T w e n t y S i d e d

I’ve finished moving! Our long national nightmare is over. This episode picks up right after the last one left off, with Jaime and Bronn somewhere outside King’s Landing.

It’s the aftermath of the battle between the Lannister and Targaryen/Dothraki armies. Jaime and Bronn have managed to swim downstreamApparently they can both hold their breath longer than Guybrush Threepwood. and escape. Jaime is, understandably, a little pessimistic at this point about the chances of a Lannister victory in this war. But hey, at least he’s alive. Now it’s time for the big-ticket Dragon scene, where we can ask an important question about Queen Daenerys:

Is Daenerys Targaryen Still Meant to be a Sympathetic Character?

Because if you showed someone this episode as their first ever exposure to Game of Thrones, that person would probably assume that Dany is meant to be the villain of the show. And even those of us who have been watching since the beginning could be forgiven a bit of confusion. Because the show takes every opportunity to sing her praises – Missandei gushes about how Daenerys is the “Queen we chose,” Jon tells Davos that she has a “good heart,” and Varys monologues at length about how she’s best choice for Westeros.

But her actions so far have been the actions of a tyrant. When justifying her own right to rule, she’s referenced her birthright and nothing else. Neither she nor any of her advisers have even briefly mentioned any concrete way in which she’d be an improvement for the common people of Westeros. And upon meeting another Westerosi ruler (Jon), she wasted no time in making a captive of him and demanding he bend the knee.

Her speech to the defeated Lannister troops sums this problem up nicely. First, she says “All I want to destroy is the wheel that has rolled over rich and poor to the benefit of no one but the Cersei Lannisters of the world.” Aha! A reference to her “break the wheel” speech. A populist angle, a reformist angle. Perhaps she can offer something that other monarchs haven’t? A more egalitarian approach, maybe? But no, the very next thing she says is “I offer you a choice: bend the knee and join me – together, we will leave the world a better place than we found it. Or refuse, and die.”

“Break the wheel” and “bend the knee or die” are not compatible. One promises freedom from the iron machinery of feudalism, the other is the choice given to a slave. A bit ironic from the supposed breaker of chains – just to drive it home, there are two separate references to “chains” in this scene’s dialogue.

Note that this is not an example of a morally “grey” character. This is an example of a morally self-contradictory character. This is an example of a character who actions say one thing, but whose in-universe description by other characters says something completely different. It’s almost as if the showrunners want us to root for her, but also think that it’s totally cool and badass when she has her dragons burn people alive, and they don’t know or care how to reconcile these two conflicting goals.

That’s what it seems like. But maybe it’s something more? Tyrion and Varys have a bit of a heart-to-heart afterwards, as neither of them has failed to notice how often their wonderful, caring young Queen has to be successfully or unsuccessfully talked out of burning small or large groups of people to death. I should note that this episode was written by Dave Hill, who writes dialogue much better than Benioff and Weiss do.

It’s possible that this is leading somewhere. Perhaps they could be setting a real, interesting conflict between Daenerys’ stated ideals and her impulsive, brutal actions. Characters have mentioned several times the possibility of her making Westeros a “better place” or some similar phrase – perhaps we’ll get some practical details about what exactly that would entail?

Maybe if I still trusted this show I could believe that. But I suspect that Daenerys’ supposed superiority over the typical Westerosi ruler is going to continue to be an informed quality rather than one demonstrated by her actions. I guess we’ll find out. In the meantime, there are other important questions to be answered, like:

In the Show, Do People Need to Eat Food to Live, or Not?

You might think that the answer is obviously “yes,” since people need to eat food to live in real life, so presumably the same is true in Game of Thrones. But now I’m not so sure. Up until now, when it came to questions like “what is your giant army going to eat,” the show hasn’t really bothered with them. I didn’t particularly like that, but at least it was consistent.

But lately, the writers have been foregrounding logistical issues in a way they haven’t before. Last episode Dany complained that she wouldn’t be able to feed her army without the food from the Reach. Then, the Lannister army took “all” (maybe not all all, but at the very least a lot) of the food from that same Reach and loaded it onto wagons, with Bronn dispatched make sure the local farmers gave up everything. Then, we specifically learned that the wagons with the gold made it into the city but the wagons with the food didn’t.

