A
big part of a successful, resonant episode of Game of Thrones is where it chooses hedge its climactic bets. Last week’s episode would not have been quite
so wretched had it not chosen to climax with 1) a pretty appalling instance of
sexual assault and 2) a poorly-choreographed battle featuring the much-maligned
Sand Snakes. One of the things I
complained about last week was that the episode chose to conclude with the rape
of Sansa – something like that was probably inevitable, but the show didn’t to
draw so much gratuitous attention to it.
“The Gift”, which is a successful,
resonant episode of Thrones, is so by
playing to the show’s strengths, old and new.
This fifth season has in part been so exciting because characters who
have never met before have been interacting, and we got the best instance of
that with the hotly-anticipated encounter between Tyrion and Daenerys. Thrones
throughout its run has done some of its best work staging intense, intimate
two-handed scenes between terrific actors, and in the plethora of King’s
Landing scenes building up to Cersei’s arrest, we got that as well.
Another thing Thrones does well is foreboding atmosphere, and this week we got plenty of that as well, particularly in the northern reaches of Westeros. Jon departs Castle Black with a newly-freed Tormund, showered with scowls from Olly and withering advice from Ser Alliser. This episode made very clear that nobody at Castle Black likes this plan, excepting Sam and, perhaps, Maester Aemon.
After this episode, though, such support amounts to very little. We experience perhaps the most unusual death on Game of Thrones, in that Maester Aemon dies of natural causes. Even Ser Alliser and Janos Slynt were wroth to question the Maester’s wisdom. Now that he is gone, Ser Alliser seems appropriately aggrieved, but whispers to Sam “you’re losing all your friends, Tarly.” He’s right. And Sam’s support has little effective value either. With Jon and Aemon gone, two nasty Night’s Watchmen take it upon themselves to get closer to Gilly. Sam tries to fight them off and gets brutalized as a result – without Ghost, they almost certainly would have killed him. Sam has a good heart and a sharp mind, but his support really doesn’t count for much since he can barely swing a sword. Sam does at least lose his virginity thereafter, which is quite funny if you can get past the bleak context.
It’s also snowing in the north – all over Castle Black, in Winterfell (which really highlights how fantastic that set is) and in Stannis’s camp. The Baratheon army is starving and snowed in. This plays to the advantage of the Boltons in the upcoming fight – as Ramsay says, the northerners know how to fight in the cold, and these southerners and sellswords are completely unaccustomed. Stannis nevertheless insists on plunging into the breach. It is, as all his advisors point out, terribly risky, but the Mannis is right to note that winter could last for years and that he just can’t risk taking himself out of the game for that long. Winter, as always, is coming, but now it's actually coming.
In both Winterfell and Dorne, the show took steps towards correcting some of the fuck-ups from last week. Sansa still has not been given the agency she deserves, but she does try some moves. She tries to use Reek to light the candle in the high tower, as she is locked in her chambers all day, but Reek, who insists to her that “it can always get worse,” instead tattles to Ramsay, who flays the old northern woman alive. It’s too bad, but during the showmanship scene where Ramsay reveals this gruesome fact to Sansa, Sansa starts to show some pluck. She snatches some kind of shiv (which will hopefully find its way to Ramsay’s throat) and hits Ramsay where it hurts, at his bastard-born status. Ramsay gets the final word in this exchange by revealing the flayed woman, but on the whole, this episode was still a significant step in the right direction as far as finally giving Sansa some damn agency.
Little of consequence happened in Dorne (well...more on that in the book-y speculation) but this week we were given two scenes that were actually tolerable. Jamie and Myrcella technically doesn't involve any Dornish characters, but the Sand Snakes and Bronn was not even that bad. True, Thrones resorted to its tried-and-true sexposition tactics, but at least Tyene's striptease served the actual purpose of moving the poison through Bronn's blood more quickly. But it was the little, lived-in details that made the Sand Snakes finally seem like something close to actual people. Nym and Obara roll their eyes at Tyene like "here she goes again," and this does so much more to make it seem like these women have an actual relationship than their introduction or ill-fated kidnap attempt ever did. A partial but incomplete step in the right direction.
