Game of Thrones and the Women of Westeros 6/4 & 6/5
First, we have “Book of the Stranger” — where something I want killed with fire is LITERALLY killed with fire, then “The Door” — where someone I want to live forever is brutally taken from me. This show, people!
As for that first scene, it was on my wish list. I totally said “ Can she just signal Drogon to fry the council and take her away, please?” But this was even better! It was haunting and creepy and strangely beautiful, like the prom in Carrie, but with a real sense of justice. Then that second ending is haunting and creepy as well, but also heartbreaking, like the scene in Carrie where Piper Laurie’s all nailed up and dead and smiling.
I might be due to rewatch Carrie again. Great movie. Anyway, the show…
Previously…
I went into “Oathbreaker” here, but I won’t go into what the previouslies want to remind us of because we have quite a few places to go.
In a nutshell…
At The Wall, Jon is packing up and arguing with Edd about how that technicality of his death lets him out of his contract, thinking he’ll just get out so as not to be killed some more, when Sansa, Brienne, and Pod show up.
Sansa, who was never a Jon fan, hugs him tight, with so little family left. They reminisce about the past and wish they could have known what was to come and enjoyed the good times. Jon decides he will stick with Sansa and protect her for Ned’s sake. But Sansa wants more than protection. She wants to take Winterfell and the North back from the Boltons, with or without his help.
Meanwhile, Mel has crossed off Stannis on her prince-that-was-promised binder and pasted over it with Jon Snow. Davos tries to press her on what happened with Stannis and Shireen (took you long enough!), but Mel says nothing. Brienne steps in and informs him that she killed Stannis and hates Mel for using blood magic to kill Renly.
In the Eyrie, Lord Robyn Aryn is taller, but still a drooling imbecile. Littlefinger finally shows up again, bringing gifts for Robyn, and Lord Royce has heard of all the Sansa/Ramsay stuff. He accuses Littlefinger of duplicity, but Littlefinger throws it back, saying they were overpowered and maybe Lord Royce informed the Boltons. Because Robyn is still an idiot, he is ready to toss Royce out the Moon Door. Royce backs off, with Littlefinger giving him “one more chance” to serve Robyn faithfully. Littlefinger manipulates Robyn into telling him to find Sansa with The Vale’s men.
In Meereen, Greyworm and Missandei are not fans of Tyrion meeting to make peace with the slavers. Missandei, in particular, doesn’t think he understands the kind of assholes they are dealing with.
Either way, Tyrion and Varys make a deal. They assure the masters that Westeros thrives without slaves and that slavery is not needed to turn a profit (I knew money would be the language they spoke). They say Daenerys will give the slavers outside Meereen seven years to adjust to a free world as long as they stop funding the Sons of the Harpy. Bring on the wine, cheese plates, and prostitutes.
The former slaves don’t like Tyrion wining and dining slavers. He says he is just The Hand until Dany comes back, but that Greyworm and Missandei, who the former slaves trust, are on his team. They both reluctantly back Tyrion publicly, but warn him privately that there is more than self interest behind the slavers’ cruelty and that working with them is no good.
Outside Dothrak, Daario is yammering away to Jorah about Dany being wild in bed, to Jorah’s annoyance.
They are planning on going into the sacred city and Jorah says they have to abandon their weapons. Daario sees Jorah’s grayscale as he disarms himself. Once in, they try to pretend to be lost traders when they are discovered, but fail miserably, forced to kill the men who catch them (Daario kept his knife).
Dany has been spending her time sitting around fires and listening to The Priestess drone on, but she does make kind of friend in Lhazereen, who was raped and taken as Khaleesi at twelve and beaten for bearing a daughter. The High Priestess seems to think it progress that their widowed status means the Khals now ask their advice,”our lives have meaning,” like it makes up for a life being beaten and raped. OMG, just… No, Khaleesis. No.
Dany goes for some air with Lhazareen. They briefly bond over how much Dothraki society sucks for women before Daario and Jorah jump them. Dany tells them not to just kill her new pal. She asks Lhazareen to help so they can all escape.
In King’s Landing, Margaery is let out of her cell to meet with The Sparrow. She seems pretty penitent, but The Sparrow thinks she is still too focused on money and finery. He tells her about his life as a cobbler, chasing money and possessions, how empty it all was, how one crappy morning after a party, he found humility and joined the beggars. As she seems humble enough, I guess, he lets Margaery see Loras.
She is shut in with her brother and she basically begs him to play along, says she knows this is all B.S., but they must stay strong. Loras doesn’t want to be strong. He just wants all of it to stop.
