History YMMV / GameOfThronesS5E6UnbowedUnbentUnbroken

* IdiotPlot:
** The entire Dornish sequence requires enough dumb actions from almost everyone involved that it seems like something in the air in Dorne makes characters act like complete idiots just by being exposed to it:
*** The [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy Dornish guards]] [[SwissCheeseSecurity are so sloppy]] that anyone can ride into the water gardens and physically assault their heir-apparent as long as they're wearing (blood-spattered) Dornish uniforms, not to mention the three obvious and well-armed opponents of the Prince who were able to launch their coup from ''inside'' the palace and get within striking distance of their target totally unobstructed.
*** Prince Doran spends an earlier scene discussing how the Sand Snakes are going to try something against Myrcella, but apparently didn't see fit to ''do'' anything about it like, say, have ''any'' guards actually escorting her.
*** Jaime's "stealth" mission to "rescue" Myrcella amounts to strolling into the water gardens ''in broad daylight'' and straight up telling Myrcella to come with him... in front of Prince Trystane... after Myrcella identifies him... while wearing stolen, blood-spattered uniforms... as if they could just stroll back out with her. As Bronn {{lampshades}}, Jaime doesn't even have any idea how to actually ''get out'' of Dorne, either. And of course, they didn't account for the possibility that [[SpannerInTheWorks Myrcella and Trystane]] would be [[StarCrossedLovers genuinely in love]] and resist her leaving.
*** The Sand Snakes plot to kidnap Myrcella is even more poorly executed, with them also aiming to snatch her from Trystane's side in broad daylight just like Jaime "planned" to do, but unlike Jaime and Bronn they don't even bother with disguises (no, just covering their faces doesn't count). Worse still, they see Jaime and Bronn at work and ''proceed as planned'' rather than, you know, calling the guards to stop these interlopers, netting another valuable Lannister hostage, and using this hostile act as propaganda for their WarHawk efforts.
*** ...and, after everyone else's arrest, the scene cuts right to Ellaria Sand being cornered by Dornish spearmen, not having moved from where she briefed the Sand Snakes.
** Loras' trial would grind to a halt without a great deal of stupidity. There's Cersei for not realizing how ridiculously short-sighted all this is and Tommen for doing nothing to stop it, which is at least somewhat consistent with [[SmugSnake their]] [[WeakWilled characters]]. There's also Loras for TemptingFate by being so open about his homosexuality, Loras ''again'' for continuing to see Olyvar after he proved to be a HoneyTrap, and Loras ''a third time'' for failing to meaningfully defend himself by either demanding a TrialByCombat or pointing out that a supposed squire like Olyvar ''would'' have seen him naked from helping him dress and undress. Then there's Olyvar for betraying Loras to the {{Heteronormative Crusader}}s by implicating ''himself'' for no apparent reason since there's no evidence of coercion.

* EndingAversion: The episode's infamous final scene, wherein Ramsay rapes Sansa, was widely condemned as an utterly tasteless moment that served no in-story purpose other than being yet ''another'' reminder that Ramsay isn't a very nice person. This scene, along with the various other faults listed under IdiotPlot, helped cement this episode's reputation as the worst ''Game of Thrones'' episode until that point (and correspondingly, the one with the lowest audience scores on [=IMDb=] and Rotten Tomatoes), a MedalOfDishonor it would hold until the show's infamously poorly-received final season.

* EndingAversion: The episode's infamous final scene, wherein Ramsay rapes Sansa, was widely condemned as an utterly tasteless moment that served no in-story purpose other than being yet ''another'' reminder that Ramsay isn't a very nice person. This scene, along with the various other faults listed under IdiotPlot, helped cement this episode's reputation as the worst ''Game of Thrones'' episode until that point, a MedalOfDishonor it would hold until the show's infamously poor final season (every episode of which has lower user scores than this on Rotten Tomatoes and [=IMDb=]).

* FightSceneFailure: Jaime and Bronn's fight with the Sand Snakes. Compared to Oberyn's graceful skill with the spear, Obara's twirling comes across as [[http://38.media.tumblr.com/7cb6d1daffa1ab2926c1a82549d079f4/tumblr_inline_nokmyqazDa1rku3fs_540.gif clumsy and slow]]. Nymeria's contribution to the fight seems to be whipping from a distance, which Jaime and Bronn treat as an annoyance at most, and [[http://33.media.tumblr.com/0f1bc9fd68fa50d24996bb37d67a600d/tumblr_inline_nokmxtqcuG1rku3fs_540.gif Tyene just sort of flails her daggers]]. In the end, the Snakes didn't really put up any more of a fight than the mooks that Jaime and Bronn got their uniforms from, which begs the question of how they managed to actually survive against Jaime and Bronn.

