Castles fall, Starks come together, an epic meet-up takes place, and Cersei wreaks vengeance as only she can in the newest episode of Game of Thrones, entitled “The Queen’s Justice.” Which queen reigned supreme in tonight’s episode? Let’s break it down.
Spoiler Note: This is our book reader’s recap, intended for those who have read the A Song of Ice and Fire series. The post and the comments section may contain spoilers from the novels, whether or not that material has appeared on the show yet. Because no, we are not all Unsullied now. If you have not read the books yet, we encourage you to check out our non-book-reader recap, by Oz of Thrones!
Memo to HBO: first of all, thanks for replaying last week’s horrifying Jorah-flaying moment in the weekly pre-ep recap. We really needed a memory refreshing on that account.
Second, we get Pyke in the opening credits (when it doesn’t appear) but no Highgarden or Casterly Rock? Fork over the cash to make the credits on point, HBO. We’re but humble nerds: these are the little things that make us happy!
That said, let’s get down to business!
Game of Thrones has been teasing us with a momentous gathering for a while now, the loaded first meeting of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. The two lead characters have never met in the Song of Ice and Fire novels, but it’s often speculated that their fates may be ultimately entwined. Is that the case on the show? We don’t know yet but in tonight’s episode, GoT sets the stage for a cautious political connection based on earned mutual respect.
But before we get to Jon and Dany’s first face-off, we get a reunion I’ve been wanting more than any Stark one: Jon and Tyrion Lannister happily meet again for the first time since they parted ways at the Wall in season one, both bearing new scars. The men are glad to see one another on the beach at Dragonstone, but business is business. Team Dragonstone Reboot is smart enough to ask for Team Winterfell’s weapons. Things have changed since Davos was here last, that’s for certain.
As they head up to the castle, they chat, and I’m thrilled to see someone finally ask how a Night’s Watchman can become King in the North. I should’ve known it would be Tyrion who’d ask the right question. They’re interrupted by a dragon diving into their crowd, frightening Jon and Davos, just as Jon declares “I’m not a Stark.”
Well if I didn’t know better, I’d say the dragon was curious about Jon and wanted a closer look at- a smell, a taste of?- the new visitor. Given that he is half-Targaryen, it would be strange if Jon didn’t get some kind of reaction from the dragons.
Above them, Melisandre and Varys watch, detached from the proceedings. When questioned about staying away from the welcoming committee, Melisandre says that she’s done her part, bringing ice and fire together. The priestess, when pushed, is forced to admit she and Jon didn’t part on good terms, but she won’t be staying- she’s leaving for Volantis.
The magic-hating Varys warns her off from returning with an implied threat, but Melisandre gives as good as she gets without even trying. The eunuch has a bad track record when it comes to dealing with Red priestesses and this time is no exception. Melisandre matter of factly informs him she’ll return to Westeros eventually because she’ll die there…just like him. He’s speechless as she strolls away.
Now it’s time for the main event- Jon and Davos roll up to Dragonstone’s throne room, with Daenerys posed artfully on the Dragonthrone, for maximum intimidation effect.
Missandei adds to that by filling up the next ten minutes announcing Daenerys’ titles, as fans go use the restroom and refill their bowls of chips. When they get back, it’s Jon’s turn! His introduction is much quicker though, with Davos’ trademark blunt style.
The two monarchs sniff around each other warily, with each unwilling to give an inch. Daenerys is determined to have Jon bend the knee and recognize her claim as queen of ALL Seven Kingdoms, while Jon remembers very well that her father burned his grandfather alive, and they all have bigger problems than the war with Cersei. And why would Daenerys believe his claims about the army of the dead, readily? With both characters on such different pages, it’s unsurprising that they’re butting heads and unable to agree. Even with wingmen like Davos and Tyrion doing their best, these are two righteous-minded leaders who are unwilling to nudge.
Daenerys and Jon Snow have come a long way over the past six seasons and developed admirable certainty in themselves, and in their dedication to their people and their paths. Right now though, it’s making it damned difficult for them to come to terms with one another.
As Dany and Jon come to an impasse, Varys arrives with a message and the dragon queen learns of “Stormborn”‘s events.
Just then, we see a ship of Ironborn hauling Theon’s limp but living body from the sea. They question him about Yara. Theon claims he tried to do something but as Harrag points out, Theon would be dead if he’d tried to do something about Euron.
In the sea battle, Yara, Ellaria and Tyene fell into Euron’s hands. They’re lucky to be alive, but how lucky are they? As we see, they’ve been dragged back to King’s Landing as his prisoners, with cityfolk throwing garbage at them and Euron taunting Yara about Theon’s actions as they walk. (Anyone else get flashbacks to the Walk of Shame here?)
Euron leads the women into the throne room, and presents Ellaria and Tyene to Cersei as his gift to her. Ellaria spots the shape of the Mountain, her own personal boogeyman, and looks horrified, but she’s defiant and spitting when placed before the queen.
Having delivered, Euron wants his prize- marriage with Cersei- but she puts him off slyly. He’ll get his prize when the war is won. Sure, Cersei- because you’ll make sure he’s dead by then.
For now, Jaime will have to play nicely with Euron and his necessary navy.
It’s all over for Ellaria and Tyene, however.
Cersei has murdered plenty of innocent people but we can’t count the Sand Snakes among them. Their murder of Myrcella was particularly awful, and as revenge for the death of her daughter at their hands, Cersei has planned a symmetrical punishment. After a proper amount of villain monologuing with her fittingly spiky dress, as Ellaria begins to understand what’s coming without Cersei spelling it out, the queen lays a long kiss on Tyene’s lips.
Qyburn is at Cersei’s side at once with the antidote for The Long Farewell. But there won’t be an antidote for Tyene, and her mother will witness her death and decomposition until the end of her days. An inglorious end for the once-powerful daughters of Dorne who grabbed for power and lost badly.
Afterward, Cersei is feeling very sexually aggressive and pays Jaime a visit. The next morning, she’s completely without shame regarding the naked Kingslayer in her bed when her servant comes knocking to let her know that the Iron Bank is visiting.
In a world full of honor, blood feuds and oaths, it’s refreshing to know that there still exists a group of people who care about nothing but coin. There’s an ice zombie apocalypse on the way, but no, the Iron Bank of Braavos doesn’t care: they will keep on coming like the Two Dollars kid in Better Off Dead.
Which is a real problem for Cersei and the Iron Throne who are in serious debt to the bank. The Lannisters’ vaults aren’t what they used to be, and Tycho Nestoris (Mark Gatiss, reappearing in a wonderfully reptilian performance) personally visits Cersei to inform her: the Iron Bank wants their money, soonish.
Lucky for them, Cersei has a plan.
On Dragonstone, Tyrion’s trying to have a quality brood (over his strategic failures of late) when he’s interrupted by excessively good-looking fellow brooder Jon Snow.
Jon’s troubled by the issue of convincing people about the growing threat of the Night King and the White Walkers, while he’s also a semi-prisoner on Dragonstone. Tyrion sings the song of Dany’s greatness and defend her unwillingness to buy into Jon’s crusade. But he does want to help Jon, and finds a way to do so, handily.
Dragonglass– it’s why Jon came, after all. Tyrion explains its use to Daenerys and the fact of its presence underground on the island. He’s still not sure that the icy snarks and grumpkins are for real, but doesn’t see the harm in giving him the dragonglass. He leans toward believing him though, since Jon’s very presence points that way. Dany seems open to the idea, but notes Davos’ mistake earlier during their first meet-and-greet, when he oddly mentioned Jon “taking a knife in the heart.”
Speaking to Jon herself, Daenerys feels him out and decides to grant him the dragonglass…though she’s still unwilling to admit to believing in the army of the dead. Which is a normal way of thinking, but when you have three dragons, you think a woman would be more open-minded.
Sansa was raised to be the lady of a Great House, and it shows as she handles the winterization of Winterfell in Jon’s absence. Littlefinger takes the opportunity to join Sansa and chat her up about…honestly it’s all stupid shit from the trailer. This guy speaks like a fortune cookie. Literally nothing he says matters. Remember when Littlefinger mattered? Thankfully an interruption!
She hurries to the gate to find…Bran! A distant-eyed, much older version of her baby brother but still, it’s him. She throws her arms around him, and weeps.
Sitting in the godswood later, we can see that Bran’s coolness hasn’t changed. It’s who he is now, with the Three-Eyed Raven settling into him. He denies the possibility of ever being Lord of Winterfell. His powers seem omnipotent, and yet Bran says, “I need to learn to see better.” He apologizes for all the awful things that have happened to Sansa, as he recounts her wedding. She flees, unnerved by his powers and what he’s seen of her experiences. Bran may be powerful, but he does have a long way to go in understanding how to handle the flow of information running through him.
In Oldtown, Archmaester Ebrose is scrutinizing Jorah, who has had a miraculous recovery from greyscale. He’s terribly scarred, but healthy and alive. The archmaester is rightly suspicious of the story that he simply got better. He discharges Jorah from the Citadel, since he’s not infectious anymore, and has Sam come to him later.
Sam confesses immediately under questioning and suffers a nasty tongue-lashing from Ebrose, and that’s about it. As punishment for the risks he took, he has to copy some old moldy books, but he gets to stay in the Citadel.
On Dragonstone, with the threat of Euron’s fleet looming large, Daenerys proposes attacking them with the dragons- with herself piloting the mission. Her advisers don’t like the plan though, since she can be killed easily. They’re hoping the taking of Casterly Rock will go better, especially with Tyrion’s well-narrated plan.
To take down the seat of House Lannister, Tyrion uses his extensive knowledge of the Casterly Rock sewers and a secret passageway that allows a handful of Unsullied soldiers to access the impregnable castle. Because as Bronn once said of the Eyrie in season one, “Give me ten good men, and I’ll impregnate the bitch.”
The Unsullied cut through the Lannisters easily, in a skillful but unmoving sequence. When they’re done with the butchery, Grey Worm notices the low number of Lannister men- because they’re mostly somewhere else. Not the Greyjoys though- Euron’s fleet arrives at Casterly Rock to burn the Unsullied’s ships at sea and strand them there.
So where are the Lannisters?
Paying Olenna and Highgarden back for joining up with Daenerys, that’s where they are.
The Lannisters, with the support of the Tarlys (and Bronn, hey girl I just saw Bronn!), take the House Tyrell seat swiftly. As the Queen of Thorns notes, fighting isn’t their forte. He finds Olenna Tyrell waiting for him, and he pours the woman a drink.
As they speak, he confesses to leaving Casterly Rock wide open for the taking- it’s not worth much these days. There’s confessions galore: Olenna also points out his love for Cersei that will likely be his end. She knows she’s done for, and is just waiting to find out how she’ll be ended. She’s cool as a cucumber to the very end, our Queen of Thorns. Jaime grants her a graceful end- a painless poison in her glass of wine. She knocks it back in a long swallow without hesitation.
As a final, beautiful middle finger, Olenna Tyrell confesses one more thing- to Joffrey’s murder. She didn’t know his poison death would be so gruesome, having never seen that poison do its work. She asks Jaime to make sure to tell Cersei- she wants her to know it was her. Shaken, Jaime leaves while Olenna’s head is still held high.
Stray Thoughts
The Big Meeting: I was worried it would turn into a googly-eyed sexy-tension fest between Jon and Dany, but I was pleased with how layered their interactions were. These are two characters with strong motivations and they’re not going to lose them at the drop of a hat.
Tyrion & Dany, on the Case: Everyone’s pretending for a year that Jon wasn’t dead and in the Night’s Watch and making him king and stuff, and NOW people are asking questions. ’bout damned time!
The Queen of Thorns: Live like a boss, die like a boss. That’s her way. Diana Rigg, always and forever a queen.
Callback Central: I’m loving all the callbacks in this episode and the season in general. It doesn’t feel lazy, it feels like continuity in a lived world. Even the musical motifs with the recurring touches of “Rains” feel right.
The Rock and the Garden: I get that the fall of the two castles weren’t necessarily intended to be major battle pieces, but considering how much we saw of the Unsullied and Lannisters fighting in the montage, it still felt weirdly sterile. It felt as though we were watching a recap video, which affords a lot of detachment, and feeling uninvolved is not where I want to be with any TV show. They’re well done on a technical level, but they’re not hitting me in the heart. If it wasn’t for the Queen of Thorns, I would’ve felt pretty unsatisfied with the last couple scenes.
MVP: Davos, the ultimate wingman and best improvisational announcer guy!
Stark & Stark: Another Stark reunion! But a bittersweet one. They’re not kids anymore, and a lot has happened.
Jon and Tyrion 4ever!!!
Oh, did I forget something? Nodor?
Hoe-Door
Cersei and Ellaria’s scene was sooo well acted.
