YMMV / Game of Thrones S7E1: "Dragonstone"

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• Alternative Character Interpretation: Was Jim Broadbent's Archmaester Ebrose character being truly sage in saying he believes Sam or was his monologue merely an elaborate insult to keep Sam in his place and not question his authority?
• Anvilicious: Ed Sheeran's scene seems to have been put in for the sole purpose of telling the audience See? Not everybody on the Lannister side is evil! in a very unsubtle way.
• Ass Pull: A few months after Yara stole a fair portion of the original Iron Fleet (100 ships, about a sixth if one goes by the books), which included all the warships, Euron was able to build a new and improved Iron Fleet using the resources of a small kingdom that has been impoverished from years of war and rebellion. It's doable but it's mostly so Euron and Cersei can pose a credible opposition to Daenerys. Noticeably hurting this plot point is that every time we've seen the Iron Islands before now, there are no visible trees to actually build more boats out of.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The Dragonstone dragonglass deposit is this to all but the most casual viewers. The show treats it as some great Reveal that Sam spends the whole episode working toward even though its presence there was established as early as the Season 2 Histories & Lore and Stannis explicitly told Sam about it in Season 5, making Sam's "Eureka!" Moment amount to something even he already knew. Sam actually comments on this himself, saying "Stannis told me but I didn't think..." implying he hadn't believed it at the time, or didn't realize how much Stannis meant.
• Catharsis Factor: As if Walder Frey's death in the last season wasn't cathartic enough, Arya delivers karmic retribution by poisoning all other Red Wedding collaborators in the Twins, while disguised as Walder and delivering a speech about their heinous crimes and capping it off by leaving a message: the North Remembers...
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Shortly before this episode aired, David Bradley was cast as the First Doctor in Doctor Who after playing his actor William Hartnell in a special about the show's creation. The very same day that this episode aired, in which he plays Arya disguised as Walder, it was announced that the next Doctor would be a woman.
• Mis-blamed: People threw so much vitriol at Ed Sheeran for his cameo that he deleted his Twitter account, despite the fact that he was actually just a huge GoT fan who Jumped at the Call to have a bit part. He didn't have any choice in how his character was portrayed, it was the directors who did all that.
• Narm Charm: Euron the European glam metal musician. Some people say they actually love it.
• Questionable Casting: There have been many fans who weren't exactly fond of Ed Sheeran being one of the Lannister soldiers. The backlash was apparently bad enough for him to delete his Twitter account at the time of the episode's airing. What's worse, he was a huge Game of Thrones fan, and was presumably eager to come on board.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Euron's characterization this season with more personality and presence, closer to the book version, after being kind of blah last season.
• Squick: The long montage of Sam cleaning up the chamber pots of the Citadel gets really old and does little except gross out viewers. Of course, it also seems to be the entire point, showing the revolting tedium of Sam's work at the Citadel and making the subsequent reveal of Jorah late into the episode more surprising.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Euron's new threads are, shall we say, interesting. The descriptions on Twitter immediately after the episode aired ran the gamut from comparisons to Eddie Murphy to Bam Margera.

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