Well, this is not good.
Am I talking about the events of the episode or the episode itself?
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Maybe a bit of both.
In hindsight, was it really a good idea to go on a quest to retrieve a single fresh wight to dump at the feet of a mad, morally corrupt Queen who is 100% guaranteed to screw you over at some point? Was it worth giving your even more powerful enemy a fucking dragon?
In Dany’s defense, she’s used to her scaly kids wrecking everything in their path, but The Night King sure as shit did what Bronn couldn’t do two weeks ago while expending 1/1000th of the energy. Like, not even a flinch as he walked through the flames to throw his icicle at Viserion. And the result was a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, heart-stoppingly awful perfect shot. No one, I think, could have predicted that. (Except for fans who figured Dany needed to get knocked down a rung for a more fair fight.)
It was like watching a plane crash in slow-motion. As it’s crying in pain. Poor baby!
And yet, Dany was way too calm about the whole thing. I felt like Dany was more upset over leaving behind Jon, who admittedly has better hair than a dragon but isn’t quite as entertaining when he opens his mouth. She just met this King Snow bloke like a month ago. Viserion is one of three dragons in all of existence born of Dany’s grief and sacrifice and personal spiritual fire and eons of birthright and he was just cut down. You don’t want to take a moment here?
Trust us, Dany, there are plenty of other broody men in Westeros. But his sexy stab wound scars remind you of your own sacrifices for leadership and yadda yadda yadda and get you all misty-eyed? Ugh. Really didn’t feel this reaction was weighted right. Even if Dany got visual proof of climate change, the raid seemed foolish and under-equipped.
I admit, though, I definitely felt an ice dragon would come and balance the scales (excuse the pun) and I’m excited to see it in action in the season finale. And I’m glad it’s not Drogon. Even though he was parked right on the ground in front of The Night King; The Night King is a show-off on top of being an ice-cold asshole.
D&D know what fans of the TV show want: tits and dragons. I’m surprised and appreciative that we’re getting way more of the latter this season. But is the spectacle more important than the story? I’m a book reader first. I enjoy a more languorous pace and more concrete motivation instead of watching pieces move on a painted table.
Sometimes, the movement works, as it did at the start of the episode, with all of the Magnificent Seven talking to each other in different combinations. I love me some dragons burning shit and guys in furs swinging swords, but I appreciate good conversation, too. Jon talks to Jorah about Jorah’s father! Jon and Beric discuss their vows. Gendry whinges. Tormund tells the Hound he loves Brienne!
Less fun banter was going on in Winterfell. Speaking of the Maid of Tarth, Littlefinger actually offered good advice about Brienne being willing to intercede between the fighting Stark girls if Arya gets too out of line against her sister. But then Sansa summarily sends Brienne to King’s Landing as her emissary. Brienne, who speaks the truth about Littlefinger. Or did Littlefinger get under her skin and she, in turn, sent Brienne away from Arya? Arya has proven she doesn’t need anyone to do her murdering for her, so it makes no sense to send Brienne away. How can Sansa honestly believe anywhere is ever safe again, after the horror she’s endured? It didn’t ring true to her experiences at all.
And Arya is behaving in the same unbelievable way. First, I’d like to point out than Sansa was 100% correct in saying that Arya couldn’t survive what Sansa suffered, nor could Arya have won back Winterfell. Arya is not here to play the game of thrones. She is here to be a weapon. And a smug jerk. Arya most likely would have gotten herself killed had she tried to assassinate Joffrey in season 2, she doesn’t have the patience for diplomacy and would never suffer the political marriages to Ramsay or Tyrion. I almost wonder if the degradations Sansa endured would in fact break Arya because they came in a form Arya just doesn’t comprehend.
Just because Sansa wore dresses instead of floppy rubber faces, doesn’t mean she wasn’t a prisoner.
Arya’s less stabby talents are her ability to uncover lies and observe and analyze motivations. But she’s either too blinded by her own bias to believe that Sansa isn’t a traitor to her family or she’s too dumb to see that Littlefinger has serious motives for making the Stark sisters distrust one another. And Arya is, what, going to turn the Northern lords against Sansa and this will somehow help Jon? This whole storyline feels like manufactured conflict to keep the Stark girls spinning their wheels while the plot moves forward Beyond the Wall.
How many more will get ground down under Westeros’ wheel of story? Sure hope no more casualties are dragons.
Final thoughts
- “Gingers are beautiful.” I am here for Tormund’s positive body image.
- I’m not a war strategist, but I have some questions. Why did the raiders not bring more torches or fire of some kind? A few Molotov cocktails or something? Why did everyone not have some dragonglass? Why did they not bring Dany from the start instead of having Gendry run and send a raven? How close was the Wall that Gendry could run there in the first place? Or was his hammer just that heavy? Remember when it took a full episode to get to Craster’s? This isn’t the usual time travel whine, it’s a logical question. Why did Dany bring all three dragons with her to an unknown battlefield to face an inhuman army for the first time? Is there a Home Depot Beyond-the-Wall for the Night King to buy all those giant chains?
- Loved every time Sandor interacted with fire; how he froze at the flaming bear, how he turned away when Thoros’ body was being burned. Great acting. (Also: RIP Thoros. You had a somewhat peaceful death which is better than most on Thrones.)
- BENJEN EX MACHINA! I’ve long been the biggest fan of Sean Bean’s fictional big-nosed brothers. (See: my obsession with Faramir in LOTR.) But to see Benjen for thirty seconds was worse than not seeing him at all. He very obviously did have time to hop back on the horse with Jon. What a disappointing reunion in the service of, again, manufacturing unnecessary drama. We knew Jon wasn’t gonna go out like that. He hasn’t even kissed Dany yet.
- Jon is totally gonna ride Rhaegal, isn’t he? Dany’s first love is named after her husband, Jon gets the one named after his dad, and the Night King terrorizes them both with a dragon named after Dany’s first tormentor.