I like that even amongst her rage Cersei displays vulnerability “You took her from me. Why did you do that?”
Ps: I find it hilarious that Cersei makes her servants wear evil black outfits as well.
Olenna had quite a poetic death — a kingslayer dying in the presence of a kingslayer. Before episode 3 aired I had the thought that “The Queen’s Justice” will be about Olenna’s justice — the “Queen of Thorns.” The whole idea of it just rang from episode 10 of the last season when the Sands offered her vengeance and justice. She might not have lived to see her revenge realized, at least she died in her own terms—drinking the poison-laced wine without the slightest hesitation. She chose a painless death before destroying Jaime with the immensity of his mistakes. If she spilled the cream before taking Jaime’s “merciful” death offer, perhaps it would have ended diffrently for her. But she was clever enough to set a perfect pace. Talking about doing ruthless things to protect her family is quite the parallel of Jaime making hard choices to protect other people — like what he did for the people of KL which earned him his monicker. Jaime and Olenna both killed mad kings (Joffrey can be inarguably mad, one can admit). And yet those consequential acts, if not heroic, are countermined in the roles they played in spreading the “disease” that is Cersei — as Olenna had said in her dignified exit. We can only hope that Jaime can “learn from [his] mistakes” just as the QoT learned from hers, while he still lives.
SO SAD THE SHOWRUNNERS DIDN’T DO ANY JUSTICE TO HIGHGARDEN though. It was supposed to be a very, if not the most, beautiful keep in Westeros. Anyhow, Olenna got to spar with almost all the big shots in the series before dropping the last mic.
Another strong case for Jonsa episode. I have to admit I had my doubts about it during the off season. I kept telling myself that may be I was seeing things that were not there and I was crazy. After 3 episodes of the new season its clear to me it was not coincidence and in fact very much telling where the endgame is heading.
Unella’s torture felt like a way more grisly thing than how Cersei handled the Queen of Thorns. Just doesn’t seem in Cersei’s character to show mercy especially after that speech where the QoT says she didn’t have enough imagination to know how to counter Cersei because Cersei was so awful.
I am reallllly worried about what Euron is going to do to his niece. There may be some people hiding their eyes next week during that part.
ManderlyPieCompany,
Well, from what Jaime said, Cersei’s ideas were a lot more gruesome. Jaime is a moderating influence. Maybe he took it into his own hands to be saner.
my favourite scene was the one between Ellaria and Cersei, THAT ACTING, wow, it blew my mind, it was perfect
MY REVIEW (2nd and last time I post it)
What I Loved:
-Dragonstone cinematography early in the episode’
-Jon and Dany
-Jon and Tyrion (after awkward meeting)
What I Liked:
-Mel and Varys
-Cersei getting revenge
What I Disliked:
-Awkward initial Jon and Tyrion meeting
-Shot calling Sansa (put leather on that armor!)
-Sansa and Baelish
What I Hated:
-Cartoon Euron
-Anti-climactic Casterly Rock / High Garden “battles”
-Olenna / Jaime
This episode started well enough and just got worse and worse. About halfway through I was thinking it was a good episode overall, however by the time we got to the end I feel like it ended up being a very middling episode. The stuff in the last 30 minutes just reminds me why I’ve lost interest in the series, they’re just moving pieces around the chess board with no real suspense or stakes.
Also, at this point, I’m ready to declare Euron a disappointment. Just a typical over the top, mustache twirling, cartoon villain who no doubt will get his comeuppance by the end of the season.
It was a really good episode. There were a lot of good moments and dialogue in this episode.
Jon and Tyrion’s meeting and scenes were really good, they really play well off each other. Melisandre telling Varys about his death was interesting, the only question is how far away it is. Varys never have any good meetings with R’hllor followers.
Jon and Dany’s scenes were great! I found it really interesting how Dany climbed off the throne to go and stand right in front Jon. She has never done anything like that so I wonder what it means. Their second meeting were interesting as well. I loved when Jon said that he doesn’t like doing what he is good at, that is a very honest and open reflection. It is also somewhat sad, Jon knows he is really good at fighting and killing. I would love to know what Dany was thinking as she looked at Jon while he walked away.
Indira Varma did some fantastic acting in this episode. You could really feel her despair. I can’t really say that I am a fan of Euron. “Bum” was the wrong word to use, it doesn’t fit into this setting, it should have been arse.
And speaking of Euron, he attacked Yara’s fleet on her way to Dorne, the Unsullied seeming left around the same time as Yara. During that time Euron paraded himself around in Kings Landing, and he found the time to sail to Casterly Rock and destroy more of Dany’s fleet?
Cersei is constantly compared to Tywin the whole time, but Cersei has never been like Tywin, it was always Tyrion who was more like Tywin. That is the whole point their strained father-son relationship.
They are completely overpowering Cersei, Jaime and Euron, to the point where it becomes unrealistic. While they make Tyrion look like a complete failure. It is the same thing they did with Jon last season.
Casterly Rock was somewhat underwhelming.
It is ironic how Sansa’s reunion with Jon was much warmer than her reunion with Bran, even though they never got along. Being the Three Eyed Raven is a heavy duty and sacrifice to bear.
The last scene with Olenna was fantastic, I really felt it was so unfair that Olenna must die after all she has lost, but she was ready to die. Then on the other hand I’ve never felt that badly for the Tyrells, I really liked them but they were never that much different from the Lannisters. They got themselves into this mess because they desired more power and wanted a Queen in the family, their methods just tend to be softer than the Lannisters. Which proves Olenna’s point. But she did struck the last blow with Jaime.
And Jaime is really. really stupid, he actually believes that Cersei will bring peace to Westeros? She just blew up a Sept, she has never been interested in piece.
Cercei getting horny beacuse of killing… mmm Jaime served a King who also got horny killing but he say he´s slow learning maybe by season 10 he figuried out all Mad King and Cersei parallels hahaha
Bray is so creepy, I know he has seen shit things and he didn´t show any emotion for Hodor dead, is he soulless or he is in socked?
Repost of my first thoughts from the Open Chat, as well as some additional thoughts, organized by location :
Dragonstone : The meeting of Ice and Fire was good, not great. D&D really struggle to make dialogue flow naturally. Cogman and GRRM are much, much better at it in my opinion. There are a lot of unnecessary and repetitive lines, and the dialogue rarely feels organic. It just doesn’t flow. But Kit and Emilia put in the work, as did Dinklage, and the scenes work overall.
Liked the Varys/Mel scene, though I’m sad that it seems we won’t see her again until Season 8.
Dany bragging about how great she is was insufferable, but in character for the show version of Dany.
It would have been nice for Jon to go more in depth about the WW, and how they slaughter indiscriminately. He didn’t really explain what they were. Honestly, his case just wasn’t super convincing.
Tyrion’s wit was back this episode, which I really liked. “Unsure about the nomenclature” and “You must allow them their flights of fancy. It’s dreary in the North.” are going down as two of my favorite Tyrion lines ever.
King’s Landing : Weird that Euron considers himself a subject of Cersei’s. Not sure that’s really in character, but whatever. Hated what was done to Yara, Ellaria, and Tyene, even though I don’t like the last two. Indira Varma acted the shit out of it, and actually made me feel really fucking sad for what she and Tyene are going through. Watching her daughter die for hours, possibly days, and then remaining in that cell to look at her remains forever ? Fucking hell, Cersei is evil. She takes the cake for cruelty.
Euron’s dialogue is way too modern. “What a twat”, “finger in the bum”, “this is the life”. It’s a little silly, but Asbaek’s performance is really good. The way he taunted Jaime was hilarious and infuriating all at once. His popularity is absurd though. Yes, the mobs of KL are vicious and enjoy seeing women degraded, but there’s no reason for them to greet him like he’s some kind of awesome rockstar. Cersei and her allies should be despised.
Mark Gatiss’ performance was weird. He totally changed his voice, à la Aidan Gillen. He doesn’t sound anything like he did in Seasons 4 and 5. He was also a bit too much of a mustache-twirling banker. Braavos is a city built by former slaves, a city that prides itself on being free, and here he is lamenting the downturn of the slave trade. Meh. Tycho had a certain dignity about him in previous seasons, here he was sleazy as fuck. Didn’t really enjoy the scene.
Winterfell : Sansa and LF said smart things in this episode. It was a refreshing change of pace.
I was on the verge of tears during Sansa’s reunion with Bran until I saw his emotionless face.
I think Bran being completely emotionless was too much. Yes, he should be somewhat cold, yes he should be detached, but this was excessive. He bears no resemblance to the boy we saw in the Season 6. That boy had emotions. This one is a robot. Bran in Season 6 cared about his home, was moved to see Winterfell as it was years ago, and was horrified by Hodor’s tragic story.
This Bran feels like years of character development happened off-screen. It’s too sudden, and honestly, a little creepy.
The Citadel :
Jorah being cured over night is silly. It was way too easy. I wish it had been more that the spread of the disease was slowed down, not that the infection was completely gone. Somehow Sam did something no maester has ever been able to do : cure greyscale without catching it himself. Even the famous Pylos couldn’t do that. And Sam did. With no training. At all.
Also, the cure is just way too simple. Peel off the sick skin and apply ointment. Wow, what an original idea for how to treat a skin disease.
Jorah thanking Sam was quite touching though, you could really see the deep gratitude and emotion he felt.
Casterly Rock/Highgarden : RIP Lady Olenna. RIP Jaime’s character. “After we’ve won and there’s no one left to oppose us, when people are living peacefully in the world she built, do you really think they’ll wring their hands over the way she built it ?” Seriously ? Fuck you, Jaime.
D&D’s writing for his character is disgraceful at this point.
Olenna was awesome though. Sad to see her go.
The “battle” sequences were rushed, underwhelming, not very exciting at all in fact, and rather poorly directed. I wasn’t expecting too much though, so I’m not terribly disappointed.
Not sure the logistics of Euron sneaking up on the Unsullied fleet and destroying make much sense, nor do the logistics of Jaime marching through the Reach unnoticed. Olenna clearly didn’t know he was coming.
Whatever though, clearly the strategy and army movements are going to be nonsensical this year (as they were in Seasons 5 and 6), so I’ll roll with it.
Overall a strong episode, but with relatively weak dialogue (except for a few really good lines), and an anti-climactic ending.
I think I liked last week’s better, but this is definitely stronger than the premiere.
Just quickly, while I would have loved to see Highgarden and Casterly Rock in the OC, I have come to think that the point is what faction they are focusing on, so Ellaria/Olenna are within Dany’s faction on Dragonstone – in particular Monarchs
Pyke seems to be referencing either Euron, Theon or perhaps both
Winterfell is the Starks obviously – all of them
Wall used to be Jon but is now a reference to the NK in the background IMO
And Citadel is Sam of course
The creepiest man in Sansa’s life is now… Bran.
Boudica,
Jaime has been butchered beyond belief.
So is Jorah vaccinated front Greyscale now? He could be going back to Valyria for all that steel.
The QoT Olenna went out in style, and probably has forced Jamie to think what he is doing supporting Cersei. Jon & Dany’s first meeting was well done and realistic. What I want to know is which of the dragons came down to say hi to Jon? My screen can never really pick up on the differences between Viserion or Rhaegal. Don’t think it was Drogon cause he would be bigger now.
Reading through
Just quickly though
This season is big on character segways, and Littlefingers “stupid” speech about fighting every battle everywhere in your mind all at once etc was actually a fantastic segway to Bran re-appearing at Winterfell
After all, that is exactly what Bran does now
Oh to see LF’s face when he realises Bran in the shit, just seeing his reaction the Maestar Leuwin “every scroll” reference was enough
Both are great to show how he and Sansa are getting caught off-guard, eg they are focused on the South and LF on schemes and info and then all of a sudden Bran turns who can see everything LF has and is planning
It actually has a great twin in Varys and Kinvara/Melisandre, both LF and Varys were so cunning early on but it seems they have both met their match in the mysterious
The first Jon and Dany scene was how i expected..lots of tension and great chemistry between Kit and Emilia! It will be great see the development of their relationship!
Give all the awards to Lady Olenna!!! she’s so close to death and still chill af…no panicking no asking for mercy AND she’s reading jamie! She even dies like a badass!!! ” “I want her to know it was me” BRAVO!!!
Another amazing episode. Pretty strong like episode 2. So many things happening at the same time!
Also..Bran is finally back in Winterfell!! But he is indeed very changed..
how are Olenna’s last words to Jaime supposed to be such a big deal? He never thought Tyrion killed Joffrey in the first place. This is really annoying to me.
9.5/10. The best episode of Season 7 yet! Each episode is better than the last, so I don’t know what next Sunday’s episode will bring.
