Another season – arguably the best one of them all! – is in the books, and what better and more time-honored way to salute its passing than by looking back to its many strengths (and weaknesses) and looking forward to the season that is to come? Come pull up your chair and grab your last […]
Continue reading →Jon Snow (who dies and comes back to life), Beric Dondarrion (the previous recipient of R’hllor’s apparent fondness for resurrections), Benjen Stark (who cannot be saved from dying, but who is rescued from being raised again as a wight) – Game of Thrones’s sixth season has featured many characters who have faced down death in […]
Continue reading →There was a moment in this week’s episode that crystalized much of Game of Thrones’s plot, thematic variations, and, of course, its underlying quasi-medieval reality. And, perhaps amazingly enough, it has nothing to do with violence – and everything to do with obedience.
Continue reading →“Fuck justice, then – we’ll get revenge.” It’s a funny line, delivered by Yara Greyjoy to her devastated brother, Theon (one of just several titular broken men in this week’s installment), but it’s more than just a glib one-liner – it also just so happens to be the very heart of Game of Thrones’s (and, […]
Continue reading →Game of Thrones, episode 607 + Twitter = happiness. Except, well… A man can try to be witty, but a man isn’t Axey. When Axes run away from the Wall to go play at Mole’s Town (no, he didn’t abandon his post – he’s just strolling about for a while and should be back… eventually), us […]
Continue reading →There seem to be two dominant thematic motifs at work in “Blood of My Blood,” simultaneously building off of and tugging at one another. On the one hand, there is the conceit of returns: most notably, Uncle Benjen Stark makes his grand debut on the narrative stage after a five-year and 53-episode absence, but there’s […]
Continue reading →It may be time for another Murder of Crows – but it’s also time for something of a twist. We decided to shake things up a bit with our roundtable discussions and to do a fast, down-and-dirty murder. What we ended up with is something short but sweet, quick but (hopefully!) insightful; interestingly enough, talk […]
Continue reading →It’s easy to sort through “The Door’s” various moments of note – the revelation of Wylis’s transformation into Hodor, the choosing of Euron Greyjoy as the next king of the Iron Islands, Sansa Stark’s confrontation with Lord Petyr Baelish – and pick the dominant thematic motif: (re)birth, particularly considering that Euron has a literal return […]
Continue reading →Daenerys Targaryen’s emergence from the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen is, of course, a turning point in the entire series, heralding the Mother of Dragons’s rise as the head of all the Dothraki – a long-dangling plot thread since the very first season – and a major stepping stone to her invasion of the Seven […]
Continue reading →When Jon Snow hands his command over, both figuratively and literally, to Dolorous Edd Tollett, he’s taking his own life, identity, and destiny into his own hands for perhaps the first time since the very first episode, when he first chose to join the Night’s Watch. Yes, there have been times when his autonomy has […]
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