Game of Thrones and the Women of Westeros 5/6
“Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.” These words seemed fitting and kind of kickass until the bitter, dark, and terrible end.
Previously…
I went very moodily into “Kill the Boy” here. Will this episode smooth over my little snit? The previouslies show Jeor Mormont grumping over Jorah’s shame and exile, complaining to Tyrion in season one about all the criminals he has to turn into men, then we see those criminals turn into monsters at Craster’s cabin, killing him. They also show his ne’er do well son, Jorah, getting attacked and hiding his greyscale patch. It’s interesting how much more attention greyscale is getting this season. I feel like they’ve gone deeper into it this season than the show or even the books have previously. They also show Sansa, Littlefinger, Ramsay and their plotting. There’s also the plotting between Cersei and The High Sparrow and the plotting between the Sandsnakes and Ellaria and Bronn and Jaime. Basically. lots of people are plotting and they can’t all win. Then they show us Arya, which is one thing that bodes well for my mood during this episode.
In a nutshell…
We open on Arya washing a corpse, which I’m still not sure is a step up from scrubbing floors, but what do I know? I’m not Braavosi. I don’t know what the employment hierarchy is there. She’s still wondering what happens with the corpses and even starts to open the door they disappear through, but The Waif stops her. She badgers The Waif to no avail, then asks The Waif about the “game of faces” they’d previously played. The one where you get hit for answering questions? The kids of this world need some damned hopscotch or something.
The Waif starts telling a story about being a lord’s daughter who had the Faceless Men kill her stepmother before her stepmother killed her, then dedicated herself to them. The Waif asks Arya if that’s true or a lie, then tells her to get back to work, leaving her stumped. That night, Not-Jaqen comes in to play all, “Who are you?” Arya seems to think she has the game down. She starts to tell the truth, then mixes in a lie and is swatted with a switch the same as when she played with The Waif the first time. She keeps mixing in lies with her truth, but never convincingly enough to avoid the switch. Interestingly, when she claims to have hated The Hound, insisting on it multiple times, she is hit each time. Jaqen accuses her of lying to him and herself and the Many-Faced God, but she insists she wants to be No One. Swat! This game blows.
Back at Temple Creepy, Arya is scrubbing floors instead of corpses. Literally whipped at the game and now demoted? Rough day on the job. A sad man comes in carrying his dying daughter, unable to cure her and wanting to end her suffering. He leaves her with Arya. She moves to the girl and comforts her, claims her own father loved her so much he brought her here to be cured, that she drank the waters and the Many-Faced God healed her. She gives the girl what I can only assume is poisoned water and what I can only hope is a peaceful death.
Jaqen comes upon this and seems to think this is progress and leads her downstairs, where the high walls are lined with shelves of faces. Arya is fascinated and horrified (or is that last one just me?). Jaqen asks if she’s ready to lose her face and her identity. He answers his own question. “No. A girl is not ready to become no one, but she is ready to become someone else.” *shudder gif*
In Valyria, we see Jorah’s greyscale patch again and it actually looks less severe than last week. Tyrion is complaining about the travel accommodations, which seems to be his thing this season, almost like he’d been rich and pampered all his life or something. Anyway, he’s not much happier with Jorah as his companion than he was with Varys. He tells Jorah his tale of woe: was accused of killing Joffrey and didn’t, even if he and everyone else wanted to, killed his father, who was screwing his bae (Incidentally, I hate that word, but I’ve decided to use it as much as possible until it’s become THE word for a loved one, then we can all drop the hammer that it’s Danish for feces. Shh! Keep that under your hat until we’ve succeeded. I’m taking your having read this as a consent to join forces).
Anyway, Tyrion tells Jorah he’s super lucky his father wasn’t a total slimeball. He talks about meeting him and what a good commander he was at The Wall. “We shall not see his like again.” Jorah realizes what that means and Tyrion realizes he doesn’t know, then reveals what he heard: that his own men betrayed and murdered him. Jorah only nods and starts them moving again.
Tyrion pesters Jorah as to what he’s getting out of this loyalty to Daenerys. Jorah tells the story of Dany stepping into the fire with three stone eggs and coming out alive with three hatched dragons. He’s helping destiny along. He believes in Daenerys! And dragons! Tyrion questions whether she’s crazy like some of the other Targaryens, then if Targaryens even deserve a claim to the throne after the last one in power was a nutjob who burned everyone who looked at him funny. This is a valid point, actually.
Jorah doesn’t get to answer or argue as they’re set upon by slave traders, who tie them up after an unseen fight from Jorah. They think Jorah looks like a good worker, but they don’t have much use for a dwarf, except one. Apparently, there’s a market for dwarf penis in this world. Tyrion argues that they’ll need him alive to prove his favorite appendage comes from a dwarf. Hah!
