Game of Thrones Watch 8.3: "The Long Night"

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here. 

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8.3 “The Long Night” 
Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss 
Directed by Miguel Sapochnik 

Okay, well. Here we are on the other side of the great big battle against the Big Bad, and we all survived. Well, most of us survived.

This episode was visually and emotionally stunning. Once again, Ramin Djawadi does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to making the story compelling. And once again, the thematic unity of the series is all over the place.

The placement of this battle at all is kind of iffy to me, anyway. One of the underlying themes of the books is that the battle for the Iron Throne is a distraction, that politics and petty infighting are keeping everyone from realizing the true threat. “Who will sit the Iron Throne” isn’t the point of the series. Sure, somebody will at the end, but the point is pulling together to defend all of humanity from this huge, unstoppable threat, and the people who can’t or won’t do that die. So I’m not sure how I feel about having this battle first, before taking down Cersei, who’s actively working against unity. It seems to me that her demise should be a direct result of refusing to help, by having to face her choices and dying because of the White Walkers, not in an otherwise perfectly mundane battle for the throne.

Also, none of the choices she made affected this battle in any way. A few thousand more men wouldn’t have helped. Ships wouldn’t have helped. So “all” she did was break her promise, not cost the north this battle. Everyone will go south to fight her because she’s a tyrant and a terrible queen, but not because she actually crippled the armies of the north.

 99% of the episode is fighting, and I’m not a tactician, so I won’t attempt to pick apart the battle itself. (We’ll leave that to Jeff “BryndenBFish.”)(Click through for thread.)

I woke up feeling much more mixed about this episode than I was feeling last night. Last week, I woke up with a smile stretching my perfect cheek muscles, satisfied with last night’s meal, excited to talk about it all day.

Today? pic.twitter.com/PEKB5roWs1

— BryndenBFish (@BryndenBFish) April 29, 2019

Instead, let me focus on a few specific scenes or incidents, in more-or-less chronological order.

I was actually really glad to see Melisandre again; I love her character in the books and I wish the show had treated her better. I also like that she seems to have found her inner strength again and that she’s not attached to a man in order to have it. (The Arya thing is an entirely different matter and we’ll get to that closer to the end.) Instead of guiding some dude toward his destiny, she’s here on her own behalf to assist the armies of the living against the army of the dead. And her thing with the Dothraki arahks just looks cool. Of course, it’s also necessary, because it doesn’t look like the arahks are made of obsidian, which means they’re just regular steel. Why did nobody say anything about sending the Dothraki in to fight the dead with just regular steel?

In a meta-sense, it’s probably because they intended Mel to come in and do her fire trick anyway. In-universe, it’s ridiculous and makes it look even more like the Dothraki were expendable cannon fodder.

Which brings me to the Dothraki charge.

This show has never treated the Dothraki well. They went from “barbarian” to “noble savage” (admittedly a problem they inherited from the books), back to “barbarian” before Dany “tamed” them and bound the entire Dothraki nation to her cause. The idea of the Dothraki as “other” has never been interrogated or problematized. Few of them have been named, and most of those died or fell off the radar before we ever got here. So now we have a nameless horde of racially-otherized people being sent in as the first wave and getting utterly massacred. It felt very much like the first death in a horror movie, the one that’s supposed to show how serious everything is. It didn’t even have a last-stand, grand epic sacrifice kind of feeling. It just felt wasteful.

It did, however, give Dany a reason to throw the whole plan out the window and just take the dragons and charge in. Now, I’m not saying I necessarily disagree with her, especially her observation that “the dead are already here,” but it feels like either they needed to get there sooner and just open with the dragons rather than throwing thousands of Dothraki at the dead to make more corpses, or Dany needed to be able to see the bigger picture and stand her ground with regard for waiting for the Night King.

And then the dead reach the main force, and we get some fabulous face acting from Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm). I am so glad he survives this battle, though, again, that “let’s run away” scene was too sweet for both of them to survive the whole series. (I will be incredibly glad if they do, but I’m not holding my breath.) And everything is chaos, with a few standout moments. Brienne going down under a bunch of wights and screaming reminded me of her scene in A Feast for Crows when she’s fighting Rorge and Biter. Grey Worm is a big damn hero pretty much throughout, but especially when he’s guarding the retreat.