- There sure was a lot of talk about babies last night: Tormund, Jorah, Tyrion, Dany. I WONDER WHAT THAT IS FORESHADOWING. But not really. But I kinda hope they don’t go there. Dany’s infertility brings up interesting questions of succession. I see her as Elizabeth I, only her marriage is to her dragons and her country. I predict a long-distance political marriage to Jon; no way is he living in King’s Landing. And a kind of parliament for democratically elected representatives. A new world for Westeros.
- Next week: Everyone remembers Grey Worm’s been trapped at Casterly Rock all season. It cannot be the season finale already! But it is. Dammit. *throws a tantrum*
Game of Thrones airs Sunday nights at 9PM E/PT on HBO.
Theresa DeLucci is a regular contributor to Tor.com covering TV, book reviews and sometimes games. She’s also gotten enthusiastic about television for Boing Boing, Wired.com’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast and Den of Geek. Reach her via raven or on Twitter.
I can go with some iffy travel times. But this was ridiculous. I didn’t even need to pull out a map to check the distance. There’s just no way a raven could fly to Dragonstone in a day. Much less Dany fly back in a half a day.
There could have been plenty of ways to logically work this out.
I’m hoping that Sansa wins back Arya’s loyalty by offering her a mission. Kill Littlefinger, and take his face, and go to Kingslanding to meet with Cersi and try and kill her.
As for sending Brienne away, it could be possible that Sansa did so, because Littlefinger suggested keeping her at Winterfell. Anything that Littlefinger wants, she should do the opposite. But that would mean she still doesn’t really understand Littlefinger and how he works. Which is very disappointing.
As for Coldhand not riding away with Jon, in the after talk about the episodes, the producers said that it was his choice to stay behind, giving the undead an easy target, and possibly ending his existence. That he was tired of what he was.
I’m withholding judgment on the Arya/Sansa stuff until I see how it plays out. I thought there were 2 important features to it: that Arya is expressing Sansa’s own internal doubts about herself and what she’s done; and that Arya handed the knife to Sansa. I’m not sure what either means, and I guess we’ll have to see.
As for sending Brienne away, I think Sansa correctly interpreted LF’s suggestion as implying that she (or he) could use Brienne to kill Arya. Sending Brienne to KL eliminates that possibility.
I don’t have much problem with many of the difficulties I see here and elsewhere about the plot details. I don’t want to go through them all, but here are a few thoughts:
1. Ravens fly pretty fast, and their travel time has always been kind of vague in both books and show. Dragons fly very fast, given what we’ve seen. All in all, a day or so to fly to Dragonstone and a day return doesn’t seem that off to me. YMMV.
2. I could be wrong, but I didn’t think they went very far beyond the Wall. That made Gendry’s run less implausible; Pheidippides would be proud. ;)
3. For now, I’m assuming Bran sent Benjen. Bloodraven did so for Bran, and now Bran has the Bloodraven role.
4. The attempt to capture a wight wasn’t just for Cersei. Jon needs to convince pretty much everybody. No way would Dany have flown north just on his word. The need for rescue, both for Jon and for Jorah, gave her reason to go.
Was this episode entertaining? Sure.
Did it make sense? Not even by accident.
This time we had Gendry do a Barry Allen, the crow itself teleport to Dragonstone to deliver the message, and Bendthekneeaerys punch her dragons’ hyperdrive to reach Jon and the rest in time to save them from the Night King. Either that, or we’re supposed to think that Jon’s party stood there in the middle of a frozen lake for days or even weeks. Without any supplies.
And what’s with Jon’s party? They were seven dudes who didn’t need any supplies at all, but whenever the plot needed it, they somehow had a few nameless and faceless underlings materialize just in time to be killed by zombies, either of the bear or human variety.
And the Night King either not only knew about the dragons and was aiming on getting his own all along, so that he planned everything to perfection in order to lure them and one-shoot Viserion, having the huge chains already set aside close by to pull his corpse out of the lake, or the writers just don’t give a crap about anything anymore except the Rule of Cool. As long as we have our zombie ice dragon, internal logic can take a vacation.
I mean, I get it that by now we’re too invested in this show to simply stop watching no matter what the writers do, and I also get that we’re running out of episodes and a lot of things have to be rushed or implied, but man, don’t tell me there aren’t better ways to reach the exact same results in story. And to hear so many people claim that this is one of the best episodes of the Season just shows how low the bar has fallen. It’s sad to see GoT slowly become everything it was created NOT to be.
Rant over. Catharsis achieved. :)
What, nothing on Jon surviving a fall into a freezing lake with heavy furs on, swimming to the surface and then not dying of hypothermia on the way to the Wall? Not to mention that he just spent a day and a half on a island without a fire. And why don’t any of these people wear a hat in the middle of Winter? Couple that with apparently supersonic ravens and the episode gets downright silly.
The characters, acting and dialog remain first rate, but these plot holes are getting ridiculous. Fantasy inherently stretches credulity with dragons and magic, which makes it all the more important to get the mundane details right. It seems in their rush to wrap up the series, reality has entirely been thrown out the window.
I’ve long been an apologist for time on this show, that it moves at the speed of plot requirements. But the last two episodes have stretched my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. I’m still rolling with it, but a little consideration for time would be nice.
Of all the ways that Daenerys (I’ll try to stop calling her Dany, since she clearly doesn’t care for the nickname; I did like that little meta-poke, much like last week’s “still rowing” comment) could find out the truth about Jon’s death, this was probably the best. Seeing the scars from his literal knife to the heart clearly moved her.
RIP Thoros. I figured more of the named characters would die on the hunt. I didn’t realize they had brought some honest-to-goodness redshirts with them. I did chuckle at the “last life” comment from Sandor. And the polar bear attacking from the side while the redshirt was running back certainly elicited the intended jump scare from me.
Bronn taking aim at Drogon during the Loot Train Battle was the first time I legitimately feared for the life of one of the dragons. When the Night King pulled up the spear last night, I *knew* one of them was going down. I figured for sure that the big shock would be that he had a weapon that could one-shot-kill the dragons. When I saw them pulling the carcass out of the lake, though, I knew a bigger surprise was in store. Somewhat appropriate that the dragon that is now “evil” is the one named after Viserys.