In the castle, Cersei dismisses Maester Pycelle in the middle of him rambling on at Tommen, tells him The Sparrow is crazypants, basically. Tommen is afraid The Sparrow will hurt Margaery if they aren’t careful, then tells Cersei The Sparrow told him a secret. We don’t hear what it is, but Cersei, with Jaime, next goes to see The Small Council, where Olenna (I LOVE HER!) reminds Cersei how insignificant she is again.
Jaime and Cersei inform her that The Sparrow is taking power because the cool kids are too busy arguing with each other to take him on.
Now, Margaery is about to repeat Cersei’s naked walk of shame. Olenna says that can’t happen and Cersei actually agrees. Jaime tells Kevan the Tyrell armies will prevent Margaery’s walk and that he must have his men stand down when they come. Cersei reminds him The Sparrow and Pals have taken his son, Lancel, from him. And Lady Olenna is on board that whole “rich people sticking together” train. As I ADORE her, I guess I have to be on her team.
Now, we have our three seconds in Pyke, in which Theon comes home. Yara is still annoyed he rejected her rescue before, but she softens toward him when Theon pledges his allegiance to her as the heir to The Iron Islands.
In Winterfell, Ramsay has Osha sent to him. She is not impressed when he brags about skinning men, with her life up till then.
I guess she’s spent some time with the Thenns. Anyway, this scene annoys me, so let’s just get it over with. Osha claims not to be loyal to The Starks or Rickon, claims they captured her and she was just going along, tries to seduce Ramsay, tries to grab a knife and kill him. He sees through it all and stabs her very unceremoniously in the neck first. More on why that sucks below.
At The Wall, Sansa and her crew are dining with Jon and his crew. And Tormund has been making all kind of eyes at Brienne, who is not enjoying the attention.
Ramsay sends Jon a letter, saying he has Rickon and his dead wolf and demanding Sansa or… all kinds of gross stuff. Sansa confirms what a bastard The Bastard is and how he must have killed his father. She tells Jon they definitely have to march against him now.
Back in Vaes Dothrak, the new Khal and his council of horse-loving douches is about to decide Dany’s fate. She weighs in about her fate, saying Khal Drogo had dreams of conquering the world, that they aren’t worthy.
They laugh at her, talk about raping her, then letting their horses take a turn and Daenerys… Well, she burns them all! She knocks over four oil braziers and burns down their straw houses as they try to escape.
They can’t, as Jorah and Daario have barred the doors. They all die and the temple burns as the remaining Dothraki gather to see Dany emerge from the flames, unburnt.
And here we see Daenerys (or Emilia Clarke) nude for the first time since season one and it’s effective in a way nudity on this show hasn’t been since Cersei’s walk of shame (though that was mostly CGI). It’s not seductive or titillating. It’s shocking and strange and powerful, seeing her come out of the flames, clothes burned away. Everyone is shocked and silenced, then they all kneel before her.
I mean, Jorah always has a knee ready to drop for Dany, so it’s not like he needs to be convinced, but the Dothraki are a hard sell on queens. Even Daario, who talked about her almost as a plaything up till now, is forced to see her stripped bare and commanding fear and respect, kneels before Daenerys.
Awesome ending. Truly.
On to the next episode…
At The Wall, Sansa takes Brienne to Molestown in secret to meet Littlefinger. He claims not to know what kind of creep Ramsay was, but she’s not buying it and she’s not letting him off the hook.
She has a good mind to have Brienne kill him then and there, but will settle for never seeing him again. But he offers her intel. He says her uncle, Bryndon “Blackfish” Tully, has taken the Riverlands back and that they can combine forces with the knights of the Vale, under him, and take Winterfell back. He leaves her to think it over.
In Braavos, Arya is being beaten by The Waif some more, who tells her she’ll never be Faceless. Not!Jaquen seems to agree, but gives her another shot. He gives her an assignment to poison an actress. “A girl has been given a second chance. There will not be a third. One way or another, a face will be added to the hall.”
In the city, she watches a crude rhyming verse play of the recent history of Westeros. It was obviously written by a Lannister loyalist, as it presents Cersei and Joffrey as pure-hearted flowers, Tyrion as lusty and evil, Robert as a flatulent drunk (accurate), Sansa as a helpless whiner (accurate up till recently), and Ned as a scheming turd. Arya’s face watching this is pretty much me throughout most of this show, especially Dorne.