He also hypes up Jorah as a great warrior for the fighting pits. They don’t think much of Westeros and their fancy, shmancy jousting, but Jorah seems to satisfy them that he’s bested a Dothraki fighter. They both live for now.
Then we’re back in King’s Landing just in time for Littlefinger’s return. Lancel and The Sparrows ambush him with their sweet, sweet tunes (not really, but they sound like a band and I wonder if Seven Rock is as cloying as Christian Rock). They brag about destroying all the booze and brothels and Littlefinger barely blinks (he’s got diversified interests, I guess). They try to stop him entering and he’s all “That’s cute,” but he’s got business with the Queen Mother and they make like a tree and… stand there looking pissy. DAMNED trees! You know they hate us all!
Littlefinger wonders to Cersei whether her new Sparrow friends will work out for her, considering House Tyrell will have heard what she’s done by now. She still pretends butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth (but wine will disappear! Hey-oh!). She snarks back about his adventures, marrying the late Lysa. How nice for him and Little Lord Robyn, having a new daddy. She gets down to brass tacks: whether the Vale will fight for he throne, meaning the Lannisters. He claims he and Lord Robyn will always side with the throne (whoever sits on it heavily implied).
He says he failed to find Arya, but did find Sansa at Winterfell, ready to marry the newly legitimized Bastard of Bolton, not mentioning his part in the deal. The fact that Cersei doesn’t know is interesting. Littlefinger plays her easily, saying that Stannis and Roose will fight for the north and the knights of the Vale can defeat whoever is left standing if she makes him Warden of the North.
It seems like Littlefinger is hedging his bets against every possible ruler. If Stannis wins, he’s left Sansa thinking he supports Stannis. If Roose wins, Littlefinger can claim to have been helping by bringing him Sansa. If the Lannisters are left standing, he can claim to have been supporting her all along as he’s been feeding her altered versions of events. She says she won’t believe him until she sees Sansa Stark’s head on a spike and I wonder if he’d go that far to hedge his bets. As self-serving as Littlefinger is, I think he does have a thing for Sansa in a second-coming-of-Catelyn way. Of course, that could all be part of the face he puts on for Sansa so she feels safe with him.
We travel to Dorne, where Trystane and Myrcella are flirting and macking in the water gardens with Doran watching. “A Lannister and a Martell,” he says. So is nobody even pretending Cersei’s kids are Baratheons anymore? Anyway, he says it’s a dangerous union to the rest of the world and asks Areo Hotah to protect them. Some ways away, Bronn and Jaime are riding through the Dornish greenery disguised as the guards they took down last time, with Bronn singing bawdy tunes to Jaime’s annoyance. They don’t have much of a plan, except getting to the water gardens and grabbing Myrcella. They enter and sneak off.
Meanwhile, the Sandsnakes are vowing to be “unbowed, unbent, and unbroken” (title drop!) to Ellaria before arming themselves with their weapons of choice and entering the water gardens as well. On the other end, Jaime and Bronn spy on Myrcella and Trystane making out. Jaime just up and reveals himself with a very “get off my daughterniece!” look on his face. Trystane doesn’t seem threatened until he sees the blood on Bronn’s guard guise. He goes for his sword and Bronn knocks him out. Myrcella is all “Mah man!” and refuses to go with “Uncle Jaime.”
Enter the Sandsnakes! Bronn takes on Tyene with her knives and Nymeria with her whip while Jaime struggles against Obara and her giant spear. Nymeria breaks off on Obara’s order to take Myrcella, but Areo and the guards surround the entire scene.
Areo recognizes Jaime and notes “When you were whole, it would have been a good fight.” They’re all arrested, with Bronn needling an angry Tyene about “fighting pretty good for a little girl.” Dude, don’t you pretend to know the Dornish? She drew blood and she’s the bastard of a man they called The Red Viper. I would be asking for peroxide instead of making smarmy remarks if I were you. Inside, Ellaria is surrounded and arrested as well. We then see traveling party on the way to King’s Landing and the best thing ever!
Olenna! I have so much to tell you about your time away! Bottom line: everything’s gone to shit without you and you gotta sort out these idiots. It’s time for plotting in the gardens again! Olenna rightly points out to Margaery that the arrest of Loras is not about his gaiety at all. It’s all Cersei’s doing. Margaery’s all “I know, right?” She tells Margaery to rest her little head and let Granny handle Cersei. Yes, please! Cersei pretends to be super busy while Olenna rolls her eyes and waits for the show to end.
Olenna doesn’t play games. She wants her grandson released or the crown can stop availing themselves of Tyrell gold and foodstuffs right now. Cersei’s face kind of falters (or did I imagine that?) as she insists it’s all The Sparrows and she has nothing to do with anything. Olenna is not buying it. She compares her to Tywin, pointing out that he understood working with rivals “rather than trying to destroy them.” Cersei dismisses her point and then the woman, herself.