 

I seem to remember Sansa being better at the waiting-in-the-dark thing back in season two. She was much more effective during “Blackwater” than she is here; except for not getting piss-drunk, she’s acting much more like Cersei did than being the encouraging, supportive princess she was then. Also, I really wish they’d stop trying to create a Sansa-Tyrion friendship. There’s so many problems with it (there were so many problems when they were doing it in season three), and it’s just more of their inability to admit that Tyrion is an asshole, not the hero of the piece.

And then we have the dead World War Z-ing over the walls, and the Stark dead rising in the crypts (which every single Game of Thrones watcher I follow on Twitter totally called). I don’t quite buy it? Mostly because the last person to be buried down there was Lyanna, roughly 20 years ago, and the books talk a lot about how only their bones were left to be interred (because they don’t have the tech to preserve the bodies for a trip from King’s Landing or the Tower of Joy to Winterfell), so honestly there shouldn’t be enough left of any of the Stark dead to actually make a walking corpse. But I’m just glad they didn’t surprise us with a Sean Bean cameo (I wouldn’t have put it past them to “forget” that Ned was reduced to bones to be sent north).

This is where we give props to Ramin Djawadi again for the soundtrack, and whoever the sound mixer is who handled the post-dragon fight scene, because the choice to dampen the battle noises and have the piano line over it was genius. I do think it went on maybe a bit too long? But it was really pretty anyway. Also, you can very much hear that Djawadi also does the Westworld soundtrack in “The Night King,” which is the piano piece here.


I do wonder what Jon thought he was going to accomplish by standing in the open and screaming at Viserion.

The last 20 minutes or so show what I mean about shaky thematic and narrative flow. Jorah dies protecting Dany, which is absolutely appropriate considering his entire story arc. There was no other way for him to go out (even if it did mean he had to retreat and abandon the Dothraki during their charge).

But. It makes no thematic sense that Arya’s the one to take out the Night King. There has been exactly one vague hint in that direction—Bran giving her the Valyrian steel dagger. Yes, I know they retconned Melisandre’s prophecy to fit this. No, it still doesn’t make sense. If Jon’s purpose isn’t to take down the Night King, why did he come back to life? Why didn’t dragon fire hurt the Night King? During the “Inside the Episode” follow-up, Weiss says that they knew for “about three years now” that Arya would be the one to kill the Night King, which would put that decision happening around 2016, probably when they were writing season seven. Which means that they had no way of seeding that in or making it work thematically before that. I think they decided on Arya because a) they wanted a Stark to do it; but b) they wanted to create a surprise for the audience. But that’s a failure of storytelling, and one that Game of Thrones is particularly prone to; they throw in twists and shocks for the sake of twists and shocks, not because they’ve managed to very carefully seed and hint and misdirect and then everything comes together and it’s obvious this is what was meant to happen all along.

(Also, their claim that this was a decision they made three years ago indicates that this isn't how the battle against the Others will go in the books. For one thing, there is no Night King in the books, and for another, if Arya was to be the one to strike the final blow against whatever needs killing, that would obviously be something Martin would have told them in that infamous hotel meeting.)

Don't get me wrong; aesthetically I thought the scene was really cool, and I like that Arya got to be this level of badass. Her character arc and training storyline even make sense for it, taken in isolation. But she’s not in isolation; she’s part of a larger story, and that story didn’t effectively seed or foreshadow or prophesy (retconning notwithstanding) that Arya would be the one to effectively save the world. For such a buildup to taking out the White Walkers once and for all, I feel like the story needed to be there, and it wasn't. I'll probably take a lot of crap for this; I see lots of people online already who love this scene and are calling people who didn't sexist. But I stand by my opinion: cool does not outweigh a thematic through line.

Then we’re back on thematic unity with Melisandre dying now that she’s completed her life’s work. What she said about Beric—that the Lord of Light brought him back for a purpose and that purpose was fulfilled—holds true for her, as well. (And draws attention to the fact that it doesn’t seem to hold true for Jon.) Mel has lived for a very long time, she’s made some mistakes, she’s backed the wrong horse over and over, but she was instrumental in helping to defeat the Long Night, and now her watch has ended.

Next week: the war for the Iron Throne begins.