All the scenes were great. (Except for TWINSEX – so odd that I wonder whether this has some future relevance).
The most anticipated meeting did not disappoint. Jon and Daenerys stood their grounds; two strong personalities, a great meeting of two Targaryens. And there were soooo many references about Targs and how they were thought to be gone and here they were! (just like dragons).
RIP Olenna. You went out in awesome style.
Jaime is a better war strategist than Tyrion now for sure.
What is in store for Varys? Kinvara hadn’t seemed all that impressed by him either.
Yeah I was expecting something more “gruesome”, but Unella’s punishment is a reflection of all the “Confess” torture she inflicted while Cersei was imprisoned
It was probably the shot of Ellaria and Tyene chains placed cruelly close but not close enough to embrace as Tyene dies (unlike Myrcella dying in her Fathers arms) that it dawned on me somewhat just how psychologically horrific Ellaria’s punishment is
Eg, Cersei still feels the pain of Myrcella’s death as let slip by the “why did you do that” line, but she suffered the pain of never being able to attend her funeral and so lay her to rest
And so it’s the same with Ellaria, she can’t hold and comfort her daughter as she dies, and she can’t lay her to rest, not only having to watch her die but having to watch her rot and decompose and never being able to lay her to rest
It’s a very different type of pain and agony to that of Oberyns death
But it is also good thematically for knowing where the path of revenge and counter-revenge leads – Ellaria has lost more than just Oberyn now – and it’s quite appropriate in amongst all the reminders of whose father did what to whose Grandfather and what the other persons father thought of his friend sending assassins to kill them etc, and whose sister killed whose son and daughter and who was the one really responsible for whose sons death etc
Ties in nicely with the Karstark/Umber scene in E1 so I like the continuity
From the moment Little Finger, told Sansa his philosophy of thinking, the way to use the information and build countless scenarios so that you can act upon them as they come to pass, so you never be supervised and then Bran come.
His speech had a foreshadow hidden into it.
When Little finger will die, he will not see it coming, but Bran will.
The transition between Little Finger and Bran, who is also learning to practice the vast amount of information, the mixture of future and past. And to understand what already happened and what will come next. was an eye opener…
I wonder what would have happened if Little Finger had become the three-eyed crow.
Then we pass to Sam. Another character who learns how to use information. And how to achieve it.
It was truly one of the good moment of the show…. And I love Sam arc.
I believe Olenna had a best advice for Dany in this one, sorry Tyrion.
“Be a dragon”. indeed.
I love that Olenna said in Jaime’s face that Cersei will be his end. Olenna truly went out the way we all want to: drinking wine and shit talking the lannisters. BRAVO!
Yeah, LF seems to be irrelevant now but I don’t think what he said was shit. It was actually pretty good advice.
Thi Targaryen,
Ok, time will tell.
Boudica,
Yeah bad choice of word but I am really loving Euron
The Walk was a good inverse Walk of Shame. But what is also great is he has gone from swaggering Jack Sparrow in 1 episode, a ruthless and relentless maniac in the next and now back to a swaggering, taunting maniac in E3.
It’s all quite great because unlike Kingsmoot as a viewer you know he’s not swaggering around like a try-hard, you know how he has the walk to back up the talk and as he fearlessly taunts Jaimie I have visions of him being first on deck to smash Yara’s fleet
With Cersei, like Jaimie with his Robb experiences that saw him in a cage, Cersei’s mismanagement in season 5 where she “wasn’t as clever as she thought she was” that led to her imprisonment has actually led to her learning a great deal, eg in the ADwD prologue she is becoming more subtle and is turning more “Lioness” than “Lion”
I think the thing with Jaimie is he’s blinded by his love for Cersei and can’t see the ruin it leads to
Which is probably the point, eg so far despite Dany being OP, Cersei has done everything right so far and countered Dany’s strength, though that last scene is perhaps the turning point
Same for Euron regarding Theon too I suspect. Theon shirked making a claim at the Kingsmoot so while Euron swatted Yara’s claim he (Theon) may be at his turning point.
In the books I suspect he fathered a bastard child to the Captains daughter of the Myraham, and we saw that scene on the show and so there’s a chance that as he has a dynasty to “continue the line” as he would be able to legitimise any such child…almost seems as if Yara/Theon is mirroring Cersei/Jaimie
I didn’t notice while watching but in that picture above it looks like two snakes hissing at each other. Pretty cool!
Boudica,
I agree with all your points.
Euron at this point would put Ser Twenty of House Goodmen to shame. I think the strongest aspect of the season so far has been the character interactions. Everything on Dragonstone was great in that respect. But the logistics of the battles in the war between the Queen’s make little to no sense. And I expect it will continue to be the same in the future.
I love Cersei, but as a Jaime fan, its so frustrating to see the way his character has been sacrificed for her sake.
Jorah and Sam…I loved it (pretty dang miraculous cure, I must say…)
Jon hitting the deck – ha!!!! Jon and Tyrion are goals.
Jaime getting his blood pressure blown up by Euron and Olenna.
“Hello, Clarice….er…Sansa…”
I do not think they made him look like a failure; they made him wrong which he is liable to be, like everyone else, without it diminishing his character, I believe.
Tyrion is an extraordinarily brilliant man but he has flaws.
One of those is his ego. He has always considered himself, not entirely undeservedly so, as the “smart one”. Like his father before him, he tends to underestimate Jaime and Cersei. The plan he formulated failed to take into account his siblings’ learning curve which proved to be a mistake.
Another flaw of Tyrion’s is his hit-and-miss understanding of his sister. From a certain angle, he is the person who knows her the best. However, due to decades of resentment, bitterness and rancor born, I would argue, out of unrequited love for the only female figure he grew up with, he is prone to misjudging her. He once assumed she had ordered all of Robert’s bastards and himself killed even though Joffrey was the real culprit. Whenever it suits him, Tyrion likes to think the worst of his sister and he did it again this time. He presumed Cersei would be out for his blood above all else, failing to take into account that the Lioness can be a cold-blooded and purely ruthless utilitarian when she need to be.
As per usual with Tyrion, his brain works perfectly fine until the fog of emotionality and passion shows up. And few people can blur his neurones like Cersei.
In relation to Tywin and which of his children is the most like him, I believe the show is taking a very interesting approach in that the writers have basically distributed Tywin’s different personality traits and accomplishments among his kids : Jaime is General!Tywin, Tyrion is Politician!Tywin and Cersei is Ruthless!Tywin (Castamere, Red Wedding).
Tywin flooded a castle and drowned all its inhabitants, servants and children included, to annihilate the Reynes at Castamere. Yet, he ended up bringing order, prosperity and peace to the Westerlands. Jaime knows that so it is not out-of-character for him to believe the same could happen with his sister.
After all, what has Cersei done so far that could legitimately be considered so much worse than what others, Olenna included, have perpetrated ?
Great episode!
Dragonstone:
Jon & Dany’s meeting was wonderful. I particularly loved Davos replying to Dany’s list of titles by simply saying “This is Jon Snow.” I also loved Tyrion’s role in helping them get along better. He’s awesome.
Interesting conversation between Melisandre & Varys. But… I really hope that prediction of Varys’ death was misleading and that it will actually be of old age…
Winterfell:
Sansa seems to be doing very well ruling Winterfell. Of course, Littlefinger is doing his best to manipulate her. What makes it worse is that the advice he gave her here is actually good…
And the reunion with Bran! Yes! He seems a bit emotionless, but it’s understandable given that he knows… well… everything. No real room left for emotional expression towards any one person.
King’s Landing:
Cersei’s punishment for the Sands was actually less gruesome than I expected. I thought she might set the Mountain on Tyene, but no… An eye for an eye. You poisoned my daughter, I’ll poison yours. Indira’s acting in that scene was AMAZING. It actually made me feel for her, which I NEVER expected to do. I’m also a bit sad about Tyene. She was the one Sand Snake I actually liked.
Euron continues to be deliciously awful. Pilou plays the part so well. I loved the conversation with Jaime. Poor Yara. I really dread what may happen to her…
Mark Gatiss is back! The conversation with Tycho was great. I particularly liked his line at the end – “Your father’s daughter indeed.”
The battles:
OK, so we didn’t see much. I don’t really mind that. I appreciated the strategy of it. Jaime knew they would go for Casterly Rock, so he abandoned it and took their entire to attack the more important castle – Highgarden. You did your best, Tyrion… but Jaime (and Randyll, who may have helped) is unfortunately a highly skilled military commander.
The scene between Jaime and Olenna was wonderful. She was a badass to the very end. And that last jab at Jaime, about killing Joffrey… ouch! That’ll stick with him… especially since he had assumed it was Tyrion. RIP, Queen of Thorns. You will be missed.
I thought this episode was good, a lot of great scenes and now the game has started and Dany lost a few board pieces.
I also feel like hardly any big budget moments have been seen as of yet, a few battle scenes but nothing crazy which is good news because that means these last 4 episodes to come are going to be more and more epic with beautiful visuals and battles.
Hats off to this freaking show and the people who make it possible! Such a good damm episode!!!! Just finished watching it again!!!
So finally we have Ice and Dire together and we have to hear their song!!!! Thanks Lady Melissandre!!!!
I have to say that the moment of tenderness, respect, gratitude and friendship between Sam and Jorah was a high point in an episode of high points!!!
And the scene between Lady Olenna and Jamie was pure brilliance! The Queen of Thorns remained unrepentant until the end and rightly so!!!!! That is an acting class into itself… Not to mention Cersei!!!
Sorry for swearing but outfuckingstanding!!!
PS Come on Ser Jorah go to Danerys, she needs a military man next to her! And Daario and his Second Sons…show up! And the Brotherhood Without Banners enter the fray!!!! Jon come on dude help her!!!!
I said this on the open chat and the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced:
The books and scrolls given to Sam to ‘make a copy of” are probably not just random. The Arch-maester couldn’t give Sam access to the restricted area of the library, because it’s reserved for maesters and he doesn’t just wave his hand and make anyone a maester.
By healing Jorah, Sam showed ingenuity and dedication that gave him credibility. The Arch-maester couldn’t give Sam access to what he needed without raising alarm bells all over the Citidel. I think this was his way of saying, “I believe you and trust you’ll use the knowledge you gain wisely.”
I could be totally wrong, but it just seems awfully coincidental that Sam wanted to read a bunch of books that were off limits and suddenly the most powerful man there says, “here are some books, make copies of them.” I mean, he could have sent him back to emptying bedpans.
Ahh, yes! So obvious but I didn’t think about that. Of course Tyrion had to fail at military strategy. His thing is diplomacy. Jorah can lead armies.
Love it way more than the lovesick soldier returning to bow and grovel again. I mean, I’m sure he’ll do that too, but I needed him to have a greater purpose if they were going to go to all the trouble of curing him of greyscale. Makes perfect sense. His redemption.
Does anybody have the links to the inside the episode stuff?
I miss the Catelyn’s prisoner-Jaime and Brienne’s Jaime. He was a bit evil and a bit narcissistic and a bit funny and a bit vulnerable. Now he’s just the bland disapproving lover-brother to a despicable queen.
But I’m hopeful the ending of this episode is a turning point. Either he recognizes the injustice to Tyrion and further examines Cercei’s true character (and starts the journey in earnest to restore his long-lost honor), or he makes that final turn to the dark side because he realizes that he convinced Cercei to spare an old woman pain – the woman who murdered his son.
I agree with you on the creep factor, but Dany’s brother is Jon’s dad. I know they’re Targs but I find that creepy too. Though I suspect the writers disagree and that’s where we’re headed.
Honestly, the only two people I “ship” from now to the end are Brienne and Tormund. Match made in heaven!
I totally agree with Boudica and Markus’ comments.
The thing that caught my attention was Sansa mentioning the chance that everybody in the North might take refuge at Winterfell. I think this will happen at some point in the future, most likely season 8 based on the pacing this season.
I laughed at the servant who was cosplaying as Cersei. That is some job commitment!
Show Jaime is pathetic.
Cersei winning everything is ridiculous, but at the same time I am enjoying Tyrion and Dany’s smug asses getting a beating lol
I agree. I get that the three-eyed-raven is detached from the world and bigger than themselves. But if Bran is allowed to wax poetic about the beauty of Sansa’s wedding, he can spare a wistful little smile for his big sis when they meet again after so many years. That actually would have been more bittersweet to me than a seemingly-stoned Bran.
Wow! I loved that episode. Jon is bringing out a side of Daenerys I don’t quite think I have seen yet. Kit’s become a wonderful actor, plus playing off him seems to elevate Emilia’s. I love how Tyrion (glad to see his wittiness coming back) is being a mediator, he serves Dany but you see has both their interests at heart. Still trying to take in the rest, finally was able to get home and watch the recording.
