Game of Thrones and the Women of Westeros 4/4
Oathkeeper
Previously…
I talked a damned lot about Breaker of Chains here and here.
In a nutshell…
Missandei and Greyworm are having a lesson in the common tongue of Westeros and bonding a little over their lives before slavery, which Greyworm doesn’t remember. Greyworm feels very strongly about killing slave masters and sneaks into Mereen to provide the frightened and reluctant slaves with weapons for an uprising. As they outnumber the masters, they make quick work of them and Daenerys takes Mereen.
Jaime trains with Bronn who shames him for not visiting Tyrion in prison. Neither of them think he did it. Jaime does visit Tyrion, who seems to want his brother to do something, but his hands are tied. Cersei and Jaime argue about where his loyalties lie as she knows he went to see Tyrion and is angered further that he is not convinced of Tyrion’s guilt. Perhaps that drives Jaime to do one thing his brother wants. He sends Podrick off with Brienne, who he gifts with a new suit or armor in order to find Sansa. He also gives her the sword re-forged from Ned Stark’s blade, which she names “Oathkeeper,” and thus naming the episode as well.
Sansa, stuck on a ship with Littlefinger and none too happy seems even less so when he tells her about her special necklace and how it was used to kill Joffrey with some help from a mysterious friend. We cut right to Olenna (I knew it!) and Margaery. Olenna is not at all sorry about saving Margaery from a hellish marriage and advises Margaery to also do what needs to be done, which is sneak into Tommen’s bedroom late at night to talk about kitties and starting their own secret club. I’m not being glib. That totally happened.
Jon snow trains the other Crows to fight all dirty like Wildlings, but Alliser Thorne is having none of that and shoves him off to empty chamber pots. Janos Slint thinks Thorne should find a way to get rid of Jon for being too popular, which he does. He gives Jon permission to take volunteers to kill the traitors at Craster’s Keep, thinking it’s a death mission. Jon makes a kick-ass “get the bastards” speech and his pals sign right up, along with a few others, including Roose Bolton’s man, Locke. Also, Sam is worried about Gilly and Jon knows Bran is out there somewhere, and he is. He’s right outside of Craster’s keep.
Speaking of Craster’s keep, there’s a Willem Dafoe impersonator drinking wine out of a skull, beating women, and sneering at everyone. I’m not kidding. When Bran and pals get near the keep, he captures them and leers at poor Meera while his men beat Hodor. Also, Craster’s daughterwives chant about giving Craster’s last son as “a gift to the gods.” They seem to mean the White Walkers, who bring forth a creepy king-like figure to touch the baby’s face and turn his eyes to ice. Yeah. I read the books, but this is new to me.
The Women of Westeros…
“I will answer injustice with justice.” Daenerys starts this episode having Greyworm bring the slaves weapons and then walking through, all Palm Sunday like on a path filled with broken collars and cheering freed slaves calling her “Mhysa” (mother). Ser Barristan suggests she answer injustice with mercy—-all PR-like—-but she wants to pay the masters back in kind and nails them up in payment for the brutal, borderline crucifixion they gave the slaves on the road to Mereen. That’s hardcore.
Missandei is given a nice scene and we get a little insight into her, the way she insists to Greyworm that he had a life and family before he was Unsullied. With Missandei, you get the sense that she’s always been too smart for her position. Dany seemed to notice, as she speaks Valyrian and heard the vile things the master in Slaver’s Bay said before Missandei softened it in translation. In today’s world, she’d be a political asset, no matter the circumstance of her birth. In Westeros… well, it seems things are working out for her there, too, since she ran into Dany.
Brienne is wonderful and noble and insanely tall, as always. I love her look of rapture at receiving the sword, the suit of armor, and the quest from Jaime, as well as her annoyance at being saddled with Podrick (I’m trying to figure out if being called “Ser” or “Milady” bothered her more. Maybe both equally?). I also love her naming the sword Oathkeeper and the gravity with which she says the name. She knows what Jaime went through by now, both in breaking and keeping his oath to Aerys Targaryen and that his story is not so cut and dried. She’s giving him, in naming it, both understanding and the hope for redemption through her mission.