Deaths:
The Dothraki
Edd
Lyanna Mormont
Beric Dondarrion
Theon Greyjoy
Jorah Mormont
The Night King
All the White Walkers
Viserion (again)
Melisandre
Scores and scores of extras

Galavant Rewatch 1.4, "Comedy Gold"

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The protagonists continue to quest towards their goal, and Richard towards his, and Richard develops more as a sympathetic character along the way.

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1.4, "Comedy Gold"

Written by Kat Likkel and John Hoberg
Directed by John Fortenberry

Synopsis

Galavant, Isabella, and Sid reach the ocean as they progress toward Valencia. Isabella warns against the path Galvant proposes to take; he rejects the warning, heroic arrogance rising to the fore again. Tension resulting from their persistent contact emerges in song...

Harmonious motion...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

...allowing them to be taken by the bandits about which Isabella had given warning.

In Valencia, Richard struggles with being cuckolded. He arrives at the idea that being funny will help woo Madalena back to him; Gareth's advice on the matter is decidedly earthy. Richard pursues his own plan, leading him to confer with the narrating jester about learning humor.

Going straight to the point...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The captured Galavant, Sid, and Isabella are taken to a putative Pirate King, whose crew is stuck aground after a shipwreck explicated in song.

They seem a nice bunch.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

In Valencia, Richard begins his tutelage with the jester. Richard's practice does not go well, and the jester tries to duck out of the situation--to no avail. He perceives himself as bound to flatter Richard's ego despite the man's repeated failures.

Among the pirates, evidence of intra-group tension emerges, and its presence among the protagonists reasserts itself. The Pirate King, Peter Pillager, confers with Galavant about their respective situations. He tries to recruit him, to no avail.

In Valencia, Richard puts on a comedy show. It goes about as well as could be expected.

He's not funny for the reasons he would like to be.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The protagonists manage to subdue the pirates independently; Sid and Isabella take the camp, while Galavant takes Peter. Both groups manage to reunite, and they purpose to free the pirates' ship in exchange for the protagonists' transit to Valencia.

In Valencia, the jester finally rebuffs Madalena's advances. Madalena orders him imprisoned for it. Richard enters moments later, noting the jester's name--Steve McKenzie--and casting terrible jokes at his queen.

And, at the end, Isabella confesses her perfidy to an inattentive Galavant.

Discussion

The series cannot help but remark on the popular Game of Thrones again, it must be noted. (Just as it must be noted that the Society's own Shiloh Carroll cannot but do so, either; go read her work!)

The episode departs from the medieval in favor of the anachronistic medievalist in the inclusion of pirates that follow the models typically ascribed to the 17th and 18th centuries. (The accuracy of such depictions is, of course, contestable, but having that particular discussion seems to exceed what this particular webspace allows.) As I've noted, however, such mishmashes and anachronisms are typical of presentations of older post-Classical periods, occasioning little comment save from those of us who actually look for such things. The inclusion of later period materials therefore does not break the medievalism in which the series is enmeshed, at least not for the popular viewership likely to be addressed by what aired as a Sunday evening entertainment on a broadcast network.

Neither does the focus on comedy break that medievalism--or, in the event, even with the medieval. As has been noted, the comedic genre of the fabliau is prevalent in the medieval--and seems to be a major generic model of the series. Too, the kind of comedy in place in the series runs to the bawdy and bodily, something that a 2013 Medievalists.net article (accessibly among many others) demonstrates and a 2016 piece by Kathryn Dickason attests as being a commonplace in medieval literature. Nor yet is the sometimes-problematic nature of the current humor wholly removed from the medieval, as Jamie Beckett notes. So even such seeming incongruities as Gareth's abundantly censored stream of "humor" are in line with the medieval antecedents Galavant invokes. And it might well be worth considering if the theory of humor articulated in the episode corresponds to what such theory might obtain in medieval literature, as well.

Game of Thrones Watch 8.2: "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms"

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry here!

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8.02 “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”

Written by Bryan Cogman

Directed by David Nutter

I solemnly swear that, unlike Cogman and Nutter, I will not suddenly stop this discussion right as it gets to the good/important part.

This episode is kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s nice that they slow down a bit, and do it in a way that doesn’t feel like wheel-spinning (see the first third of “The Dragon and the Wolf”). It gives us a chance to spend time with the dozens of characters we now have all in the same place and for a few reunions. On the other hand, there’s a lot going on here that is seriously problematic, even verging into the disturbing.