Is no-one else feeling like this show is completely lack-luster? So many plot holes, unrealistic decisions and bad dialogue. Characters not acting the way they should. Plot armor for all major characters. Essentially none of what made the first several seasons so damn good.
I almost feel like the show has an agreement with GRRM to make the story crap so that his book is still worth something.
A season ago I thought I wouldn’t want to read the last two books once they come out because the show has given the game away, but now I can’t wait for those books to get a better story than this nonsense.
thisgirlhasnoname,
I totally agree. The moment I saw the docs I knew those were important docs where he could probably find out more about the NK/great war to come.
Yeah I’m watching some reviews where people are rolling their eyes but this is a now condensed show reaching its climactic phase and it makes sense that in time Sam will see that this is his “reward” for going beyond the line of duty to save Ser Jorah, that he will have all this info and scrolls related to all the stuff he’s been gibbering about
Can someone explain to me why Cleganebowl is still a thing? Is it hinted at in the books at all? Because it doesn’t seem to be foreshadowed much in the show. The past few seasons I’ve seen it hyped online (about as much as Stannis the Mannis, and we all know how that turned out) but am yet to see any evidence in the show that it’s an inevitable confrontation that’s actually going to happen. The Hound’s journey currently seems on a completely different trajectory to what’s going on in KL with his zombie brother.
Yes !! about the ArchMaester Ebrose and the scrolls.. Love that guy, I think he sees a lot in Sam.. I mean the dude just cured someone of Greyscale!! Definitely something important in those scrolls… I hope.
I disagree with the Jaime comments, I think it would be more weird if he was suddenly some really honorable guy working against his sister. He has loved her his entire life they have lost children, shared so much.. of course he is blind when it comes to her. On the other hand he has shown that he can be honorable and done things that are good just like a lot of people. If he was to completely abandon Cersei, where would he go? what could he do? He has unfortunately made his bed… although I don’t think it will be as simple as that in the future, I can completely understand why he is supporting his sister through thick and thin… for now.
Dany and Jon was amazing.. I’m so glad not everyone believes the White Walker stuff… even in a world of Dragons.. at least Dragons were around in recent memory.. White Walkers and the Long night have passed into legend, even the Northerners only believe it because their King is harping on about it all the time, I bet they are skeptical when he isn’t looking though 🙂
I didn’t mind the sped up battles, still better than the season ones Tyrion getting hit on the head and waking up after the battle, or the Whispering woods, Robb riding up after it’s finished. Also I think we can imagine in our own heads the travelling around, I don’t need to be shown Jon on a boat for three months, or Grey Worm sitting on a ship sharpening his spear. No-one cared when Catelyn appeared in Kings landing in season 1.. now everyone wants to know the ins and outs of travel time in Westeros.
Anyway, I thought it was great, I love the time being taken on each scene, not cutting away to the next so quick.
Fantastic episode!
Also, Indira Varma has confirmed this was in fact her last appearance on the show: http://ew.com/tv/2017/07/30/game-of-thrones-ellaria-cersei/
– Diana Rigg sold the heck out of Lady Olenna’s scene to Jaime. Fearless and she went out like that without any fear with one last crew you Lannisters message.
– Battle of Casterly Rock with Tyrion’s voiceover wa sa neat detail and masterfully done. A lot of battle we hear screams, swords clashing but this was good. Unique. Jaime although has learned a lesson from Robb aka The Young Wolf and a nice callback to him, in the episode full of it.
– Sansa and Bran. As sweet as their reunion was, boy Bran is a one helluva creep now. Reminding that he knows about her rape. No wonder Sansa freaked out. Also, Nice way of Sansa putting Baelish in his place ”
The women who killed my mother, father and brother is dangerou? Thank you for your wise council.”
– Ellaria, Tyene and Cersei. Boy that was something. All three of them were magnificent in this scene and perfectly portrayed rage from Cersei, fear for her daughter from Ellaria and fear of dying by Tyene. Euron is on the other hand cocky bastard but somehow like him. Taunting Jaime was a funny detail.
– I just do not like toxic relationship of Jaime and Cersei.
– Theon just can’t catch a break. I can sene a redemption for him and doing something good or at least I hope. he ahs to strip himself of this Reek persona once and for all.
_ New friendship of Sam and Jorah was cute. Funny that these are loyal to none other than Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen.
– Tyrion is not as smart battle strategist as he thinks he is. Jaime got him there.
– That brings us to he bets part of the episode DRAGONSTONE
Full of call backs to season 1. Starting by Jon’s and Tyrion’s introduction and mentioning trip to the Wall. Talkig about how Sansa grew up and a word about their marriage. Until Drogon sweeps over their heads.
I love the detail inthis scene:
I am not a Stark and as soon as he says it, Drogon flies over like Hey Papa, Welcome home! Not so subtle.
Best scene was a sparring between Daenerys and Jon.
– Starting by Missandei’s proannounciation of title of Daenerys. Davos simply countering by He’s King in he North, which brouht a smile to Tyrion’s face.
Personally, I love that neither of them back down, both of them showed their resilient strength which brought them to Dragonstone. Torrhen Stark kneeling to Aegon being mentioned is maybe a foreshadowing with all the kneeling in this episode and talking about it.
Dany’s speech was top notch and delivery by Emilia too. Shows her journey an strength, self belief and finally someone said it DROGO RAPED DAENERYS!!!
Davos countering with Jon’s accomplishments and it certainly strikes curiosity on her part. He’s young like her and achieved so much. This episode was a good one for both advisors Tyrion and Davos.
– Also love little scene of Tyrion and Jon again callback to season 1 about grumpkins and snarks. They’ve come a long way. Tyrion basically acted as a mediator between two stubborn rulers. His scene with Dany was also good. Davos definitely peaked an interest in Daenerys with his He took a knife to heart for his people. Why else would she bring this up out of blue.
– Terrace scene between Jon and Daenerys was more intimate and both of them especially Daenerys let their guards down for a moment.
On my second watch now
Have noted that right on cue as soon as Jon says “I’m not a Stark” it’s Rhaegal i think who flies directly over
A lot of similarities between Jon/Dany and Euron/Cersei
Seems the Northern Fleet at White Harbour has suddenly.become important…which also helps to perhaps explain no Manderly’s at BoB, eg while Northern Armies are depleted they need be still be fresh for this war as the Manderly’s presumably also provide the sailors and Marines
ygritte,
Different side to Daenerys? She acts same as before … as a Queen. She let her guard down for a moment but has done that before.
Giocrypt,
Strong case for Jon/Sansa like where, there was nothing. If you mean marriage and that was brought up by Tyrion to reflect on them. In any way this episode put a nail into that coffin. Not that iam fan of Jon/Daenerys but Jon/Sansa really doesn’t make a sense to me. Maybe it will in the future or I’m missing something here.
LoonyLuna78,
Drogon or at least it looks like.
It’s infuriating. D&D seem to be the only two people in the world that actually like that character.
Oh well, at least Grey Worm’s death has been put off another episode. You know it’s coming cos he has something to lose and his death now means something to someone on a personal level.
So first of all how hilarious are Euron’s interactions with Jaime?! “Shh, shh. Not now. We’ll talk later.” hahaha
Also, I think Melisandre’s conversation with Varys is the first time the show has openly referred to Jon and Dany as “Ice and Fire,” at least to my recollection.
I also think that Bran could have been A LOT less creepy/omniscient. Like, it’s not that hard: the Three-Eyed Raven that came before me taught me his ways. There. Done. Looks like he definitely creeped out Sansa though…which is saying something since Little Finger is always around her.
P.s. Did anyone see the trailer for the Spoils of War that came after the episode?! It looks like Dany finally has some armour when she rides Drogon! Can’t wait to see that!
Ravyn,
All that steel? There’s nothing left in (ancient) Valeria. It is ruins. The only steel left is in the remaining blades dotted around the seven kingdoms (and maybe other places)
I dont understand why Lady Olenna didnt tell Jaime about LF’s involvement in poisoning Joffery.
I see a lot of people loved this episode and it did have some fantastic individual scenes but, as a whole, it seemed sort of disjointed to me. Hard to put my finger on (as Euron would say). Anyway, adios to QoT- will so miss her!
Just noticed we’ve gone from the Ellaria Cersei lipstick scene to Cersei immediately kissing Jaimie and er, using her lips in other ways
Ties in with QoT calling her a “disease” and how they r both spreading it around.
And also seems polar opposite to Ser Jorah and Sam shaking his hand after he’s cured, eg Ser Jorah won’t infect anyone etc
Noticed also in the previews we cut to Dany talking about her allies being gone and obviously see Jon (which is quite something after her arrogant speech) but curiously also Theon. Reckon we r at the start of a Theon redemption arc
1. Seems increasingly like there is a snitch in the Targaryen circle (or someone has some magical tracking device…). It seems too much of a coincidence that Euron knew exactly where to find Yara’s fleet AND Jamie knew Tyrion’s plan about Casterley Rock and to trap and destroy Dany’s fleet. The problem there are very few plausible candidates for the role of betrayer: basically only Tyrion, Varys and Missandei. Tyrion is possible but very unlikely. Varys a bit more likely but quite unreasonable seeing he was the one who brought to Dany her Dorne and Tyrrel allies in the first place. Missandei least unlikely but still would need some great motivation and no less measure of ungratefulness…
2. Did you notice Tyrion’s allusion to the other show, when he called the WW “walking dead”
Cersei’s emotional delivery of ”Why did you do that?” might have been my favorite. That and Mel’s certainty of her and Varys dying, which to me implied many more will as well.
Geralt of Rivia,
Alright, I’ll just say in the scene on terrace she let her guard down in a way I haven’t seen before lol.
stefan666,
I think it might be foreshadowing, along with what Dany said to him last episode. Varys being the spy in her camp and is/will be betraying Dany.
This point hit all three of us who were watching at the same time, two book-readers and one non-reader. It seemed to be a failure to understand the source material.
The Varys Melisandre conversation was interesting.
I suppose that means she does not return until season 8?
She still has to meet Arya again.
Curious to see if there is a brief scene in Volantis this season.
Awesomeness!
One thing I don’t get from many comments: “Ellaria’s death is less gruesome than I thought” thing.
Really???? Keeping a mother alive indefinitely while watching her daughter’s corpse rot in front of her is not the most gruesome thing for Ellaria????
Cersei is not all about tearing limbs and popping eyes. To each of her enemies, she does the worst thing for each of them, from her perspective. Thinking about her mother’s and her daughter’s corpses rotting was the worst thing for Cersei, and she inflicts this on Elllaria as the most gruesome thing she could fathom.
Davos is the more articulate one, he is convinced about the DEAD(Others). Davos probably should of had a confrontation with them.
My thoughts were , the situation is really really bad for Westerns , Jon is going to be King of Nothing if DEAD take over.
So Realpolitik , symbolically bend-the-knee , after all Dany is not Queen of Westerns yet, sort that out later. From the looks of it with Dany on the throne the North would be freer vassals than they have ever been. I know he does not want the North to be a subject but if he is not pragmatic there won’t be any North! I would like to see that conversation.
One thing that was contradicting was I quote “I am not a Stark” said Jon. But in the Throne room he went on to complain about his Grandfather’s honor? If he is not a Stark (as he claims) then why get so butt hurt over his death. I wonder how the brooder will feel when he finds out both relations killed each other – this guy needs so much therapy! I do love how Cersei is getting built up – can’t wait to see her crashing down, and turn to a White Walker.
Very good episode, of course a few points to quibble over for the resident critics but I like in general how most of the story is still far from straightforward and you can’t take any outcome for granted.
Not sure how “simple” Jorah’s cure really was, after all it was obviously pure agony just having a very small piece of the greyscale removed. Many people would surely just rather give in to the disease than undergo full body torture. Also who knows yet if it is really gone for good?
Diana Riggs kills it as usual :thumbsup:
Frokkie,
The fact that he is not a Stark legally doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care that his grandfather was burned alive.And they all need therapy lol.
Vary’s never gets into the conversation about the DEAD (Others) . He is from Essos must know all about the R’hllor-snit about the DEAD. In fact he is supposed to be knowledgeable of all these kinds of things more than Tyrion. Seems he should enter the conversation with Dany about this. Puzzling.
That is interesting. Figured they would visit that cell one more gruesome , very brief, time.
My favorite episode this season. Maybe this will be my favorite season yet. Olenna’s death was better than I imagined. I liked every scene at Dragonstone. We were more than 30 minutes there, it was perfect.
I liked KL’s scenes, I always loved Indira Varma and I’m sad to see her go, but she was the best at the end, such a great scene. I liked scene with Cersei and banker from Braavos, really good. Better than I expected.
