Another
season of Thrones has ended, which means we are headed into the long night, and
this time without the comforting voice of Melisande to remind us that the night
is dark and full of terrors and low cut dresses weather be damned, though I
assume if we light enough children on fire it will stay bright. Much like last
season, the final episode reshuffled the deck in an almost crazed way, killing
off beloved characters, blinding others, or leaving them alone with barbarian
hordes and sleepy dragons, or sending them on trust jumps off the wall. In the
end, as in last season’s finale, the deck has been reshuffled yet again.
I don’t
know if a show like GOT has existed in the history of television, where,
multiple times a main character is killed off the show mid-story. I say
mid-story because we’re used to long hero or even anti-hero arcs at this point.
What we’re not used to is having our ambition for a character to be thwarted so
frequently, so fully. Nothing quite says failure like having your page run a
sword through your belly in front of a cross that says traitor, props to the
men of the Watch for at least spelling it right.
I think
at this point the shock value is actually starting to wear thin on some of
these moments. Yes, it was a shock to see Jon bleeding out in the snow, but
only if you haven’t been paying close attention. Stannis told John that it was
best to keep your enemies far away, and that Sir Allistair should be sent on a
long trip to a far away wall. John, seeking to keep some kind of peace, wound
up keeping him around long enough to get killed by him. And if GOT has taught
us anything it’s that toasting to someone’s return is a great way to spend an
evening before you wind up dead. Well, all that and Olly glaring down at John
from every available parapet for the better part of the season. You have to
figure he canvassed the entire area just for good spots to glare menacingly
down at John.
Of
course, the unfair, or what feels unfair part about John’s death is that it
didn’t feel quite earned in the strategic sense that Rob and Eddard’s did.
Their failings were rather obvious in the context of the entire season whereas
John’s seemed like miscalculations. After the battle of Hardhome, the best set
piece on the show to date, it was clear that John was right to save the
Wildlings, clear that he was right to push the Watch to a new place. Sure he
should have send away Sir Allistair, but it was a forgivable error. If anything,
the death served as a reminder that the Watch isn’t made up of nice men. It’s
made up of murderers and rapists and thieves and John should have stayed on the
horse when he tried to ride away, and really it’s Sam’s fault that he’s dead.
At this rate, the show is going to wind up being a story about Sam, studying
books, Hot Pie baking, and Bronn singing about the virtues of Dornish women. (I'd be remiss if I didn't take one last moment to appreciate how the snow fell and stuck just perfectly in John Snow's hair. Nor, as a friend noted, to reflect on just how he kept his hair so clean and well-tended at the Night's Watch. We must have missed the episode where they talked about the availability of a hot shower and volumizing conditioner for men).
The first
part of the show was as clumsy as it was climactic. Brienne, who’s been peering
at the tower for roughly, what? No joke, a month, two months? Decides to leave
at the exact moment that Sansa lights the fire…Hey, show runners! Just have her
try and escape and get caught. We don’t need a moment of almost but not quite
at this point. This is not a blockbuster movie you’re selling us. It’s a nihilistic
show about how systemic change is hard and people who attempt it are probably
going to wind up dead. We don’t need moments of almost happening. Of course, it
got clumsier before it got better, Stannis, alone in the wilderness having his
death sentenced pronounced by Brienne. We’re all willing to suspend our
disbelief for movies, but it’s hard to watch a show that tells us time and time
again that having hopes and dreams is a great way of getting them crushed only
to give us an implausibly constructed death scene.
Stannis’
downfall, slow at first, then became Fast and Furious. Apparently, burning one’s
own beloved daughter, a problematic moment for me last week, turned out not to
have been quite the move that Melisandre promised. Instead, Stannis lost his
troops, his wife, his daughter and ultimately his life, but not before seeing,
with those hard eyes of his that he had been a damn fool, which was actually a
bit nice. If his actual death was melodrama than his swift fall was
Shakespearean. It’s easy to picture Lear or Othello in those final moments of
his life as he sat against the tree realizing that his calculations had all
turned to ash. I’m told that book reader’s love Stannis and his precipitous
fall was probably a surprise to them as well. On the show, his character was
first to slow to develop and finally, too quick to fall. And yet, like John
Snow, it’s strange to lose someone who has been there since the beginning.
Thank
goodness after Stannis’ clumsy death we headed straight to a scene of Ramsay
doing a victory lap over a bunch of dying corpses. If I don’t see him doing
something horrendous at least once an episode I might forget that he’s not
Frodo Baggins. From there we get to the long awaited rescue of Sansa, with
Theon sending Ramsay’s former lover on a short trip off a high wall. Personally,
it’s not clear that Theon had to run at that point, I’m guessing Ramsay didn’t
want Sansa to be killed by his once and future lover anyway. However, their
escape over the wall, taking place at the exact moment of Ramsay’s return,
thank you dramatic moment, leads to them, after holding hands, close up shot!,
jumping into the snow. It’s unclear how master tracker Ramsay with the aid of
his wild dogs isn’t going to track them down, but I suppose we’ll save that for
another day. I’d guess that Sansa goes north to find John and discovers that he’s
been killed at which point she’ll be married off to Sir Allistair. Fingers
crossed.