Then, we saw Daenerys and Drogon set fire to a whole lot of wagons. Many, including myself, wondered “weren’t those wagons full of food? The same type of food that people need to eat to live?” And this episode, Jaime reveals that Drogon burned a thousand of them. A thousand seems like a lot. We the viewers are given no clue as to whether a thousand wagons worth of food being burned is important or not.

And don’t you dare tell me I’m nitpicking. Not this time. It was Dany herself, just last episode, that brought up the issue of her Dothraki army, which has thousands of both people and horses, needing to eat. It was Tyrion himself who came up with the plan of starving King’s Landing into submission.In Tyrion’s ethical calculus, starving a city is preferable to attacking that city’s castle with dragons. The show has been trying to convince us that food supplies are important, then it burns a thousand wagons full of food and no one even comments or speculates on what the consequences of this will be.

Again, maybe this will all be justified somehow later, but I doubt it.

Bran’s Ability to Know Everything Finally Comes in Handy

Bran wargs into a flock of ravens and uses them to scout the Army of the Dead.

They are… somewhere north of the Wall. They’re somewhere north of the wall, marching south, just like they’ve been doing this whole time. But for some reason, now it’s become urgent enough to send ravens all over the world, including to Dragonstone, King’s Landing, and the Citadel.

But nevermind that, because it’s time for Arya and Sansa to have a conflict. Let me see if I can explain this conflict in a way that doesn’t make it sound ridiculous. The northern lords (and Lord Royce) are griping that Jon’s been gone too long. They seem to raise the possibility of Sansa being put in charge permanently. Good lord. If you’re politically ambitious, Winterfell is the place to be, because this lot will coronate a new monarch at the drop of a hat. Sansa better not come down with the flu or anything, or by the time she gets better we’ll all be slaving away in the salt mines under the iron fist of King Hot Pie.

Sansa shuts this down, because it’s ridiculous, but Arya seems to think she didn’t shut it down hard enough or something. Sansa tries to explain. “Glover has five hundred men, Royce has two thousand, offend them and Jon loses his army.” But Arya isn’t buying it. “Not if they lose their heads first.” So apparently Arya thinks that “the King in the North should stay in the North” is an insult worthy of beheading? And if you behead these two, their armies will just be fine with it? The other lords won’t object to their interim ruler nicking off the heads of their peers over politely worded objections?

Then Arya essentially implies that Sansa doesn’t want Jon to come back. I guess. “You’re thinking about it right now,” she says. You know how if I tell you not to think about elephants, the first thing you think of is elephants? Arya’s rather cleverly pulled this trick to get Sansa to think of the thing that Arya doesn’t want her to think about. Checkmate!

This all seems too nakedly contrived for me to even have an opinion on who’s right or wrong.I mean, on the merits, Arya is completely wrong, and acting childish to boot. But this won’t even be the first time this episode that an idea that’s terrible on the merits is taken seriously. The writers want an Arya vs. Sansa conflict, so we’re going to get one, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not. This is only confirmed when Littlefinger steers Arya into finding some message in his room.

The message has been signed by Sansa. I have no idea what it could be. Who would she be writing to in secret? And why would Littlefinger have it? The Maester mentions that it’s an old message, so maybe it’s from a previous season. I guess we’ll find out. Littlefinger seems to want Arya and Sansa pitted against each other. Why? Because he’s Littlefinger, and this is the sort of thing he does when he’s not lurking in his designated lurking spot.

Jon’s Stupid Plan

In order to prove to Cersei that the Army of the Dead is real, we’ll need a captured wight. The newly returned Ser Jorah volunteers to get one, but Jon insists that he go along too. “I’m the only one here who’s fought them,” he says. But he’s not the only one who’s fought them period. Tormund has. So have the numerous Wildling and Night’s Watch survivors that made it safely away from the battle at Hardhome. But never mind them, let’s just send the King in the North on a dangerous commando mission when there are plenty of other people who could go.

