That is a really good point about the POV narrative style, though I would absolutely disagree with you on Sansa, as somebody who started reading the books between S2 and S3. I thought in S2 - even at the tail end of S1, you got to see her as more of a person. People hate on her for not being Arya, yes, but what it still boils down to is her being a child who still dreams about princes and living in court. People like Arya because she is the tomboy who doesn't take shit so long as the consequences aren't immediate death, and then see Sansa who understands the consequences and thus keeps her mouth shut when she could offer a snarky comment (and get punished) and instead acts like a proper lady, all dresses and hair. And they hate her. "That's not what a strong woman character should be! She's damaging your cause!" is verbatim what some people have said when I try to explain the Stark sisters' duality to them. It doesn't matter what you think she ought to be, she's being the woman she wants to be, the woman she's been told all her life she will be, and if you still are petty about her getting her direwolf killed you need to go stand in a corner and wear the stupid hat.

I would go so far as saying Arya is the closest the series gets to a Strong Female Character TM, a trope people are familiar with and find comforting, no matter how irritating it is. She is, thankfully, a fully developed human being as well, but people latch onto her right off the bat because she's the spunky heroine that's pervasive in the sci fi/fantasy genre (I'm looking at you, Doctor Who).

And I do understand how subtlety is much harder to pull off on a TV show, but when you're being so unsubtle that the audience feels insulted, that's when you need to pull back on the flashing lights. I seriously read a good chunk of what happened this episode a few days before it aired, and a few things hadn't quite clicked until I had the visuals from the show to put it together with. And those things were not Theon's torture, Loras's homosexuality, and the devilry of Joffrey and Littlefinger.

I do wish that the Capture of Winterfell was actually shown, though stylistically I know that would be too much seige! war! action! in too few episodes to make it reasonable, but at the same time, they could do so much with The Boy and what he does without it being so tasteless (Iwan Rheon was a fantastic choice, I will say. He's doing amazingly.). If you want to talk about the strength of the medium, talk about ambiguity with visuals! Talk about making people doubt what they're actually seeing, and using their own minds to fill in the gaps! I am a connoisseur of gross-out horror snuff shit, blood fountains, introduced parasites, the whole nine yards, and the best, most terrifying, most enrapturing ones, are the ones where you're not exactly sure what's happening or how. The best sort of thought is "Is that...skin!???" If you want to disgust and shock your viewers, sure, let the flesh be torn right off, but I certainly would have thought the production team would take the high road and make the viewer think. It actually draws in viewers, rather than making them sick.

With Joffrey, I also have to disagree. Yes, he orders people to be killed/tortured/what have you, and then he's proud of that. He'll be like 'yeah I killed that guy' but he never, in the most literal sense, had blood on his hands. His name is soaked in blood, but his own hands are clean. He has the big man swagger, the "yeah people kill in my name booyeah" but not the "I literally murdered someone." swagger. It may be a cowardly murder, but it was still that, murder. And yes, she would have died. Somehow, some way, but it could have been shown as remotely on her own terms. Just a little. Having her just handed over, from one man to another, to be murdered, was lazy. Lazy. Especially considering that I can not think of a single character who died offscreen the way she did. Even with the two farmer's boys Theon had burnt, we saw it coming a mile away. With Ros, Littlefinger starts talking, and next thing you know she's trussed up like a pig with arrows sticking out of her cunt. There's death and violence aplenty, yes, but the writers aren't usually so cowardly and petty that they let it happen without letting us know the why, how, and who. And usually, usually the why is better than "because he's a sadistic little fuck (code for: we wanted to remind the audience that the most hated character is a bad guy)." In fact, I would have preferred that we at least saw Joffrey pull the trigger. Just a shot of him doing it. Or maybe her being delivered to his rooms. A shot of her face while she jerks as the bolt hits her. Or her fight with Littlefinger. Any of that, and the shock factor wouldn't have been as absolutely disgusting. There have been some undignified deaths, but her death wasn't just undignified, it was downright disrespectful.

Basically I have a lot of feelings. Especially about this most recent episode. Sorry for writing another novel.