Yeah, even in this fantastic analysis, it seems many are ignoring that this was just a friendly sparring match. Brienne was simply feeling her out at first, and when she finally started trying, it took her what - 20 seconds to disarm Arya while using a sparring sword?

If they were trying to kill each other, Brienne would have likely shattered needle with Oathkeeper - but Arya's smart enough not to get in a 1v1 situation with Brienne in the first place (she even says as much), and I feel Arya would do something much more covert if she was tasked to take out someone with Brienne's strength/ability.

It's worth noting that this is one of my favorite scenes in S7 (as it shows Arya's six seasons of growth through Syrio, Jaqen, Tywin, the BWB, The Hound, and the Faceless men), and I think some of its criticism can be drawn up to the "The music is better in the books" type of fan.
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You beat me to saying pretty much the same thing. It was a friendly sparring match.

What I've not said to this point is how much I love the expressions on the faces of Littlefinger and Sansa afterwards.
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They both realized that Arya hasn't exactly been scraping by for the last few years - and that they both have a potentially powerful adversary standing in front of them.

I also didn't hate the Winterfell plot as much as everyone else. While I did hate Littlefinger's decision making/rationale/motive for this entire season, I thought Sansa and Arya's interactions were true to their characters.

Yes, Littlefinger baited Arya with the letter. But Arya is a war torn child who hasn't had any political advisers (outside of Tywin, perhaps) throughout her entire life. Even Robb Stark took the letter at face value until his advisers put it into context for him.

Yes, Sansa was annoying at times - but she too is finding herself as a political leader and had to combat a person who had been one of her closest confidants since Season 1.

It all felt real to me - even the tension, as these girls never cared for each other growing up and both had no real context for the other's development.

Unfortunately, it all came at the expense of butchering Littlefinger's character. Just what was his ideally endgame and how did he plan to get there? Beyond that, the dude should have GTFO to the Vale the moment Bran quote dropped him. For Littlefinger to not even investigate Bran's abilities (when Bran was Spock professing his abilities to everyone in ear shot) was a massive betrayal to the cunning nature of his character, imo.'

To me, it's akin to Breaking Bad's betrayal of Mike's character by having him take a half measure to his grave when Walt ultimately murders him. It doesn't "break the show" by any means (neither do the leaps of logic in S7E6), but it is annoying.

Luckily the show still has the chance to stick the landing in the closing season. Something that other great shows (Lost, Dexter, House of Cards), didn't have the chance to do because of the horrid storylines in their penultimate season.
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I can see that. I've read that there was a deleted scene where Bran tipped off Sansa (and Arya?) about Littlefinger and his plots, but that the scene was deleted to make the scene at his "trial" be more of a surprise to the audience. I figured either Littlefinger didn't believe Bran, or more likely, thought he had Sansa buffaloed well enough that she wouldn't betray him. I wouldn't be surprised if GRRM still has him alive in the books (if he ever finishes).
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I don't think the show writers are clever enough to ever handle Littlefinger in a satisfactory way, plus the intricasies of taking him down in a clever way would likely be hard to do on TV in a short time frame and in a way everyone would understand. If the books ever get written, I'm betting GRRM will have a better conclusion for Littlefinger's arc.
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I'm gonna bet that he plans on the BWB getting LF in a similar Kangaroo Court style that Arya and Salsa did.

Would be the ultimate irony to have his throat slit by UnCat.
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?


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Wood.


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Lady Stoneheart from the books (not in the TV show). Lady Stoneheart is a revived Catelyn Stark who can barely speak who is out for revenge.
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You missed the joke, man....
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Oh well...:-)
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shes not the whiny little girl anymore. :-)
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I’ve thought for some time that the famously slow GRRM is suffering from brain lock because of the TV show skipping past his books. He has characters that the series has revealed are wholly unnecessary while he tries to concoct something that is different but better. Not sure he’ll ever get the books done.
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Yeah. It was a thought that just occurred to me and not mentioned several times earlier.....
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