** In his DVD commentary, writer Bryan Cogman claims everything that could go wrong for the scene did. As scripted, the fight was supposed to be tightly shot in the corridors of the palace at night but since the Alcazar is a major tourist site they were restricted to a very tight schedule that precluded filming at night or inside the palace, resulting in the fight being filmed in the open garden during the day, which didn't make much sense in-universe and drastically affected their ability to use stunt doubles and editing to hide that the actresses (who'd only had a few days' co-ordinated practice) simply couldn't match the choreography. Of course, Cogman paints all this as beyond the producers' control, ignoring that they ''chose'' to press on despite the restrictions, apparently without realizing they weren't really capitalizing on their production coup of filming at a UNESCO World Heritage site if the scene itself turns out awful.

*** Jaime's "stealth" mission to "rescue" Myrcella amounts to strolling into the water gardens ''in broad daylight'' and straight up telling Myrcella to come with him... in front of Prince Trystane... after Myrcella identifies him... while wearing stolen, blood-spattered uniforms... as if they could just stroll back out with her. As Bronn {{lampshades}}, Jaime doesn't even have any idea how to actually ''get out'' of Dorne, either. Then Bronn himself ruins everything by straight-up knocking out Prince Trystane. Wasn't their purpose to ''avoid'' starting a war? And of course, they didn't account for the possibility that [[SpannerInTheWorks Myrcella and Trystane]] would be [[StarCrossedLovers genuinely in love]] and resist her leaving.

* InternetBackdraft: The final scene where Ramsay rapes Sansa as a crying Reek watches caused a huge backlash from feminists and others who saw it as gratuitous RapeAsDrama or simply undermining Sansa's CharacterDevelopment and agency for the sake of Theon's.
** It didn't help that Benioff and Weiss' standard response to such controversies is to remain aloof and hope it goes away[[note]]They've said in the past that anything they say would only be twisted and misquoted[[/note]], so the only response from the writing staff for months was from Bryan Cogman, who preferred to focus on the scene itself being [[RapeDiscretionShot tastefully filmed]] and that it would be [[IJustWriteTheThing untrue to the situation]] for Ramsay not to mistreat Sansa after their marriage but avoid discussing the decision to merge the plotlines in the first place by uncomfortably acknowledging, "If you're questioning that Sansa and Jeyne were [[CompositeCharacter merged]] in the first place, that wasn't my idea, so I can't talk about it," which is sort of a tacit admission that he didn't really address a fundamental issue.

** It didn't help that Benioff and Weiss' standard response to such controversies is to remain aloof and hope it goes away[[note]]They've said in the past that anything they say would only be twisted and misquoted by the {{Hatedom}}[[/note]], so the only response from the writing staff for months was from Bryan Cogman, who preferred to focus on the scene itself being [[RapeDiscretionShot tastefully filmed]] and that it would be [[IJustWriteTheThing untrue to the situation]] for Ramsay not to mistreat Sansa after their marriage but avoid discussing the decision to merge the plotlines in the first place by uncomfortably acknowledging, "If you're questioning that Sansa and Jeyne were [[CompositeCharacter merged]] in the first place, that wasn't my idea, so I can't talk about it," which is sort of a tacit admission that he didn't really address a fundamental issue.

** Loras' trial would grind to a halt without a great deal of stupidity. There's Cersei for not realizing how ridiculously short-sighted all this is and Tommen for doing nothing to stop it, which is at least somewhat consistent with [[SmugSnake their]] [[WeakWilled characters]]. There's also Loras for TemptingFate by being so open about his homosexuality, Loras ''again'' for continuing to see Olyvar after he proved to be a HoneyTrap, and Loras ''a third time'' for failing to meaningfully defend himself by either demanding a TrialByCombat or pointing out that a supposed squire like Olyvar ''would'' have seen him naked from helping him dress and undress. Then there's Olyvar for betraying Loras to the {{Heteronormative Crusader}}s by implicating ''himself'' for no apparent since there's no evidence of coercion.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: King Tommen's hesitance to have the Kingsguard stop the arrest of Margaery may not be [[ActualPacifist actual pacifism]]. The Kingsguard has few representatives in the room at the time, and more importantly, even the knights who are there are (according to Ser Barristan) barely worthy of the name. Armored as they are, they would likely be able to free Margaery, but fighting through the Sept of Baelor far enough that Tommen and his royal entourage can reach the safety of the Red Keep? Maybe Tommen is not so much weak as he is wise.

