I agree, but there is a lot of Sansa-hate on this podcast, so for someone other than Ashley to make a defense of her reactions is very refreshing for me to hear. Often, it seems that when there is a defense of her on this podcast, a lot of it gets bulldozed through. I believe Augustine did a very good job in respectfully asserting his point about the extremely wide range of reactions from humans in response to trauma. That part really made the section for me.

Especially since Larry's arguments (besides her not being in any danger/ no sense of urgency in her plotline) were presented in a very black-and-white fashion which to me shows a poor grasp of the character (whether or not this is the fault of the tv show, I will leave to whomever is reading this post - but I think we can all agree that reading the books does not preclude this type of thinking). The whole "haters gonna hate" thing wasn't necessary, but oh well.

It is definitely frustrating to hear the same arguments over and over again, but the reason I'm willing to put up with all of the Sansa hate on APOIAF is because different opinions have been presented and are civilly debated, and the debate isn't re-hashed every episode. This is a big divide in the fandom, so I think it would be ridiculous to have a SOIAF podcast and not address this.

If you are talking about the podcast in general (beyond ep 80), I think you are over-estimating the Sansa hate... Perhaps it was more divisive with some of our past hosts, but out of the current 4 person roster, who hates Sansa? My understanding was that Mimi's hate related to first book Sansa, but even if she did/does classify as a Sansa hater that is hardly the majority of the podcast.

I brought up Larry's Sansa rant on the episode because I thought the situation was funny and kind of reminiscent of when Mimi got roasted for her early episode Sansa comments.

I recently re-listened to all of the older episodes, so that's probably why I'm a little annoyed about that right now. Not out of the current line-up.

I don't begrudge Mimi's rant on the subject because she did (kind of) recognize on Girls' Night Out that it's not about the "Olympics of Suffering". All of Chase (or was it Chris?)'s retro-sexism on the matter (or concerning almost any female character, really) was not fun to listen to, though.

Yes, they are opinions, but the way a lot of the early hate on Sansa was structured didn't strike me as well thought out.

in regards to the criticisms on larry, i, as one of the guest hosts, was very surprised at the feedback thus far.......i obviously can only speak for myself and wouldnt try to speak on his behalf but.....

i think one thing that may have not come through very clearly on this episode is how much larry enjoys speaking to the podcast, and its my perception that he speaks freely, frankly, and openly knowing that he is among friends.............sometimes one can take more liberties with voice levels and "bluntness" (i know i do this all the time in my personal life) when you know you are in a friendly environment speaking amongst people who will give you the benefit of the doubt.

someone mentioned their annoyance with the other hosts constantly asking larry questions instead of letting him "pick his spots", i think i was guilty of that, and the reason i did that was because when doing a 'spoiler-free' episode it gets challenging to expand on topics without producing spoilers (as you all can notice that i almost did in the end), and one of the luxuries of speaking to a spoiler-free show viewer is being able to pick their minds and get that "fresh perspective" that normally wouldnt be solicitable (is that a word?).

but i understand everyone's points as all members of house manwoody are certainly free to voice their feedback................

I would just like to say that I loved the aftershow, I was laughing so much as Amin sent everyone my silly bath scene drawing . It was great to hear what everyone thought of it. I do realize that their legs cant physically fit inside, but it's a magic bathtub. It can also be transformed into a coin for transport.

Sorry to anyone who was disturbed/grossed out. I may have drawn it but I'm not the one who randomnly called you and sent you a picture of naked guys in a bath

Don't worry, they all know that APOIAF has a community of gross manwoody-lovers. I only can imagine Stefan sitting in the morning with his coffee (he is german so Amin had to wait until about 11PM to reach him at 8AM) and suddenly a slightly disoriented Amin (after 5 hours of recording I would be disoriented) calls in an throws a picture of Jaime, Gendry and Jaqen in the bath at him.

I also would spit out my coffee - but out of laughter, not out of irritation.

The picture was a great blend of the humor of the podcast and the way the show condenses things. I was just having trouble figuring out what I was looking at. At first I thought "Jaime Bath Scene", then "Jaqen Bath Scene", Then "What am I looking at?"

I absolutely agree - I rarely have much of an opinion about most of the battle scenes on the show or in the book, except to make appreciative noises and admire the badassery. The joy in this episode for me, as well as every other episode and the book series in general really, is deconstructing and analyzing the motives and crises of the characters. That's why I've always had the opinion that morally ambiguous asshole characters are more interesting to me than clear-cut "heroes" like Ned. I enjoy breaking down characters like Cercei, Catelyn, and Sansa who are almost universally hated (Sansa less so of course) because they do horrible and/or real stupid things, but also amazing and admirable things, and I like to figure out why. The strength of ASOIAF is that George never writes main characters as 100% "good" or "bad" - everyone is equally flawed.