Because I love Brienne so much, despite the Really Bad Choices I feel the show made in adapting her character, let’s start with the titular scene. While waiting for the dead to descend on them and their doomed last stand to begin, Brienne, Tormund, Davos, Pod, Jaime, and Tyrion are sitting around having a drink. Tyrion refers to Brienne as “ser,” then corrects himself, which offends Tormund, who still thinks Brienne hung the moon. He doesn’t understand why women “can’t” be knights, and says “fuck tradition.” Jaime points out that any knight can make another knight, and proceeds to knight Brienne in a scene that’s beautifully acted and got me choked up in ways I didn’t know Game of Thrones could still do.

Do I wish Jaime had thought of it first? Sure. Do I still kind of get squicked by the way Tormund drools all over a clearly disinterested and even uncomfortable Brienne? Absolutely. Have I been waiting for Jaime to knight Brienne since he started his redemption arc? Hell yes. Also, calling her the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a nice Easter egg for book readers, since her lineage includes Ser Duncan the Tall, and the Dunk and Egg collection is titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Not all the conversations go this well. Both major conversations Daenerys is involved in—once with Sansa and once with Jon—go from bad to worse to over before they can really dig into the problem they’re trying to hash out. We almost get Dany and Sansa making up and being friends, but of course we can’t have it because they’re women with a man in common. Sansa rightly wants to know what Dany intends to do with/for/about the North if they survive this battle, but just before they actually get to discuss that—beyond the clear you are part of my kingdom and I have dragons face that Dany’s giving her—they’re interrupted by Theon. I hope that Theon’s “I want to fight for Winterfell and the North” speech does something to Dany’s thought process re: what they’re all fighting for, but I’m not holding my breath.

The other major conversation is Jon telling Dany about his parentage. I’m really glad they just got right to it instead of letting this secret hang over them for episodes and episodes (creating tension through characters keeping secrets they don’t need to be keeping is one of my least favorite storytelling tools; I’m looking at you, Supernatural). However, there’s a few continuity issues in that I don’t remember Dany ever really having any conversations regarding Rhaegar being a rapist? Barristan told her about Rhaegar going amongst the smallfolk and busking on street corners, but his relationship with Lyanna didn’t ever come up that I’m aware of. And I highly doubt that Targaryens-first Viserys would ever have called Rhaegar a rapist. In the books, every story Dany hears about him is positive, and she identifies with him more than her father. So her assertion that Rhaeger kidnapped and raped Lyanna—without something like “the way your people tell it”—is weird and off.

(Dr. Kavita Finn has a much longer take on the way this episode is divorced from the entire history of Westeros here.)

But, again, Dany comes to the conclusion that Jon could challenge her for the Iron Throne. At least she verbalizes that it’s because he’s male and not just because he’s Rhaegar’s son. But before they can talk that out, the horn blows three times and the White Walkers have arrived.

It’s interesting that Sansa mentions to Dany that men are easily manipulated by women when Dany’s constantly manipulated by the men around her. Case in point in this episode: she’s mad at Tyrion for not catching on to Cersei having lied to her—on top of the other mistakes in judgment he’s made. But then Jorah goes to bat for Tyrion because Seven forbid we ever think Tyrion is less than perfect, and Dany’s halfway to forgiving him before Sansa even has a chance to sing his praises (which is problematic all on its own).

Easily the most problematic bit, the one that squicked me out the hardest, was Arya’s seduction (if you want to call it that) of Gendry. First of all, we again had to start with Gendry’s sexual assault being downplayed and even joked about. Then, it almost felt like a job interview on Arya’s part—how much experience do you have? Great, then you’re the man for the job. This is also the first time we’ve seen Arya show any sexual interest at all, other than the crush she had on Gendry way back when they were traveling the Riverlands. And even here, there doesn’t seem to be so much interest as checking something off her bucket list. The cold, stonehearted (ha) character Arya has turned into doesn’t have the same chemistry with Gendry that twelve- or thirteen-year-old Arya had.

Then there’s the nudity. And yes, I’m aware that Arya is eighteen—HBO made damn sure to let us know that she’s “legal,” in a move that’s squicky all on its own. I’m also aware that Maisie Williams is in  her early 20s. But something about this scene feels like “now she’s old enough for us to have her nude on screen” rather than an organic idea that came from the characters and their relationship. I think if they had to have this at all, it could have been written better (and directed better) to make it sweet rather than bucket-listy.