Scenes at WF were good. Sansa finally ruling!
But for me the last scene with Olenna was one of the best scenes in this entire show.
What is the use of Varys to Dany if he can not provide any credible intelligence on what is going on with KL? This man was known as the spider for a reason.
Unless he is really the mole in Dany’s council? Both houses he has brought in are now wiped out!
Boojam,
Dany evidently still doesn’t completely trust Varys. Why would she believe him if he confirmed Jon’s statement rather than think he was trying to destabilise her position?
Besides, if Dany was quickly convinced that Jon’s doom and gloom talk was true too soon, some fans would be complaining about how quickly she changed her mind (apart from those wanting to see Jon and Dany in the sack)…
Giocrypt,
I agree with you.
Everyone’s always saying that Jon is half-Targaryen, and while that is technically true and while he’s certainly less Targaryen than Dany, no one says Arya is half-Stark or Jaime is half-Lannister or Sam is half-Tarly or Baby Bear is half-Mormont. Jon is Targaryen.
Hrm, we’re starting to get to the point
+ The long-anticipated meeting of Jon and Daenerys was handled fairly well, I thought, in terms of giving them believable points of friction. I’ll reserve judgement a bit more on what I think of Clarke and Harington’s scene chemistry.
+ Ellaria and Tyene’s fate was a well-handled scene (and, whatever issues I’ve had with Mylod as a director, there was some nice framing in that).
+ The little glimpses of Sansa in charge were nice, since the character has been woefully short of scenes of her displaying competence at anything. And Sophie really brought it in the Bran reunion scene (I feel bad for Isaac, since the sudden, offscreen transformation of the character deprives him of the chance to do much with these scenes).
+ I liked Jorah’s goodbye to Sam. Iain Glen is as reliable as ever.
– At the end of last season, I was wondering how the show was going to possibly inject any drama into the whole Dany invasion story, given how overpowered her side is. At the time, my original thought mainly ran to some of the magical elements that the book seem to be suggesting she’ll have to deal with. However, the show’s answer has turned out to be giving Cersei plot armour made of Valyrian steel by making everybody on Dany’s side massively incompetent and ignoring any sort of consequences for the things she’s done. Last season ended with Cersei murdering Westeros’ equivalent of the Pope and blowing up its version of St. Peter’s Basilica, along with the Lord Paramount of the Reach, the beloved Queen consort, her own uncle, and numerous other lords of the court. Nobody in the city seems to care, nor are there any food shortages as a result of Highgarden cutting them off, like happened in Season 2. Murdering so many prominent Reachmen seems to have done what the Lannisters were unable to do during the War of Five Kings and won them the support of many of the Reach’s bannermen (with master politician Olenna not doing anything to keep her men onside). Everyone treats the Sands being captured as the equivalent to Dorne being knocked out of the war, but their army is still there and supposedly, according to Ellaria, everybody hates the Lannisters there. The Iron Bank is suddenly invested in the slave trade. Euron’s navy can be anywhere and destroy Dany’s ships with impunity. Dany is, for literally the first time in the series, reluctant to use her dragons in combat, and when discussing the idea of using them against Euron, nobody ever thinks that instead of trying to hunt him across the high seas they should just protect her own navy. She’s literally the only contender in this war who even has airpower, and she won’t use it.
Much like with Ramsay last season, I’m sure eventually Cersei’s plot armour will rust and fall off, but much like with Ramsay, propping her up so artificially just undermines the whole narrative. The writers have a bad tendency to give the villains one set of rules to play by and another for the heroes.
Right about that “I’m not a Stark.” statement.
Only a millisecond after Jon says it there is a dragon!
D&D have done this before . Looks like it will come up again.
(I guess it would be to awkward for Jon to say “I am only half Stark” ?
That was a good conversation between Tyrion and Jon on the beach.
I couldn’t help thinking what about those Stark seen they just gona stand around on the beach for a week?
According to Internet Movie Database – Game of Thrones episode 4 title is :
The Spoils of War
A good episode with some fantastic acting (although I’ve gone back to being unsure about Euron). The show was so lucky to get Diana Rigg as Olenna, and I’m sure the role was expanded for her. She didn’t miss a beat in the role, and went out with her signature barbs. Ellaria and Tyene’s ending was also well done, and was the best Sand Snake scene they’ve ever had. Indira really encapsulated the desperation of seeing her daughter slowly die before here eyes, and Rosabell certainly helped to add to the tension that was building throughout the scene.
I think the show is really benefiting from the smaller cast this season, because scenes are allowed to breathe, but at the same time a lot more plot happens in each episode. It was sad to see so many characters depart last season, but it was absolutely the correct time for them to go, and has helped to make this season shine.
Redx,
Did you think Varys looked kind of evil on that cliff talking to Mel? I noticed it. I believe they are starting to subtly show him in a different light. It also seemed like he and Mel were not strangers to each other. What is his past? I haven’t read the books.
Boojam,
Watching that scene again, actually Tyrion notes that if what Jon says is true then bending the knee is nothing, he is right. Jon says “there is not time for that”, well no there is time for that.
In S3 Cersei threatened Margaery that the Tyrells will end up just like Reynes. I was really glad that was brought up this episode. The Lannisters destroyed them.
It was foreshadowed 4 seasons ago. 😀
firstone,
Late to the game, my friend:
http://watchersonthewall.com/hbo-asia-releases-title-season-7-episode-4/
“Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me”, one of the best last words of any character in this story 😀
Tyrion’s best episode since S5. He was great, I really liked him. His scenes with Jon were perfect.
Well , even from the show, we know Vary’s is from Essos. He had a bad run in will some religious rite in Essos, tho we know know if that was the religion of R’hllor. The R’hllor-ites seem to know more about Vary’s than he ever lets on, he seems to know that they know. In fact Vary’s seems to know a lot about what is going on that we readers and viewers don’t know, if we ever do.
ygritte,
In brief, born as a slave in Lys, worked in a magic troupe until sold to a sorcerer who was responsible for the removal of his attributes in a blood magic ritual. Was flung out into the streets and expected to die but he made a living as a thief, and for a while with Illryrio, until he discovered that selling secrets was more profitable.
His motives have always been somewhat blurred.
So Varys will die before the end of the show. I didn’t expect that.
And cut their hair off, right?
At first I did not recognize Mark Gattis from the initial angle.
I swear he is listed as Tycho Nestoris on IMDB but that name is never said!
Unless I missed it this episode?
Curious meeting , is it implied he is going to meet Dany too?
They’ve still not updated the site!!!! I’m so disappointed. You can see the Inside the Episode on HBOGo, if you have it, but there are usually two other videos, as well.
Boojam,
I believe you are correct that Tycho has never been actually been introduced by name in conversation.
Maybe it’s just me struggling with the fact that GoT is in its home-stretch … but the narrative seems awfully rushed to me this season.
People (more or less) insta-travel across the continent, news seems to spread impossibly fast and some events just seem to “rush by” without much build-up or visuals expended to illustrate them.
Examples include:
– Jon traveling from WF to Dragonstone in pretty much no time,
– Battles of Casterly Rock/Highgarden
– Jorah getting insta-cured of a terrible disease he’s been carrying for ages.
Yes: They have three hours less of screen-time this season and they do need to start to wrap things up. But I can’t help but feel that seasons 5 and 6 felt like they needlessly slammed on the “narrative brakes” … and now they need to step on the gas in season 7. I guess a little less corpse-washing back in 5 or 6 would’ve gone a long way in giving the authors more time now that the dragon-crap is starting to hit the fan.
I recognized his voice instantly! Yes, that was Tycho. His name has been said in previous episodes, if not this one.
People are complaining about traveling since S2 and D&D don’t give a shit about those complaints and people are still complaining about that for 6 years. Just accept it, they won’t change it.
And 3 episodes of Jon traveling to Dragonstone would be idiotic, but whatever. I guess those complaints are coming from fans of AFFC and ADWD.
There are only two previous episodes and I don’t recall it ever being said.
First time I expected him to introduce himself to Stannis and Davos but he didn’t.
O/T Not had a chance to read all the comments yet but haven’t seen anyone mention this so far. Of potential interest to a lot of people on here: Sky Atlantic (UK) showed a Westworld series 2 trailer just before GoT. Did HBO not show it in the States?
Not only that, judging by the female servant who came to Cersei’s bedroom door, they all have short hair, styled like Cersei’s. Lol, she made short hair the style of the Keep.
Jon & Dany struck good chord between being a realistic and interesting. Emilia was very good at being imperious and queenly in this episode but think that by the end, Dany’s interest in Jon was piqued just the tiniest bit. Likewise, when Dany not only agreed to let Jon mine dragonglass but put her resources at his disposal, a little window into the real Dany cracked open for Jon.
The other big meeting/reunion was not so great. I understand Bran being removed from normal human concerns to an extent but I didn’t get why he was suddenly a log. When Sansa was running toward the sled, I was like: OMG! OMG! And then, sigh, letdown.
Lulus Mum,
Wasn’t it the one they revealed at Comic-Con?
mau,
Yeah, but those books were masterpieces, whereas D&D are talent-less hacks.
Travelogues are boring and are unnecessary in Season 7 of Game of Thrones. You can make plenty of valid criticisms about episodes, but complaining about the absence of travelling is a ridiculous one.
Vincent Stark,
I generally hate it when the villains are right.
Lulus Mum,
On HBONow it was a promo for Insecure Season 2.
I am guessing that means season 8.
Everybody could die in season 8!
Knight of the Walkers,
I could understand those complaints if that was something new. But In E1 of S1 Cersei and Jaime go from KL to WF faster than Varys went from Dorne to wherever he was at the end of S6.
Loved the bit between Tyrion and Jon about Sansa:
Tyrion: she’s smarter than she lets on.
Jon: She’s starting to let on.
The biggest bonus of this episode?
Jorah finally got a new shirt 🙂
To be fair, Jaime is full Lannister. Tywin married his 1st cousin if I recall.
Good episode, the Jon Dany meeting was better then I expected. Not sure what I was really expecting though…I’ve had 15 years of waiting for that meeting since I first read GoT way back when. I still remember Dany’s dream of the “blue flower on a wall of ice”.
Bran has gone full Muad’Dib now, he sees everything. He has drank the water of life and lived. I wonder if he’s so detached from Sansa because he’s still working things out, he said everything is in pieces…so does he know LF betrayed Ned? Has he seen Sansa run to Cersei and tell her Neds plans with leaving KL back in S1? I’d love for Bran to call her out on her past mistakes and going against the family.
Sansa you are the GoT version of Fredo.
IMO AFFC was the worst book of the series. To call D&D talentless hacks is a little much, I mean, without them we wouldn’t even have a TV show. We would still be waiting years for GRRM to give us the next bit.
Just be happy we have it on TV.
Jon was thinking “The North is going to be the first line of defense, and they’ve got to stay together under one leader. They seem intent on following a King in the North, and would go back to their homes if the man they named King bent the knee without a battle. The only way humanity wins is if everyone fights on the same side, against the White Walkers, and that means trying to stay on the good side of Daenerys without becoming someone she can order at will to go fight Cersei. I’d like to explain all this to Tyrion but there’s no time for that.”
He just said the last part.
zod,
Aaaah, thanks for that. I didn’t know they already had one but I imagine it must have been the same version. Can’t see the UK getting a trailer first and no-one batting an eyelid. Did anyone else who’s seen it get strong Jurassic Park vibes or just me? 😉
The travel-time complaint I have is Olenna – we see her safe at Dragonstone, nodding that she will back Dany. The next scene, she’s at Highgarden, having traveled overland. That was a bit jarring – why didn’t she stay at Dragonstone? But, we wouldn’t have had that farewell scene if she had. She didn’t let up on her hatred of Cersei for one second. “Tell Cersei it was me.” She also waved some subtle shade at Jaime: “It must have been hard for you as a Kingsguard. As a father.” In other words, you failed Jaime, as a Kingsguard and as a father.
For all of us that thought he would give up on Cersei, he seems more dedicated to her now than ever. He’s talking about people living in the world that she built, not they. Maybe he’s never going to leave her. That’s the one thing nobody thought of. He’ll stay til the bitter end, unless she does bed Euron.
I’m glad that Sansa is showing thought in being head of the house, but I can’t understand the logic, really. If the WW do breach the Wall, or go tf around it, and it is confirmed that they are in Westeros, the safest place for everybody isn’t at Winterfell, it is, as poor Osha often stated, SOUTH, as far south as everyone can get.
Yet, you know the WW will have to bring winter pretty far south, or it’s a dramatic build up going nowhere. It’s going to have to cover most of Westeros, or the people in the south will still be shrugging that it’s all a fairy tale.
