Request: Limiting the number of blatant Game of Thrones references in future?

[Abriael]

I'm failing to think of a single case in police dramas where someone called their partner anything similar to partner.

Tell me, how could they have conveyed the message then?

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/partner

Those are just basic examples. Even a super-simple "My friend" while not perfect would have conveyed the concept better than completely omitting it.

I feel that them showing us that he has opened up to us fits his character much better than him telling us that he has.

That's not what localization is. Reasoning like this implies "I know better than the original author what is good for this character." This is authoriship, and a localization employee is not an author.

The fact that a character as reclusive as Estinien comes to the point of actually vocalizing that change makes it much stronger, and very important.

Mind you, many that work in localization will certainly tell you that this is ok or even desirable, and that's because a certain part of that crowd has been trying for years to sell themselves as mini-authors whose creativity should override that of the real authors.

Good localization requires a certain humility, and not all have it.