{"id":39972,"date":"2017-07-31T17:06:38","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T21:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=39972"},"modified":"2017-09-08T13:16:29","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T17:16:29","slug":"timely-game-of-thrones-griping-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=39972","title":{"rendered":"Timely Game of Thrones Griping 3: What Exactly Is This Show Doing?"},"content":{"rendered":"
This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.<\/div>\n

I’ve had a busy week – I’m in the middle of moving, and a friend of mine got married this weekend, so I didn’t get back into town until almost midnight last night. So this week’s review is a bit late, and will be a bit shorter than most. With that in mind, it would be good to limit its scope to the easy, specific questions, such as:<\/p>\n

What Exactly Is This Show Doing?<\/h3>\n

I don’t mean on an existential level. I mean what is it doing on a basic plotting level. Basically, at the start of season seven, the writers had a problem: Queen Daenerys was too powerful. She had either the finest or tied for the finest infantry in the world (the Unsullied), a huge force of crack cavalry (the Dothraki), countless ships, and three full-grown dragons. Queen Cersei, by contrast, seemed to have one army of indeterminate size, led by Jaime Lannister. I say “seemed to have” because you can never quite be sure with this show, which more and more has been playing fast and loose with its balance-of-power details.<\/p>\n

Either way, it’s a pretty lopsided matchup, so, in the interests of drama, something must be done to even the odds. In other cases I’ve been sympathetic to the challenges of adapting the page to the screen, but not here. It was the showrunners that wrote themselves into this particular corner, not GRRM, and they’ve been straining mightily against plausibility ever since to write themselves out.<\/p>\n

Their main vehicle so far has been Euron Greyjoy. He’s built an unbeatable fleet offscreen between seasons, and has now won two major (and confusing) victories in the space of two episodes. The first rested on the idea that he could find Yara’s fleet in the middle of a dark night without them even noticing he was coming. The second rests on the idea that Euron has time-bending powers that dwarf even Littlefinger’s.<\/p>\n

Euron is played by a Danish actor named Pilou Asbaek. He at least seems to be having fun, so there's that.<\/div>
Euron is played by a Danish actor named Pilou Asbaek. He at least seems to be having fun, so there's that.<\/div><\/p>\n

Let’s rewind to the end of episode two: Tyrion, adhering to the ancient military maxim of “just divide your forces, it’ll be fine,” sent the Unsullied to attack Casterly Rock, the Lannister stronghold of great and hitherto unmentioned strategic value. At what I presume is the same time, he sent Yara’s fleet to collect Ellaria Sand’s forces in Dorne. It was the same time, right? I mean, why wouldn’t it be?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But Euron had time to sail from King’s Landing down to somewhere in the Dorne area, defeat and capture Yara Greyjoy and Ellaria Sand, sail back<\/em> to King’s Landing, parade them through the streets, deliver them to Cersei, ask Jaime if his sister likes a “finger in the bum” (once again, that’s actual show dialogue), then get back<\/em> on his ships, and sail clear around the southern end of the continent and up to Casterly Rock in time to attack the ships that ferried Grey Worm and the Unsullied there.<\/p>\n

Once again, he was able to sneak an entire fleet up undetected. The Ironborn really need to work on their situational awareness.<\/div>
Once again, he was able to sneak an entire fleet up undetected. The Ironborn really need to work on their situational awareness.<\/div><\/p>\n

Apparently it’s part of the show’s etiquette at this point that we’re not supposed to notice things like this. We’re supposed to assume what happens from one scene to another is actually happening in whatever chronological order makes this all make sense. Has this sort of thing ever happened on any other show? Has there ever been another show where the audience has just resigned itself to the idea that time, distance, and chronology are meaningless?<\/p>\n

If your head isn’t hurting enough already, now I’m going to try and figure just how many armies the Lannisters and Tyrells have and where they are. At the end of last season, Jaime was returning to from a short campaign in the Riverlands with his army. I assumed he took it with him to King’s Landing, right? That’s the place that was under imminent threat of attack.<\/p>\n

But then we learn that Casterly Rock had not just a garrison to defend the castle but a whole other<\/em> army, 10,000 strong according to Tyrion, that’s just been twiddling its thumbs this whole time. Jaime travels overland to collect it (again, after<\/em> Euron returns to King’s Landing), arrives there ahead of the Unsullied, and takes this new army south.<\/p>\n

I feel bad for Bronn. After all this time, he still can't afford armor.<\/div>
I feel bad for Bronn. After all this time, he still can't afford armor.<\/div><\/p>\n

