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Game of Thrones, Season 6 Wrap-Up
Courtesy gameofthrones.wikia.com.
[Editors’ Note: Take heed, for this post is dark and full of spoilers.]
Okay, now that everybody who isn’t interested in the show has gone, where should we begin? Props or slops?
First, overall props to the writers of “The Winds of Winter,” one of the better season finales yet. A great number of payoffs were made last night. The revenge of House Stark upon the Freys, the revenge of Cersei upon, well, everybody, and the impending showdown between the Lannisters and, well … everybody that didn’t die at Baelor’s Sept.
Second, slops for Arya’s trip to Braavos to become one of the Faceless Men. Training in the House of Black and White under Jaqen H’Ghar involved absorbing a lot of stick-beatings at the hands of the Waif, washing up the dead and… not a ton of learning the assassin’s craft. While it’s true that Arya’s learning how to fight while blind saved her life, it’s also unfortunate that the only real detectable difference in Arya now is that her desire for revenge is enabled by the ability to change faces. To be fair, this will make you an effective assassin… but generally in high fantasy, using this sort of power has a cost to those who wield it. Thus far, we’ve seen no indication that Arya will pay a price for using or abusing such power (more on this theme later). However, the Titus Andronicus/”Scott Tenorman Must Die” moment we got to enjoy before Walder Frey’s assassination was a fitting bit of justice for one of GoT’s most despised characters.
Third, props for the visually (and viscerally) satisfying end to the High Sparrow and his flock at Baelor’s Sept. This is the scene from Angels and Demons that we didn’t really get to see: A WMD terrorist attack on a great cathedral. The irony of watching religious fanatics preventing the crowd from escaping as destruction wells up from under them was not wasted.
Fourth, King Tommen’s subsequent suicide was… unexpected. We sometimes hear stories (perhaps apocryphal) of people tossing themselves out of windows after a stock market crash. When some people have their faith shattered it has catastrophic consequences. Tommen watching the will of the Gods thwarted as the Sept imploded was his own burgeoning faith popping like a balloon.
Fifth — and hardly missing a beat — props for Cersei having herself crowned Queen. A colder, more sociopathic human being is difficult to imagine.
But, sixth, slops for… I can’t really think of anything to complain about here aside from how neatly all of the ends in King’s Landing were tied up. Cersei had all of her enemies in one spot at one time and wiped them out. Even as over-the-top as Game of Thrones can sometimes be, the bit with Septa Unella and Cersei’s revenge upon her was still disturbing.
Seventh, props to Daenerys for finally leaving Slaver’s Dragon’s Bay; better late than never, but this is long overdue. There was a lot of durdling around over on the other side of the world and discussion about how difficult it is to take a hammer and tongs to a culture and change it from the outside. We got the point. The British had this problem when they colonized India and had to stamp out the practice of widow-burning. In the end, either you enforce your cultural norms upon people and have to be willing to hang those who violate them or give up.
Eighth, slops to hyperloop traveling Varys. That guy gets around fast. The mess that was created at the beginning of this season with the assassination of Prince Doran was fastidiously squeegeed up by the burgeoning alliance between Highgarden, Dorne, and the Dragon Queen against the Lannisters.
Ninth, props and slops to Jon Snow. Or should we call him “Rhaegar, Jr.”? The long-awaited and much-anticipated revelation that Jon is actually the son of Lyanna Stark and deceased Targaryen heir was finally confirmed last night by the remainder of Bran’s vision of the Tower of Joy.
Jon was just acclaimed King in the North but, as it turns out Daenerys is Jon’s aunt. Fortunately, Daenerys seems open to the notion of federalism in the Seven Kingdoms, so hopefully she won’t go all Cersei on him and have her dragons roast the Northerners to a crisp.
The the real issue with Jon was … that there were no issues. The guy was stabbed to death, frozen into a popsicle, and then brought back to life a day or two later. What price was paid for that? Perhaps it was Melisandre who suffered, as you could see when she removed her necklace? The point is, we don’t know.
The notion of costs paid for violating the laws of nature doesn’t seem to have occurred to the writers of the show, even though it’s demonstrated in the novels that using unnatural means to accomplish your goals has similarly unnatural consequences. We can see this with Arya and Jon alike this season.