"The Gift" did a very nice job ratcheting up the tension to nearly unbearable levels at Castle Black and Winterfell while getting a couple very neat climaxes in. One of them was quite expected - the inevitable collapse of Cersei's schemes at her heels, all at the hands of the season-long ticking time bomb, Brother Lancel. But this scene was expertly set up by a series of the actor-y standoffs - these two-handed scenes at which Thrones absolutely excels. I don't have the time to spew adulations on Olenna/Baelish and Cersei/Tommen, which were both wonderful, but the two High Sparrow scenes stand out. Olenna spars with the High Sparrow over the arrests of Margaery and Loras, and the fantastic Jonathan Pryce hinted at how scary true devotion can be. Try as she might (and there are few people in Westeros better at this than Olenna), the Queen of Thorns cannot get under the High Sparrow's skin. He really seems to want nothing other than justice, as dictated by the Seven-Pointed Star (a Westerosi Bible equivalent). There's nothing more dangerous or immovable than a fanatic, especially one given a royal mandate to do whatever they think is necessary.
And finally, the High Sparrow springs his trap. It's Cersei's own fault, for he has been very clear about his intentions to bring justice to everybody. Only a fool would not think to include themselves in such calculations, but Cersei has always been blinded by fear and hatred. She has allowed fear and hatred to drive her actions this year - fear of losing her remaining children, utter hatred for the beautiful, young, usurping queen - and failed to realize that she created the biggest potential threat to her own existence. The High Sparrow obviously relishes his reveal, deep under the Sept of Baelor, but how stupid did we think he was? He's known right from the start that Cersei was the worst of them all. That didn't stop him from arresting Loras and Margaery, who did sin in his eyes, but Cersei was probably the big prize all along.
This is a serious comeuppance for one of the show's most despicable characters, but by opening with the childhood prophecy of Cersei's, this season has attempted to at least explain her motivations - as I said earlier, fear and hate. Fear and hate stem from deeply-rooted insecurities. Cersei is basically a very sad woman, and it's hard not to feel the overwhelming despair of having all her power and authority stripped away in an instant (shoulda brought a Kingsguard down there, but that's book-consistent). It reminds me of Joffrey's death in a way. He looked like a sad, scared little child, the nastiest villain (at that time) reduced to pitiable reaching for his mother. He deserved it - oh god, he deserved it - and Cersei does too, but once again the show has found ways to find sympathy for its devils at the hours of their comeuppance. It's this kind of moral ambiguity that makes the show so great, at its best.
The big takeaway from the episode is, of course, the interaction of Tyrion and Daenerys (at this point its not even worth going over all the book-to-show changes, but this really hasn't happened in the books yet). I figured that it was coming this season - unlike GRRM, D+D tend to satisfy rather than prolong ad infinitum - and what I liked about this scene was how unexpected it was. For the third straight episode, Tyrion had his season's best episode, talking/fighting his way into being purchased by Yezzan along with Ser Jorah. It's been really pleasant to watch the character worm his way back into relevance, and he seems to have done so here. The whole thing was quite unexpected, in that it teased a near-miss. Jorah and Tyrion really weren't supposed to be out there, and frankly I didn't expect them to get to Meereen quite so quickly. But it's good when Thrones has the capacity to surprise. While Tyrion and Daenerys haven't met in the books, I don't care. GRRM delays and ponders and meanders and pontificates and it's wonderful, but this is television. We can't be dicked around interminably. Bring it on. A (One of the very finest episodes of the series)
Bits
- Tormund isn't helping anybody (least of all the Wildlings) by prancing around like that once he's been freed.
- Daario's scene this week emphasized how much Daenerys needs somebody less brutal to also advise her - not to say that there isn't some wisdom to his savagery.
- Melisandre says "I saw myself walking the walls of Winterfell"...but not Stannis. I'm turning the death-watch on. Gods please don't let it be true.
- Rosabell Laurenti Sellers. Not to sound like a sexist pig but damn gurl.
- Here's Chekhov's Dragonglass (I stole that, can't remember from who)! Sometimes the show is too obvs.
Book Bits
- I don't give a shit that Tyrion and Daenerys haven't met in the books or that this probably confirms they eventually will. It's just going to be too much fun for me to care.