As she watches a silly buffoon version of her father paraded across the stage, then comedically killed, then the actress playing her sister given to Tyrion, we plainly see her pain and humiliation and PENIS! Sorry, the show just decided to give us an unforgiving close-up of a penis before traveling up to the actor complaining about the warts on said penis. And, strange as it may seem…
I mean, it’s right after that we get boobies, but I think the show is actually attempting some kind of balance here. As much as I rolled my eyes at all the swinging breasts used for the famous “sexposition” scenes, there might be a few people that feel the same way about the occasional penis (which is still way more occasional than the breasts, by the way). In the end, they are just body parts and how we feel about them being on our screen is very much about how they are presented. Last season, we might have seen breasts wherever possible for the sake of breasts. This season, we see some common work-a-day nudity on both sides. It’s not titillating. It’s just there. Warts and all, as they say.
Anyway, Arya quickly figures out that the Cersei actress, Lady Crane AKA her target, can be easily poisoned with her precious rum and that the Sansa actress called the hit due to jealousy over Lady Crane’s meatier part and acting skills. Arya later tells Jaquen she seems nice. “Does Death only come for the wicked and leave the decent behind?” he asks. Ugh! More on that below.
In the North, Bran is tree-tripping with The Raven, back to the days when the North was a summery place. He sees Leaf and The Children of the Forest turn a man into the first White Walker — The Night’s King, to be exact. He wakes and confronts Leaf, who says they were being slaughtered and needed to defend themselves from his kind.
It’s time for the Iron Islands speedround! At the Kingsmoot, Theon says Yara’s their queen. They’ve all served under her and know she’s awesome! Everyone cheers! Then Euron shows up. Yara points the finger at him and he’s all “Yeah. I killed Balon! He sucked! I’m your king!” Everyone cheers! Then Aeron says everyone gets a free Drowned God shot glass and everyone cheers! Not really, but it’s an easily swayed crowd is what I’m saying.
Euron mocks them for being a woman and a eunuch, then claims he’s going to take Daenerys to wife in the crudest terms possible. I guess I know whose death I’ll be rooting for whenever Ramsay kicks it. Cut to Euron getting his drowning ceremony, then Theon and Yara taking a crapload of men and ships, then Euron taking his supporters to go kill them…
…then seeing all the best ships already off in the distance. Euron orders those left to build him a thousand ships “and I will give you this world.” All this in less than nine minutes!
Off in the desert, Dany is trying to figure out how to deal with Jorah when he tells her to send him away and shows her his grayscaled arm. He confesses his hopeless love and says goodbye, but she says he is sworn to her, commands him to find the cure, heal himself, and come back to be at her side when she takes the seven kingdoms.
In Meereen, Varys is pleased with how peaceful it is, but Tyrion, Missandei and Greyworm aren’t so complacent. The Sons of the Harpy have been stopped, but they need the people’s trust without Dany there as a figurehead. Since the red god religion is gaining ground, they meet with Kinvara, the High Priestess of that religion. She’s got a choker, much like Mel. I wonder how old she is without it. She thinks Dany is the one who was promised. This religion has too many conflicting messiahs! Varys agrees with me and mocks their fanaticism. They trade barbs, with Tyrion trying to play nice. Kinvara smiles and talks about Varys’ past, about his tragic sacrificial gelding, says as long as they serve the same queen, he has nothing to fear from her, creeping both me and him out.
Up North, Bran gets bored (I guess) and decides to go tree-tripping while the Raven sleeps. He ends up gods-know-when and in front of an army of ice zombies. He walks through, horrified, then he sees The Night King.
Worse yet, The Night King sees him. He touches him. Bran wakes screaming and sees his arm is marked. The Raven says that The Night King can get in now. The Raven says they have little time. “The time has come for you to become me.”
Hmm. Theory on that in notes.
At The Wall, the ragtag council is plotting. Jon and Davos point out how little men they have, with so many houses siding with The Boltons. Sansa thinks the Northerners left will join them.
Sansa says Riverrun will join them, that Brynden has it, claims she found this out before escaping Winterfell, leaving out the Littlefinger part. Later, Brienne calls her on her lie, but she agrees to go with Sansa’s orders — which are to ride to Riverrun and secure Uncle Bryndon’s support. Meanwhile, Sansa gets ready for their journey to recruit the North. She has made herself a wolf sigil dress and something for Jon.
They say goodbye to The Wall, Jon leaving it in Edd’s care. Then we hop further North to break my heart. Meera is chattering about heading home and eating real food while Hodor happily hodors his agreement. But people aren’t allowed to smile in this world.
The White Walkers and their ice zombie army show up. Leaf and the remaining Children of the Forest try to hold them off so Bran and Meera and Hodor can escape. But Bran can’t wake up and Hodor is too busy panicking and repeating his name to carry him. Bran is stuck in a moment at Winterfell when little Ned is being sent to The Eyrie. It doesn’t seem to be one of the important moments, but The Raven has his reasons and they are so cruel. Young Hodor/Wylis is there watching.