How are potatoes not relevent, you boil em, mash em, stick em....wait....SHIT.

Sorry I'm new here and was only joking. I'm not a troll.

just teasing about my tuber nemesis ... just don't say you like the Flyers or Nickleback.

Oh I see, I have to learn these things. I'm I Ranger fan and Nickleback is a bit of an ear rape, so there ya go.

I'm new to the podcast, have listened to, like, 5 episodes... So I guess I haven't got much input, other than length... I don't think I made through the whole 3hours, but it did make me laugh.

I like the voice and opinions of the Youtube guy, Larry, or something. Him not being a reader is of course interesting. You should try arranging more non-readers for next season

I miss that dude Kyle, he's funny...have no idea who this Mimi is, but i guess from how much she is talked about that she is a good host... "How much she is talked about" yeah...she is mentioned a lot...

Like that Ashley is opinionated, keep it up Ash...

Will still be listening next week, keep up the cool work

I am pretty much over anyone with a different hobby telling someone to get a life. Especially someone who tells people to grow up and then rants about pokeman for 15 mins. Maybe it's just that I am near 40 and don't get it but Larry lost a lot of cred with me. He goes from good observation to temper tantrums too quickly.

Over Larry.

Thanks to Amin for keeping it together. Ashley great as always. Prop to Augustine (semi-creepy Mimi obsession and all) he does a good job when he sits in.

One way to improve the podcast would be to never have larry on ever again, and never speak of him having ever been on.

He missed most of what other people (who have not read the books) saw when they watched the series. I watch it with my family, and my sister got far more out of it than he did.

He's a dim bulb, and not representative of an average TV show watcher. Also, he is incapable of intelligent speech, which has all been pointed out by others.

My verdict is: forget he ever existed, and move on from the embarrassment.

i dont hate larry i watch his youtube vids every week to get his view on the ep and enjoy them but by seeing him in the podcast things can get awkward i dont mind larry but maybe just have him for like 30 min (and only 1 ep per season) and not drag things out with his views on things and constant idk that cause the show didnt say or explain things the listeners know like the rains of castamere.

thats my opinion take it or leave it

I enjoy Larry, though his enthusiasm does get the better of him sometimes.

But can anyone else seriously say that when you're enthusiastic about something you find it hard to stop talking about it? I think this is what the case may be...

Though I do wonder about Larry's assessment of Stannis's troop dispositions.

Honestly I think that tactically speaking, Stannis made the right decision in the show to focus his attack on the Mud gate.

Given the immense moral breaker wildfire and flaming arrows would present, concentrating the bulk of his forces there would be ideal.

Lets use the RPG map of Kings Landing as its based off of the actual sketch of Kings Landing in the books, and what I believe they used as a basis in the show...



As you can see the Mudgate is at the very bottom of Kings Landing. Closest to the shore, as Tyrion pointed out, and easy to keep morale up throughout the use of flaming arrows by the simple expedient of proximity to his Royal Personage.

The other gates are far to the north or south west, necessitating Stannis to either land a portion of his army under command of some rather fickle in loyalty southron lord in the Northern most gate, or to have to endure a march under near constant arrow fire after landing at the Mudgate to reach that southern gate.

Stannis in the show chose the expedient of battering his way through the beleagured defenders of Kings Landing by the simple cold calculus of numbers.

This is of course how I saw things.

Book!Stannis though... his plan was much better.

Of course neither took into account Tywin's forced march from Harrenhal and his subsequent meetup with Loras, was it just Loras in the show? I don't recall any Tyrell banners in that glorious mounted charge...

I assumed that his drinking buddy was a member of his burn victim support group

I tend to enjoy it when Larry is on the show but I agree that maybe having him on for a shorter period of time or having him come on after you guys have done the scene by scene review would be better. That said, I really want to see who wins in the Pokemon Challenge.

Good episode - three cheers to Amin and Ashley for staying on for so long. I just wish I'd been able to take the call (I put Skype on my iPhone and forgot that the default settings make it look like I'm always online).

I like Larry's perspective as a watcher-only, and I don't mind his being assertive with his opinions. However, it seems at times that he addresses opposing viewpoints with a "shout it down" approach. I thought the "have you ever been close to death?" was ludicrous, and I applaud Augustine for his rebuttal to it.

Reactions to the fan art were hilarious.

Oh, and I voted for The Hound (based on the books). Elio said it better than I could, but I agree that Bronn's not *so much faster* that the discrepancy in quickness would make up for Sandor's advantages. I think that it would be a toss-up between the characters as portrayed on TV.