In the
House of Black and White, things are finally happening. Well, they finally
start happening after Arya spends some quality time with Meryn Trant,
rearranging his face in a different configuration. No eyes and then no mouth.
Well, this after we witness Meryn applying a switch to under aged women. In
case you forgot, he’s bad. This is becoming a bit of a problem. The nuanced
Lannister’s played so excellently were either world class bad, like Joffrey, or
played with panache and character like Jaime and Cersei. Recent villains on the
show are merely that, villains and that’s a problem because the narrative isn’t
as complex when the definitions are so clear. Anyhow, besides the incredible
waste of time that was the House of Black and White this year, we finally get a
scene in which something happens..and it appears to be one of our beloved
characters getting blinded or worse. At least they didn’t burn her at the
stake?
In
Mereen, we learn that Dany didn’t really have control of Drogon when she left,
which leaves her lovers to pick up the pieces. And, in one of the nicest
moments of the show, Tyrion is finally put back in power, along with the Varus,
to finally get that piece of shit city Mereen in order. Though there is no one
more qualified to do it, there is also no time less qualified to be dealing
with the nuances of city rule because a horde of undead are waiting beyond the
wall. But thank God Dany is out of Mereen.
Ser
Jorah and handsome Daario head of into the wilderness to fine her, using the
rather vague direction, north as a guide. Why is the search party two people?
Can they at least bring a few Unsullied or are they all needed to lose in
fights with Sons of the Harpy?
Meanwhile,
Dany, delightfully dirty, is watching her dragon sleep away the afternoons when
she decides to wander away for a walk---only to be surrounded by a barbarian horde…again.
I think I speak for everyone when I say
that she’s going to probably eat a horse heart and marry one of these dudes
because that’s just how Dany’s plot works. She, being fire to the Walkers Ice,
is rather foolproof when it comes to surprising death. And though it’s nice
that the traditional hero role is being filled by a female, it’d be even nicer
if she hadn’t dithered for the better part of 2.5 seasons.
In
everyone’s favorite story line, The Sand Snakes finally get their revenge, but
at least they do it by using their sexuality….Sigh. This story line. What a
mess. Anyway, we finally get the moment of truth that we’ve been waiting for, a
father and daughter hug between Jaime and Marcella, acceptance, and of course,
a poisoning. It’s unclear whether she’s dead or just on the verge of death, but
it was another GOT gotcha moment, which were too frequent this season. Look,
she loves her father, now she’s going to pay for it.
The
best piece of this episode happened in King’s Landing, and a large credit for
that goes to Lena Heady, who never made looking naked on HBO less sexual.
Cersei, who as Jaime points out, doesn’t love anyone but her children, is
forced to walk naked through the streets, and Headey, dominates the scene, her
face slowly crumbling in fear, her eyes, showing a fearsome kind of loss and
hurt. The show runners didn’t do a good job showing how much of the city was
behind the Faith militant, but it was clear in this episode and anyone with a
Biblical history can make at least a vague connection to the crucifixion. What’s
it like to be hated by thousands? What does that feel like? How much pain can
someone endure? It was the best moment because it flipped things on their head.
Viewers, like myself, who have long hated Cersei, are now kind of rooting for
her and Sir Frankenstein to exact some revenge. I’m sorry that so many good
characters have died, John, Rob, Eddard, etc, while others like Ramsay have
persisted, but it’s been kind of a wonder to watch Lena Headey play Cersei and
this was one of her finest moments. It was painful to watch.
One
thing that GOT teaches you is that the narrative doesn’t owe you anything. Character,
even main characters, may be tossed aside like so much chicken bone after one
of The Hound’s meals. Remember him? And yet, I wonder when the accumulation of “shocking”
deaths will end. Certainly John’s death didn’t surprise me as much as Rob’s or
Eddard’s. I’m not saying the show has lost its mojo, but it is going to have to
do some expansive and quick character work to make us believe that the world is
worth saving from ice zombies, and I don’ t think it can just be Dany. Well, it
can be, Dany and her team of advisers, but I think that’d be a mistake. We’ve
spent most of our time in Westeros, watching the war for the kings. Eventually,
as a viewer, we’ll want to see someone start to succeed. Sure, there are still
people to root for, Tormund and Sir Davos, Bran and Shaggy Dog and Osha, but we’ll
need to be reminded of them quickly. We’ll need to start to believe in
something besides magic and dragons if the show is going to end with as
satisfying a note as it began. At some point, shocking deaths need to be
replaced by shocking success, by a group of people that believe in more than
table scraps for the next day. The arc of history is long, but it tends toward
justice.
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