"High Sparrow" - Game of Thrones - 5-03

Oldest previously
Renley is stabbity stabbed by Shadow Stannis

Credits
Moat Cailin, Braavos
Still no Dorne.

I'm confused as to how Moat Caitlin fits in.  I thought the Boltons were staged at and reconstructing Winterfell.  That's certainly where they were when Sansa arrived. 

Identity
A common thread this episode is identity.  Specifically the Stark identity.  The name STARK looms large still.

• Jon considers becoming a true Stark
• Arya considers putting her Stark identity behind her
• Sansa considers how to best live up to the Stark name, move foward or bide time for vengeance.

Furthermore, Cersei struggles with her identity as queen, excuse me, Queen Mother or Dowager Queen, as Margarey so helpfully pointed out.  Which leads us to..

Margarey
This is the first time we've seen Margarey be a bit mean spirited to her enemies' faces.  She is killing Cersei with kindness, through the conduit of Tommen, in trying to get her removed back to Casterly Rock. 

When Tommen says hearing King Tommen sounds strange, and he asks Margarey if Queen Margarey sounds strange to here, there is a perfect beat where it's clear those two words are all she's thought about for the longest time. 

Margarey is Cersei from twenty years ago.  Ready to be married to the king or the heir apparent, as Tywin turned down quite a fair match from the Martells (as Oberyn told us last season) in favor of holding out for Rhagaer (in theory) and then Robert (in practice).  Margarey's been queen one way or the other since the start of Season Two with Renley, Joffrey, and now Tommen.

In press, GRRM speaks of prophecy coming true, thought not int he way one expects.  The obvious answer to the flashback prophecy is Margarey.  But there's another younger, more beautiful Queen coming to take the throne (SOMEDAY) and her name is Dany (a queen, not a politician).

Religion
Between the pope, er, High Septon getting caught in the brothel and St. Francis, er, High Sparrow, leading his own movement, there is a lot of religious activity in Westeros, specifically Kings Landing.  It stands to reason that after the land is war torn for years, and with winter coming (as Stannis noted at the Wall) the people shrink back from conflict (think isolationism after WWI) and seek solace in their guns and religion.

Relgiion is featured prominently in Braavos, as Arya learns of the one true got.  And Tyrion encounters a red priestess preaching.  Are they the same god?

Important Time Check!!!
Stannis the Mannis says two weeks until he leaves Castle Black, marching for....Winterfell. 

The North Remembers
Maybe the most important dialoge this week.  Does it signal a secret resistance movement, biding their time, like Sansa?  Twice we're reminded of the North's loyalty to the Starks.  Once when this is said to Sansa, and the other when Ramsey recounts the lord who wouldn't recognize any Warden of the North but a Stark. 

Last week, Stannis (the Mannis) got a reply as well from Bear Island, "There is but one King of the North and his name is STARK

Silvers and Coppers

• Making Thorne First Ranger.  Brilliant or horrible.  No in between.
• Jon's execution of Slynt was sweet, if not too fast.  I thought he resembled Robb more than anything though. 
• And Robb's execution of Karstark (rather than imprisonment), unbending like Stannis, is ultimately what did him in.  Not breaking the marriage vows.
• Who wore it best?
• Sansa
• Speaking of, this storyline is incredibly interesting so long as translates into Sansa maintaining her own agency, rather be the torture toy of yet another sociopath
• Brienne is just as tiresome on the screen as she is on the page
• The more book departures the better.  I love being surprised.  I am very pro different roads to the same end point, much like Brienne and Pod are taking to Winterfell.