{"id":37738,"date":"2017-03-24T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T11:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=37738"},"modified":"2017-09-08T13:18:43","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T17:18:43","slug":"game-of-thrones-griping-8-the-battle-of-the-bastards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=37738","title":{"rendered":"Game of Thrones Griping 8: The Battle of the Bastards"},"content":{"rendered":"
This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.<\/div>\n

And now, the big-ticket ninth-episode extravaganza: the Battle of the Bastards.<\/p>\n

I want to focus on this episode in particular because it was absolutely showered in Emmy Awards. It won in nine different categories. Some of these are obviously deserved, like “Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Drama Series, Limited Series or Movie.” I have no issue with “Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series” – if you ask me, the show has revealed Miguel Sapochnik to be a real talent.<\/p>\n

Others I wouldn’t know one way or the other. “Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series”? Sure, why not. “Outstanding Makeup for a Single-Camera Series (Non-Prosthetic)”? Knock yourselves out. But this episode also won “Oustanding Writing for a Drama Series,” meaning that as far as the Emmys are concerned, this was the best-written episode of dramatic television released all year.<\/p>\n

The calm before the giant pile of corpses.<\/div>
The calm before the giant pile of corpses.<\/div><\/p>\n

The northern portion of this episode starts pretty well, actually. There’s an appropriately tense parlay between the two sides, where Jon throws Ramsay a bit of a curveball by proposing single combat, a proposal apparently calculated to make Ramsay lose face in front of his men. Every so often, the show gives us a glimpse of the much more interesting Jon Snow that could’ve been, and this is one of them. Don’t get attached though, because Jon’s basic competency level is going to go sharply downhill from here.<\/p>\n

For example, in the pre-battle planning meeting, Jon has a rather iffy-sounding plan to counter the Bolton cavalry: “We’re digging trenches all along our flanks.” I’m not an expert in medieval tactics, but I could never quite figure out how this was supposed to work. Couldn’t they just go around your trenches, and attack you from a different direction? Or attack you while you’re digging them?<\/p>\n

Whatever the logic is, as near as I can tell they never got around to actually digging the things. I looked at all the wide and aerial shots of the battle I could and couldn’t find anything that looked like a trench anywhere. It may be a good thing that they forgot, because later when the Vale knights show up I’m pretty sure they ride right over where the trenches would have been. I know this is not a major plot point, but why spend so much time talking about what tactics you’re going to use when they either don’t make sense, you’re not actually going to use them, or both?<\/p>\n

Then Sansa gives Jon a hard time about not asking her advice about Ramsay, even though nothing was preventing her from speaking in the meeting and, when pressed, she admits she doesn’t have any specific advice anyway. The show reminds us again that there’s an entire other army waiting in the wings that Sansa doesn’t want to tell Jon about. To me, Sansa’s decision to withhold this information is one of the most bewildering aspects of this whole situation. Every time they call attention to it just makes the whole thing seem less real.<\/p>\n

This show is very dark. I mean that literally. Trying to find screenshots of some of the interior scenes where you can actually see what's happening is surprisingly difficult.<\/div>
This show is very dark. I mean that literally. Trying to find screenshots of some of the interior scenes where you can actually see what's happening is surprisingly difficult.<\/div><\/p>\n

Well, the foreplay is over, and now it’s time for the battle – and for Ramsay to start the proceedings by using Rickon Stark as target practice.<\/p>\n

\n

I haven’t been sure where to bring this up, so I’m bringing it up here. While watching season six I never understood why no one seemed to notice the significance of Rickon being alive. Remember that as far as the general public knows, Rickon and Bran are both dead. The Warren Commission version of events is that they were killed by Theon when the Ironborn controlled Winterfell.<\/p>\n

And yet, on learning of the existence of a living, breathing Rickon, complete with a corroborating direwolf head, no single character ever says anything like “wait, I thought he was supposed to be dead,” or “if Rickon is still alive, doesn’t that open up the possibility that Bran is alive, too?” They’re the only remaining trueborn male children of Ned Stark. For as many times the show has told us that Sansa is the key to the North, you’d think that would be important.<\/p>\n

But it never gets brought up. Even Lyanna Mormont, characterized up to this point primarily by her loyalty to the Starks, seems completely uninterested when Jon tells her that Rickon is Ramsay’s prisoner. Both Sansa and Jon know, independently, that Bran is aliveSansa had it from Theon, and Jon learned it during the confrontation with the mutineers at Craster’s Keep.<\/span>. And yet neither of them mentions to each other or anyone else that they have an additional living brother.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The sight of his brother in mortal peril inspires Jon to pick up one of the biggest idiot balls<\/a> this show has ever seen. Despite being told the night before that Rickon was in danger, and possibly beyond saving, despite being warned that Ramsay liked to play psychological games with his opponents, despite, in effect, being told that this exact thing or something like it was going to happen, Jon charges off like his family’s sigil is a stone-grey Leroy Jenkins rampant on a white field.<\/p>\n