Back in real time, Meera is struggling against the dead with only a little help from the Children left, screaming at Bran to wake up, to warg into Hodor. He hears, even in flashback land...
Bran somehow wargs into Hodor without leaving (huh? So many theories below). Meera uses a dragon-glass spear to kill a huge White Walker (Go Meera!) as Hodor finally drags Bran’s litter down the tunnel.
Summer sacrifices himself to defend them, as they run down the tunnel with Leaf. The Night King stares at The Raven. In flashback land, the Raven says “The Time has come. Leave me.” He then disappears into black smoke, Voldemort style, as The Night King cuts him down in real time.
Our heroes they still have a horde after them. Leaf sacrifices herself to blow up the tunnel and a bunch of zombies.
They reach a frozen door and Hodor gets it open, then holds it against the zombies, leaving Meera to drag Bran, screaming “Hold the door!” The words echo in the past as Bran stares at Young Wylis/Hodor, who actually stares back. I was already sniffling about Summer, but at this point, I get where this is going and start weeping without shame.
Bran, not even meaning to, wargs into Young Wylis as he convulses, screaming “Hold the door!” as Hodor does just that in real time, even as the dead reach through the wood and tear at him.
“Hold the door” starts muffling, turning into “hodor,” the only thing Wylis will say for the rest of his life. It’s heartbreaking.
The Women of Westeros…
I might have whined a bit about Dany being forced into retirement by the Dothraki and maybe I even worried we’d have a season of her going back to the drawing board, working her way up again. I’m so glad that didn’t happen. By the time they were threatening her with gang rape, then horse rape, I was itching for her to whistle for Drogon. But I was glad he didn’t get her out of this one, that it was just her. As for her next appearance, it couldn’t help but be a little anticlimactic, but I do like how queenly she is in commanding Jorah to find a cure. She knows it is weakness to have him by her side, but she also refuses to betray her sense of honor by refusing him forgiveness when he has proved himself so loyal.
After some misgivings in the early bits, I am loving Sansa this season. As harrowing as her “marriage” was, I always hoped this was why they did it, to make her Lady Stoneheart.
Obviously, not literally, but I think she will be a force moving through and uniting the North for revenge for the wrongs done to The Starks. Bring it on!
My opinion of The Faceless has been tarnished. Here, I thought they were servants of the God of Death in some noble way. I had this idea that, even though they were killing people under contract, there was some kind of fate/destiny/mystical whatever-the-hell tied into it. But it seems they just kill whoever for anyone that tosses them a few coins. Arya thinks she learning to kill to mete out justice, but she’s just a hitgirl for the highest bidder (actual Hitgirl is another character I adore. I guess I just love a badass little girl who swears, possibly because the younger version of me was so… well, not that).
My hope is that Arya will be unable to truly become a Faceless in the end. She can say she’s No One all she wants, but she is not immune to anger over her family, judging by her reaction to the play, and she also cares too much to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it just because some jerk wants them dead for nefarious reasons. I truly hope she takes their training and uses it to become a sword of justice.
Speaking of swords of justice, Brienne continues to occupy the moral high ground, calling Mel out for her deeds, calling Sansa out on her half-truths, but also keeping her counsel because she swore to. And her faces around Tormund crack me the hell up.
Poor Meera. That scene in the caves was, even with her kicking so much undead ass, a desperate struggle. Now she has to drag a comatose Bran through the snow by herself. I saw her getting some hate online for being part of the events that killed Hodor, for being the one to tell him to hold the door, knowing what that meant. But what was she supposed to do? She’s lost her own brother to the cause of keeping Bran safe to fulfill his vague destiny and she’s just struggling her way through each hurdle and loss.
I really hope the show starts making better use of Yara, especially now that she and Theon are on the run and looking for allies. I’d love to see her meet with Brienne or Arya or just anyone on Team Good. It was nice, seeing her and Theon kind of bonding. It looks like they’re on their way to Dany and I hope they reach her before Euron does. Even if they don’t, I can’t see Euron succeeding in getting Dany on his team. She has a pretty solid evil-detector. I can’t wait to see her put him in his place.
At least Cersei is getting more of a clue about what idiots they’ve been, checking her loose-cannon, destroy-all-enemies crap a little. This is the most reasonable Cersei I’ve seen yet. Let’s see how long it lasts.
Olenna remains my favorite thing. More of her, please.
I knew it! I knew Margaery was just playing along with The Sparrow, with her penitence. She’s only letting The Sparrow believe he’s won. The scene with Loras shows more of the real Margaery than we’ve seen for some time now.