- So I am now seriously concerned that Bronn will be Arys Oakheart and die, given the seductive overtures of Tyene this week. Bronn is smart, but he probably can't restrain himself in this case.
- If Bronn and Stannis both die...I actually will barely be able to make it. I actually cannot bear the thought of Stannis dying.
- One of the best, saddest lines from the book made it - "Egg...I dreamed I was old..." RIP Maester Aemon.
- So...will Sam go to Oldtown? The death of Aemon and the Gillysex kind of wrecks that storyline.
Another thing Thrones does well is foreboding atmosphere, and this week we got plenty of that as well, particularly in the northern reaches of Westeros. Jon departs Castle Black with a newly-freed Tormund, showered with scowls from Olly and withering advice from Ser Alliser. This episode made very clear that nobody at Castle Black likes this plan, excepting Sam and, perhaps, Maester Aemon.
After this episode, though, such support amounts to very little. We experience perhaps the most unusual death on Game of Thrones, in that Maester Aemon dies of natural causes. Even Ser Alliser and Janos Slynt were wroth to question the Maester’s wisdom. Now that he is gone, Ser Alliser seems appropriately aggrieved, but whispers to Sam “you’re losing all your friends, Tarly.” He’s right. And Sam’s support has little effective value either. With Jon and Aemon gone, two nasty Night’s Watchmen take it upon themselves to get closer to Gilly. Sam tries to fight them off and gets brutalized as a result – without Ghost, they almost certainly would have killed him. Sam has a good heart and a sharp mind, but his support really doesn’t count for much since he can barely swing a sword. Sam does at least lose his virginity thereafter, which is quite funny if you can get past the bleak context.
It’s also snowing in the north – all over Castle Black, in Winterfell (which really highlights how fantastic that set is) and in Stannis’s camp. The Baratheon army is starving and snowed in. This plays to the advantage of the Boltons in the upcoming fight – as Ramsay says, the northerners know how to fight in the cold, and these southerners and sellswords are completely unaccustomed. Stannis nevertheless insists on plunging into the breach. It is, as all his advisors point out, terribly risky, but the Mannis is right to note that winter could last for years and that he just can’t risk taking himself out of the game for that long. Winter, as always, is coming, but now it's actually coming.
In both Winterfell and Dorne, the show took steps towards correcting some of the fuck-ups from last week. Sansa still has not been given the agency she deserves, but she does try some moves. She tries to use Reek to light the candle in the high tower, as she is locked in her chambers all day, but Reek, who insists to her that “it can always get worse,” instead tattles to Ramsay, who flays the old northern woman alive. It’s too bad, but during the showmanship scene where Ramsay reveals this gruesome fact to Sansa, Sansa starts to show some pluck. She snatches some kind of shiv (which will hopefully find its way to Ramsay’s throat) and hits Ramsay where it hurts, at his bastard-born status. Ramsay gets the final word in this exchange by revealing the flayed woman, but on the whole, this episode was still a significant step in the right direction as far as finally giving Sansa some damn agency.
Little of consequence happened in Dorne (well...more on that in the book-y speculation) but this week we were given two scenes that were actually tolerable. Jamie and Myrcella technically doesn't involve any Dornish characters, but the Sand Snakes and Bronn was not even that bad. True, Thrones resorted to its tried-and-true sexposition tactics, but at least Tyene's striptease served the actual purpose of moving the poison through Bronn's blood more quickly. But it was the little, lived-in details that made the Sand Snakes finally seem like something close to actual people. Nym and Obara roll their eyes at Tyene like "here she goes again," and this does so much more to make it seem like these women have an actual relationship than their introduction or ill-fated kidnap attempt ever did. A partial but incomplete step in the right direction.
"The Gift" did a very nice job ratcheting up the tension to nearly unbearable levels at Castle Black and Winterfell while getting a couple very neat climaxes in. One of them was quite expected - the inevitable collapse of Cersei's schemes at her heels, all at the hands of the season-long ticking time bomb, Brother Lancel. But this scene was expertly set up by a series of the actor-y standoffs - these two-handed scenes at which Thrones absolutely excels. I don't have the time to spew adulations on Olenna/Baelish and Cersei/Tommen, which were both wonderful, but the two High Sparrow scenes stand out. Olenna spars with the High Sparrow over the arrests of Margaery and Loras, and the fantastic Jonathan Pryce hinted at how scary true devotion can be. Try as she might (and there are few people in Westeros better at this than Olenna), the Queen of Thorns cannot get under the High Sparrow's skin. He really seems to want nothing other than justice, as dictated by the Seven-Pointed Star (a Westerosi Bible equivalent). There's nothing more dangerous or immovable than a fanatic, especially one given a royal mandate to do whatever they think is necessary.
