Approaching the End of Our Journey: Game of Thrones S7E6 Recap

The episode picks up right where we left off, with a wight-capture plan so ill-advised that even the men leading the charge seem aware of its absurdity. They will need several miracles to make it back, and as we later see, they get them.
Amidst the seemingly never-ending tactical head-scratchers, wisdom comes from an unlikely source in Tormund Giantsbane. Not only because he’s more known for his fighting ability and foul mouth, but for offering advice that runs counter to the entire Wildling way of life. During the jaunt towards the army of the dead, Jon explains his denial of Daenerys demands for him to bend the knee in support of her. Tormund disputes this logic, as he harkens back to the days of Mance Rayder leading the free folk with stoic leadership, and an unfailing ego. This same ego traded security for pride, and likely contributed to the dwindling of the wildling population. He may not freely admit it, but the days traveling north of the wall with the free folk occupy a certain space in Jon’s heart, and this allows Tormund’s appeal to connect with Jon on a deeper-than-expected level.

As the team treks on, there are a few other notable conversations. Jon honorably tries to offer Jorah his family’s ancestral sword Longclaw. When he declines, it’s not his self-deprecating view of himself that stands out, it’s what he says next
“May it serve you well, and your children after you.”
Jon is taken aback. Believing he’s a bastard, Jon has never felt he deserved to have children. His expression in this scene signifies a change of heart in his second life.
Beric has his own words of wisdom for the King in the North. Neither feel deserving of being resurrected, but here they are. Beric can’t answer all of Jon’s questions about the Lord of the Light, what he can offer is what’s kept him going each time he’s brought back,
“You and I won’t find much joy while we’re here, but we can keep others alive. We can defend those who can’t defend themselves.”

We get a break to Winterfell, where the two sisters begin their argument that lines the rest of the episode. It doesn’t start off sour, as Arya describes a moment in her childhood where she discovered who she was. After acting against the unwritten rules of being a lady in Westeros by practicing archery, she recalls
“I knew what I was doing was against the rules. But he was smiling so, I knew it wasn’t wrong. The rules were wrong.”
This was a flashback that defines why Arya has stuck to her path despite everyone who has tried to stop her, unfortunately she moves into attacking Sansa for the letter she was forced to write while being held captive by the Lannisters. She sees Sansa as weak, and goes as far as questioning her loyalty. It’s bizarre that as an expert at reading people she’s unable to pick up on her allegiance, and even threatens to show the Northmen the letter.

Later on we get a similar scenario when Sansa discovers Arya’s bag of faces in her room, and is now overwhelmingly creeped out and scared of her sister. The feelings are exaggerated further when she silently appears behind Sansa and unleashes her closing threats in a way that breaks from the character we have come to know.
It’s a running frustration of this season where characters are abandoning their development of the past 6 seasons. Arya is attacking her for who Sansa was as a child, not the leader she has persevered to become. How Arya once again can’t see that is difficult to believe. It’s not just Arya with this issue, because Sansa makes poor leadership decisions this episode that you wouldn’t expect her to make. Sending Brienne, one of the best fighters in the Realm, away to meet Cersei’s request for a meeting is ridiculous. It’s a stubborn move that seems to be rooted in Sansa’s hate for the truth that currently, she needs to be protected. It’s stubbornness that she has previously criticized her father, Robb, and Jon for. Just don’t send anyone! What is Cersei going to do? Send an army north and risk being completely open to an attack by dragons, the Dothraki, and the Unsullied? Send her navy to land on the coast and head inland to Winterfell negating any advantage of even having one? Absolutely not. This episode had more than its fair share of strange happenings in Winterfell, that’s for sure.

As they anxiously await the return of Snowcean’s 7™ (The Ringer) from north of the wall, Tyrion and Daenerys discuss the heroes they’ve encountered, particularly the King in the North himself. After acknowledgments of Tyrion’s bravery, as well some ultimately light-hearted jabs at both he and Jon’s height, the tone shifts to the combative vibe that’s all too familiar between them. The Queen takes unkindly to her hand’s suggestion that anger clouds her decision making, and her frustration builds as Tyrion broaches the idea of securing an eventual successor. Tyrion’s miscalculations to date understandably place him on thin ice, but his appeals to consider the long game end up too easily dismissed in this instance. For the wheel to break and remain broken, Daenerys must lay the roadmap for her reign on the throne, and not just the impending takeover. We imagine what’s holding her up is her belief that she is barren due to the Maegi that cursed her back in season one, and the emotional pain that entails is coercing her to push any thoughts of succession aside.

Returning to north of the Wall, we get a reminder of the White Walker’s ability to turn anything that’s dead when the crew encounters a wight polar bear. Blinded by the snow storm, they struggle to take the massive beast down, even as Beric catches it on fire. The bear pounces on Thoros, delivering the bite to his abdomen that will eventually kill him. This removes the possibility for Beric (or potentially anyone, the extent of the Lord of Lights powers on who he deems necessary to bring back is unknown) to be brought back.
With this hiccup in their journey, they continue on to come across a small group of wights led by a solo White Walker. Seizing the opportunity, they are able to isolate one of them and capture it, while simultaneously learning an important bit of information. Whenever a White Walker is killed, so are the dead that they turned. This move doesn’t go unnoticed, as the rest of the current White Walker army descends on them forcing them to flee to the island in the middle of the lake, but not before Gendry is sent to run back to the Wall and have a raven sent to Daenerys for the help of her dragons (Pretty ideal situation to have ravens with you like on every other trip beyond the Wall).


The rest of the fight goes about as well as it possibly could. They hold off long enough for Daenerys to receive the raven, fly up to them, and wipe out enough of the army for them to climb aboard Drogon and fly to safely. Even Jon, who was knocked into the freezing water to hold off the attacking undead, is miraculously saved by Benjen and makes it back to Eastwatch. While losing Thoros had some important implications, nothing hurts on Game of Thrones like an animal dying. Viserion going down after being struck by the Night King’s ice javelin was a travesty. His brothers screeching furiously while everyone blankly stared unable to believe what they just saw will be forever stuck in our minds. On Daenerys’s boat, we see the direct outcomes from this moment.
Jon is warming up below deck with the blanket conveniently pulled down to reveal the scars that led to his death. The Queen walks in, instantly understanding Davos’s earlier comment was not just a strange saying. A combination of seeing what Jon has sacrificed, and the death of one of her Dragons at the hand of the Night King, sways her into pledging that she will do everything to take out the true enemy to the north. Jon makes a pledge of his own, bending the knee (metaphorically) to Daenerys, prepared to deal with whatever resistance he receives from his northmen. Pretty easy when you spend all season ignoring them. It’s a tender moment, but it can’t fill the dragon sized hole in her heart, and it will be made worse whenever she becomes aware of the outcome of the following scene.

Viserion is dragged out from the depths of the lake and turned into a wight by the Night King. Imagining these brothers forced into fighting each other is gut wrenching. This addition shakes up the power of the two sides and at the moment it feels like that’s the only reason this trip north even happened. Next week is the 79 minute finale and the close to the penultimate season of Game of Thrones where we will find out the answer to: if the world’s worst plan works, is it still dumb?
Final Note: If we don’t find out in the finale that Bran has been making some crazy powerful moves in the background, then he is hands down the most useless character the show has ever created. So far this season he’s sat under a tree, said things that make people uncomfortable, and sent out junk mail that people aren’t even responding to.
