These two. It’s like somebody sat down and said let’s invent something that will make your heart explode. If the actors sucked maybe my chest wouldn’t ache.

Here’s what Davos was getting at, from the books:

“‘There’s much I don’t understand,’ Davos admitted. ‘I have never pretended elsewise. I know the seas and rivers, the shapes of the coasts, where the rocks and shoals lie. I know hidden coves where a boat can land unseen. And I know that a king protects his people, or he is no king at all. ‘”

What is one bastard boy, against a kingdom?

Here’s the scary thing about Melisandre: Whenever Stannis has listened to her, heeded her counsel, kept her by his side?She has never been wrong. Girlfriend has problems and boundary issues and I think seriously needs to invest in lingerie but she has never been wrong yet. So what would you do, if she was whispering in your ear that she could save everyone?

If she said she could save everyone, and you believed it was your duty to be king not because you dig the outfits or want the applause but because you believe yourself a servant to your duty? What would you do, if she asked you for one innocent, just one. Sack a city, kill a thousand innocents. Kill one, and save a kingdom. She isn’t wrong to want to do it. He’s just a bastard boy, lowborn, missed by no one. What choice would you make?

If you say you know, you’re a liar.

Quick takes: I don’t know if it’s Rory McCann or hearing the words out loud but Sandor Clegane was my favorite forever and he’s even more so, now. He’s right about who could have found Arya. The story he tells about his merits is entirely about what he did for Sansa, and what she did for him. It’s as if the anger’s burning out of him, whereas Arya’s just warming up.

Sansa is not a bitch for not wanting to sleep with Tyrion, not tonight and not ever. I said this last week but look at the lessons the Lannisters taught her: Trust no one, kind words mean a beating is coming, don’t speak unless you absolutely have to because you’ll say something that will get you strung up on the castle walls. It’s the most poisonous thing an abuser does, is make you afraid of your own voice. Did you see the look she gave Joffrey when he wasn’t looking? She’s still a wolf, and they all forget that. She does too, sometimes.

Danaerys led her slaves out of Mereen to Yunkai, led herself out of slavery to freedom. A year ago she had no dragons. Today she sits and Daario Naharis presents her with the heads of those who insult and challenge her (WHOA to Ser Barristan the Hot volunteering to kill the skeezy one first). This new alliance brings its own problems: A man who fights for gold will change his cloak, and who are these people anyway, and she doesn’t even feel the chains piling up on her as she drags herself and her people forward.

SAM THE SLAYER. Samwell Tarly, the bully’s dream come true, who put so plainly to Gilly what everybody else in the episode was stumbling toward: There are different kinds of cruelty. Craster beat and raped Gilly. Randyll Tarly tortured his own child just as surely, then sent him to the Wall where Sam was picked on and degraded. One prison to another.

We’re all walking from one prison to another if we don’t figure out that we’ve always been free.

Stannis Baratheon goes down into the dungeons, into the cell where he placed Davos Seaworth, and asks for the truth, a truth Davos has always given him. He finds Davos behind bars, learning to read, about a woman who flew on a dragon high above the Seven Kingdoms. He finds Davos, who he locked away, unfettered. And in the face of that man’s courage Stannis, who will break before he bends, backs down.

Because your entire kingdom is one bastard boy, or you are no king at all.

A.