And finally, the High Sparrow springs his trap. It's Cersei's own fault, for he has been very clear about his intentions to bring justice to everybody. Only a fool would not think to include themselves in such calculations, but Cersei has always been blinded by fear and hatred. She has allowed fear and hatred to drive her actions this year - fear of losing her remaining children, utter hatred for the beautiful, young, usurping queen - and failed to realize that she created the biggest potential threat to her own existence. The High Sparrow obviously relishes his reveal, deep under the Sept of Baelor, but how stupid did we think he was? He's known right from the start that Cersei was the worst of them all. That didn't stop him from arresting Loras and Margaery, who did sin in his eyes, but Cersei was probably the big prize all along.
This is a serious comeuppance for one of the show's most despicable characters, but by opening with the childhood prophecy of Cersei's, this season has attempted to at least explain her motivations - as I said earlier, fear and hate. Fear and hate stem from deeply-rooted insecurities. Cersei is basically a very sad woman, and it's hard not to feel the overwhelming despair of having all her power and authority stripped away in an instant (shoulda brought a Kingsguard down there, but that's book-consistent). It reminds me of Joffrey's death in a way. He looked like a sad, scared little child, the nastiest villain (at that time) reduced to pitiable reaching for his mother. He deserved it - oh god, he deserved it - and Cersei does too, but once again the show has found ways to find sympathy for its devils at the hours of their comeuppance. It's this kind of moral ambiguity that makes the show so great, at its best.
The big takeaway from the episode is, of course, the interaction of Tyrion and Daenerys (at this point its not even worth going over all the book-to-show changes, but this really hasn't happened in the books yet). I figured that it was coming this season - unlike GRRM, D+D tend to satisfy rather than prolong ad infinitum - and what I liked about this scene was how unexpected it was. For the third straight episode, Tyrion had his season's best episode, talking/fighting his way into being purchased by Yezzan along with Ser Jorah. It's been really pleasant to watch the character worm his way back into relevance, and he seems to have done so here. The whole thing was quite unexpected, in that it teased a near-miss. Jorah and Tyrion really weren't supposed to be out there, and frankly I didn't expect them to get to Meereen quite so quickly. But it's good when Thrones has the capacity to surprise. While Tyrion and Daenerys haven't met in the books, I don't care. GRRM delays and ponders and meanders and pontificates and it's wonderful, but this is television. We can't be dicked around interminably. Bring it on. A (One of the very finest episodes of the series)
Bits
- Tormund isn't helping anybody (least of all the Wildlings) by prancing around like that once he's been freed.
- Daario's scene this week emphasized how much Daenerys needs somebody less brutal to also advise her - not to say that there isn't some wisdom to his savagery.
- Melisandre says "I saw myself walking the walls of Winterfell"...but not Stannis. I'm turning the death-watch on. Gods please don't let it be true.
- Rosabell Laurenti Sellers. Not to sound like a sexist pig but damn gurl.
- Here's Chekhov's Dragonglass (I stole that, can't remember from who)! Sometimes the show is too obvs.
Book Bits
- I don't give a shit that Tyrion and Daenerys haven't met in the books or that this probably confirms they eventually will. It's just going to be too much fun for me to care.
- So I am now seriously concerned that Bronn will be Arys Oakheart and die, given the seductive overtures of Tyene this week. Bronn is smart, but he probably can't restrain himself in this case.
- If Bronn and Stannis both die...I actually will barely be able to make it. I actually cannot bear the thought of Stannis dying.
- One of the best, saddest lines from the book made it - "Egg...I dreamed I was old..." RIP Maester Aemon.
- So...will Sam go to Oldtown? The death of Aemon and the Gillysex kind of wrecks that storyline.
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