Game of Thrones and the Women of Westeros 4/5
First of His Name
Previously…
I discussed Oathkeeper here, but the previouslies also remind us that Bran can warg into Hodor’s body, Myrcella is in Dorne, Cersei is still betrothed to Loras, and (getting into the way-back machine) that Lysa Arryn sent the letter claiming the Lannisters poisoned her husband that started off this whole mess.
In a nutshell…
Tommen is being crowned and the crowds cheer (I think it may even be genuine). Margaery and he exchange secret slumber party smiles before Cersei steps in. I’m expecting a catty exchange, but they speak almost honestly, even with the agendas underneath. Margaery is securing her marriage to Tommen and Cersei is doing the same, which surprised me. We find out why when Cersei and Tywin speak and reveal the Lannisters are broke and need the Tyrells if they’re ever going to repay the crown’s debt to the Iron Bank of Braavos. She also speaks with Oberyn to be be reassured Myrcella is safe and to sway him to believe in Tyrion’s guilt.
Daenerys is annoyed to find Daario went off and took a navy for her and more than annoyed to find the two cities she freed have fallen into chaos without anyone there to enforce things. Barristan thinks she is in a good position to take King’s landing with Joffrey dead and Tommen’s position shaky, but Jorah points out that taking King’s Landing does not equal conquering Westeros. She asks his advice. He outlines her options, but doesn’t exactly give any advice. And Dany doesn’t take any. She decides to stay in Meereen to learn to rule.
Littlefinger takes Sansa to The Vale where she’s greeted by her loving (and straight-up nuts) Aunt Lysa and creepy Cousin Robin. Lysa springs a wedding (surprise!) on Littlefinger, then later feeds Sansa lemon cakes to soften her up for a semi-violent interrogation as to whether Littlefinger’s been messing around with her (he hasn’t, but we all know he wants to). We join Arya and The Hound, still on their way to that Vale. Not much happens, except we learn The Hound is still on Arya’s to-kill list and that he doesn’t think much of Syrio Forel’s teachings. Podrick and Brienne aren't having a ball, either. Though Pod’s pretty jazzed to be on a noble quest, Brienne, not so much, with her incompetent squire.
North of the wall, Bran, Meera, Jojen, and Hodor (though his main contribution is, as always, “hodor”) discuss Jojen’s visions while being held by the mutineers. The mutineers attempt to sexually assault Meera for either information or because the show runners really want us to be good and ready for them to die (probably the latter), but everything stops when Jon Snow’s party shows up for a good slaughtering. Locke, who has discovered the kids, attempts to take Bran to Roose, but Bran wargs into Hodor and snaps his neck. Poor Hodor doesn’t like that one bit. Bran wants to speak to his brother, but Jojen convinces him that Jon would only stop their quest and they decide to keep moving on.
Also Willem Dafoe Jr. gets a well deserved sword through the mouth and Craster’s daughterwives happily watch their prison burn.
The Women of Westeros…
“I will do what queens do. I will rule.” Daenerys in this episode makes me think of Twyin’s little pop quiz for Tommen in the last episode. He goes over the kings and their failings. Orys the first was just, but gullible and murdered in his sleep by his brother. Baelor was holy, but overly pious, made decisions based on signs and wonders, and ended by starving himself to death. Then Robert Baratheon was strong, but was “a man who thinks that winning and ruling are the same thing.” They all lacked wisdom.
I honestly think Dany has passed through all of these phases/flaws in her journey. She was just in saving Mirri Maz Duur and gullible in trusting her as the woman in her bitterness killed both her unborn child and all hope of her having another. She was wrong to believe in the holy men of Qarth, and now she seems to come to Robert’s major flaw (apart from drinking and whoring). She decides to stay in Mereen and learn to rule rather than undo the freedoms she brought to the slaves after the supposed victories in Astopoor and Yunkai. Does that mean she is gaining wisdom? I guess we’ll see. Even as a book reader, I still don’t know where Dany’s journey is leading her.
“The Hound,” Arya says, finishing up her little to-kill list for the night. The man himself doesn’t even look surprised to hear it. As horrible a babysitter The Hound is, it does seem like he was trying to teach Arya something he seemed to think she needed to know — I just don’t think he was right about it. I feel like this show keeps trying to tell us where power lies. Power is in choice, power is in position, power is in deception, power is in armor, power is in sticking to your guns… For Arya, it seems power is in the last, in a sort of steadfastness. She practices Syrio Forell’s waterdancing, even though he’s dead (I’ll believe it when I see a head on a spike). She repeats her death list, even though she’s not sure she’ll ever meet these people again. She may have been taken off her path, but she never loses her focus. She wants to kill those who wronged her and hers. That’s exactly why The Hound is the worst person to babysit her. She needs someone that asks “What, then?” Does she truly think this will make her happy? Probably not. But it’s all she has right now, poor kid.
Speaking of poor kids, Sansa is still “a leaf in the wind of other men’s plans.” She is passing herself off as Littlefinger’s niece and calling herself Elayne and seems relieved at first to be with Aunt Lysa — except, you know, Lysa’s crazypants. They have a pleasant talk about lemon cakes that devolves into Lysa trying to break her niece’s hands and accusing her of fooling around with Littlefinger. She only lets up when Sansa weeps and calls herself stupid. The look on Sansa’s face when her aunt tells her she’s marrying creepy, little Cousin Robin says it all. Sansa just can’t catch a break.