So all Jon has to do is travel from Dragonstone, to Eastwatch, and then north of the wall, capture a wight, and then travel back south to King’s Landing to show it to Cersei, and then back to the north, in less time than it takes for the Army of the Dead to reach the wall. On this show? Perfectly feasible. This also presents an opportunity for Dany to give both Jon and Jorah lots of worried looks. I would feel bad for her if I hadn’t just watched her burn two people alive without blinking earlier this episode.

Finally, Jon makes his way north, where he hooks up with the Hound and Company. Everyone recognizes everyone else, and lots of them have bad blood with each other. Nonetheless, Jon reminds them that they’re all on the same side, because they’re all “still breathing.” As rousing calls for action go, it’s not exactly the St. Crispin’s Day speech, but I actually liked that one line in particular. It reminds me of the books, where Jon frequently has to remind people of the stakes of the conflict they’re in – literally the living vs. the dead – using similar arguments.

And just like that, they’re off wight-hunting. By the way, Davos collected Gendry along the way, his lats toned and supple from three seasons of rowing.

And that’s pretty much it. I skipped the Citadel and most of King’s Landing because practically nothing happened. We learned that Cersei is pregnant, and plans to acknowledge Jaime publicly as the father, because if she could blow up the Sept and half the government without anyone caring, who’s gonna object to a little bit of brother-sister incest?

Stuff That Should Never Have Made It Past an Editor

I figured I would give this topic it’s own mini-section to avoid derailing the review proper too often.

• When Randyll Tarly says that he already has a Queen, Tyrion responds: “My sister. She wasn’t your queen until recently though, was she? Until she murdered your rightful Queen, and destroyed House Tyrell for all time.” The “rightful Queen” he refers to could only have been Lady Olenna, right? But she’s not a Queen, is she? I mean, come on. This is a feudal system of government. The distinction between “Queen” and “not Queen” is important.
• “I thought Arya was dead,” Jon says upon receiving the message from Winterfell. “I thought Bran was dead.” Okay, Bran I guess I can give him. In fact, Jon knew he was alive, but Bran was north of the wall, which is a dangerous place, and hadn’t been heard from in a while. So maybe Jon assumed the worst. But Arya? Arya was last seen by Brienne, who told Sansa she was in the company of “a man”It’s not clear if Brienne actually didn’t recognize the Hound, or if she was concealing his identity for some reason.. Did Sansa not tell Jon about that? Unlike with Bran, there was no particular reason for Jon to think Arya was dead.
• This isn’t specific to only this episode, and I know people get tired of travel time complaints, but this one is too egregious for me not to mention. Below is a map of Westeros. The tiny red arrow at the very top (look carefully) is the amount of distance covered by the Army of the Dead – which, remember, doesn’t need to eat or sleep – over the course of nearly two seasons.

Random Observations

• Davos “smuggles” Tyrion into King’s Landing – by rowing onto a beach in plain view in broad daylight. Damn, smuggling must be an easy trade in those parts. And did they really travel from Dragonstone to King’s Landing in a rowboat? These Westerosi really take their back workouts seriously.
• “Never betray me again,” says Cersei at the end of her scene with Jaime. I think I must have missed something? Did he betray her? Was she referring to his meeting with Tyrion? Because he was tricked into that meeting, and Cersei knows that – and even if he hadn’t been, I don’t get how that would be a betrayal. I mean, he told her about the meeting right after it happened. That line just confused me.
• Gilly, while reading the accounts of Septon Whatshisname’s bowel movements, notices that he annulled the marriage of one “Prince Raggar.” I assume she’s mispronouncing “Rhaegar” here. Pretty big deal if so, though Sam doesn’t seem to notice and decides instead to loot the restricted section of the library and then skedaddle. I don’t actually know if this will come up later or not. In the show, Jon’s parentage doesn’t really matter that much anymore. I almost think it would just be a distraction at this point.
• I know not everyone is interested in historically accurate weapons and so forth. But geez, Gendry’s hammer is comically overlarge. And why is he back on this show, anyway? To hit things with a big hammer? They spent a lot of screen time on him. Were they getting sick of the rowboat jokes?

Well, that’ll do it for this episode. I’ll see you all next week.

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.