Even with these very minor problems, it’s hard to complain. Last night’s finale put all of the pieces in the position they need to be in for the final chapters, but the amount of story that is being compressed in here is probably too much. Like, how is Sam going to become a maester (presumably this takes years) in time to be of any use to Jon against the White Walkers?
We’ll find out. Just nine-and-a-half months to go.
Published in Entertainment
Got to save the moneys for all of that CG that’s going to happen next season. It’s like a Baseball team cutting bait just before the trade deadline – except this is a winning team.
“Showrunners pleased that show will now have a merely ‘sprawlingly-large’ cast.”
At least they’re all on the same damn continent.
By my count the big ones are the High Sparrow, The Faith Militant, Every Tyrel except the Queen of Thorns, not sure if any of the Kings Guard was there, but I don’t think they have names anymore other than Franken Mountain.
Yeah, they dropped that ball a long time ago. Meryn Trant was the last named member of the Kingsguard on the show who wasn’t Jaime.
Everything about the King’s Landing scenes was what I imagined and more. The music was superb. Between Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, and the finale, Miguel Sapochnik is one hell of a director.
As someone who has never expected Lady Stoneheart to appear in the show (and I’m glad for it), I took the Brotherhood story as a push to go north. Thoros and Beric know the real war, the only thing that matters now, is the war for the living. Now they’ve recruited the Hound to go with them.
I think there will a reunion of those 3, Arya, and Melisandre soon. Also Arya and her wolf.
Poor Jaime. Always needing to kill Iron Throne rulers who want to burn down King’s landing. You’d think people would leave the capital now that the current ruler just destroyed the Sept.
Cersei Cersei Cersei. Always fulfilling her own prophecy.
That’s a lot of supernaturalism to make that happen.
I mean what is the point of having a red priest character in the group if he doesn’t see visions of the great war?
See, to me the question is why bother with the Brotherhood at all if you’re not doing Stoneheart? It’s a huge detour that involves a lot of magic and isn’t otherwise necessary to the plot. Sure, it sort of pre-figures Jon’s resurrection, but that could be handled in other ways.
To be clear, I consider myself a pro-Stoneheart person, but I can absolutely respect cutting her (it does work without her). I simply think it’s a bad decision to include the Brotherhood if you’re cutting her.
Jon needs more men.
Plenty of ways to make that happen. Plenty of ways to get the Hound north.
Maybe, but the brotherhood already existed.
I think we’re going to see him again. That group is headed north to fight the Whitewalkers. I expect to see Sandor instrumental in that (likely final) battle.
Amen to that!
Son O’Shea texted me after Tommen’s suicide and wondered if this is why the city is called “King’s Landing”.
My biggest problem with the episode was Jon Snow just shrugging off Sansa’s silence on the Knights of the Vale coming. One would think she would have something to say other than just an apology.
Yep, lazy writing that, so that we could get the cliche Riders of Rohan moment and have Sansa save the day (even though she withheld vital information from Jon and Davos, leading to them sacrificing way more lives than was necessary in the battle). At least they had a scene where she said Sorry, as inadequate as that really is.
That would be my guess. Jorah had been at the Wall a long time.
So is the outcome of GOT a given. the good will prevail, or can it happen that cersei or another bad guy will end up winning?
Some combination of John and Danny will be triumphant in the end. I’d bet my last nickle.
Couple interesting things … Season 5 had the line that Dany wasn’t going to stop the wheel of houses vying for control, but break it. The show began with eight great houses with a ninth in exile. As of the end of season 6, here’s the standings:
Starks of the North: best of the lot. One Stark/Targaryon (though just known as a Stark bastard), one Stark woman, and one Stark man that no ones knows is still alive.
Lannisters of the Westerlands: Down to just Jaime, Cersei, and Tyrion, with a prophecy that Cersei will be killed by her little brother. If Tyrion doesn’t have children, there will be no more Lannisters. (Let’s face it; Cersei is not going to live long enough to have another child.)
Baratheons of the Stormlands: All known Baratheons are dead.
Tyrells of the Reach: Down to just Olenna, who while awesome, is not able to restore her family line at her age.
Martells of Dorne: All named Martells are dead thanks to the Sand Snakes.