I really want Sansa and Arya to work things out. Arya should know better than to see through what Littlefinger is doing.
All those internet debates about the “3 Riders” are over now – at least for the show. Maybe Martin would have written something different if he could have been bothered.
“This whole storyline feels like manufactured conflict to keep the Stark girls spinning their wheels while the plot moves forward Beyond the Wall.”
I can see what they’re trying to do there. It’s not (really) about Sansa, it’s more about establishing that Arya is no longer Arya Stark. While she has a long time to go before Nooneness, she’s not in the world of the House of Stark or the Great Houses anymore.
Which is what Jaqen more or less anticipated with his little smile when she leaves. He knows she can’t be really No One until she’s finished dropping her baggage, and he just has to wait until she’s emptied all that. And comes back at the end.
(if she survives the zombie apocalypse, of course. Giving your anti-zombie dagger? Not that good)
This was a poorly written episode. The script was the main problem, yet I wonder if a better director would have distracted me from the mess. I made a long list of everything that bothered me but it didn’t make me feel any better. So I’ll try to focus on what I enjoyed.
The DanyxJon ship gets bigger with every episode. Every scene with Dany showed how much she cares for Jon, culminating on that intimate scene in a literal ship (how meta). And the irony of Dany complaining about heroes when she herself is one. Also, with all mentions of how Dany can’t have children and that Jon should give Longclaw to his children, it’s not difficult to see where this is going. To quote a friend: “They gonna bang”.
I liked the dialogue, with certain exceptions. Jon giving away Longclaw right before facing White Walkers? Really? What if Jorah had accepted? What was he going to do then? Just stare at the Night King until he falls in love too? (dammit, I tried ;) But every scene with the Hound or Tormund was great, especially with both of them together.
Tyrion trying to convince Dany of democracy was interesting, if fruitless. Why would she accept that? He does have a point about her legacy, though. When she’s gone, who will be left to carry on? Jon is Dany’s heir, but they don’t know it yet. And if they bang, maybe we’ll get another Targaryen.
I still love the show. It was just harder to enjoy it this time. Maybe my expectations were too high, as I was expecting something like Hardhome. But Hardhome this was not. I think I’ll need to rewatch a better episode before the finale. Probably Kissed By Fire, that’s one of the greats.
If you take the scenes as stand alone. They were great. The 7 warriors, all with their own fame and legend, together, sort of acknowledging each others accomplishments, great.
That undead bear? Great.
The lake and the army of the dead surrounding them, and being rescued by Dany. Great.
How all those scene’s tie together. Absolute failure. And the show producers have been saying they want people to ignore tall that and just focus on the cool stuff.
But we all know, stories don’t work that way.
Anyone else think it’s weird that there has not been a single conversation regarding the fate of the Freys (unless I totally missed it)? They are planning their big pow-wow with Cersei and worried about tricks, but nobody said “yea, like that big Frey meeting where everyone mysteriously croaked and one of the great house of Westerous became extinct.”
@8 “What was he going to do then? Just stare at the Night King until he falls in love too?” HA. Want a job? ;)
@7 But we already had to suffer through last season in Braavos for Arya to decide to be a damn Stark again, that she was not, in fact, no one and she should go back to her original mission or avenging her family. To show up in Winterfell complaining that Sansa is staying in her dead parents’ room (what, she’d like no one to stay there, like a museum, or for someone else on the castle team to be in there?) and wearing pretty dresses to her, you know, diplomatic dealing with other wealthy lords? How dumb and unemphatic is Arya?
“I see her as Elizabeth I, only her marriage is to her dragons and her country.”
What, you didn’t think Elizabeth I was married to her dragons?
That whole thing with Francis Drake and the fireships was just a cover story. Dragons took out the Spanish Armada. Why do you think the invented hero was called Francis Drake? To honour the big male dragon, Frank.
Honestly, I don’t know what they’re teaching in history these days.
The conversation between Tormund and Sandor is the best in all seven seasons. And I really will brook no argument on the subject.
I loved Tormund all being “Brienne is my girlfriend, but she doesn’t know it yet.” Also, did he hint at homosexuality or pansexuality among the free folk?
@8 – Landstander: Another inbred Targaryen, you mean. :)
@8 – Jon isn’t Dany’s heir under any standard patrilineal rules of inheritance, which are the rules we appear to see in Westeros everywhere except Dorne. He’s her nephew by her older brother, so she’s his heir but he isn’t hers.
@14, Legend/rumor had it that Tormund had sex with a bear once, so probably a bit of pansexuality going on up there in the Great White North.
Thanks @15. You beat me to that correction. I found this episode to be both entertaining and annoying in almost equal measure.
Can we hope for online backlash strong enough that next season they will get back on track?
I find the only way I stay sane is to look at the show like an alternate universe timeline from the books. If GRRM ever gets around to finishing the books we will all be happier…fingers crossed he get’s it done before the next solar eclipse.
Black_Dread @@@@@ 10 – There was a brief reference to the fate of the Freys in a conversation between Jaime and Cersei in the premiere, as a lead-in to the alliance with Euron. (copied from Wikiquote to simplify transliteration):
But as I re-read your comment, I suspect you meant amongst people on Daenerys’ team, and yeah, I don’t think that’s happened. But I could be forgetting, too.
@2: Your last point is important. We all know Cersei has her own agenda, but what about everyone else? We saw the maesters ignore Bran’s letter because they had no proof. They won’t be able to ignore this. No one can ignore it now.
@@.-@: I actually counted the screentime for Jon’s underwater adventure. It was around 75 seconds. I can believe that. Benjen showing up without any setup is the problem.
@11: Thanks, but I couldn’t do what you do. I enjoy your recaps too much. Keep up the good work!
@14: I just want Dany to have a nice family ;)
@15: I’m assuming Dany wins the throne by conquest. Jon is her only family left, so he would be her heir.