Look, I know Jon’s not supposed to exactly be a genius, but there’s a certain threshold of blockheadedness that I’m not comfortable seeing my protagonists exceed. A human foible here and there can humanize a character, but when a predictable dick move by an opponent who’s famous for his dick moves makes you want to 1v6,000 an entire army, in direct contradiction of the plan you were supposed to follow… well, I can’t maintain the same level of sympathy and engagement with someone like that.<\/p>\n

Jon’s brilliant “do everything I was explicitly warned against doing” strategy works out about as well as you’d expect:<\/p>\n

I know it LOOKS bad, but at least our outfits are color-coordinated.<\/div>
I know it LOOKS bad, but at least our outfits are color-coordinated.<\/div><\/p>\n

I don’t mean to gloss over the impressiveness of the battle scene. Like I said, the direction is generally solid.Even if I do wish that just once they would put the main character in a helmet. Even the Bolton archers are wearing more head protection than Jon is. I’m not asking for full-blown historical recreation here. Just put a helmet on the guy.<\/span> Before long, the good guys are enclosed on one side by a giant pile of corpses and on the other three sides by a highly disciplined tower-shield-and-pike sorta formation.You can tell they’re highly disciplined because they go “hoo, hoo, hoo” while they do everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

All seems lost at this point, and there’s an impressively sweaty-palmed sequence where Jon nearly suffocates under a stampede of bodies. Then it’s time for the dramatic turnaround, as the Vale knights crest a nearby hill and plow into the back of Ramsay’s forces, scattering them and winning the battle at a stroke.<\/p>\n

Littlefinger owes the advantage of surprise here to his unique reality-bending powers. Much has been made of his “jetpack,” the fandom’s pet explanation for his ability to hop, skip, and jump across the continent in the space of a single episode. While Littlefinger’s jetpack does bother meIt creates the impression that Westeros is roughly the size of Disneyland.<\/span>, it has nothing on his piece de resistance<\/em>: his ability to park an entire army inside a Bolton castle for half a season without any of the Boltons even noticing.<\/p>\n

It was “The Door,” (episode five) when Littlefinger first informed Sansa that the Knights of the Vale were “encamped at Moat Caelin as we speak.” Moat Caelin – the castle that the show has repeatedly reminded us is a vital strategic chokepoint between north and south. Moat Caelin that the Boltons control. We know they control it because we saw them take it – in fact, it was Theon, on Ramsay’s orders, who negotiated the castle’s surrender.<\/p>\n

And yet apparently no one in the Bolton camp thinks it strange that thousands of not-Bolton soldiers are staying there. Certainly Ramsay never mentions it, and no one mentions it to him either. Did Littlefinger take<\/em> the castle? Taking Moat Caelin from the south is supposed to be impossible. It seems like a bit much to have it happen offscreen and be completely unremarked upon. The closest thing to a plausible explanation I could come up with was that the Boltons just abandoned it after going to such lengths to take it. Again, though: vital strategic chokepoint.<\/p>\n

That’s not the extent of the Vale knights’ ninja-like abilities, either. Later, Sansa writes a letter to Littlefinger, presumably finally asking for his aid, and he’s able to march the same army through hundreds of miles of Bolton territory undetected. Ramsay seems completely caught off guard when they show up. Did no one see this lot clomping their way up the Kingsroad? Keeping thousands of men and horses fed, watered, and pointed in the same direction is kind of a hassle as I understand it. Surely someone would have noticed.<\/p>\n

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be confused by all this. In past seasons the show has operated on the premise that the commanders of armies try to keep track of where other armies are. Remember they tidy bait-and-switch Robb Stark played on the Lannisters? Or the fact that Jon and Ramsay’s armies each had rough intelligence on the other’s size, composition, and location? Littlefinger, as usual, operates outside these boundaries, and shows up at the head of a column within shouting distance of Winterfell without anyone the wiser until they’re mid-charge.<\/p>\n

I don’t know exactly how other people react to this sort of stuff, but for me (and I suspect for others) part of the fun of watching a show like this is trying to predict what happens next. But those sorts of predictions tend to fall flat when there’s no consistency to base a prediction off of. Throughout season six, I had half-suspected that Littlefinger was going to betray Sansa and go over to the Bolton side, partly because I found it implausible that the Boltons actually didn’t realize his army was coming. I assumed that they did<\/em> know, and had cut some kind of deal.<\/p>\n

In any case, I hope I’ve opened you up to the possibility that “Battle of the Bastards” may not have been the best-written television episode of 2016.I know I skipped over all the Daenerys stuff – but in my opinion, if anything it’s worse.<\/span> I know that stuff like this shouldn’t bother me, that awards shows are two-thirds popularity\/name recognition contests. But the writing we get is going to be tied to standards to which we hold it.<\/p>\n

Next week we wrap everything up. Thanks so much to everyone who’s made it this far – just one more to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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