I am loving Missandei’s chutzpah these days and her snarky remarks to Tyrion. You can tell she doesn’t like compromising her ideals and I would say, of everyone left in Meereen, she was the closest to Daenerys and knows what Dany would think of these dealings. But what can she do? “We make peace with our enemies, not our friends.”
I’d kind of hoped that the retired Khaleesis, especially The High Priestess, were a bit more steely, that they were even using their status to undermine the Khal. But no. They’re just accepting of what came before and all “Welp, at least we don’t get raped and beaten anymore.” Ladies, you deserve more. I’m hoping there’s an overhaul of Dothraki gender roles under Daenerys.
As for Lhazereen, I like her. I hope, like Missandei, the bit of freedom she gets with Daenerys helps bring her out of her shell.
As for Kinvara, I didn’t think anyone could creep me out more than Mel. Nuff said. Mel… Well, she didn’t have much to do this time around except keep hiding Shireen’s fate from Davos and worship Jon Snow from afar.
RIP, Osha. I wanted a better end for Osha than this. I really wanted to think that the Umbers brought her and Bran to Ramsay to infiltrate the castle, maybe kill him. For her to just be so casually stabbed in the neck pisses me off. I don’t know what her fate will be in Book World, but I hope it’s more badass than what the show just gave us. Boo!
RIP, Leaf. It really sucks how Leaf and her kind were hoist by their own petard. I mean, it was a dumb move, creating a practically unkillable race of ice men, but it was also unfair that they were being killed off so thoroughly by the first men. Did the last of The Children die in those caves? I’m not sure. maybe a few others are hidden somewhere.
Passing the Bechdel Test…
Both episodes kind of squeak by, albeit only with brief interactions. Still, it’s a pass.
Other Notes…
The Raven brought Bran to that moment and I don’t think it was to learn some kind of wisdom from his young father’s stoicism. I think The Raven knew that Bran had to be there to make Wylis into Hodor so Hodor could fulfill his destiny, complete his final act: hold the door.
The idea that Hodor has been saying his final words and nothing but them for most of his life is… I can’t even think of the word for it. It’s more than tragic. It’s more than cruel. It’s tragicruel. He might have sacrificed his life at that door, but the process started many years before.
RIP Hodor. RIP Summer. RIP The Raven… unless I should call you by another name. On that note, there is a theory that The Three-Eyed Raven is Bran, an older Bran who traveled back in time to try to change things, got stuck, only to realize he actually can’t change anything, possibly explaining the heartbreak on his face at the end.
There are lots of clues to support it: we never see The Raven walk except in visions, he says Bran must become him, the name Bran, in Welsh, means “raven,” when Bran was dreaming of the three-eyed crow, Jojen said he can’t kill it because it’s him. Google is your friend, as are several youtube videos spelling it out. I’m not saying it’s true, but it’s a theory that does hold water even if it does create a few of those damnable time travel paradoxes.
I’ve now heard the name Manderly name three times this season, so I hope that means we’ll be meeting them. In the book, it was through Davos. In the show, maybe it will be through Brienne in her travels to Riverrun. I’m still hoping for the Wyman Manderly “THE NORTH REMEMBERS” speech of greatness. You show-only people, you think you’ve heard some good lines, but nothing approaches this! You had to sit through the Red Wedding and all those videos of people reacting with horror. I just want that to happen in the good, all-is-right-with-the-world way. I want you to have this speech!
Fangasms…
“I don’t want to fight you, Jorah the Andal. What do I have to gain? If I win, I’m the shit who killed an old man. If I lose, I’m the shit who was killed by an old man.” Heh. Daario’s no Bronn, but he does get a good line here and there.
If I were to grade these episodes, I’d give “Book of the Stranger” a B+ because so much of what went down was either building things up for the next with little action and because a strong character was tossed away without even one last moment of badassery (Osha, you deserved better!), it would have been a B if not for that ending and a nude scene that actually seemed necessary.
I would give “The Door” an A- for touching my heart and leaving me thinking about it (also sobbing intermittently) for hours after, also they just packed way more action and forward motion, even when things seemed rushed (Hi, Pyke! Bye, Pyke!). Also points for equal opportunity nudity.
Next up: “Blood of My Blood” and “The Broken Man.”
Agree? Disagree? Want to tell me about you? Feel free to comment below or hit that ❤ button.
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All Images from Game of Thrones are the property of Weiss, Benioff, HBO, and a whole slew of other people who are not me. They are used here for illustration and analysis only. I would like to thank the countless good people of Tumblr for always making and freely sharing their lovely gifs — and always so quickly after an episode.
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