I know what you mean, though. It’s just that in my mind the right of conquest is the most important claim. Robert won the throne from Aerys, so Robert’s family became heirs. Right now we’re in the middle of a war, so the only thing that matters is who has the biggest army and not who’s the son of some dead king (or prince).
I didn’t really think the goal of the quest was well thought out, and certainly not worth the risks that they took. But it led to some great moments between all the characters involved, especially Jon and Jorah, and Tormund and the Hound. I thought Gendry’s run was reasonable. They were ranging out of a completely different fort along the wall, didn’t seem to have traveled that far and we had been told that the dead were getting close to that fort. There did seem to be more furry redshirts during the battle scenes than there were during the travel scenes.
I can’t buy supercharged ravens, but I am willing to believe the dragons have some magical turbodrive. At first I thought those chains were to help bring down the wall, but as soon as I saw them leading into the water, I knew old blue-eyes would be back in town. I suppose he will spit ice now instead of fire.
I don’t like the interaction between Sansa and Arya; it feels like forced drama to me. As I said last week, the two of them should just talk to their omniscient brother if they want to know what Littlefinger is up to. Sending Brienne sounds like a bad idea.
And farewell Benjen, we hardly knew ye…
Oh, and two more observations:
Yet another improbable recovery from a swim in garb that would render you helpless. Once stretched credulity, twice tore it. Lets hope they don’t do that one again.
I very much enjoyed the Jon and Dany scene. Her acting was great, and I felt like we were seeing Dany behind all her barriers and royal behaviors. The spark between the two felt real and unforced to me.
A couple of comments here…
* Often I rewind the DVR to try to understand the dialog; those thick British accents and speed they say the words often make it impossible for me to understand (TRAINSPOTTING has subtitles, lol). I doubt I am the only American who frequently struggles with understanding some of the dialog.
* The dialog among the Seven was wonderful, priceless! LOL all the way.
* Next week a neutral setting for the Northern rulers to meet with the evil Lannisters; “Let’s combine forces and defeat the real enemy!”
* It was sad seeing the dragon die and fall under the ice. The Bad Guys getting a dragon was spoiled for me and those who listen to Mike & Mike early in the mornings on ESPN; dammit! Coach Herm Edwards revealed the spoiler….. tragic
@19,
“We saw the maesters ignore Bran’s letter because they had no proof. They won’t be able to ignore this. No one can ignore it now.”
Oh, they can ignore it just fine. Lets not mistake the Maester high council for men of science. Its just as political up there as the previous High Sparrow (the one before the guy who got blown up) was.
Inexplicable stupidity as a means of creating drama seems to come with the territory of this series. However, I suspect something more afoot with the Stark sisters than has been shown. One thing to keep in mind is that with their brother, Bran, now being such a font of knowledge about everything Westeros, it might make some sense for them to seek answers from him about various goings on, including what Littlefinger may be up to. If, in fact, Arya and Sansa are actually secretly conspiring to set up Littlefinger and take him out, it then makes more sense for them to have their tense conversation about the letter Sansa wrote, way back when, in a that common area of the castle to make it within earshot of Littlefinger and keep him thinking his latest plot is working. If not, then it’s just more inexplicable stupidity to create drama for its own sake.
I think Dany’s expression when Viserion was killed was spot on. My wife, who is a mother as well, agreed as seeing Dany’s expression was what started her bawling her eyes out. Watching him die on the ice and fall into the lake was just icing on the sad cake. It wasn’t a blank expression, it was the expression of someone who knows she’s suffering an unfathomable loss and has no idea how to begin processing it.
The whole “Let’s capture a wight” plot is just stupid on toast given what the goal of it was. Cersei is never going to be a faithful ally, or even merely faithless. She is going to actively plot to betray everyone else. And they all know it. I know they don’t want to turn and fight the Night King with the Iron Throne at their back ready to take advantage of them being distracted, but it’s not like Cersei is some rational actor who is only unwilling to commit to the fight because she doubts the threat. She’s unwilling to commit to the fight because she personally despises at least 1/2 of Dany’s surviving counselors and considers her remaining allies some degree of traitor.
They could have accomplished the same thing as the Freezing Seven did by just having Jon convince Dany to fly a dragon over the wall and scout it out herself. She sees the Army of the Dead, gets a bit over-confident (as she is prone to do) and loses a dragon to an ice harpoon because of it. She is willing to commit to the fight and agrees to go see Cersei to sue for peace and focus on the threat she knows is real.
@14 he’s stating quite clearly that the Freefolk will take any port in a storm.
Ignoring all the how did Gendry run that fat and how fast does a raven fly the big question is why the hell didn’t Dany take out the White Walkers when she had the chance. She had 3 dragons, she had opportunity, 2 of them could have dealt with the wights while she and Drogon nuked the Night King. Hell she could have even done that after Viserian was taken down as revenge.
I hate to be a nit picker, but I absolutely DON’T get.. I mean, every zombie fell to the ground when Jon killed the WW leader, except one. Why did that one stay alive and whole? He screamed for help and made their life more difficult, but that whole scene made me stare until my eyes crossed. What gives??
@26: It’s strongly implied in the books, and shown in the series (Hardhome), that the Others are immune to fire. You need obsidian or a Valyrian blade to kill the others. Only the wights can be destroyed by fire.
But even if we assume that the Others can be destroyed by fire, Dany would have had to be able to identify them. There’s no reason why she would have been able to.
@27: They said it in the show. All the others were made by the WW that was killed, when it died, the ones it made died too. The last one was made by another WW, and so it survived.
This may be a deliberate strategy (each WW leads their own armies but takes one from another WW so that if the WW dies they’re someone to report back) or it may just be accidental (maybe it was more a mixed force at the beginning but that WW encountered people, fought, lost a few and raised a few of the attackers to replace them).
@19, @23 Even the most compelling evidence can be ignored by those who do not want to hear it. Think of the people who stared at the sun today during the eclipse, despite being warned by scientists not to do so.
Just a reminder to please keep the tone of the discussion civil, and avoid personally-directed attacks.
Sansa sending Brienne away should be the clue to unravel this thing with Sansa and Arya.