There, they take Highgarden, with barely a fight if I’m understanding the sequence of events correctly. Did the Tyrells not have an army? Lady Olenna seemed to think they had one when she was sassing everyone at the Team Dany meetings. They had one when Mace and company marched on the Great Sept of Baelor last season. But I guess they don’t anymore. That, or their army was just made up of their bannermen, such as Lord Tarly, who we now learn has defected to the Lannister side. If that’s the case, I’m not sure why they needed the Casterly Rock army to begin with, or why they even bothered to do any of this. Lady Olenna was apparently never a threat at all, just an old woman sitting in a tower with strangely anachronistic wall-to-wall carpeting.<\/p>\n

Jaime seems fine with this Casterly Rock-for-Highgarden swap. “The truth is, Casterly Rock isn’t really worth much anymore,” he says. Won’t Tyrion be embarrassed when he learns that! Between this and his botched deal with the Masters of Yunkai last season, his supposed competence is very much an informed attribute at this point.<\/p>\n

I suppose at this point I should try and predict what happens next, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to. Cersei might find another army in her couch cushions next episode, and use it to attack Dragonstone, which will be empty because it’s suddenly not important anymore, or possibly because Euron and his twenty good men<\/del> ships burned their supplies or something.<\/p>\n

Jon and Dany Finally Meet<\/h3>\n

I remember, back in season five, how excited everyone was for Daenerys and Tyrion to meet for the first time. I also remember that when it finally happened, it landed with a bit of a wet thud. They both just stared at other with blank expressions, trying to think of something interesting to do.<\/p>\n

A bit of trivia: Dragonstone's throne room was actually designed by the Combine from Half Life 2.<\/div>
A bit of trivia: Dragonstone's throne room was actually designed by the Combine from Half Life 2.<\/div><\/p>\n

The long-awaited Jon\/Dany meeting has a bit more going on, but not much. The Queen wants the King to bend the knee, based on a feudal obligation from many generations back. Does she still want to “break the wheel,” by the way? Is that still a thing? Once upon a time she seemed determined to tear down feudalism itself. Maybe she’ll get to that later. “The last King in the North was Torrhen Stark, who bent the knee to my ancestor, Aegon Targaryen,” she informs him, and no one corrects her. I had to replay that bit to make sure I hadn’t misheard. Has this show really just forgotten about Robb Stark entirely? I could’ve sworn he was a major character, and he wore a crown and everything. Is Bryan Cogman the only person who remembers that seasons one through three ever happened?<\/p>\n

Jon forgets to mention dragonglass during this meeting, which I thought was the whole reason he came here, but whatever. This is a vintage Benioff\/Weiss nonversation, where none of the lines spoken quite relate to the lines spoken before them. “Am I your prisoner?” he asks at the end. “Not yet,” she replies, but when next we see Jon we learn that he’s not allowed to leave, which I thought was basically what the word “prisoner” meant. Mostly both of them just came off as childish and comically bad at diplomacy.<\/p>\n

Later, Jon and Tyrion have a slightly more substantial exchange. “How do I convince people who don’t know me that an enemy they don’t believe in is coming to kill them all?” he asks. Which is an excellent question, and possibly one he should have asked himself before coming to Dragonstone. After all, there were hundreds of witnesses to the battle at Hardhome, Night’s Watch and Wildlings both. He could have brought some of them to back up his story, right? Or perhaps he should’ve said whatever it was he said (offscreen) to the various northern lords to convince them<\/em>.<\/p>\n

How does Jon not get hot? Everyone else at Dragonstone is wearing normal clothing, he's bundled up like it's December in Minnesota.<\/div>
How does Jon not get hot? Everyone else at Dragonstone is wearing normal clothing, he's bundled up like it's December in Minnesota.<\/div><\/p>\n

Later, Queen Daenerys agrees to give Jon the dragonglass she doesn’t need and didn’t even know was there, which I guess is very generous of her. She and Tyrion both seem to believe Jon about the Army of the Dead, or at least Tyrion does. But neither of them seems curious about how many there are, or how much time they have, or whether the wall can be expected to hold them. It’s not clear whether the Night’s King has even reached <\/em>the wall yet, after what I think is more than two full seasons of slowly walking towards it. It’s a good thing Euron Greyjoy was never made into a wight, or he would have conquered all of Westeros by now.<\/p>\n

Aside from Dany\/Jon and the whole secret Lannister army thing, not a lot happened this episode. We didn’t see Arya or the Hound at all, Littlefinger just had a brief mustache-twirling session with Sansa that didn’t really go anywhere, and Sam was assigned to copy a bunch of books. There was a “Cersei poisons a Sand Snake” scene, which clocked in at nearly five minutes long. I have a sinking feeling that “Cersei nonologues at a minor character” is going to be this season’s “Arya gets hit with a stick.”<\/p>\n

That’s it for this week. Next week I should be back to my usual high standard of long-windedness. See you then!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both. I’ve had a busy week – I’m in the middle of moving, and a friend of mine got married this weekend, so I didn’t get back into town until almost midnight last night. So this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-of-thrones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}