The House of Black and White

Game of Thrones has long equated leadership style with personal identity.  It places characters, one at a time, in various positions of importance and they define their identity by their actions as a ruler.  In some ways, this should make sense.  Leadership gives an apparent opportunity to impose own's vision of what is decent and just onto the world at large, and thus looks like a direct reflection on the values and beliefs of whichever character we're focusing on.

But Thrones has also argued that leadership always means cooperation, that things are never as simply as they seem and that leadership requires sacrifice and compromise.  The world is not a vacuum; as Varys said in the second season, "power is a shadow on the wall."  Westeros (and Essos) leaders always derive their power from the support of many divergent parties - if the shadow falters, there is a crisis of leadership.  In this sense, defining one's country along one's own values always fails.  For many of our dead leaders - Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark, Robb Stark and Tywin Lannister - a failure to compromise was in some way their undoing.  If we can take this to be a pattern (and wouldn't you, after that tally of dead titans?) then some of the new generation of leaders - Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow - may be in serious trouble.

In King's Landing, Cersei attempts to take the reins with a subtlety she could only have learned from Robert Baratheon.  Acting as Queen-Regent, she assembles a new Small Council.  The unimposing bunch of Kevan Lannister, Grand Maester Pycelle (Julian Glover) and Mace Tyrell (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) is soon joined by Cersei and Qyburn (Anton Lesser).  Cersei attempts to appoint new positions on Tommen's behalf, including naming the scheming Qyburn as the Master of Whisperers, all in the goal of assembling a placid, malleable cadre to back her rule.

Kevan Lannister then reveals himself as as a true brother of Tywin in steeliness if not ruthlessness.  He cuts Cersei's ham-handed maneuverings down to size; "I did not return to the capital to serve as your puppet, to watch you stack the Small Council with sycophants," he thunders before departing for Casterly Rock, until the King will summon Kevan himself.  Cersei now has a flustered Pycelle and a toothless Mace Tyrell to accompany the mad scientist Qyburn, seen earlier appropriating a dwarf's head for his own experiments.  With the Tyrell juniors scheming (and I wouldn't rule out Mace getting in the mix) and the veiled threat of religious justice (hinted last week by Lancel's reappearance) looming in the distance, one cannot help but fear for a Cersei going out of her way to alienate everybody in sight.

On the other side of the world, Daenerys struggles with a seemingly more principled form of rule.  Daario (Michael Huisman) and Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) raid a home in Meereen and capture a Son of the Harpy.  Mossador (Reece Noi), a freed slave who sits on Daenerys's councils, urges her to kill the Son of the Harpy.  Hizdahr zo Loraq (Joel Fry) disagrees.  Mossador and Hizdahr represent the polar opposites of Daenerys's new regime; the former of the newly empowered slaves terrified of seeing the antiquated, oppressive culture of the old masters resurrected by the Sons of the Harpy, and the latter a young, seemingly reforming member of that older class, who is nevertheless accused by Mossador of supporting these insurgents from the shadows.

Daenerys decides that the Son of the Harpy will not be punished without a fair trial, but Mossador intervenes and kills the prisoner himself.  For this offense, Daenerys decrees that Mossador will be executed publicly.  At play here are many ideas; freedom and justice ("one cannot exist without the other," Daenerys says), her self-proclaimed identity as the Breaker of Chains standing in contrast to her desire for fairness, and the class hatred between the old masters and the freed slaves.  In the end, Daenerys decides to be firm, which is itself admirable and smart, but by publicly executing Mossador for killing a state prisoner she almost deliberately provokes all of her subjects.  Her slaves hiss at their "Mhysa" and Daenerys is driven back to her pyramid while the Unsullied break up a brutal riot between the masters and the freed slaves.

That particular scene is staged spectacularly by director Michael Slovis.  The horrible tensions of Daenerys's newly shaky rule are at terrific visual play here.  Clarke does excellent work, conveying the horror she feels at betraying her "children" publicly, but also the unease she feels at the lurking masters as she approaches her platform.  She wants everybody to see that she is both fair and just, but in the end she too has further alienated herself.  The loyalty of the slaves that is the emotional underpinning of her rule has been seriously called into question, and for what?  Why should the Sons of the Harpy stop now that she has shown weakness?

We have a two new leaders this week; the first is Jon Snow, elected the 998th Commander of the Night's Watch.  Ser Alliser Thorne (Owen Teale) runs on an endorsement from Janos Slynt (Dominic Carter), which Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) eviscerates by recounting the story of Slynt's cowardice in the cellar of Castle Black during the Wildling invasion.  Ser Alliser and Jon both fought bravely in the battle, but Jon's election has a portentous feeling of necessary change.  Sam says of Brother Snow that "when the night was darkest, he was the one we turned to." This is as good a reason as any; Alliser is a strong warrior, but Jon Snow is a natural leader, inventive and decisive.  If winter is coming in force this year, as the trailers indicate, then perhaps a changing of the guard is the only thing that will save the Watch and the realm.  It is in fact the eldest and wisest of the brothers, Maester Aemon, who casts the deciding vote for Jon Snow.  It remains to be seen how well he will adapt to leadership; we can only hope he'll have more luck than Cersei and Daenerys.

Our second new leader, not so new in Westeros-time but unseen to this point, is Prince Doran Martell (Alexander Siddig), the lord of Dorne.  We visit Dorne for the first time this episode, and only briefly, but there's a lot going on.  Princess Myrcella prances through the Water Gardens with Prince Trystane of Dorne, while Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma, gorgeous in grieving black) asks Doran for vengeance for Oberyn, Doran's little brother  It's a brief scene, teasing the entrance of the Sand Snakes and potential danger for Myrcella, but what it does well is establish Doran Martell as a cautious leader who keeps his passions in check (in this respect Siddig is an excellent Doran).  Everybody in the Seven Kingdoms seems to fear Dorne; perhaps this reserved style of governance is better suited to Westeros politics than Cersei's or Daenerys's more impulsive approaches.