• Sansa is very worried that Arya will reveal what she knows to the lords of the North
• Littlefinger tells Sansa that Brienne is sworn to protect both daughters. He emphasizes it.
• Littlefinger then implies that Brienne would have to intervene if one sister tried to hurt the other.
• Sansa then immediately sends Brienne away from Winterfell on a fool’s errand.
• After Brienne challenges this decision, Sansa even uses an excuse that the OP complains is “out of character.” In otherwords, a lame excuse.
These are the facts. They even mostly happened without cutting to other scenes.
Sansa sent Brienne away so she couldn’t interfere if Sansa decided to have Arya killed.
Sansa and Arya are not good people. In some ways they are as bad as the Lannisters or Littlefinger. Arya is a sociopath. Sansa is a survivor, and by that I mean at all costs. Now, we’ve gotten to see 7 years worth of reasons why they’ve become that way, so we empathize with them. But guess what? Cersei had 30+ years of crap things happening to her to make her the way she is, too. We don’t empathize with her (in the show), because she is actively against the people whose “side” we are on.
I find the situation growing between Arya and Sansa to be perfectly believable. They are essentially still children. Horribly angry and scared children, who have suffered greatly. Its right in the (on the nose) dialogue. And they didn’t particular care for each other to begin with.
Where did the Night King get chains from? Well, from either The Wall-mart, or Hard-Home Depot of course ;)
(sorry, notsorry)
Oh yeah, are we sure that that was really Brienne? Sure, she’s much taller than Arya, but then swapping faces is already some pretty powerful magic…
@18 – I was thinking everyone ought to be worried about a master assassin or band of assassins on the loose in Westerous. Why would they not be rightfully paranoid about it happening to them?
@35 – Most of the crap things that happened to Cersei were her fault. Violating her marriage and her brother’s Kingsguard vows, committing treason, adultery, and eventually murder. Those things weren’t forced on her. Sure she has daddy issues – because her daddy was sexist and he recognized that she wasn’t nearly as bright as she thinks she is.
I agree with almost all of this commentary and the comments. I gotta say though, I can’t believe that you didn’t see that Dany was looking at Jon’s ABS underneath the scars. I mean, talk about making feet sweat…Lord. The lack of balance between gratuitous female flesh and male flesh is just not fair. I demand the show make up for it in the very last season by essentially showing all the men bare-chested for every episode. It’s only right…
Apart from that, I can see that the Sansa-Arya dynamic rings sort of true to the extent that they are sisters, and no matter how mature you become, your sister will push the same buttons she pushed in you when you were ten and she was five. That is just the way it is. Take it from someone who has a sister who is four years younger with two kids, one in college…we can still have a ‘do I need to go back there?’ moment in the back seat of the car. That said, I am completely ticked off that the show has made Sansa revert to type, trusting Littlefinger when he is the one who got her into a marriage that featured rape and torture. Seriously. She should have burned him alive the minute after the first feast at Winterfell. She could have demanded his head the moment after Jon was declared King of the North — or even before that — and they would have cut him to pieces right there.
I hate that five years of character growth is just set aside so we can rush to the damned ending. That is cheating on a massive scale. We fans have forgiven them far too much for them to play dirty that way.
@39: Yeah, that scene with Sansa and LF is one of the things that makes me so uncertain about what’s going on. She’s spent all season making it clear that she doesn’t trust LF, has little use for him, etc. Yet in that scene she appears to be trusting him entirely and seeking his advice.
And that advice. What he tells her is that Brienne would be honor bound to protect both Stark girls. I think one can translate from LF-speak to interpret that 2 different ways:
1. He’s implicitly telling Sansa that she can’t order Arya’s death because Brienne will intervene. Sending Brienne to KL implies that Sansa is interpreting LF this way and is following his advice because she’s at least considering such an order.
2. He’s telling her that Brienne will protect Sansa’s life and prevent Arya from harming her, perhaps even killing Arya if necessary. If read this way, then Sansa arguably sent Brienne away to prevent Brienne from getting in the way of some other plot (perhaps involving faces).
I’m inclined to read the scene as #1, but then Arya’s harsh words to Sansa ring all too true. In addition, I’d have to conclude that the “game” here is just Arya v LF, with Sansa not involved. That’s a dangerous game, whatever else it might be.
Sansa cannot simply order for Littlefinger’s head just because she is Lady Stark, and she knows it. The Knights of the Vale are still at Winterfell, and a fight between them and the Northmen is something she doesn’t want, no matter who would win. Arya (caught) doing it would mean the same from her POV.
I think Sansa is well aware of what Littlefinger is doing, and she’s doing her best to deal with it in her own way. I’m not saying she’s handling it right, but I find it in-character for her.
@20 – Alan: I watched the episode again last night, and in the aerial shots of the travel scenes you can see the redshirts there, but a bit behind. Then there was the one they sent as a scout, etc.
@22 – kpapai: An ESPN radio show spoiled it? Gah, I had it spoiled involuntarily by another show watcher on Facebook (she’d seen the leaked episode), but to be listening to a SPORTS RADIO SHOW and have this spoiled? Talk about never expecting it…
@24 – makestuff: Arya, at least, should make use of Bran’s powers, since she also has magical powers and can believe his to be real.
@25 – SFC B: True, sometimes an unspeakable loss takes time to sink it. And about showing a wight to Cersei, I’m not entirely certain they’re banking on Cersei herself to buy it, or to others (like Jaime) to notice how horrible the situation is and kick Cersei off the throne.
@36 – phuzz: Good ones. :)
I’m so glad other people had issues with massive chains the WW had access too. It’s not like we’ve seen the Free Folk use a ton of boat anchor chains in the past. And I guess someone on the WW team is an expert in unwater recovery to tie the chains around the dragons neck.
Then the director of the episodes hand waves away the timeline talk. What an added insult to the collative intelligence of the fans. When there were so many simple story line / story telling changes that could have made all this so much more logical.
But I guess Dany’s dragons are Pern Dragons and can teleport.
