"Kill the Boy" spec. based on ep. 501-504 SPOILERS

That quote appears to have been from around the time ACOK came out, no? Back then he was only planning 6 books, not 7. So to me that just reinforces that it won't happen until ADOS.

Jan 2014...so last year.  While he's working on book 6.

sophie did say it was her 'peak' season for her character

yeh i'm imagining a scene where Stannis goes to visit maester aemon and sam is there and they end up talking about sams abusive father.

im still hoping for a melisandre/aemon scene

Thanks for the invite to this corner of the net. Nice to see that there is a safe place to talk about the things we've all wanted to talk about.

The general consensus seems to be that Barristan at least temporarily survived the E4 cliffhanger (on account of his throat not being slit) but I am still leaning towards Barristan being dead (dude got stabbed a lot even without his throat cut) and Grey Worm being the one to survive (at least for a little bit).

There's a couple reasons I believe this. For one, many of the trailers this season included the shot of Missandei kissing Grey Worm while he way laying down which led many fans to immediately speculate he was dead. I find it very hard to believe the show would blatantly spoil one of its semi-major character deaths in a trailer. I find it far more likely that they wanted fans to think this was the case when it was actually a scene where he's severely injured and Missandei is caring for him (or on deathwatch).

The other reason is that dramatically, it doesn't make sense to off 2 of the only supporting characters in the Meereen story simultaneously in the middle of the season. Typically, even if the plan was to have both of them die, it would be spread out so that characters could react to each death separately and they could have their own "moments" to themselves for the audience to process. If this is the case, killing Grey Worm like this seems fairly sudden given they've spent so much time building up his relationship with Missandei. You would have expected a more heartfelt scene between the two of them before he died (I call it the "kiss of death" scene in movies/TV that telegraph that the character is going to die). Barristan certainly gets such a scene with a very poignant and heartfelt chat with Dany before she smiles at him and tells him to "sing me a song Ser Barristan". There's not much left to say after that.

On the other hand, I believe the last scene that Missandei and Greyworm shared together was back in E1 when she asked him why an Unsullied would go to a brothel and he answered he didn't know and then left. I don't think that's where they want to leave that relationship so he's at least going to have a deathbed scene with her if nothing else and if he gets one, Barristan isn't going to get one too, that would be weird.

I've been trying to figure out if there's a way Grey Worm could stick around further into the season but knowing that both he and Selmy are nowhere to be found at Daznak Pit makes that a little hard to picture. The only scenario I could come up with is that he's around for the next few episodes but for Dazank's, he is assigned to guard the catacombs because Dany knows the Sons of the Harpy are going to try and free the dragons. And that would mean he could be part of the scene where the masters end up getting roasted which he may or may not survive.

 I should've thought of you sooner. Us "show apologist" Canadians have to help one another out.

i think you are right king tommen. except i think grey worms injuries will lead to his death or he will be out of action for the rest of the season.

i'm pretty sure the dragons will be released soon...either ep 5 or 6 by the sons of the harpy and some masters.

i believe there was some other speculation that they will be "released" by Sons during their simultaneous attack in Daznak's Pit, and they will attempt to slay them.
On the subject of their escape, are they just gonna smash through the walls? That door doesn't look big enough for either one to fly out of now that they've grown larger.

Wasn't there a "Master Nobleone Elboneno" or something?

And I just read that casting report and I assume they are looking for a "bald man with no facial hair" because they are going to burn him?