I will give you the simple answer: a lot of time passes between episodes, even between scenes within episodes. Let me break it down for you (and others who complain about this). Your seem to raise two different problems:
A. There are fewer travelling scenes for characters on the road from A to B.
B. Characters “insta-travel”.
A. This is true, like it or not.
B. That’s just not true. Let’s take Jon getting to Dragonstone in “no time” as an example. There’s a difference between no time and no SCREEN time. Here we go: Jon receives a letter from Daenerys and mentions it to the council two days later, and leaves the next day. In the meantime, but AFTER sending the letter, Daenerys has commanded the Iron Fleet to sail to Dorne. On their way there, they’re attacked by Euron. Eventually that news gets back to Varys and he shares it with her the day Jon arrives on Dragonstone. Thus, we can easily assume it has taken weeks between the council scene at Dragonstone and the moment Varys tells Dany about it…. Those weeks are most certainly enough to get Jon from Winterfell to Dragonstone, wouldn’t you say?
This can be applied to all your examples and others raised here. If you can make the distinction between time and SCREEN time, you’ll have no trouble at all with this. If you can’t, at least don’t blame the show for it.
Ser Not Appearing in this Series,
He treated him in secret though – presumably you would just use milk of Poppy to put them out and treat them.
Shame the cure was apparently just reading a book that lots of people know about and carrying it out. Seemed a bit of a cop out.
I don’t…. can’t you provide us with the restricted HBO Youtube link like you’ve done for the past two weeks? 😉
Thronetender,
All the non linear time shifting anguish is solved if one just imagines all episodes of GoT were made by Christopher Nolan.
Ghost Lunch,
It’s spelled segue, FYI. 🙂
I have no issue with the traveling time. It is obvious just going from one episode to the next it doesn’t mean it is the next day. Even the Jorah / Sam scene. That could have easily been longer. I don’t believe that what is going on in different locations (even though in the same episode) is necessarily happening at the same time. But, that’s me.
I am looking forward to the next Stark reunion. Especially, with the words Sansa has spoken multiple times… “NO ONE can protect me”. (paraphrased). A girl is about to show up in Winterfell…
Thank you for this delightfully unexpected obscure reference to one of my all-time favorite movies. 😊👏👏👏
Thi Targaryen,
Jon & Sansa are cousins actually. Jon and Dany are nephew and Aunt.
So either pairing, it’s incest.
Dutch Maester,
Is there a difference between insta-travel and logistics though? Let’s say it happened as you say (acceptable imo) and, “On their way there, they’re attacked by Euron.”
This means Euron sailed close to the dragons both on the way to catch the ships (leaving KL) and then to present the gifts (returning to KL). I am okay with Tyrion and Daeny making poor decisions to balance the scales but at some point it gets a little wonky with Euron having free reign on the portion of Westeros Daeny appears to control (Dragonstone/Blackwater mouth). Perhaps there is a spy in Daeny’s outfit or Euron has the horn to control dragons but I haven’t seen much evidence for the first (Varys maybe?) and none for the second.
Did you like her bitter rendition of “Rains of Castamere?” That was almost worse than the poison for her.
Curious.. do you agree with the statement “If the show presents Scene A before Scene B in “screen time”, it can be assumed that Scene A precedes Scene B in “real time”? I saw an effort to put the events of every season on a timeline that works, but it included a few situations where scenes had to be “re-ordered” to make it work because of things mentioned in dialog. I felt that was cheating.
Tycho Nestoris,
It’s a sea, though. Not a river where ships have to pass each other. It’s not like you can see the mainland from Dragonstone, let alone the Blackawater mouth. And considering Dany has fire-breathing, ship-destroying dragons, Euron would be wise to stay as far away from Dragonstone as possible and sail close to the mainland.
Dutch Maester,
“Euron would be wise to stay as far away from Dragonstone.”
I guess that’s my point. He’s not, as far as I can tell. Unless these dragons’ range is much smaller than a ship’s? That doesn’t seem right but what do I know about dragons? Maybe I am overestimating the recon ability of the dragons?
It’s frustrating that Dany has been decimated in a matter of 3 eps at the same time as Cersei being as strong as ever (paying off debts, destroying most of Dany’s ships, getting the KL folk’s support). It feels like the Miller’s Tale. Someone gave Cersei a golden thumb.
Not at all. Scenes from different storylines do not take place in chronological order (unless indicated through dialogue, as you say), and never have. That’s been the case since S1. A scene in a certain episode can take place before a scene or multiple scenes in a preceding episode. That’s the case in the show and the books, btw.
GRRM and D&D think a “thematic” narrative, including spreading character arcs across a season or book, is more important than presenting a perfectly linear narrative.
Grayven Reyne,
Well that’s the way GRRM has it in the books, he clearly states events do not happen in the same chronological order as they happen chapter by chapter in the books, so why not the show?
Fringe, Breaking Bad and Lost to name but three shows have all employed this method.
That’s not true, in the case of that scene. Maester Broadbent said that Jorah was going to be sent away the next day, and from the dialogue in this episode this is clearly the first time Broadbent has seen him since. So Jorah completely healed from having his torso peeled in a few hours.
Maybe Sam’s punishment of copying the moldy scrolls was Archmaester Ebrose reward? Perhaps he can’t grant him access to the restricted area but can have him copy important scrolls that he knows contains knowledge. Did Ebrose just give Sam what he needs?
I haven’t had the time to scroll through comments….what did folks make of Melisandre’s comments around her and Varys having to die in Westeros?
The books use a character POV format that assumes there is an overlapping timeline between different characters, but never disrupting continuity for each character themselves. That is an entirely different format than the show, which is presented as a third-person view where WE as VIEWERS are the POV.
Ginevra,
What are you even talking about? No one says Arya is half Stark because she’s not… She’s full Stark. No one says Jaime is half Lannister because he’s not… He’s full Lannister. Do you even watch the show?
I think it actually has some relevance: it showed certain reluctance on Jaimie’s part. I think it shows that even when he loves her, there is some conflict inside of him. I think the scene added yet another layer to this uncomfortable situation for Jaimie: Cersei does not care to show what everybody has been rummoring about them for years. She’s the queen and can do whatever she likes, but that undermines him. It gives opponents arguments to point at them as an aberration.
That’s the terrible thing: a ruler that feels entitled to do whatever he/she wants, without any check ans balances.
Agreed 100%!
Cersei and Euron are winning artificially with a lot of plot armour, it is not good storytelling. The same thing happened with Ramsay last season as well.
Every Jon and Tyrion interaction is gold. Those two need as much screen time together as possible!
I was somewhat let down by the scenes between Jon and Dany. All over Essos, Dany won the hearts of her constituents. Then she shows up in Westoros and just expects everyone to bend the knee? The entire scene turned into a pissing match between whose family member is more responsible for the deaths of their family members, and then also cutting ties to those same family members when it suits their agendas.
Jon does a terrible job explaining why the North even needs a King right now. They aren’t rebelling against Dany. They barely are rebelling against the Iron Throne. It would have been smart to start with “hey, we get no support from Kings Landing, and get even less in Winter. Winter is here, and even without the army of the dead approaching, divided we face death by starvation. How are you going to be different when you don’t even know of the threat we face?”
Jon also does a terrible job of filling the promise from Melisandre that he will tell them of what they been thru, what he has seen. How about start at Hardhome, how you fought one on one with a White Walker. How the Night King raised all the dead wildlings into his own army. How you saved the remaining Free Folk, brought them South of the Wall and paid for it with your life. How you were spared from death for reasons, and that you don’t plan to spend your 2nd chance serving a king/queen with no interest in his people.
Instead he just names off some old wives tales and says, “I’ve seen them, and you haven’t! We are doomed!” Like, what is that supposed to do?
Dany then makes all of the posturing meaningless. As she loses allies around the Seven Kingdoms, gets her unsullied Army stranded at Casterly Rock, etc. she just gives away all the Dragonglass and any men Jon needs without asking for anything in return? At best she gained an ally who cannot assist her in any warfare, and openly refused to acknowledge her as queen setting precedent for other leaders across Westoros to be like, yeah, you can have the Iron Throne, but we are just going to do our own thing, okay?
Queen of Thorns is a boss. More Tyrion always. Heck, some more Davos wouldn’t hurt. Glad Jorah is healthy so we can stop seeing that skin pealing exercise. And how you gonna tease us with that shot of Bronn when he doesn’t get a single line!
Chuck,
That they will both die by the end of S8.
Grayven Reyne,
Obviously. What I mean to say is that it does not mean a sequence of Jon, Daenerys and Arya chapters, for example, have by default taken place in the presented order, chronologically.
That battle was so low rent and cheap and the voice over was just weird and out of place.
And the next episode is the shortest episode ever. Not good. Seems like the budget got cut.
Baffling why Jon didn’t tell them about Hardhome.
Which is why the books POV format is not relevant to the show.
mau,
very astute
Markus Stark,
You mean emasculated, right? The bedroom scene reminded me of Cersei and Lancel’s…
Sean C.,
Whatever happened, it would be seen as forced to some. Characters making mistakes that are true to them is better than randomly having magical item that can control dragons.
Tyrion is just like his father, a good politician, but not that great with military strategy, he said he doesn’t know anything about that in S2. Olenna was completely focused on revenge, she wanted KL to be burnt to the ground, she didn’t care for anything else. Varys lost his little birds to Qyburn last season.
And Cersei didn’t kill the Pope. She killed radical fraction of the Faith. HS was working against the establishment of the Faith and against the aristocracy. It is clear from Cersei’s scene with Tycho Nestoris that some see blowing up the Sept as a return to the stability, to the rule of the old establishment.
1) I have ragged on her a lot, but props to Indira Varma at the end. The mixture of fear and rage and motherly instinct really worked. Chesty the Sand Snake wasn’t as good, but Lena and Indira had it figured out.
2) I am really wondering what it will take for Jaime to turn on Cersei. The only thing I can think of is Brienne. Because Jaime is all in for killing Tyrion too.
3) I think it’s masterful the way the writers are steering it so Dany has to use her nukes (the dragons) which will turn the people against her. Unfortunately, it’s coming at the expense of Tyrion. I’m rewatching Season 2 now and I’m fairly sure Tyrion peaked there.
4) I thought Melisandre had already told Dany about Jon coming back from the dead?
5) OK, I missed the part where Bran turned into Data without his emotion chip. When did that happen?
6) Now I kind of need Bran and Bronn together in a scene.
7) Theon… not sure your point, but I’m all in for Alfie, so I’ll stick around
Boojam,
Lmao! too funny and kind of perfect when it comes with GoT. Especially because I’ve recently read this:
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/7/25/15985480/christopher-nolan-explained-dunkirk-inception-dark-knight
Jack Bauer 24,
1) The budget didn’t get cut.
2) Episode length does not correlate with the quality of the episode e.g “The Rains of Castamere”.
3) There was nothing wrong with the battles in the episode, because they were (relatively) meaningless. I’d rather they focused the budget on scenes that had more purpose, which is exactly what they are doing, and I’m sure we will see examples of that later this season.
I woke up at 2am to watch this episode and now have watched it a second time whilst properly awake and I still love it. A few key takeaways:
– There is a lot of obvious set-up for the episodes to come in my eyes either I’m better at spotting it or the writers are making it more obvious now we are down the final stretch of the series.
– I sense they are really pushing that Jamie is going to betray Cersei.
– Dany is becoming increasingly dislikeable and the writers seem to be laying this on pretty thick. Her line about I’m the last Targ to Jon very striking.
– I like the Bran/Sansa reunion and how that plays out very well done. It leaves an interesting question about what happens next in Winterfell. Presumably Ayra arrives next episode and Jon the one afterwards. Will Bran reveal Jon’s heritage?
– Where is Joreh off too, does he know Dany is in Dragonstone and can he get there safely given the Lannisters are currently winning the war?
What for, he already sided with the Northeners, the moment he brought the Vale knights to help the Starks back to WF. There is no need to say he’s a traitor. LF being LF can always try to talk his way back, but for the meantime, he’s an opponent.
I thought it was interesting that Dany said 2 of Jon’s brothers were dead (instead of 3).
Chuck,
I thought Mel was talking about Arya and her meeting, which I assume will be the last. Clearly she finally saw her death circumstances. And probably saw Varys’ as well.
However, I was super intrigued by the fact she goes to Volantis. I mean she could have just hidden in Westeros or maybe row around looking for Gendry for a whole season. I mean there’s plenty of situations where we are not told what the character will do next, BUT: show wanted to let us know exactly where she’ll go. Wonder if there’s something in Volantis that she looks for to bring back in her next visit to Westeros which will be her last.