** In the DVD commentary, they explained that basically everything which could go wrong for the fight scene did - though largely due to avoidable choices the production team made. They were so focused on filming at the Alcazar Palace, a friggin' UNESCO World Heritage site which is very beautiful and authentically medieval, that they didn't consider the ''drastic'' filming limitations that would be imposed on them.
*** First, since the site is a major tourist attraction, they only had a handful of days to film at the location -- so they couldn't do reshoots.
*** Second, for some reason they weren't allowed to film the scene they'd planned ''at night'' and had to film it during the day...and as many reviewers pointed out, it didn't make sense for both Jaime ''and'' the Sand Snakes to try to sneak into the castle ''during the day''.
*** Third, they ultimately weren't even allowed to film ''in the palace'', just in the garden plaza...raising the question of how much they could even be said to be filming "in the Alcazar" anymore. ''As they planned it'', it would have been a tightly shot fight scene in the corridors of the palace -- instead they were stuck using wide-shots in an open area, meaning they couldn't film it as well: either zooming out too far when the stunt doubles were filming, or zooming too far in on the actors who couldn't do the moves as well. On top of this, filming it ''at night'' would have let them use the stunt doubles more when they're not as easy to see, while a day-shoot made it painfully obvious when the actors were swapped in and out.
*** Fourth, they also later admitted that because the Sand Snake actresses live in different countries, they filmed their own fight moves separately, and only trained as a coordinated fight scene with multiple people for ''a few days'' before the scene was filmed.
*** In the commentary they paint all these setbacks as events beyond their control....ignoring the fact that they ''chose'' to film at this location despite the increasingly bizarre and demanding filming restrictions. At what point after being told "you only have a limited amount of time to shoot the scene, you won't be able to do reshoots, you can't actually film ''inside'' the castle ''and'' you can't film at night" is it really worth filming there at all anymore?
* IdiotPlot: Again common here:
** It seems like ''something'' in the air in Dorne makes characters act like complete idiots irrespective of where they're from, as the entire Dornish sequence required a lot of dumb actions from just about everyone involved in it except for Trystane and Myrcella:
*** Starting with the Dornish army; the fact they allowed Jaime and Bronn to get so close to the Prince completely unimpeded is ''incredibly'' sloppy. The pair were admittedly wearing Dornish uniforms, but apparently no one noticed the missing soldiers, or cared that two men who are clearly not from Dorne were approaching the crown prince.
*** Doran spends an earlier scene talking about how the Sand Snakes are going to try something against Myrcella, but apparently doesn't see fit to have any guards actually escorting her to keeping people from getting to her.
*** Jaime's stealth mission to "rescue" Myrcella amounts to marching into the water gardens ''in broad daylight,'' in front of the Young Prince of Dorne, and straight up telling Myrcella to leave. While wearing stolen Dornish uniforms. As Bronn {{Lampshades}} , he doesn't even have any idea how they will actually ''get out'' of Dorne afterwards. Then Bronn himself ruins everything by physically threatening Prince Doran's son and then straight-up knocking him out. Didn't you guys want to '''avoid''' starting a war, again? And then of course they didn't account for the possibility that [[StarCrossedLovers Myrcella and Trystane were in love with each other]] and would resist Jaime and Bronn...
*** The Sand Snakes plot to kidnap Myrcella was similarly poorly executed, aiming to snatch her in plain daylight in front of Trystane, just like Jaime had 'planned' to do. What makes it worse is that they see Jaime and Bronn at work and ''' ''proceed as planned anyway'' '''. Rather than, you know, calling the guards to stop interlopers from attacking their Prince and kidnapping Myrcella, and using this hostile act as propaganda for their war as well as netting another valuable hostage. And they do all this underneath the gaze of Prince Doran himself. Even worse is the fact that Jaime and Bronn at least ''bothered'' with putting on disguises for their plan, while the Sand Snakes made no such attempt to conceal their identities -- no, covering their faces doesn't count -- and carried out their high profile kidnapping themselves...
*** ...and, after everyone's arrest the scene cuts right to Ellaria Sand, not having moved from where she'd briefed the Sand Snakes, being cornered by Dornish spearmen.
** Loras's trial requires a great deal of stupidity from many people: There's Loras being so open about his homosexuality in the first place, Loras again for ''continuing'' to see Olyvar after he had betrayed him once already, Loras ''again'' for failing to defend himself in any meaningful fashion (like, say, pointing out that the supposed-squire Olyvar ''would'' know where his birth mark on the thigh was, from removing his armor and watching Loras practice), Loras once more for not demanding a trial by combat when he's one of the best knights around and the High Sparrow could hardly refuse a demand to be tried by the gods, Cersei for not realizing how ridiculously short-sighted this all was, Tommen for doing nothing to stop it, and Olyvar for his betrayal and aiding the guys whom he ''knows'' hate homosexuals with a passion. If any one of these characters didn't act like an idiot, the plot would grind to a screeching halt.
* InternetBackdraft: The final scene where Ramsay rapes Sansa as a crying Reek watches, caused a huge backlash from feminist groups and those who simply think it undermines Sansa's CharacterDevelopment and is merely gratuitous RapeAsDrama, in particular the fact that Sansa's development and agency are being sacrificed for Reek's own character development.
** It didn't exactly help that Benioff and Weiss responded with what has become a common pattern for them -- avoid giving any response whatsoever to defend their decisions and hope the controversy just goes away. Well, they did say once they stopped giving interviews because they felt they'd only be misquoted and outright haters of the show would twist their words, but they didn't consider that this makes them seem aloof. The only actual "response" from the writing staff for months at a time was from Cogman and other crew members -- ''avoiding'' discussion of merging the plotlines, and just focusing on defending that the wedding night scene itself was filmed tastefully. The ''actual'' defense put forward was often "well once Ramsay married Sansa it would be untrue to the situation for him to not mistreat her"....dodging the issue of that ''they'' are the ones who merged the plotlines in the first place. Cogman has been clearly uncomfortable about this in interviews and he often ends by indeed quickly acknowledging, "if you're questioning that Sansa and Jeyne were merged in the first place, that wasn't my idea, so I can't talk about it"...which is sort of a tacit admission that he didn't really address the fundamental question.

