Stormborn: Game of Thrones 7.2, rabbit holes, and hypomania

Penelope Kirk
Jul 24, 2017 · 6 min read

[Contains spoilers: Stop reading now if you haven’t seen all episodes in the series.]

I can’t believe she threatened Varys. Sigh. If she burns him, maybe I’ll have to stop watching. Then again, I didn’t stop when they burned Shireen…

I just watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones. Before watching I listened to old podcasts, diagramed some lineages and plot points on scrap paper, and speculated about outcomes in the future and secrets in the past.

For hours. Days, really. I tend to do that kind of thing.

See, one of the things I do, one of my “symptoms” (I have bipolar disorder) is the “rabbit hole” situation. I get slightly hypomanic and dig, with tunnel vision, into a particular topic or quest: finding a puppy, renting a house, reading poetry by Roque Dalton, researching and buying the perfect purse, shoes, or pen, writing a column, reading and rereading a book, drafting a column I’ll never write, watching Game of Thrones…Whatever the topic, it dominates my thoughts and activities for hours, sometimes days.

So I figured–if I was going to obsess with Game of Thrones anyway, maybe I should blog about the episode I watched. Why not? It may scratch the small, itchy patch of my brain that Depakote can’t quite seem to reach.

I’ll probably write about rabbit holes again soon because they are important for understanding the way many bipolar minds work, but in the meantime, here are some hypomanic thoughts on the episode I just watched, Season 7, Episode 2, “Stormborn,” in no particular order:

1. Let Varys live!! The conversations between Varys and Danny at the beginning of the episode, where she questions his loyalty, asks him to let her know when she is “failing her people,” and warns that she’ll “burn him alive” if he betrays her? That felt a lot like foreshadowing. I’ve been watching GoT long enough to know a few things about the way the show works: there’s no wasted dialogue or action; everything means something; and there’s always foreshadowing, every season. Which saddens me, because Varys is awesome, and I don’t want him to be burned alive. But in this show, both foreshadowing and the death of characters we like seem to be a constant.

2. The mad queen? The show often plants hints here and there, little suggestions that Danny may be not a savior but another version of the Mad King–tyrannical, obsessed with loyalty, unhinged. We saw some of that tonight. She confronted Varys (why now? why not before?) with “I’ll burn you alive” talk, and then instructed Tyrion to tell John Snow to “bend the knee.” That sounded like Cersei. Or a crazy Targaryen.

3. Fire or Ice? We were used to liking both Dany and John without suffering cognitive dissonance, while they were both underdogs fighting the good fight on two different parts of the continent. But now that they are both in Westeros, we may have to choose one hero over the other. Or find a new one.

4. GoT is consistent: Again, foreshadowing is often used in GoT. I have missed it many times before. Tonight it happened within the same episode: Theon leaves Yara and Elaria alone when the latter “invades” the former with caresses. Then, a few minutes later, Theon jumps into the water, declining his uncle’s invitation to rescue Yara from a violent, life-threatening, not-sexy-at-all invasion.

5. Cowardly or smart? I was actually not too disappointed on Theon. Not yet. He faced an impossible decision. Maybe he was, like the show’s writer said, too “broken” to be loyal. But maybe, I hope, he was doing the smart thing and escaping so that he may be able to save her later. Just as she went to save him before. We’ll see. I’ll think he’ll try to help her afterward like he did with Sansa when he could not save her at the exact, critical moment all of us (unreasonably) wanted him to do so.

6. Euron’s “gift” to Cersei, the one people have spent a week wondering about? I guess now we know that would be Elaria and Yara. At least it was not Tyrion. He’s been kidnapped enough times already.

7. He’s the best. Yeah, Tyrion is my favorite, and I love him and leave me alone. If he dies, I’ll stop watching. For real. Maybe.

8. She’s finally back! The Nymeria encounter makes sense. She left Ayra because she’s just like Ayra! I suspect we have not seen the last of Nymeria, though. Maybe Ayra will be in a desperate situation, and the direwolf will rescue her…But why is she so big, so much bigger than Ghost? Is it just for dramatic effect, or does it carry some meaning pertaining to Ayra’s character vs. John’s?

9. Not very impressed with the mega-dragon-killing-crossbow. Surely somebody, before Qyburn, thought of that before in Westeros? Surely those books in the Citadel that have so much wisdom inside have some info relative to dragons’ vulnerability?

10. Very impressed with the way the show used the Tarly family to further the plot. It was awesome! Lord Tarly had dismissively told Sam before that he would be “studying what other, more important men (warriors) did” at the Citadel. But while Sam is performing a dangerous, forbidden and crucial cure on Jorah, Lord Tarly’s other son, the one that did become a warrior, a “more important man,” finds himself ignored by Jamie, and by all of us. (Did you remember his name?) What Sam the nerd does (kill white walkers, cure disease) is actually more important than what Rickard-Dickon-Rickon Tarly the warrior was doing. Plus- Sam has the Valerian steel sword! Yay Sam!! Yay nerds!!

11. Grayscale is gross, but it is hard to look away from it. Reminds me of the trypophobia images online that I find hard to look at–or ignore. I bet you grayscale will be part of that trypophobia gallery before long if it’s not already. I don’t want to look. And I can’t look away. Sigh. Another rabbit hole.

12. Even Maester Pycelle would know. Speaking of grayscale, the show kept using and talking about “milk of the poppy” to dull pain in previous seasons, but tonight it seemed like a perfect time to use this milk of the poppy to help Jorah out, and nothing. One of those few times I find it actually hard to suspend disbelief. I’ll accept dragons, resurrections, magical assassin masks, and shadow babies. But if we are at the Citadel, and we have access to all sorts of unguents, potions and poisons, and we are performing a painful cure…why not give Jorah the milk of the freaking poppy?

13. Not hard to suspend disbelief at all, though, with Misaendei and Grayworm getting it on! Yeah, yeah, I know he has no penis. But NO, she doesn’t care. And YES, it IS believable. GOT= “Get over it.”

14. Very cool: A group composed of women, plus two eunuchs and a dwarf, calling the shots in a war room? Priceless.

15. GoT does not waste dialogue. Seemingly “light” scenes usually reveal themselves eventually as either instances of foreshadowing or glimpses into backstory or both. So what’s the deal with Sam’s and the archmaester’s conversation in the library? Maybe just a playful suggestion that “Game of Thrones” is a better, “more poetic” title for this (what he writes, what we see) than “History of the houses of Westeros after the death of King Robert the 1st”? Maybe more?

I better take my Depakote and try to sleep now. Hopefully, I’ll dream of dragons, not of grayscale.

Written by

I live (and write) with bipolar disorder.

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