Here’s the small things I noticed or had questions about in passing but not enough Thoughts about to yammer on for several hundred words:

Dany says that she delayed her war for the Iron Throne for Jon. But what happened to defending her people? Not wanting to be queen of ashes? Becoming a queen by acting like one? I guess when you make a character so easily manipulated, it’s hard to remember why she does anything.

Is Davos crediting “the Battle of the Bastards” (again, I hate that they’re calling it that in-universe) as his first fight? Have they forgotten all about “Blackwater”? And Stannis breaking the siege on the Wall?

How are they making these obsidian weapons? We see them in the regular forge, but that’s not how you’d shape obsidian and I didn’t notice anyone doing any knapping.

Sam needed to remind us of his man-cred again. White Walker! Thenn! Protecting Gilly!

Gilly continues to be a delight and far too good for this show.

I’m not entirely on board with Sam handing Heartsbane over to Jorah. It thematically doesn’t make any sense to me.

Grey Worm is totally going to die. The “let’s run away together” scene is way too sweet and wholesome for this to end any other way.

I am Here For “Jenny’s Song.” It’s mournful and sweet and actually makes sense in context, unlike Ed Sheeran singing “Hands of Gold” or Shireen, sans Patchface, singing Patchface’s rhymes.

Next week: Waiting in the dark! Fighting in the dark! Everything is dark! What is happening?

Galavant Rewatch 1.3, "Two Balls"

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More emerges about the loyal squires of the noble knights as Galavant traipses along.

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1.3, "Two Balls"

Written by Dan Fogelman
Directed by Chris Koch

Synopsis

After a themed recap of the previous episodes form the jester narrator, the three travelers--Galavant, Sid, and Isabella--purpose to overnight in Sid's hometown. He offers context for the place as he attends to Galavant, trying initially to gloss over an issue Galavant calls to attention in short order.

Just can't quite see it...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Sidney's hometown evidently idolizes him, in large part because the stories he has told them have exaggerated his deeds in the strangely interrelated village--and ascribed Galavant to the status of squire. Isabella relates some of her prior life, as well, before the introduction to Sid's adopted parents.

The parents in question.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

In Valencia, Richard continues to try to win over Madalena and the people of Valencia. After some idle violence, he purports to throw a ball to amuse the lot. And the time with Sid's family progresses, with their own squire introduced.

Someone enjoys the role.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Isabella plays into the role assigned to Sid, and a celebration ensues--with a musical number and aspersive comments from Sid's family's squire and similar looks from his compatriot. Sid apologizes for the excesses of his family, and Isabella rebukes him.

Preparations for the balls in Valencia and Sid's village. They do not go quite as well as might be hoped, though they are done in earnest. And the squires enact some of them, lampooning their knights (ironically in song); Galavant reluctantly engages in the lambasting and seemingly realizes some of his own failings in the process.

Is this the face of character development in progress?
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

In the event, the festival in Valencia goes less than well; Richard appears to mean well but to be utterly incompetent, and he ends up soaking insults from the populace until he realizes he's being cuckolded. That in Sid's hometown goes as expected, and it begins to reveal romantic longings on Galavant's part, as well as sympathy for Sid.

Discussion

The main thrust of the episode--that following Galavant, Sid, and Isabella--works more with the medievalist than the medieval, engaging with a pattern of mocking the chivalric that extends back to Don Quixote and farther. In the medieval chivalric, squires were servants, yes, but servants generally of knightly birth and explicitly in training to succeed to knighthood. Chaucer's Squire is a prominent example (and one that seems to prefigure Sid physically), but not the only one; several such appear in Malory, as well. They are not permanently in their positions, certainly, and they can still expect to be accorded the respect due to the positions of their birth.

That is not the case with the squires in the present episode, who act more the picaresque of Cervantes's work than the romance of Malory or his sources. They are rude and unflattering, full of sass and laziness than even Sid, who shows no hesitation in addressing Galavant sarcastically. And they seem to have a better head for practical matters than the knights they serve. It makes them more engaging characters than "good" servants, who are generally unobtrusive, but it also removes the show a bit more from the medieval in which it appears to try to ground itself. Such is not a bad thing; again, the trope is an old one, engaged in in some of the earliest medievalist literature. But it does tend to propagate an idea of the European Middle Ages that was not necessarily prevalent among the people of that time and place, with problems that the Society has addressed on more than one occasion.