* TheScrappy: The Sand Snakes cemented themselves as this, having already been widely disliked due to their LargeHam tendencies and poor writing, as well as the FightSceneFailure resulting in them coming across as {{Faux Action Girl}}s without the personalities that defined them in the books. What's makes it worse is the plot they're associated with: the complicated Queenmaker plot of the books admittedly needed some AdaptationDistillation, but the choice of [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderizing]] the Sand Snakes and derailing Ellaria Sand via AdaptationalVillainy ''and'' the IdiotPlot of Jaime and Bronn has not pleased viewers. The ridiculous coincidence of both parties engaging their stupid plans ''at the exact same time'' is bizarre, and the choreography of their fight was extremely poor by the show's standards. In addition, the continued overacting of the Sand Snakes continues to draw criticism.
** In the Season 5 DVD commentary, Cogman explained that Benioff and Weiss didn't even want the show to go to Dorne until ''after'' Season 4 aired. They knew Oberyn and Ellaria would visit King's Landing, but didn't think they'd be able to fit Dorne in - due to their fear that it's an entirely new location which no previously established major characters could visit to bridge its introduction (except of course, the audience ''does'' already know Ellaria!). Anyway, ''after'' production on Season 4 ended, at the last minute Bryan Cogman suggested that they ''could'' fit Dorne back in if they sent Jaime there (instead of the Kingsguard POV character from the novels), which on paper seemed liked a good idea. The problem was that -- as he directly admitted -- Dorne was indeed quickly squeezed into Season 5 at the last minute, and they barely had any time to focus on writing it or ironing out those parts of the scripts. It feels half-finished because frankly it was. ''In addition'' to starting it so late, they also wanted to re-write the subplot to give Ellaria more to do, because they're fond of the actress -- i.e. giving her Arianne's role from the books. This also necessitated further rewrites even as they didn't have time to insert the original material.

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Contrasting with all of the above, the Hall of Faces looks amazing, spooky and grand.