Greyjoys of the Iron Islands: A eunuch, a woman, and madman. There’s at least a chance of this house continuing, though that would require Euron to marry someone or Yara to sleep with a man for a change.
Arryns of the Vale: A sickly boy under Littlefinger’s thumb. I suppose he could continue his lineage, but betting money says he’s a dead kid walking.
The Riverlands is an interesting case; their Lords most recently were the Freys. With Walder and his two most competent sons dead, fratricide looks like. The previous Lords, the Tullys, are now mostly dead, with just Edmure remaining. But he does have a son, and an army that only surrendered instead of being defeated.
And then we have the Targaryon. She better plan on having a dynasty if she wants her war to actually end bloodshed instead of just perpetuating it forever. But at this point, the wheel of great houses looks pretty darn broken.
My understanding is that Dani is now barren, which makes it hard for her to continue the line. I’m not convinced she is suited to rule, and may not survive the series.
Snow almost certainly is the best chance to unite the varying factions, one Bran arrives to make Westeros less irregular. Sansa can take a husband and rule in the North. The question is who will be the mates for Jon and Sansa?
Jamie is also around to carry on the Lannister name, but I suspect by the time Cersei is done the house will be destroyed, bereft of force and fortune.
I had thought that Sansa would be repurposed as Lady Stoneheart; the only reason to keep the Brotherhood around. Catlan has been gone too long now, and Dundarian is still alive.
But now the Freys are gone, not sure who she would be burning with revenge for.
Still could happen though, I suppose.
What I’ve always said is bittersweet ending. So men will win, but magic will altogether die out. As it has to for men to have any chance. That would take out several forces, most importantly Dany+Dragons and White Walkers.
As for Bran, well who can actually say about the most powerful entity in this series? I used to think I know, but the extent of Bran’s powers has really made me reconsider things.
I am completely lost on what’s Bran’s role is. He’s been a convenient vehicle for flashbacks to provide backstory, but I haven’t a clue how he’ll be helpful in the coming battle with the dead. I’m not a book reader though. Is there info there that’s come out?
Sorry to take a contrarian view of this episode, but it exposed flaws in the writing that have been present the entire series. Arya killing Frey was the equivalent of a deus ex machina given all of the unresolved issues with her storyline: Recall that we last saw here three or four episodes ago standing in the House of Black and White having just killed the Waif. Did anything happen between her and Jaqen H’Ghar after that? When did Arya set out to kill Frey? Was that her plan all along? Or did she just happen to learn that he had retaken the Riverlands and rerouted from where she was actually going? How did she get there? All of this gets to the lack of a good time scale mentioned above; there are hints that time passes (i.e. Olenna being in Dohrne and obviously in mourning over her family being murdered; Varys travelling back and forth; preparation of the invasion fleet; Jamie marching back to King’s Landing [but the Sept was still smoldering, so it couldn’t have taken too long]), but the time scale is not well enough established to give the viewer a good sense of how long things take.
But all of this pales in comparison to the sloppy writing of the King’s Landing plotline. They spent most of the season suggesting that Margerie had a grand plan to outwit the High Sparrow, but never told us what it was. And rather than having her act on that plan, they just blew her up. Which, in theory, is in keeping with the ethos of the show (people’s plans are thwarted by fate and the evil plans of others), but the way she was blown up was just as mysterious. To blow up Margerie they had Cersei plant hundreds of barrels of wildfire, but we are never told where she got them, how long it took to move them there (I’m under the impression that the pre-existing stores of wildfire were used to repel Stannis, but I may be misremembering), and, importantly, how she was able to get this massive amount of explosives directly under the Sept without any of the Faith Militant (or anybody else) finding out! And on top of that it was all apparently carried out by a bunch of homicidal homeless children. Plots to demolish large buildings take lots of planning and careful execution. We were told of NONE of that related to Cersei’s plan (and it still hasn’t been explained).
Loose ends are the hallmark of sloppy writing, and I this season had enough loose ends to knit a sweater.
Having just written my negative nancy post above, I have to note that I’m still a big fan of the show, and am very much looking forward to next season when Bran wargs in to one of Daenerys’s dragons to help Jon defeat the Night King’s army.
It was already there. TheMad King acquired them and the Kigslayer slayed the king to prevent him from blowing up Kingslanding.
The Mad Queen merely completed the Mad King’s work.