At the hearing, Loras denies, denies, denies. They bring Margaery up and she does the same, not blinking. Then they bring in Olyvar, who claims he was Loras’s squire, was seduced, and that Margaery saw everything. He points out a birth mark as evidence. They take his word. Um… didn’t the Sparrows just arrest Olyvar in Littlefinger’s brothel? Why are they taking his word, even if it’s true, as he’s known to work for a “flesh peddler?” Also, wouldn’t a squire dress a knight and maybe see a birth mark in that duty? Why can’t Loras and Margaery play it off that way? Olenna! Get on that stand! You can fix this! Whatever. Cersei pretends to be outraged, smirking all the way. Olenna glares at Cersei. Margaery calls out to Tommen as she’s taken away for perjury. Tommen looks around like a helpless toddler.
At Winterfell, Myranda comes to offer Sansa her bathing services. I want Sansa to turn her away in favor of the less sinister Mrs. North-Rememberton, but she lets her in. Myranda washes out the dark dye and plays frenemy with Sansa about how she’s “heard” of the horrible things Ramsay does to his mistresses, even going into semi-gory detail. Sansa stops her games, pegging her as being in love with Ramsay. “I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell. This is my home and you can’t frighten me,” Sansa says before sending her away. It’s nice to see Sansa with some spirit, but I’m pretty annoyed, considering I thought this might be a longer engagement, maybe even that Stannis would get there in time to stop it and I’m Team Stannis at the moment because...
I pretty much want him to bust in and stop this madness, but no such luck. Reek comes up to escort Sansa to the Godswood for the wedding. She refuses to take his arm. He snivels that he’ll be punished, but she doesn’t care. I wonder if she’d feel more kindly to Theon/Reek if she knew he didn’t actually kill her brothers. Then again, he betrayed her family by taking Winterfell in the first place. Anyway, the wedding happens, even though Sansa takes her time saying the words.
END OF EPISODE!
Okay, not really, because here’s the part where I start cringing. I don’t think I’m spoiling much to say TV Sansa is taking the arc of Book Jeyne Poole. If you’ve been anywhere on the internet, you’ve heard the grumbles from me and other book snobs even if you don’t know who she is. I was okay with this, though. I thought Sansa being active in the game was better than her languishing in The Vale mummying Lord Robyn for a whole season. It wouldn’t give Sophie Turner much to do. But I did hope they’d tweak certain aspects of the arc.
But we’re in Westeros, which is pretty much No Woman’s Land, so I knew this was coming. I just hoped that it wouldn’t. It’s not just that the wedding happens that bothers me. It’s that the wedding night happens just as terribly as I imagined it had happened for Jeyne, only we’re not left to just imagine it or hear about it. We and Theon (as Ramsay forces him to watch) have to witness it. That’s not completely true. We don’t see it happen, but Theon’s horrified face and Sansa’s cries make it a dark and brutal ending.
Passing The Bechdel Test…
It’s a shame that the two lengthiest conversations are about either Loras or Ramsay, but between Arya and The Waif and Olenna and Margaery, we pass.
The Women of Westeros…
I knew what was coming for Jeyne, but I thought Sansa had enough rule of empathy or even plot armor to protect her from Jeyne’s fate. After whining about all the changes they did make, this was one plot point I actually wanted changed. But fine. It happened. I was expecting it, I guess. Moving forward. It was awful to see Sansa’s dead eyes return and even worse to hear her cry after a season of a more stoic Sansa. I’m just half-grateful the show didn’t outright show it and hoping that the rest of Jeyne’s torture isn’t visited on Sansa. I did like the moment when Sansa called Myranda’s little intimidation tactics out. I just hated to see her power taken in the next five minutes.
Then again, I wonder if Myranda was warning her in earnest. As much as she shares Ramsay’s sadistic tendencies in helping him torture other women, she wasn’t lying to Sansa in that scene. She had nothing to gain from telling her any of this. If anything, she prepared Sansa for what was coming. It might have been worse if Sansa had been left to believe Littlefinger’s notion that Ramsay was a besotted suitor she could easily wrap around her finger. I wonder if there’s some part of Myranda that hates who she’s become under Ramsay’s influence.
Mrs. North-Rememberton was there in spirit. She’s got ties in the towns outside. Even if Sansa doesn’t say anything, old castles echo and Ramsay mistreating Sansa is going to get out there. This marriage might have worked in theory to get the Stark-loyalists behind him if it seemed a Stark daughter was in a position of power. I think it’s going to backfire horribly when they see she’s in anything but and was subjected to the humiliation of a man who betrayed her family forced to watch.