An area in which the episode does seem to cleave to the medieval, though, and unfortunately is in the depiction of Sid's family and village as stereotypically Jewish. The community is insular to the point of being incestuous; upon arrival, one of the villagers expresses a wish that Sid were her cousin, that she might marry him. Such insularity has been ascribed to numerous minority communities, including the medieval Jewish. The speech patterns put into the mouths of Sid's parents, particularly, ring of typical US depictions of Jewish home life; the stereotypes differ, but that they are sterotypes and that the characters seem to be nothing but them does not. Here, again, the series seems regressive in ways that it does not have to be, which makes the episode less than it could have been.

Game of Thrones Watch: 8.1 "Winterfell"

The Tales after Tolkien Society is pleased to present the resumption of the flagship series!
Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here!

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8.1 “Winterfell”

Written by Dave Hill

Directed by David Nutter

Well. Here we are again. How have you all been? Nice break? Cool. Let’s get right to it.

So here we are at the beginning of the end. The battle for the Seven Kingdoms is approaching, the Night King is south of the Wall, Winter is here. And humanity is still fighting amongst itself.

As usual, the show has a lot going for it. The new opening sequence is breathtaking and absolutely gorgeous, and it sounds like they might have punched up the main theme just a bit. The cinematography, especially when Jon’s riding Rhaegal, is also amazing. Also, A+ jump scare there at the end. Great work on the director’s part.

Overall, compared to last season, this episode was pretty strong (which I’m aware isn’t saying a lot). It had a lot to do, and it managed to balance everything pretty well, though there were definitely some oddities with pacing and the order they decided to do some things in.

So, let’s dive into the things this episode set up or paid off or got done.

Daenerys and company have arrived in Winterfell, and everyone has to deal with the fact that Jon gave up being King in the North in order to secure her alliance. They also have to deal with the dragons (but not in a fun, Patricia C. Wrede kind of way). Also, since “and company” includes people like Sandor Clegane, Gendry, and Tyrion, there’s a lot of emotional backlog that has to be taken care of.

Daenerys’ arrival shows that the writers still don’t know how to handle communities of women—so they don’t. Arya and Sansa seem to be getting along better, but they don’t appear on screen together at all in this episode. Sansa and Lyanna immediately hate Daenerys—based on what, besides her being an outsider and interloper isn’t made clear, which is dumb because the Starks have a baked-in reason. Aerys Targaryen killed their grandfather and uncle, and they’ve been taught that Rhaegar Targaryen kidnapped and raped their aunt. There’s all sorts of possible bad blood here that doesn’t involve fighting over the attention of a man (Jon). Sure, Bran knows that Rhaegar didn’t kidnap Lyanna, but he doesn’t seem to have told anyone but Sam (unless he did off-screen, like the entire plot against Petyr Baelish last season).

I’m not saying they don’t have reason to be upset with Jon. They do. As Lyanna pointed out, the North put him on a throne, and at the first chance, he abandoned it. I’ve maintained for years that the show version of Jon is not a good leader despite how often we’ve been told he is, and his discussion with Sansa re: “I never wanted to be king” reinforces that. He was given a responsibility, and he abrogated it. For a leader, one’s own wants and needs come second. The only leader on this show who seems to get that is Sansa; she recognizes that unity is necessary and turns down the not-so-subtle suggestion that she be made Queen in the North when Jon’s gone for an extended period. She might want to be queen, or would at least accept being queen, but she doesn’t take it because her wants don’t outweigh the necessity of keeping the North unified.

I mean, for goodness sake, people, winter is here. Bran, for all the issues I have with how his character is being handled, has it right. We don’t have time for any of this.

Now, do I expect that everyone is going to suddenly, miraculously, get along? No, of course not. In fact, there’s one example in this episode of why they can’t and shouldn’t—Daenerys and Sam meeting for the first time. To her credit, Daenerys is open about what happened with Sam’s family (though it’s interesting that nobody seems to wonder or care what happened to his mother and sister now that there’s no male heirs left to take on Horn Hill)—or, openish. She doesn’t, of course, tell him exactly how they died, only that she executed them. I wonder how much more upset he’ll be when (if) he finds out. Considering his immediate reaction is to go straight to Jon and tell him that a) he’s totally related to his new lover; b) she murdered his family; c) she didn’t even consider not being queen; and d) by the way, all of this makes Jon rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms (though that last bit’s kind of a leap and predicated entirely on him being male; technically, Daenerys is daughter of the old king and Jon is grandson, so she comes first).