Meera is given just a wee bit more screen time in this episode. She identifies the distant noise as a baby crying and tries to dissuade Bran against warging into his wolf and against staying at Craster’s Keep to rescue Summer when the wolf is caught in a trap. She’s right as they’re quickly captured and Bran ends up confessing his name to prevent Willem Dafoe Jr. from slitting her throat. She also helps her brother through a seizure. I have to feel for Jojen and Meera. They are caught up in Bran’s quest with Jojen’s visions and Bran himself leading the way and seem to be in silent agreement that they go along with whatever he says even when it goes against Meera’s well-honed survival instincts. Anyway, as none of this capture was in the book, I’ll just have to see where it goes.
Sansa is spoken of by Tyrion and Jaime before she’s seen, with Tyrion insisting she’s not a murderer, “not yet, anyway.” I have a hard time imagining Sansa ever getting to a place where she’s not docile, complacent, and obedient (outwardly, at least) to whoever happens to have her fate in their hands at the time, but you never know with this world. Sansa is still bitter at Littlefinger having killed Ser Dontos and isn’t happier at his admittance of his part in Joffrey’s death and how he made her an inadvertent part of it with that damned necklace. I may have some complaints about Sansa’s way of going along with whoever she’s with, but I think she has gained some savvy in her time trapped in King’s Landing. Whether she ever uses it is another matter. She has definitely become more sympathetic, as the story unwinds, but I’ve yet to have a “Yeah! Sansa!” moment.
Olenna outright admits she was the one to slip Joffrey a poisonous crystal to protect Margaery from an unhappy marriage. Before that, she talks about how she was supposed to marry a Targaryen (“twitchy, little ferret’s face and ludicrous silver hair”), but snaked Luther Tyrell from her sister instead as she liked him better. She advises Margie to try to cajole (or seduce? No!) little Tommen away from his mother’s control. She also says she’s leaving, but I’m trying not to think about that part. Olenna! Don’t leave me!
Margaery doesn’t want her to go, either, and is pretty damned flabbergasted to learn her grandmother offed Joffrey. But she takes her advice and creeps into Tommen’s room. I honestly cringed at the start of this scene. With Olenna’s little anecdote about how she secured her man (“the boy could barely walk!”), I feared this show would have a little Mrs. Robinson action going on. But Margaery seems to know how to read the crowd and sees that, while Tommen might be into some friendship or light romantic ideas, there’s nothing more. I giggled a bit when she leaned in as if to kiss his lips, then course-corrected for the forehead. As calculating as Margaery is, I think she would treat poor, sweet Tommen well and be a generous queen to her people, even if it’s just for PR. Great! Now I’m rooting for an unwitting bastard and a sneaky Tyrell to rule Westeros together with Olenna as their top advisor. I mean, my top pick is still Daenarys with Tyrion as her Hand and Arya as captain of the Queensguard, but I could go for something else. This show does strange things to your loyalties.
Cersei is still deep in the anger (and drunk, but that’s nothing new) stage of grief and questions whether Jaime is protecting Tommen well enough as he failed to protect Joffrey. She also is holding it against him for striking up a deal with Catelyn Stark in the first place, wondering if, should she order him to kill Sansa (“that murderous little bitch”), would he even do it? On learning Jaime doesn’t think Tyrion did it, she gets angrier, and dismisses him with, “That will be all, Lord Commander.” Seven hells, Cersei! Put down the Dornish Red and look at the facts! Hell, I can see why she’d suspect Sansa, but her refusal to listen to any idea of Tyrion’s innocence makes me think she just wants him to be guilty. Maybe Tyrion’s right (see notes below).
Craster’s Daughterwives. These poor women. Even the eldest, seemingly in charge, is just broken. They went from one man controlling and abusing them to eleven men, which is just more beatings and sexual assaults all around. There’s this part of me that liked them chanting “a gift to the gods” over and over and choosing to sacrifice the last son as it was, at the very least, a decision they were making.