Aw! I never thought I’d say that during a scene with a kid getting switched, but I did when Arya failed to convince Jaqen she hated The Hound. I really miss their twisted little dynamic. Child-hitting and child-euthanasia aside (or all in, I guess), Arya’s story is progressing interestingly. In the books and here, I don’t like the idea of Arya becoming No One. I do like the idea of her becoming a more skilled liar and avenger for her family while keeping those marks of a Stark. As always, every episode needs more Arya.
Cersei turning the center of the kingdom into a theocracy is going to bite her and it can’t come soon enough. Considering how clever Cersei thinks she’s being, it’s interesting how easily Littlefinger played her and got her anger up about the Bolton’s power play (which he himself orchestrated). She’s so focused on her ire that she barely thinks to ask how he knows all this. Why doesn’t she? Is she so tied up in besting Margaery that she’s not even looking at what’s beyond King’s Landing? Hell, she’s not even looking at the big picture inside King’s Landing. The Tyrell alliance was the only thing the crown had going for them in both money and public opinion. The trial was another tell for Cersei. She doesn’t even try to hide her smirk at Olenna as Margaery is taken away.
And you know Olenna is going to make her pay for all of this. She’s already poisoned one of Cersei’s sons on just spec and hearsay. I’m not saying she’ll do it to Tommen. I think she’d rather a sweet-natured, easily controlled king like him than just petty revenge on Cersei. That’s one of the many differences in experience between Cersei and Olenna. Olenna does dastardly things for what she sees as a better end for her people in a calculated way. Cersei thinks she’s calculating, but she’s mostly lashing out in a fit of pique.
If Cersei had her ear to the ground, she’d know imprisoning Margaery is not going to go over well among the people. She is the one aspect of the royal family the people seem to like. Instead of even trying to cozy up, she’s made herself an enemy and made Margaery a martyr, which is a role Margaery will probably wear very well in public once her angers dies down.
There wasn’t much of Ellaria and the Snakes, though I was happy to see them fight. Obara is still the most notable as the obvious leader, but Nymeria had some good moments and it was nice to get a hint of Tyene’s ire when Bronn snarked at her. I am still a bit disappointed, so far. I thought nixing Arianne would give them more dialogue or even insight into what the plan with Myrcella was, in hope it was the feminist-friendly plot from the books. We’ve got four episodes to go. I’m not sure that’s enough time for a better understanding of them. It’s a shame the show is rushing things along in places it could be lingering, especially considering it’s almost caught up to the books by now.
Other notes…
Besides Brienne and Stark loyalists being outraged at Ramsay’s treatment of Sansa, I wonder if Littlefinger would join the chorus. Ramsay did promise him he wouldn’t hurt Sansa. Sansa may have complied since contractually obligated consummation is a thing in this world (and in ours a few hundred years ago, sadly) and Ramsay may even be able to spin this as legal in his society, but I don’t think there’s any way Ramsay can spin that night as anything but gleefully hurting Sansa, so I’m hoping to see some damned outrage from the rest of Westeros after this.
I know I’m outraged for Sansa. I knew that, if the wedding happened, the wedding night would happen, but I was rather hoping Ramsay would at least pretend to play nice for political gain. Then again, Ramsay is a psycho, so why did I expect anything reasonable? Then again, the show faced some blowback last season (some of it from me) for rape added where it wasn’t in the books, and I’ve noticed the pull-back on female nudity this season, so I’d kind of expected better from them this year. Then again, I knew this was coming, having read what happens to poor Jeyne, so why am I surprised? Was there any way to play a wedding night between Sansa and Ramsay that wasn’t rape? Even without Theon’s horror-struck face and her cries, I’d know she did not want this or Ramsay. I don’t know. I’m just disturbed and annoyed and losing trust for this show. I hope this rape is treated as a rape and not brushed away as “well, that’s Westeros for ya!”
I still wonder what the show’s game is by letting this happen to Sansa. Is it to have her ready to escape Winterfell, her own home? Couldn’t that have been achieved by someone trustworthy (not Myranda) tipping her off to Ramsay’s sadism? Maybe she could find out just what Ramsay did to make Theon the sniveling, cowering Reek? Or is this event a device to finally break Reek and move him to recue her? I really hope it’s not that last one.
I’m going to give the show the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s not and that Sansa will be the one taking action rather than Theon/Reek, even if I detest the event that is motivating her. From the trailer, it looks like Sansa might take some sort of pity on Theon/Reek, whispering that her family has friends in the North. I hope she gets out of there before Ramsay breaks her like he did Theon or, in the books, poor Jeyne (who it could be argued has the worst lot of anyone in Westeros).
Fangasms…
I guess I don’t have many.
I did laugh out loud at all talk surrounding Tyrion’s not-at-all-dwarf-sized penis and was pretty gleeful at my precious Queen of Thorns, but that was before the ending scene that sapped the glee right out of me.
I’m not even in the mood to post scenery porn.
Next up: “The Gift” (This better be good, Show!)
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