The Morning After Thrones: The Reunion Episode, or FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!! Episode GOT S07E04

So, about last night…

What a finale. Oh wait, that wasn’t a finale? This was only the fourth episode of the season? Right. This is Game of Thrones, where the rules don’t count and dragons fix everything!

This week’s episode was focused on reunions. And then we had a 15 minute battle where we saw the true power of Daenerys’ dragons. But we’ll get to that later. Some of these reunions were grim, and some of them were grimmer. This episode’s focus was on siblings trying to figure out how to get their lives back on track after years of not seeing each other.

Let’s start with the obvious one: The little lords of the Starks. Arya’s arrival was one of the most anticipated and excited moments in the show. And this season has been all about fulfilling promises that fans have been expecting for a while, but Arya’s return to Winterfell has been, well. Simply put, beautiful. The reaction to her return was very different. First, it was marked by disbelief by the guards, then by the fear of unknowing from Sansa. Arya, Bran and Sansa have become new people. They have faced the worst of traumas, human and supernatural, and now are back together trying to get back to where they were. It is no surprise that the most emotional moment in all these reunions was under the shadow of Ned Stark. Or his statue at least.

Then, we had another reunion in the form of Jon Snow and his not-brother-but-raised-like-one, Theon Greyjoy. It was hard not to think of Theon’s cockiness (lol) towards Jon in the first episodes of the show. Now, Theon, the failed lord of the Iron Islands stands in front of the King in the North, hoping for forgiveness, begging for help. Something tells me he will get nothing. It is surprising how similar these two characters are. They are, after all, twenty-something white males, and I tend to get them all confused. Maybe they’re in an improv team. In all seriousness, these boys who grew up in the shadow of the legitimate Stark children have managed to survive and defy their fates.

And now onto our new incestuous little couple, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. Isn’t it funny how in episode 1 we hated the incestuous couple, and now most people seem to be kinda okay with this one? After a conversation where Dany wanted all the juicy deets about Missandei finally doing the nasty, we enter Jon’s fabled cave of magic zombie-killer glass. There, Jon and Dany share an intimate moment under the glow of the pictographs purportedly made by the Children of the Forest. This interaction was a reminder that these people are terribly attractive and that they’re bound to be together in a song of ice and fire, (get it?) but like magic in earlier seasons in this show, love must take a backseat to politics. The politics at play, currently, are Daenerys’ obsession with Jon pledging his allegiance to her. This has been one of the most frustrating arcs for me this season. Daenerys’ claim to the throne is flimsy AF. Her whole point is that she is the rightful queen to the Seven Kingdoms because her crazy dad was killed for being crazy. And to do this, she will offer people to join her or… go crazy like her crazy dad?

LIKE MEEEEE, I’M SUPER NICE

As the Battle of the Loot Train proved, Daenerys is as ruthless as the Targaryens before her. She’s killing the bad guys! I hear you say. Yeah? How many of those Lannister soldiers had names? How many of the named characters did she kill? As Donald Trump will tell you, it’s easy to seem good if you prop up a nameless enemy. Even if you obliterate this enemy and turn it to ash. It is hard not to draw parallels between Drogon’s onslaught and the atomic bomb. However, despite all the wanton destruction, the writers of the show were careful not to have Daenerys kill any of the named characters, not even this season’s most expendable bad guy and BDSM enthusiast, Lord Tarly. Never has someone been that enthusiastic about flogging.

LT: Flog me, Daddy. J: What? LT: What?

It’s in this battle that we see the last reunion of the episode. From a distance, Tyrion spots his brother, Jaime in battle. Tyrion’s love for the brother who saved him from execution cannot die, and it was good to see him plead, even if to himself, for Jaime’s safety. But Jaime is a knight, one in love, and as much as he is a subversion of the knight in shining armor trope, Prince Charming must slay the dragon to please the queen. Or at least try to. Even if his armies have been reduced to dust, and exactly because they have been reduced to dust. What Tyrion misunderstands about Jaime’s reasoning, is that while we did not know the men who died at the hands (wings? talons?) of Drogon, Jaime did. As it is hinted by the conversation Jaime has with Dickon Tarly, a knight, a true man of war, knows the men who fight with him. Seeing this apocalyptic fury descend upon them calls for a response that will end this madness. Daenerys’ destruction leads to more devastation.

Early on in the episode, Missandei tells Jon Snow and Ser Davos that people follow Daenerys because they want to. Because she is good. But it’s easy to be good when your enemies are slavers. It’s easy to seem righteous when your enemies have an unforgivable trait and are given no backstory. The Lords of Mereen were slavers just because. It is one of those tricky racial policies Game of Thrones tries to, but ultimately fails to, shy away from: In the world of Game of Thrones, the bad of color are just inherently bad, and the good of color are inherently good. There have been no memorable characters of color that are independent and seek something other than serving Dany since Pedro Pascal’s Oberyn Martell’s death in season 4. In fact, the scene with most people of color onscreen in the show is this:

Miss Shakira, got a quarter?

Daenerys has been propped up as a savior in this show. I’d be surprised if she didn’t end up being one, but the way she acts is much more like a colonialist messianic figure than that of a pure savior. If George R. R. Martin is really about disrupting the tropes of fairy tales, then she is set to become more and more similar to the Mad King as she gains more power. Again, do I think Benioff & Weiss have it in them? You mean the team that created the super original idea of Confederate, a show where the South wins the Civil War? I don’t count on it.

Next week: We get more of benevolent despot Daenerys, and Bran gets another visit from the Night’s King.

Other thoughts:

  1. All the Dire Wolves are now dead or somewhat accounted for, maybe the Starks have outgrown their need for protection.
  2. Speaking of that, where the fuck is Ghost. What is Jon’s Snow’s reasoning not to bring him to Dragonstone? Hey, Jon, wanna see the Dragon lady? Sure, I’ll make sure I don’t bring the supernatural trump card I have.
  3. I have a feeling Brienne’s days are numbered. Her duty has been fulfilled and things don’t usually go well for Arya’s fencing teachers.
  4. I’m happy Bronn didn’t die. Thought he was a goner.
  5. Arya to kill Littlefinger? Anyone?
  6. What do the other dragons do? Drogon did all the work here and almost got killed.
  7. This victory, while devastating, seems like it might, like the Siege of Casterly Rock, be Pyrrhic. Dany has released her dragons and the Dothraki, in doing so, not only has she proved Cersei’s point of Daenerys leading a horde of uncivilized invaders, but she’s also proven that the dragons can be hurt. AND! She didn’t stop the gold from reaching King’s Landing! As we saw earlier in the episode, Cersei will need more soldiers, and the Iron Bank is happy to oblige now that her debt has been settled.

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