Thanks linecom1, that's good to know. Maybe it's just because I'm crazy, but to my ears it often sounded less like Larry felt comfortable, and more like he felt under attack (from book readers in general, not necessarily the other hosts) and determined to fight back. I think that several times all the questions helped to move away from that and back to the show, though they also made clear his rapidly dwindling enthusiasm for the show itself.

On a completely unrelated note, does it make me a bad person that I found the red wedding damage control to be the most hilarious part of the episode proper?

Off topic......

Is that Maisie Williams on your avatar portoanthony???? Daaaamn....girl can move it! I wish she uses those sweet ass dance moves after she leaves the Hound under the tree on the show...I won't give you death but I'll bust a move for you!

Wasn't Larry already spoiled for the Red Wedding? Or just not in great detail?

I totally didn't even notice that! I just realized Sophie Turner is in the background. I need to see a video of this!

Finally listened to the whole episode!

My two cents:

1) Whether you love or hate Larry, I think the criticisms here are a bit overblown. I honestly expected a lot worse. I guess some people find him abrasive, which is fair enough... but I find his rants kind of funny.

2) I liked Cosmia. Always great to hear another Canadian on the podcast! Haven't heard the Canadian Edition yet (it's next up on my ipod, in fact), but she made me laugh more than once. I'd like to hear her again.

3) As always, great job from Ashley and Amin. Would have liked to hear more from the two of you. Good job from linecom, too (the official podcast doctor, lol!).

P.S. Thanks again for calling me in during the aftershow. Glad I was a part of this episode!

Nah, it's not Sophie Turner. It's just Maisie with her dancing group. Here's the vid (plus another one):

http://youtu.be/d-UQ9VEL1-E

http://youtu.be/J7B_bM7AtMs

Nice job on the podcast, btw!

1) I think it is interesting that the podcast has a large enough fanbase to have all this rage over a particular episode. The episode is not even on iTunes with our current iTunes issue and we have 62 comments so far on the main page.. 70 comments is our record, for another highly controversial episode, another TV ep review, and the previous record holder for most call-ins and hosts (Ep 52). Ep 52 was mainly people who came from the link on Winter is Coming (i.e. Pagan Lex before he saw the light ) rather than regular listeners, whereas all this feedback is coming from regular listeners and fans of our podcast. It shows how large the community has grown, but I am glad the forum community is still small and tight night enough that we can all know each other.

3) It is always hard to balance multiple guest hosts and this time being outnumbered (3 guest hosts vs 2 regular hosts). Everyone who has every guest hosted on the podcast for even a single episode comes out of the experience learning how incredibly difficult it can be to record a podcast over the internet. If you are recording in person, you can see body language and judge when people are talking and when they are finishing their stream of talking and can indicate to each other if you want to cut in or make a point. Mimi, Kyle, Ashley and I have become quite good at podcasting together, reading each others 'verbal body language' and talking without talking over each other, as much as is possible. It still happens of course, but we are very comfortable hosting with each other. Having a single guest host works pretty well because we can focus on them and encourage them to talk rather than having a clique circle. Having more than that often leads to one of us taking a more detached role, making sure the podcast flows well and not speaking up as much.

This podcast was different as I we knew at the last few days that Mimi and Kyle would probably not make it, so we invited linecom in to help fill the gap. He knew we had Larry scheduled for this episode weeks ago and that was why he kept asking Larry questions - if you are going to have Larry on you might as well ask him qs because he is the only non-book reader we've had on and we do spoiler free episodes so rarely. Cosmia was kind of a last second edition, but she also helped out big with the episode. Still, it was 3 guest hosts vs 2 regulars and I was busy keeping track of time and the overall picture, which might explain why you didn't hear much of me or Ashley. Listening through and editing the 5 hour raw recorded file, I thought they were, perhaps, a little overeager at times, but they were only trying to help and did really contribute a lot to this episode.

My understanding is that he was told Robb bites it, but not how. In his episode reviews earlier this season, he was speculating that Theon might be responsible.

Having guest hosted a couple times now myself, I know what you mean. It's hard to find the right balance, as a guest... and I think we can get a little over excited, just being on the podcast! Good job from everyone, though. I've really enjoyed all the recent episodes (and not just the ones I was on!).

I just always want to hear more Amin and Ashley.

I found it funny that Larry was mad that they talked about Mance Rayder in the season's premiere but we didn't see him this season. In the books he was first mentionned on the first page of the first chapter of the first book.

Lex has the right info about my avatar -i found it off the boiled leather blog sean t collins and stefan do great analytical podcasts together, amins been on before, Dunk the Lunk got me questioning if sophie turner was in the background though there is photoshop for that

Actually, it looks like your Baelor recap holds the record (currently at 86 comments).