Tycho Nestoris,
Robb and Rickon? And?
mau,
Yes, she did kill the Pope. That’s what the High Septon is; indeed, he’s literally considered the avatar of the Seven on Earth. He was a radical pope, but he was pope nevertheless, and he was shown to have a lot of support. And the Great Sept of Baelor is the holiest site in the Faith of the Seven. That’s the equivalent to Cersei being a sultan who ordered the destruction of the Dome of the Rock.
Beyond that, Cersei has literally no legitimacy, but nobody seems to care at all.
Numerous of the characters mentioned are required to be incompetent at things they’re meant to be good at, and as I said, Dany has suddenly stopped using her dragons even against military targets when she never did before. And Season 2 established that KL starves without the Reach, so where are the bread riots? What happened to the parts of Varys’ information network not consisting of random street urchins?
Tyrions war strategy was based on the allies to hold their own strongholds. The failure own the Martells(over confidence) and Tyrells (Tarly joining the lannisters) could not have been seen ahead of time.
This failure will now prompt Dany to bring her dragons, dothraki into the field of battle and hasten the battle.
mau,
right, so she knows Bran is alive. That was a surprise to me.
Yes, it was hard for her admit that she basically lost in that moment. But she also doesn’t see Cersei as a normal opponent. It is good that she got the last word in.
Tycho Nestoris,
Theon told them that he didn’t kill Bran and Rickon. So if Rickon turned up alive, to then be killed, they would have to assume Bran is still alive.
I actually liked the battle scenes. Tyrion got more screen time, and of course he knew how to sneak people into Casterly Rock. Then the battle was even easier than it should have been, because most of the army is at Highgarden. The Lannister Army takes it with ease with help from the Tullys and Bronn. Jaime said as much when he answered Olyenna’s inquiry of how much of a fight they put up. “SIGH, as much as you could hope.” Highgarden just isn’t known for their Army.
Plus it showed how quickly Dany went from taking one step forward to two more steps back.
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
thanks forgot about that interaction. Jon wasn’t fazed by her knowing either.
I love me some Iron Bank, but I think their decision(?) here is stupid.
IB : We’d like our money, and I don’t think we should back you for that.
Cersei : Yeah but, Lannisters always pay their debts
IB : Ok great, works for me (and appears from next week’s trailer that they’re loaning more gold??)
Me, shouting at the TV : Lannisters pay their debts except for the LAST FIVE SEASONS when the Lannisters have been on the Iron Throne and not paying back a centime!
Tycho Nestoris,
I put down that info on Mel’sfore visions. She definitely saw the three eyed Raven. By now she probably also figured out who that is. Maybe I’m thinking of the books though. At this point I’m confused. However that show Mel probably saw Bran at Winterfel, and related that to Dany is still valid.
Or maybe Dany received a raven from Sansa for Jon and read it herself. Easiest than Mel’s visions. Either way, there’s lots of things where they don’t explain how characters get some pretty secret info and we are all brainstorming for those.
He was a usurper who was working against the aristocracy. He had the support among the common people, but not among the lords.
Nobody? Majority of Westeros is against her.
Well, as I said every mistake that they made was true to their characters. The reasons why Dany doesn’t want to use her dragons immediately was explained last episode, but she will use them eventually ofc.
Cersei can’t win in this war, the question is how Dany wants to remove her.
Well, you just assume that hungry people behave the same every time.
Boudica,
To me that comment Jon made about not liking what he is good at was a throw back to Ser Barristan telling Dany that Rhaegar hated killing but loved singing. Jon is his father’s son.
TormundsWoman,
Tycho Nestoris,
Both Rickons and Robbs deaths are public knowledge. Bran’s just missing, as far as they know
Mihnea,
Hey Mihnea! Long time.
Daenerys – “Robert was your father’s best friend, no? I wonder if your father knew his best friend sent assassins to murder a baby girl in her crib”
Aaaaaarrrghhhhhhh!!!!!!
Varys, you had one job, dude!!!!!!!!
TormundsWoman,
Cool, yeah I think this will come back around in some fashion. Maybe something related to the faceless men or NK I don’t know.
Tycho Nestoris,
Hey Tycho! Yeah, i stayed far away from spoilers this year!
I did came back for EP1 though I was to busy to post after EP2, sadly..
I’m now sure that Bran will die by the end of the show. There is no way that he can be normal person again.
Wouldn’t it be funny if: After Jaimie left the room, Ollena stood up, opened the cabinet behind her sniffed one or two bottles smiled and chugged it down. Closed the doors and slid the cabinet to one side and escaped to a waiting carriage along the cliff road where she lost her husband. The trees forming a canopy hiding the carriage from observers on the wall. The air displacement from the speed of the carriage yanks all the petals from a rose it passes. and as the stem ticks like a metronome until it is still you finally see the thorns.
She shows up at Casterly Rock dressed as a Silent Sister and escorts Torco Nuhdo to her last ships parked along the Rosewater.
Fade to black.
mau,
I think so, sadly. can’t imagine he’ll continue to live like that..
Serious question but do you think Dany will remove her (let’s assume you don’t know any spoilers), it’s pretty clear Dany is going to unleash fire and blood but I suspect Cersei will fall at the hands of Jame rather than Dany or anyone else at this point.
Cersei’s legitimacy is:
“Maybe I used all the wildfire. Maybe not. And have you met the Mountain? Also, here, have some food I stole from Highgarden”
Does he need to become a normal person to survive the series? In my mind Bran has a better chance of living through this than either Dany or Jon.
Jon Snowed,
I don’t think that Dany will be the one to kill Cersei, but she can cause her downfall any time she wants. The problem is the price that has to be paid for that. But since Dany lost big parts of her army I don’t think she will be that patient anymore.
Cersei is just buying time. If Dany wants to burn KL and destroy her, she will do it. The only thing that is keeping Cersei in the game is Dany’s wish not be seen as a lesser evil. She wants to be seen as something good and just.
It’s just like the conflict between US and the North Korea.
Jon Snowed,
No, he deson’t when we speak about things withing the story. But from writing perspective, what to do with a character that is not human any more? He is just like Melisandre now. He will play his part in the war against the WW and then he will die.
I agree wholeheartedly.
The writers made a point of having Jon give credit to Daenerys for being better than Cersei (at least). But if and when she, the foreign invader, unleashes her dragons and Dothraki onto the population, she will look every bit as dangerous as the Lioness. If not worse, considering the number of deaths such an attack would probably cause.
Olenna’s finale speech was illuminating in this regard. She called Cersei a disease and expressed remorse for having helped spread it. The last time we heard about a metaphorical illness, it was Brother Ray referring to violence. Cersei chose violence and the Mother of Dragons is about to do the same, with what I can only assume will be fairly catastrophic results for her reputation. And, ironically, Olenna will once again have been partly responsible for the epidemic, having encouraged Daenerys to ditch her advisors’ clever plans and “be a dragon”.
It is quite amusing, to a degree, how Cersei has now become Westeros’s boogeyman in the eyes of so many, regardless of the truth of her actions (or theirs, for that matter).
Tyrion believed his sister would protect Casterly Rock at all costs just to persecute and thwart him; she did not and took the pragmatic route instead.
Sansa, desirous to prove her Cersei-related expertise, declared the queen guilty of Ned’s, Catelyn’s and Robb’s deaths; wrong on all counts.
Onella repeatedly expressed her opinion that Cersei is the worst human being ever to have drawn breath (for what reason again ?) yet the Queen of Thorns forgives herself for having once organised the murder of a young man in front of his mother… The fact that she did not choose the poison is, to me, irrelevant; she did plan for Cersei to watch Joffrey die.
It seems that no one knows Cersei as well as they think they do…
Cersei has been blessed with enemies many people in Westeros can easily rally against, I believe. The people may not want to side with her on her own merits but between her, Daenerys and Jon, they do have good reasons to pick her.
Daenerys is a Targaryen. She is foreign and an invader. She has an army of Dothraki, famous in Westeros for their raping and pillaging ways. She has three dragons, known for the horrors and destruction they can cause. Her father was insane and murdered people at random. Her brother is remembered as a rapist. She is allied with Tyrion, whose main claim to fame in his country is as a regicide and patricide.
Jon is a bastard. He hails from a region that declared war on the South. His father confessed to treason and was publicly executed for it. Davos, his main advisor, used to work for Stannis who attacked King’s Landing.
That is probably what most people in Westeros know about Cersei’s opponents and, given those credentials, it would not be bizarre for the people to side with the Lannister queen instead of these two. The least of three evils.
And America was founded as a bastion of freedom. While slavery continued to exist and where corruption still exists. The Iron Bank is no different than Wall Street. Its really all about the $$$.
Wondering if there is a scroll from Littlefinger to Roose in the Winterfell file cabinet regarding the Sansa/Ramsay arranged marriage.
So all of a sudden Sansa and LF made sense with their words/actions, both in the same episode. Almost a shocker. LF actually even gave a good advice, and he has some adept knowledge of modern and future physics ^^
Why was Bran that cold? Is it the burden of all his knowledge and powers, or did he have some vision about Sansa we haven’t seen on screen? I simply have to see him interacting with other relatives for comparison. Arya is close, so shouldn’t be a long wait.
Indira Varma was simply brilliant and yet I felt no sympathy at all. A great relief and a slice of joy even. Terrible plot, characters dumb and short-sighted to the extent of obnoxious… I’m glad Bronn is away from the capital and shouldn’t be able to start another fail plot.
I spent a week wondering why the Unsullied had to take a huge risk to attack a castle with a great symbolic but absolutely no strategic value. Well, at the end at least it all ended right – play dumb, pay the price. Once again Daenerys tried to play by the rules and screwed it all. Now she’ll use the dragon cheat again ( seriously, this is getting old. Let her do something right without the beasts. ) and the Iron Bank won’t get it’s gold, at least not from Cersei. And we get to see if the banker has an innate compass for gold – should he follow it, or stay in KL?
What’s in the old scrolls Sam is to copy and does the Archmeister know it’s there?
ACME,
Yes, supporting Cersei has been just like voting for Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton. Or the reverse. It doesn’t matter. She plays the role od of lesser evil. She has no illusions that she will be loved.
But as it was said it this episode, she claims that the Sept explosion was a tragic accident and there are some who think that Cersei is a lesser evil when you compare her to HS and the FM.
She is part of the old establishment, she plays teh old games in the way in which games were always played, she has no intention of changing old rules, she wants to be queen, but she doesn’t want to change anything, to bring anything new, and for some that means certainty and stability.
Ser Broccoli McBroccoliface,
There’s a distinction though. The U.S. was religious freedom (which allowed for slavery). Braavos was founded by the slaves themselves. I think a more likely explanation is Braavos is more opposed to Dragons than Slavers. That said, Tycho presumably stopped at Dragonstone otw to KL. Maybe he likes Cersei’s offer more (now that the wealth of Highgarden is Cersei’s) than Daenerys’.
I think you are right, I’m expecting Dany to utilise the Dothraki and Dragons, probably take out Euron over the next episode or two and during this Jamie turns on Cersei to take her out before the end of this season. Meanwhile Dany will follow Jon North instead of claiming the throne, thus copying what we saw in the House of the Undying vision in season 2.
So so far the best war strategist is the Night King
I have always expected him to go into exile like the previous 3ER if he does die I’m guessing it’s the Nights king who does it if/when they get past the Wall and reach Winterfell which is hopefully several episodes away yet.
Tycho Nestoris,
Bravos supporting slavery is typical hypocrisy we saw in politics, I have no problem with that. There are many values on which USA was built, but that doesn’t mean that they are not doing the exact opposite all over the world. Their pact with Saudi Arabia for example.
Phario Forel,
It actually would make sense if it were Missandei, although the motivations are still unclear. She never CHOSE to follow Dany, but was purchased through negotiation. We all thought she was grateful for this, but what if she wasn’t? Also, the curious part for me was when Davos spoke to her about Naath, she sure didn’t have much to say. First Davos mentions that he doesn’t recognize her accent even though it sounds like he’s been to Naath, then he brings up the beauty of the island, and she simply smiles and nods?……..Granted, she was taken as a child, but does she not remember any of it or did she simply decide to not respond?
I was on the fence about a mole, but now with the timing and precision of Euron’s fleet, first with Yara and now at Casterly Rock, something does seem to be off……..
The Jon and Dany scenes were good but also something felt off about them too. Why wouldn’t Jon talk about Hardhome? Why wouldn’t he want to talk about being raised from the dead? If the argument is he’s embarrassed by it or something, fine, but in this one particular instance to this one particular person (Daenerys) I don’t think mentioning the type of magic he’s been around would hurt. He’s talking to someone who is fire proof and gave birth to dragons. So that form of fire magic is believable to Daenerys and everyone around her but Jon’s story of ice magic wouldn’t even be worth considering?