And Gendry wins the race of the fastest cold run in history. All that walking and talking sure slowed the guys down.
Re: hats – the lack of hats on people in the north and beyond the wall has been an issues since the show started. The only justification for it has been “it’s hard to see the actor’s face.” Much like why the generals are not wearing helmets in the battles. It’s stupid, but it is Hollywood.
The one good thing we get from Brienne being sent south, is the possibility that Tormund is on the boat with John too. We might get a reunion between those two.
But could someone take a minute to send an update to Winterfell?
Ugh is that place driving me mad. Even if Sansa does need the Knights of the Veil, the show is doing a poor job of indicating she is playing Little Finger.
Regarding running, raven and dragon speeds, I saw the director commenting to the effect that “hey, this is fantasy, don’t sweat the small stuff.” But good fantasy establishes rules, and then sticks to them. Without some rigor, the whole story falls apart and suspension of disbelief is lost.
As an FYI, the season finale will be called “The Dragon and the Wolf.” And it will run for just over 79 minutes, making it the longest GoT episode ever.
@Theresa:
I read today that one of the movie theatre franchises here will show the last episode of this season on the big screen, on monday evening, approximately 10hrs later than the US showing For free.
Too bad they are not in my city…
Could Sansa and Arya work together and just pretend because they know that Littlefinger is watching them. It is not Aryas thing to do but it would be the only thing that would safe this illocical storyline.
@@@@@ 44: Exactly!
So Instead of my usual ranting about the show, which I guess upsets some people (even though it is possible to be critical of things you like after all) and let’s be honest, most of it has already been said, lol, what I want to talk about in this comment is how a minor change of scenes would work so much better, IMO of course. This is in response to those who have been saying that I shouldn’t worry about the fast travel or teleportation or whatever you want to call it.
So remember the conversation Jon has with Jorah about how Jon knew Jorah’s father and that Longclaw, the Mormont family sword should belong to Jorah? Why did Jon wait until they were north of the wall to have this conversation with Jorah? They were on a boat together for a couple of weeks sailing from Dragonstone to Eastwatch, correct? So why not have a scene with Jon and Jorah on the boat having said conversation? Not only would it make more sense for them to have this conversation during this time but it would also show that they indeed took a boat to Eastwatch and some time has passed. And yes, I realize this would require them to film an additional scene with Kit and Iain on a different set (I’m sure they could use one of the interior ship sets from the ironborn scenes) but come on, this is Game of Fucking Thrones, not some low budget network TV show.
And there was a similar scene on Dragonstone, back in episode 2 I believe, where Dany asks Varys about his motivations for wanting to serve her. Why wait until reaching DS to ask these questions? They were on a boat together for months sailing from Meereen to Dragonstone, why not have this conversation then? Again, this is a scene that could have been used to establish that there was indeed some travel time. It certainly would have felt more organic, IMO of course, then just teleporting to Dragonstone. But what do I know, I’m just an amateur writer and not one of two big time Hollywood producers/screen writers with masterpieces like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Troy to my credit.
I do however feel somewhat vindicated that at least some of the people who were telling me the last few weeks that travel time doesn’t matter were right there with me this week saying WTF GoT?
And I just can’t help myself so I am going to end this with one small rant. It sure is a good thing that there was a Home Depot on the way from Hardholm to the wall where the NK could pick up a couple of really big chains.
A couple of things:
1. Didn’t Jon, after being resurrected, say he could no longer feel the cold? I assumed that was how he made it back alive, in a situation that would have killed anyone else. I may be misremembering this though.
2. Sansa and Arya are acting strange to me, like OOC, and that generally signals that either the writing sucks or that they’re purposefully acting weird and we’re supposed to notice that. I am hoping that they are acting together to try to fool Littlefinger, but I’m not sure to what end. I’m also hoping that that dagger that was passed from LF to Bran then to Arya then to Sansa ends up back in LF next episode as a way of symbolizing all the remaining Starks rejecting him.
@48:
I guess we all have different tolerances for what we are willing to believe. Since I was purposely vague, let me state for the record that I honestly didn’t care about the “timeline inconsistencies” (as the director put it). In fact, I recently watched a video with the hosts going on and on about how fast a raven can fly, the imaginary speed of a dragon and how long it takes for water to freeze. It was certainly amusing, but kinda silly when you think about it.
Ultimately I watch this show for the characters. I want to see what happens to these fake people I’ve grown attached to. If nothing jumps out at me, I can easily suspend my disbelief. What bothers me most is when their actions don’t translate well. Or when the writers/directors/actors fail to portray something they wanted.
For example, when Dany arrived Jon was busy fighting wights because apparently they wanted to show him as “the guy who falls on the grenade” but that’s not what it looked like to me. That scene with Longclaw was touching and it’s definitely something Jon would do, it just didn’t make sense at that specific moment. Both of those scenes made him look like an idiot. I didn’t even mention Winterfell, but that was weird too.
@49,
Bran gave that dagger to Arya knowing exactly how it would be used. Its his thing these days to see everything. That dagger will not end up in Sansa’s back or cutting Arya’s throat. Littlefinger will get it back the hard way.
So AGAIN this week I say:
WHY are we going after a group of wrights when all we need is A DEAD BODY, tied up, caged up, and ready to turn?? Before it might have been a question of honor because you’d have to sentence someone to death, but after the undead polar bears took out some stunt men??? NO. YOU HAD BODIES JON. YOU EVEN BOTHERED TO MENTION THAT THE RED PRIEST SHOULD BE BURNED. WTF.
Also, upon viewing the undead polar bear scene, all I could think was, “Wow. this is a massive waste of money and time. Why is this in here?” And of course D&D answered that, “Just because we thought it was cool.” Uh, okay. Your VFX people were right. That was dumb and pointless, if you weren’t gonna do the above. Which you clearly weren’t because that would MAKE SENSE and not be “cool.”
Where is Ghost? We can afford stupid undead bears, but not ghost, WHY?
