so, his consciousness would have been residing inside ghost these past few episodes. Because of this, I think, unlike other people revived by red priests (such as Lady Stoneheart, if we ever meet her), Jon's spirit is probably still whole.

It was all good, but it would have been so much more epic if they had done it this way:
Melesandre gives up, thinking that her magic hadn't worked. They all bring Jon's body out to the pyre and the usual words but, his body doesn't burn. At "and now, his watch is ended", he jumps out of Ghost and back into his own body and walks out of the fire legally free of his vow. If Jon is who some of us think he is, that would have been fitting. I can't wait for episode 3. Judging by the preview, It looks like we are going to see the fight at the Tower of Joy, and possibly Jon's origin story".