Although the core point of the show isn’t—or shouldn’t be—who gets the Iron Throne at the end, but how are they going to defeat the White Walkers, if all of this is a setup for Jon to suddenly yoink the Iron Throne out from under Daenerys, who’s been working hard for it this whole time, and Jon barely showing an interest in being anything resembling a leader, I’m going to be pissed. Not that I think Daenerys will be a fantabulous queen, either (not the way Benioff & Weiss & company have written her, for sure), but it would just be typical that the person who’s fought for seven seasons to win the Iron Throne, who’s shown an interest in protecting the kingdom by fighting Winter (pouring one out for Stannis here), gets usurped by some guy who can’t even breathe with his mouth closed.

The Jon dragon-riding scene is beautiful as it stands, but it has some oddities with regard to placement in the episode. I mostly agree with Jeff “BryndenBFish” here (click through for thread):

Alright, so I've said good things about the episode (a pretty good episode all things considered!). Before heading to bed, let me briefly touch on the dragon-riding scene and why it left me a little flat.

— BryndenBFish (@BryndenBFish) April 15, 2019

I think, as Jeff says, the setup could definitely have been better. I do think, though, that if they’d gone that direction, it would have been a very different scene with regard to his relationship with Daenerys, and thus might not have happened at all. Jon’s shit at hiding his feelings, so there’s no way he wouldn’t have been awkward around her. That’s not to say that there isn’t a way to work it so that being able to ride Rhaegal wouldn’t have been proof for him, just that the way Benioff & Weiss et al. have constructed things, it would have been more difficult.

Also, can we appreciate that Jon rides the dragon named after his biological father?

JON SNOW IS RIDING HIS DAD

— Emmett Booth🌹 (@PoorQuentyn) April 15, 2019

Some smaller things to wrap up:

Oh, goody, we’re back to nudity as a backdrop and prostitutes being just so happy to do their jobs. Also, hi, Bronn.

I love how Emilia is allowed to do things with her face in this episode. She’s spent so much time being completely deadpan—first because Daenerys is suffering from trauma at the hands of Viserys and Illyrio, then because . . . I don’t know, conquerors don’t smile?—that it’s nice to see what looks like genuine joy and happiness on her face.

I also like Daenerys’ winter jacket better with the red undertones than with grey. I still don’t like the overall design, but this is better. And on the subject of costuming, I hate that Sansa’s still wearing that collar-and-chain looking thing.

Jon seems to have no understanding that other people have grown and changed and gone through The Shit. He talks to Arya as if she’s still the nine-year-old girl he left behind and gets confused/upset when she’s not that person anymore. He tries to joke with Sam about reading all the books in the Citadel when Sam’s clearly upset. His reaction to Bran is completely understandable, though, because Bran is—well, just wrong.

Speaking of Bran being wrong, I wondered as I watched this episode whether in the books, Bran is supposed to stay in the cave and talk to people through the weirwood trees, and that’s why he ends up kind of wooden here. (I’m not even sorry.)

"I am smiling."

Will someone THROW BRAN STARK OUT A WINDOW???

— ZR/Zabé Ellor (@ZREllor) April 15, 2019

I don’t even know what to do with Cersei’s bit of this episode. Fake!Euron continues to be ridiculous and campy rather than the horrifying force he is in the books. There’s a lot of sexual politics happening with Cersei promising sex, then refusing it, then giving in that I’ll need more time to unpack.

And, again, A+ jump scare with the kid at the end. I might have actually gone “gyaaaah!” out loud.

But can we just, for a second, examine the fact that the first line of the very last season of Game of Thrones, on a backdrop clearly meant to invoke episode one with the marching and the music and everything else, is Tyrion pointing out, again, that Varys is a eunuch. That’s just . . . such a way for them to begin the end. And Tyrion continues to be not just sarcastic, but mean throughout the whole episode, and if we’re still supposed to like him, I have Questions for the writers.

Next week: War! Trials! Politics! Tyrion staring over the walls of Winterfell!

All screenshots taken by me.