Arya and Sansa…..SIGH. Okay, as someone who has siblings and knows that siblings WILL keep near irrational grudges about stuff that happened literal decades ago as kids (especially between two sibs that haven’t seen each other since those days), I will say this nonsense DOES make sense.
That doesn’t mean I have to like it, and I don’t. If you build Sansa and Arya up to have learned a lot from the hard-knocks school, especially in the areas of A. Not trusting Littlefinger and B. Knowing when someone is lying, then having these two ignore that to bicker is ABSURD. Especially when they are deliberately leaving things out that would explain their stance further (IE “You don’t know what I went through.” NO, so explain it!). I HATE those writing tropes. “Cat” fighting and lack of talking just to make women at odds in story. So much hate for that. It goes against these character’s arcs. There is no reason Sansa, who even told Arya straight away that she doesn’t like Littlefinger, would go to LF for advice. She would go to Brienne! UGH. I do not think she sent Brienne away to spare Arya, because of the scene with the two fighting and enjoying it. I don’t think there is a larger A+S plot either, because I just don’t have faith in these writers to do the proper thing with female characters, and there is no reason to “fake fight” in Arya’s chambers.
I also don’t think either understand Bran’s true power, but I DON’T understand why they aren’t spending more time with him. That castle has to be boring as hell most hours…I would sure as hell hole up with my crazy bro who can accurately predict things, just to see what else comes out of him.
The Dany and Jon scene felt better. Apparently Arts’n’Crafts cave painting is the way to a Dragon Mom’s heart.
Jon is an extra idiot for having NO DRAGONGLASS even though they had clearly already mined some. Shards are better than nothing, and they certainly had sailing time to do makeshift weapons. If fire works too, then why was everyone not shown the fire sword trick? Why not ask Bran for help locating a small group of wrights, if you believe his abilities? I’m sorry, I just really hated this episode. Stupid, ill written, and massive plot holes before you even discuss teleportation.
I suspect Dany’s infertility is because of her dragon blood – she’s effectively a sub-species of human and can’t breed with plain humans. I think that’s why Targ.s married their siblings – those that had proper dragon blood couldn’t have children with anyone else, and it just evolved into a custom. In which case, Dany probably could have children with Snow, as he’s secretly half Targ. Which would unite the two kingdoms under one rule with their offspring. So planting the whole “I can’t have kids” thing is setting up for a payoff at the end of the saga. I wonder if Snow burns easily?
They could have solved the inconsistencies utilizing Bran and his ‘growing’ magic powers. Magic overcomes the mundane. He could easily have been the reason Daenerys was there at the right time.
Same logic could work for Ben being there at the right time.
The last grounding of my ‘suspension of disbelief’ for the episode are the giant metal chains which are so conveniently handy. And yet the undead army has no equipment other than what a zombie army would be expected to have. If you look closely the walkers have intricate equipment, not to mention some amazing magic… which were made somewhere. A simple panorama earlier in the show of a fortress used by the walkers that had big chains on the gates could have tied this all together.
So will the ice dragon have a freeze ray? Or some kind of funky flames that melt the Wall?
Black Dread @55:
I thought about this. It could be just as simple as that dragon breathing Freeze Rays at the sea around the Eastern end of the Wall at Eastwatch, and the Night King and Friends simply walk around the Wall, over the ice..
to #16 – @14, Legend/rumor had it that Tormund had sex with a bear once, so probably a bit of pansexuality going on up there in the Great White North.
This reminds me of the old joke about the fellow who went beyond the Wall and asked what he could do to be accepted among the Wildings. “Well,” they said, “You have to drink a whole skin of Blue Ruin, then kill a polar bear and then make love to a White Walker woman.”
“Cool beans,” he said, “lemme chug that.” Then he staggers out, and then….a day or so later, he comes back, all beat to hell and then some.
“What happened?” they ask.
“Dunno,” he said. “Now, where’s that White Walker woman I’m supposed to kill?”
@@@@@ 52
Random dead bodies don’t become wights. You need a White Walker/Other to use his magic to raise the body. So it’s not a matter of picking a dead body and waiting until something naturally happened. Your plan would need the heroes to pick a body and then take it to a white walker so he could raise it, which is dumb, because that would make one more enemy to defeat (in the show’s episode, x number of wights and 1 white walker, in you scenario x+1 number of wights and 1 white walker).
See, for example, Small Paul in A Storm of Swords. He didn’t become a wight immediately after the Other killed him. He came for Sam (and Gilly, and the baby) much later. Presumably he had been raised by a White Walker.
When the Night King touched Bran during one of Bran’s vision quests, the Night King became able to track Bran. The magic that kept the 3 eyed raven’s cave hidden vanished (or at least not effective against the Night King). A popular theory is this created some type of link. Further, the link would allow the Night King to cross the Wall now that Bran has crossed it.
I have a theory that is related to the above popular theory. This link between Bran and the Night King will allow Bran to warg into animals that the Night King have raised from the dead (the ones with blue eyes). I cannot recall if Bran ever warged a blue eyed dead creature. My theory is that Bran would not normally be able to warg such a creature. However, the link he has with the Night King is a two way link. I cannot believe that it only has an advantage to the Night King. At a crucial time in the battle between the living and the dead, Bran will warg Viserion. Bran will then take control of Viserion and turn him against the White Walkers and the army of the dead.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
@56: I bet D&D would not do something so logical or simple as have the new Ice Dragon freeze the walkway.
I just know one of the set pieces they have stuck in their head is showing part of the 700 foot wall shattering. I just hope they don’t imply the whole thing comes down because of one breach.
Hoping to get to this and through the comments before the season finale tonight! I’m definitely sad that the season is already over, if for no other reason I miss the commentary.
I agree that this was not one of the best episodes, but I am a little biased in that the big fight scenes never really do it for me, and I find a lot of the stuff beyond the wall and with the Night King the least interesting part of the plot (even if it’s arguably the point of the whole thing). Plus, I was seriously distracted by the fact that there were suddenly a bunch of redshirts to be mauled/torn apart by wights wnenever they wnated to increase the stakes, but not kill a ‘real’ character (aside from Thoros, whose death affected me…not that much).