Passing The Bechdel Test…
Olenna and Margaery scheme about Tommen, talk about Joffrey’s death, but there is also some talk of how much they’ll miss each other and the tediousness of trials and garden strolls, so it passes.
In other notes…
Tyrion seems to think that even if Joffrey’s real killer were to come forward, Tywin and Cersei would still want him dead. I have to agree. I think the both of them have been waiting for a legal opportunity to get rid of him for years and probably wouldn’t let a petty, little detail like his innocence get in the way.
There’s this tiny part of me that wants to think Littlefinger’s determination to kill Joffrey (show-wise, as the character does not appear in the book) was helped by Joffrey’s brutal murder of his favorite Gal Friday, Ros. But I’m probably giving him too much credit.
I have mixed feelings on Season Three’s massacre at Craster’s Keep. On the one hand, I deplore the men who betrayed their brothers for free food and booze and the opportunity to sexually assault Craster’s daughterwives freely. I didn’t like that they killed Joer Mormont, but I also didn't like that Mormont went so many years, knowing what was going on at the keep, and doing nothing to stop it.
I know the Night’s Watch prefers to stay out of business north of the wall that doesn’t concern them. I also know he used Craster’s Keep as a stopping point for the men on scouting missions and Craster himself for information on the goings on. But he had nothing to gain from keeping Craster alive. The only thing that kept that place running was the slave labor of his poor daughterwives. Any information or shelter he got from Craster, he could have gotten from them… and more easily and with great gratitude if he had freed them from Craster’s tyranny. So, while I think his death an awful betrayal on the part of the men, the way he stood by and kept letting this atrocity happen, makes me think he had it coming.
That Craster’s Keep scene… As I said before, I don’t know how much I trust this show anymore, after the way it portrayed the Jaime/Cersei scene, but you would have thought they might have toned down this scene a little before airing in light of the reaction to that scene. Did we really need to see Willem Dafoe Jr. go all Snidely Whiplash, drink out of a skull, beat women, and say (and this is a direct quote) “f*ck ‘em till they’re dead”?
Of course. from what I understand, this was in the can way before the fan outrage and couldn’t be changed, but I just don’t get it, Show. You want us to be good and ready for the mutineers to die? Because I think we were there without seeing Craster’s poor daughterwives brutalized some more. I can only hope the show decides to tone down or curtail future scenes depicting sexual violence. We get it, Show. Westeros is a rough place for women. Let’s not gild the lily.
Fangasms…
So Craster’s sons have been recruited by The Others all along? I’ve gone on forums and read the text hints now, but they were so subtle all along that I never thought… I have no words. I mean, I just assumed they were food or something. I guess this isn’t aligning with traditional zombie ice vampire rules (Are there such things?). Do these babies grow after being “turned” and join the ice vampire zombie militia?
But how cute was that baby? Eh, let’s just end this on all the cute.
I love how Grenn’s almost adopted the orphaned village boy, Olly. Look at him, talking abut hunting rabbits together and sitting with him at dinner! So cute!
In other cute news, did you see Tommen’s kittie, Ser Pounce? His little pout about how Joffrey used to threaten him was pretty precious, too.
Greyworm’s definitely got a little crush on Missandei and it’s adorable!
Brienne is the Cinderella of badass women and Jaime is her Fairy Godmother. He gives her gown/armor, the glass slipper/Valyrian steel, and the pumpkin coach/a goofily grinning Podrick Payne. There is nothing about this set of scenes that is not a gosh darned fairytale!
I’m really trying not to ship Jaime and Brienne together as I don’t think Martin’s universe is a safe place to sail any ship. But do you see them with the longing looks as they part? Valar Morghulis (“all men must die”) and all that, but dagnabbit! Valar Logor! That’s “all men must ship,” by the way. If ship can be a verb in English, it can be a verb in High Valyrian, too. I’ll probably have this ship paid off by them sacrificing lives for each other or something, but I guess that’s the price I pay in this universe.
Zombie ice vampire baby! I need to process this!
Next up: First of His Name
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*****
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