Lysa Arryn: loving sister, devoted aunt, passionate wife, helicopter mom, total psycho — or maybe just the last three. We’ve had hints of her history in the show and books. She loved Littlefinger (who loved Catelyn), but was made to marry the older Jon Arryn. She breastfeeds her son long after he can walk and talk. She tried to kill Tyrion. She refused to give her sister men to aid Robb’s cause. She also killed her own husband and deliberately threw suspicion on the Lannisters — something we just learned in this episode. And it was all for love of Littlefinger! Man, that guy likes to order poisonings.
Brienne is still not thrilled to be saddled with a squire and with Podrick in particular. He can’t ride, he can’t cook, he won’t leave when she releases him. But he did kill a man to defend Tyrion and Brienne values loyalty, so she’ll keep him around. Their scenes were sweet and very refreshing. We’ve very often seen a young, enthusiastic girl paired with a cop/agent/bounty hunter/rogue who barely tolerates her. We’ve seen it romantic, we’ve seen it platonic, we’ve seen it parental, but we’ve barely ever seen the genders flipped.
“Everywhere in the world, they hurt little girls.” This was a great episode for Cersei. Maybe it was because we didn’t see her with drink in hand. She’s definitely one of the villains of the piece, but I vacillate between loving to hate her and just plain hating her. I like my villains to have some redeeming qualities, not woobies so much as believable, understandable humans. The honesty with which she spoke of Joffrey (“And what he did shocked me. Do you think I’m easily shocked?”) and her tenderness for Tommen were both sincere, even if her reasons for saying them were filled with agenda. I really did enjoy her talk with Margaery, how carefully they’re weighing their words even if the both of them know where this talk is going. The Tyrells need the Lannisters for their proximity to the crown and the Lannisters need the Tyrells because they control most of the crops of Westeros, a very renewable resource unlike Lannister gold.
On that note, I also found a lot to relate to in Cersei’s conversation with Tywin. Despite the nasty news that she has to marry Loras and the Lannisters are not mining the gold they once did, I think Cersei enjoys being considered the favored, obedient child for once and her father speaking openly to her… about everything but Tyrion. Her conversation with Oberyn also seems reasonable, except for her continued insistence that Tyrion killed Joffrey. Cersei works best as a character when we’re reminded of her redeeming quality: how fiercely she loves her children.
Margaery is delightfully smug in this episode. Everything is going her way and, though you see her face falter for a moment when Cersei joins her for their little tête-à-tête, she quickly relaxes back into her role of the poor widow who only wants what’s best for Westeros. In her talk with Cersei, as I said above, they are both going for the same end. Cersei hates Margaery, but needs her to marry Tommen. Margaery knows this, which is why she can’t resist her little parting shot. “I won’t even know what to call you — sister or mother?”
Meera is still underused with only a few lines and is, so far, just a plot device. Last time, she was used to get Bran to confess his identity and this time she is used to make the audience angrier at the mutineers. But I guess that’s to be expected, the way Jojen sees it. She and her brother are only there to guide Bran and whether or not they survive is unsure and, according to Jojen, unimportant in the grand scheme of things. I still hope for some scenes where she gets to do something besides struggle and worry. We’ve got four kick-ass action girls in this show and only one of them has gotten any action this season!
“Burn it to the ground. And all the dead with it.” I mentioned last time feeling a bit burnt out on all the crimes against women in the two preceding episodes. Well, this episode helped me out with that. It was nice to see it acknowledged both with Cersei’s line above and with how unimpressed Craster’s daughter-wives were with Jon Snow’s offer of protection after what his brother crows did to them. We had the most dialogue we’ve ever had from that set. One of them even got to shove a knife into her torturer’s back. The head daughterwife decided they’ll go their own way, but I hope we meet up with them again. I’d like to see them happy.
Passing The Bechdel Test….
We get our pass tonight from Lysa and Sansa, talking about Catelyn, what a “basic bitch” she was, and how fat she almost got… not that Sansa and I believe anything Lysa says.
Other Notes…
One mystery down! Lysa murdered Jon Arryn and threw shade at The Lannisters and started off this whole mess… or Littlefinger did. It was all under his orders. He’s been just as much of a puppet-master as he believes himself to be. Honestly, I was a little underwhelmed. It’s one thing for Olenna and him to casually reveal they killed Joffrey. It was a few episodes before and we all suspected Olenna at least. But the Jon Arryn mystery has spanned the series and I think I wanted just a bit more oomph to come with this reveal. Not to be a book-thumper, but that scene had a lot more high drama when I read it.
I barely blinked when The Hound gave Arya a bloody lip. On any other show, I’d be shocked at someone hitting a child. On this one? Eh, could be worse. I guess I’m numb.
But then poor Hodor broke my heart, staring at the blood on his hands. As much as Bran warging into him has turned out to be useful, it’s still a violation.
I’m starting to think the addition of the extra Craster’s Keep scenes were for nothing more than to get us good and riled up for these guys to die and because there hasn’t been much fighting action this season. Though I wanted the show to just kill them already, I do think it’s an improvement on the book, which leaves us to assume they’re all still living it up at the keep.
I’m positive Tywin and Cersei don’t care whether Tyrion is guilty. It’s gone too far to turn back and, as they have a chance to finally see him dead, they’ll take it.
Oberyn tells Cersei he last saw Myrcella playing with his daughters in Dorne. Does that mean we might meet the Sand Snakes before the end of the season? I hope so.
Fangasms…
“I saw you die tonight. I saw your body burn. I saw the snow fall and bury your bones,” Jojen said with a mad little smile at the man threatening his sister. I was glad to hear it. I also really liked how simple, yet arresting, the effects for Jojen’s visions were.
Ghost gets revenge on Rast!
Jon and Ghost reunite!
A sword through the damned mouth!
Next up: The Laws of Gods and Men
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*****
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