Doran looks troubled for having to suspend his emotions, and Thrones has in fact often shown that leadership and responsibility are not the best ways for realizing one's own identity.  "The House of Black and White" offers several more low-key opportunities in that regard.  At the episode open, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) arrives in Braavos, shedding Westeros altogether in favor of the enticing option of training to become one of the Faceless Men, like her Season 2 guardian in Harrenhal.  The quick travel montage through the new city was some of Thrones' most convincing world-building work, giving the viewer a sense of space, climate and economy with a few convincingly-staged shots.  Very little actually happens to Arya in this scene.  After being briefly turned away from the imposing, titular house, she is eventually invited inside by a reappearing Jaqen H'gar (Tom Wlaschiha).  But that's not his name.  He is no one, which is "what a girl must become."  With that she enters the house.  What's cool about this scene is that even in the face of failure, after she crossed the Narrow Sea for this one thing, Arya doesn't pout.  She just says her names and gets back to work surviving on the streets, this time in Braavos rather than King's Landing or the Riverlands.  Arya is a natural survivor, but to become "no one"?  This doesn't sound like her.

This episode included a few moments of triumph (everything Arya did, Bronn's reappearance, Jon's election) to temper an even more dramatic build to disaster than last week.  Right now Cersei's just making her own trouble, but there are so many potential problems on the horizon that it's only a matter of time before one of them hurts her badly.  Daenerys is in much more serious shit, and all the while her identity as the Mother of Dragons, which goes against all of her queenly moderation, tugs at her insistently.  Drogon pays her a brief visit at the end of the episode.  Clarke again does terrific work here; you can see how badly she misses him, the degree to which her dragons really are her children.  As she reaches out to touch her lost dragon, Drogon rears and flies off over the city.  And he's absolutely massive, a force of nature commensurate with what four seasons of hinting has led us to expect.  It's clearly an emotional scene for Daenerys; you can the pull of her dragon identity, but the viewer can also see Drogon for the terror that he has become.  And this is a fine visualization of this idea that has perhaps greatest defined Game of Thrones: no matter what your responsibilities, can anybody really turn away from who they are?

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Bits:

- Again, Tyrion figured on only a very minor level this week.  I don't care if they're only giving him one scene a week while he's not doing anything interesting.  We know him well enough and these Daenerys and Cersei scenes need time to breathe.

- Brienne's whole identity is being questioned.  She's right that Sansa's probably not safe with Littlefinger but Pod is right to point out that now both Sansa and Arya have rejected her help.  Perhaps we're seeing the logical limits to Brienne's extreme commitment to her oaths.  She's not a very pragmatic person, survivor though she is.

- Funny, tender scene with Lollys Stokeworth, whom the show wisely chose to play as a bit simple, rather than completely bubble-headed.  Bronn is reasonably kind to her while planting the seeds for supplanting her sister's claim to the holdfast, which is hilarious.

- Jamie looks to recover his honor/identity as well, by going to Dorne on a secret mission to retrieve Myrcella.  Bronn, his Master-at-One-Handed-Arms, reinforces this reclaiming of identity.  But I fear for both of them.

Book Bits:

- I was wondering if Mossador was supposed to be a new Skahaz or what.  Turns out he's just a symbolic sacrifice.

- Really glad they threw in the dwarf's head scene.  The show has a knack for bringing in some of the nastiest, juiciest details of the books.  And Qyburn.  My God.

- What's Littlefinger's marriage proposal? What is going on with Sansa?  Here's my theory - she's marrying Ramsay Bolton.  No idea how that will play out.  We still haven't seen the Boltons but in my opinion, by seeing Littlefinger, Stannis and even Brienne and Pod, we are touching on a few major characters that will converge in a fascinating climax in the North.  It's fucked up and beyond the books but I love it too - I was very tense several times in this episode, but never more so than when Brienne finally found her maid of three-and-ten.

- Lots of minor-ish book characters were reshuffled this week.  Ellaria Sand will be taking the place of Arianne.  I get it.  Better to transition to Dorne with a shot of a character we already know.  Same with returning Tom Wlaschiha to Arya's storyline.  It really does make better sense of the show and integrates all the different people, locations and ideas.  Finally, I love the heroic lengths the show has taken to keep bringing Bronn back into the story.  Jerome Flynn is some of the best casting the show has ever done and with all the feels going on so far this year, Thrones is already in need of brevity.

- Everything Jon-related was shortened, but I support all decisions in the broader scheme.  There was no room for additional Jon climax last year after the Battle at the Wall, which pacing-wise could only have happened at the end of the season, and it seems that they have big plans for him this year so they feel a need to get a move on.  No problems here.  It's good to have something substantial happen to him most weeks, since he's really, really important and all that.

- I really don't think the show has had this strong a handle on Daenerys since Season 1.  She hasn't had much real drama since then, nothing that really challenges her identity.  Her conquest has been a story of tempered triumph for the past few years, as she's made her slow ascent to the Queen of Slaver's Bay.  But the show has also been slowly building the troubling elements - the upending of tradition, the tensions with her dragon identity and her desire to govern wisely - and they're appearing to climax in what already feels like an emotionally horrifying disaster in the making in Meereen.  This is a very long story, and one has to be patient.  Not all parts will always be as rich as the others.  But they've played the cards well enough to set up what portends to be a harrowing year for the Mother of Dragons.  I thought the final Drogon scene was breathtaking, both visually and emotionally.