Also – as somebody who lives in Wisconsin, where it can get QUITE cold – WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY WEAR HATS???? And how far exactly did Gendry run??? First they’re saying he’s never even SEEN snow, but apparently he can run through it? Not to mention that cold air is VERY hard on the lungs.
It was also a little hard to believe Jon managing to find his way back to the surface in those heavy furs, to say nothing of not dying within minutes of hypothermia.
That said, my heart actually stopped a bit when I thought they would get Tormund! They really let that go on a bit too long! While on one hand I respect Brienne’s right to choose who she wants to be with (if she wants to be with anybody at all), Tormund’s affection for her is somehow heartwarming. Maybe just because it’s nice to see somebody admire her for who she is and recognize her awesomeness.
The strength in this episode was definitely all the little conversations between the characters (especially any that involved Sandor. They’ve done something really hilarious with his character that I think in some ways the books won’t quite live up to).
I had a feeling as soon as we saw the Night King with his spears that the dragon was going to be wighted, so the ending shot wasn’t really a surprise at all, except for wondering where they got the chains.
I guess they really are going there with Jon + Dany. Most frustrating to me is that when she finally realizes she has to help them, he STILL bends the knee. I suppose you could say it’s because he realizes she is a leader who will fight her for her people, but…eh. It still felt unearned.
OMG ARYA STAAAHP! I don’t care for Sansa as much as the showrunners do, but she is 100% right in saying Arya never would have survived the abuses she did – if for no other reason than she wouldn’t know how to suffer in silence. Maybe she’d ‘fight back’ but that would just get her killed immediately. And she has no idea what Sansa went through so it’s pretty rich of her to throw those accusations at her. Not to mention that (thanks to the internet) if you look at the screencaps from the first episode, Sansa wasn’t just standing their smiling. So GTFO Arya…honestly, my estimation of her character/intelligence has taken a huge dive in these past few episodes. Littlefinger is playing her like a fiddle. Unless there’s some other big reveal coming, but their meetings seemed pretty private and not for show. Although she did hand the dagger back to her – if that means anything, we will have to see.
I am still a bit unclear on exactly what was going on with Littlefinger/Sansa/Brienne and what he was trying to get out of it; presumably Brienne getting sent away is good for Littlefinger, so I guess the idea here was that he manipulated Sansa into sending her away so Arya wouldn’t try to use her against Sansa? Although my first thought was actually that since she saw that Arya was able to best her, she sent her away so that Arya wouldn’t end up killing her.
I did really love the story about Ned watching Arya shoot and her musings that the world doesn’t really take girls’ dreams into account…but then she kind of plays right into that by dumping all over Sansa and disregarding what she has gone through (even if she doens’t know all of it).
I agree that Tyrion DOES raise an interesting question about what Dany intends her legacy to be…
@53 – but we know she had a baby with Drogo. Not to mention Rhaegar having children with both Elia and Lyanna. I thought her infertility was basically the result of the blood magic/Mirri’s curse.
One other thing I forgot to mention – Sandor throwing the rock and starting all the trouble reminded me of Pippin’s stone going down the well in Lord of the Rings. Fool of a Took :)
@@@@@ 61
Yes, Arya’s archery story is good with one exception, it goes against what we saw back in the very first episode of this show. In the very first scene inside Winterfell Bran is learning how to shoot a bow and Ned is watching. Bran can’t even hit the target and then Arya appears with bow in hand and hits the bullseye. So Arya is already a master archer when Bran is learning. D&D can’t even be bothered to be consistent in their own show.
But then again we got a look into just how D&D write this show in the Inside the Episode segment. They came up with the big shocking ending (and let’s be honest D&D are all about their big shocking moments) of a dragon getting turned into a wight. Then they worked backwards from there. So they come up with the wight hunt and get the magnificent seven up north of the wall. And so they come up with this idea to have our heroes surrounded by wights but then they have this problem of how to keep the magnificent seven from getting over run by the army of the dead. So they come up with the frozen lake with an island in it and the wights breaking through the ice and not being able to get to the island. But then that meant that when the dragon is killed it has to fall through the ice into the lake that they put there and now they need to come up with a way to get the dragon out of the water. So then they come up with the chains because why the fuck not.
So basically what they do is come up with an idea and then throw band aids on any problems that come up along the way instead of letting the story unfold organically. All D&D care about is their big shocking moments and they don’t care how they get to their big shocking moments as long as they get their big shocking moments.
@63 – I assumed that her story was BEFORE that incident.
But we already know they can’t keep things straight, since Arya’s own recollection of Sansa’s demeanor at Ned’s execution is totally wrong! (Unless they are implying Arya herself can’t keep things strength and is blinded by her bias against Sansa).
Arya was not wrong about Sansa leading up to Ned’s death. Like the rest of the lords and ladies at the sept, Sansa thought that Ned was going to be spared, and she believed that she’d played a role in saving his life. Arya didn’t see Sansa’s breakdown afterward because Yoren blocked her view.
As for Arya not surviving what Sansa went through, of course she wouldn’t have. But Sansa wouldn’t have survived what Arya went through either.
@55 Black_Dread:
A freeze ray. Which the Night King activates by saying “dracar-ice”
~lakesidey
@64 – Lisamarie: Someone else made me realize this: Arya straight up tells Sansa that the Faceless men play a game where they boldfacedly lie to someone, etc, etc. Then she proceeds to lie to Sansa about seeing her not react when they killed their father, and about wondering what it would be like to wear the pretty dresses (we know Arya never wondered about that).
Hmmm…so that could be her giving her a hint (and if you believe that this fight was staged for an outsider’s benefit – which I’m not sure I really believe – also a way to fight ‘believably’). That’s somewhat similar to my thought in the next episode where Sansa pretends to come to the conclusion that Arya is doing it to be the Lady of Winterfell. Because she knows Arya would not want that.
“He very obviously did have time to hop back on the horse with Jon. “
But he had to hold the White Walkers off so that Jon could ride away.