I liked the episode overall though. The ending battles were pretty poor though and obvious to everyone, rushed.
He wasn’t a usurper. He was quite literally installed by Cersei.
And as to the common people, yes, exactly. That’s the whole point of that storyline, that the people of Westeros are rising up against Lannister misrule. The city should be engulfed in riots and unrest against Cersei. Instead we get cheering crowds and jokes about how easily led everybody is.
How was it in-character for, say, Yara to be totally incompetent and not have lookouts?
We’ve already been shown in the last two episodes that everybody knows she did it.
Great episode. Guess it’s my favorite of the 3 so far. Favorite moment was Tyrion saying Sansa was smarter than she lets on and Jon, with exasperation, says she’s letting on. Hahaha! I’m in the minority but so glad to see Olenna bite the dust. Toodle-loo…
I noticed in the Stormborn episode when Jon Snow is telling the Lords that he is going to Dragonstone and giving Sansa control of the North that Littlefinger is standing in the room looking at Sansa …. behind Littlefiner is 5 candles … 3 of them are lit and 2 of them are out. Littlefinger caused all the Starks deaths.
Not always. Sometimes scenes are presented where they will make the most impact, emotionally, but are not necessarily presented in chronological order.
Take Sam’s travel from the Wall to Oldtown in S6, for example. It’s clear that Sam’s travel didn’t take up the entire time frame of S6. Sam didn’t leave the Wall at the end of S5, travel to Horn Hill and finally arrive at Oldtown in the same amount of time that it took for Jon Snow to be betrayed, killed, resurrected, meet Sansa, get the Pink Letter, visit the lords of the North, amass an army, participate in (and win) the Battle of the Bastards, reclaim Winterfell, and become KitN. Yet if you thought all the scenes took place in chronological order, that’s exactly what happened.
(As an aside, that was part of the purpose of the poop-montage. It signified the amount of time that passed to help catch Sam’s timeline up to Jon’s timeline, so that they were both in sync again.)
Another example of scenes that were obviously presented out of chronological order in order to convey maximum emotional / expositional impact is the scene at the end of S5 where the Sand Snakes kill Myrcella. We see Myrcella die in Jamie’s arms, then the next scene we see Ellaria wipe the poison off her lipstick and drink the antidote. We now know that the poison takes a long time to act, so obviously the scene with Ellaria / Sand Snakes took place *before* Myrcella died (and also explains why Jamie didn’t immediately turn the ship around … by then it was far too late), but the show presented it that way so that Myrcella’s death would be a surprise (then immediately revealed how it happened). If it was in chronological order, the impact of Myrcella’s death would’ve been diminished.
So, yes, the scenes are not always in chronological order. The scenes are presented in the order that best tell the story.
So this is just more speculation on top of a towering mountain of speculation…but do you think Cersei is going to reopen the slave trade in King’s Landing? So we’ve been hearing a lot about how venal and terrible the town is (I’m thinking of how the Lannister soldiers tell Arya that it is too violent and depraved for them).
Now, we are hearing how Cersei is planning to pay back the bank, but with what? Can the Reach be that profitable or is Cersei and Qyburn looking for another revenue source? Something just as profitable as gold, which would be human beings. Is King’s Landing becoming so vicious and venal that the slave trade could be developed? Is Cersei seeing a new business opportunity with the end of Slavers Bay?
I’m sure I’m missing some valuable clues or other evidence. Even though Westeros has banned the practice of slavery (that’s what got Jorah exiled), we’re in the darkest timeline with Queen Cersei. I feel like all previous rules are out the door. And thinking I can discount Cersei as merely insane has been proved wrong during the last two episodes.
Mihnea,
Yes, however it’s worth pointing out that other things were public knowledge too, yet never made it out of the North: Ramsay’s habits (the Northerners all knew), Hardhome (all those wildlings came down south and fought at the battle of the Bastards and mingled with Northerners as well as the Vale, and all the North now believes it but news never made it south).
So you see why some posters such as myself are looking for alternative reasonable explanations. Because usually one can always find some, seeing as there’s always more than one person participating in an event and later on having direct contact with other parties in the South.
Chuck,
I myself would love a horn of Winter! I mean no idea what Mel would accomplish with that but still!!!
I never thought I’d ever say this about a GOT episode…The most boring part of the episode was the sex scene b/w Jamie and Cersei. Jokes apart, brilliant editing…I’m glad D&D stuck to their forte of playin up the dialogue interactions b/w powerful actors like Diana Rigg n Nikolaj CW. Who needs a battle sequence when the QoT can deliver such captivating punchlines. Absolutely loved that scene!
No, Bran probably cannot remain entirely human: but it does not follow from this that Bran has to die, either!
Now, Bran might die: but as he is one of the primary characters, then he has to die at the very climax.
That stated, I did like the wonderful symmetry between Littlefinger telling Sansa that you had to try to imagine everything that could be happening, and then Bran telling her that he basically can see everything that is happening. Hmm…..
The Bravosi don’t like slavery and won’t tolerate it in Bravos. However, the Bravosi (particularly in the Iron Bank) do not like disruption to the status quo elsewhere, which includes slavery elsewhere. They do not fund abolitionist rebels for the sake of funding them: the Iron Bank funds its own interests. Is it flamingly hypocritical? Yes but no: but their bottom line is the almighty dollar (or crown or mark or whatever their basic unit is in Bravos), so all “If X then Y” principles for them are caveated by or subordinate to “If X is profitable, then do X.”
Historically, we saw the something in the United States during the Civil War. Officially, many in the Wall Street crowd disliked slavery in part because of the sociopolitical tensions between New Money liberalism (remember, capitalism was a liberal concept 150 years ago!) and Old Money conservatism (which was epitomized by the southern plantation owners). However, the New Money made so much money from investments in a system supported by slavery that many people in that world wanted to make assurances to the southerners that they (the southerners) could keep slavery if they rejoined the Union. There were some notable exceptions: for example, Winston Churchill’s grandfather, who was one of the earliest Wall Street tycoon, supported abolitionism and even posed with a Gatling gun on top of one of his buildings in NYC during one of the riots!
Again, this is one of the things that is the fodder for the stories in SoI&F: hypocrisy. The main characters are always wrestling with internal conflicts, and one basic way of recognizing an internal conflict is seeing that some value is hypocritical in light of another value. Seeing it in tertiary or quaternary characters like Mark Gattis’ is just a reinforcement of that notion.
At the point Vary is more the guy who is there to tell Dany the bad news, looks how he ran to Dany hahaha.
Cersei is up by 2 to 0 but Qyburn is definably trashing the floor with Varys
Well, what is Jon supposed to say? And why would that make them believe him anymore than just stating what is happening?
I do not understand why people seem to think that describing Hardhome is going to change anybody’s minds. Quite frankly, what happened at Hardhome is simply unbelievable as it is.
The usurper was a metaphor. He was a radical and he was a danger to the aristocracy. There is no reason for any lord or lady to be sorry that he died.
In Disneyland, maybe. Who would leads those riots? We saw in S6 that Cersei is secretly killing even people who make jokes about her, she killed the HS, who can organize a successful revolution within the city walls?
It seems that for you a character can only be an idiot or a mastermind, there is nothing in between. But if you want to play this, Yara was never shown in a sea battle, she was never in a real war.
Well, that’s logical to asume. But she is still trying to find some excuse.
The fact that Daeny brings that up again definitely stands out. Something about that grabbed her attention: I will be surprised if it does not come up again.
That’s what I’m expecting.
Especially since, buy the end of this episode, Euron has had her for at least two weeks chained in his cabin in his teleporting pirate fleet of stealth sailboats.
Indeed, this has been done so often in recent history that it’s surprising when people do not recognize it in a story! (George W. Bush almost certainly would have been a 1-term president were it not for this exact same sort of thing.) Yes, Cersei is unpopular and has pissed off a lot of people. However, an invasion by foreign powers (and especially one that seems to have been feared as much as people clearly fear the Dothraki) basically is a gift to this sort of person. We saw the same thing last year with the Wildlings: the Umbers didn’t care much for the Boltons, but when faced with a Wildling invasion, the Umbers made their peace with the Boltons to unite against the “other.”
One thing that this tale has been very good about is making the distinction between tactics and strategy. I’ve read people criticize Daeny’s and Tyrion’s decision to not take Kings Landing with Dothraki & Unsullied immediately. Tactically, that would have been smart. Strategically, it would have been disastrous. Now, the strategy has not working out: but Daenerys would pretty much have forfeited any chance of being the Queen she wants to be had she pursued the “obvious” tactics.
LatrineDiggerBrian,
Blame every POV in both places until we got to the one long tracking shot following Jaimie into Highgarden.
My favorite part of this scene? The part where they (for all intents and purposes) plainly lay out the incredibly strong parallelisms between Jon and Daenerys!
LOVED THIS EPISODE!
Beautifully shot, some truly great moments with superb acting.
A few plotholes but I guess we need to take these in our stride now that the pace has really picked up and the plot is steamrolling ahead.
Indira was outstanding this week, as was Lena.
Jon/Dany scenes were great, I really felt the tension between them both.
GUTTED that my fave character is now gone, but what a way to bow out- Dame Diana got the send-off she deserved. Would’ve loved for her to have taken the poison Cleopatra style, as Jaime entered, so that it was all by her own hand. But hey, QOT: Long may she rest 😢
Loved how Casterly Rock/ Highgarden looked, but I also found the battles quite anticlimactic like many others. After being in Castillo Almodovar last year though, I’m not surprised the scenes were so concise- as it really is a very small castle indeed.
I still can’t take Euron seriously and doubt I ever will but I did LOL when he mentioned a swift finger up the bum. So I’ve decided simply to be entertained by him ☺️
Glad Sue pointed out LFs godawful lines- seriously they really piss me off. I said as much when I first heard this clip last week. One example (of many) where the script is the weakest part of a stellar show.
All in all though I really did love this episode, much more than last week. Can’t wait for next week!
Raenarys,
I’m pretty sure she is referring to the OTHER half of the bloodline, like how Arya’s mother was a Tully, for example.
Wimsey,
Jon didn’t have to mention anything. Rumors should travel of magical things and people getting murdered beyond the Wall by the thousands, and some weird priest reviving the same man over and over in the Riverlands while saving and fighting for the common folk. Why? Because shocking rumors of this kind travel. Just like Dany’s dragons did all the way from Essos, like HotPie knowing everything about the KitN and Sept of Baleor. Quite frankly at this point when all the North is stocking up for the Long Night and preparing to fighting the Army of the Dead with the Vale’s help, it is incomprehensible that it wouldn’t.
I don’t see Cersei re-opening the Slave Trade, she has gold from Highgarden to pay the Iron Bank. Beyond that I suspect her reign will come to an end in the coming few episodes so there won’t be time for it – there are afterall ten episodes left and the war in the North will soon take priority.
Casterly Rock in the opening credits would’ve been lovely, but putting Highgarden in there would’ve completely spoiled the end – pretty obvious why they didn’t do that.
Been thinking about the Greyscale treatment. I think it is not getting the credit it deserves.
1) Peeling it off is not an easy process. Jorah was in agony and it’s possible that most people can’t survive it.
2) Peeling it off is also dangerous to the peeler, because the patient in agony might lash out, intentionally or unintentionally, and infect the peeler.
3) The salve may be more difficult to mix than we realize. Sam is talking about “following the instructions” but just because you can follow a recipe doesn’t mean you can make a meal.
I still wonder what they did to fix Shireen. They clearly didn’t peel her face.
It’s also possible Jorah isn’t really cured. And he’s going to tragically infect someone on Dragonstone, or … maybe even a dragon.
But they aren’t keeping him around just because the ladies lurve him (and they do… it is funny how a lot of whining about age gaps in Hollywood romance go away when Iain Glen is in the picture. He’s in his mid-50s and lots of millennial bloggers would jump him…)
He is Dany’s rock. He is the one who will vouch for Jon. He is the one who will ride North to convince his young cousin Lyanna to trust Dany. And then he will infect a White Walker or two and die tragically…
Well, I’m not sure getting a blowjob from the queen is something I would call “emasculating”, exactly.
But talking about the peaceful world she’s going to build and how it doesn’t matter how she achieves her goals was pretty horrendous. Poor Jaime, he’s not only sleeping with Cersei now, D&D have decided to fuck him as well.
Markus Stark,
D&D do the grand speechifying for the epic set pieces. But you are right the grandiosity overpowered a room that itself was meant to be intimidating. That’s why the second meet was much better.
D&D are the Westorosi Wing version of Aaron Sorkin. They say the stuff you wish you thought of and then wrote down two years later.
Still loved it though.
Same goes for the brilliant soundtrack which I heard clearly. As opposed to the Hans Zimmer soundtrack I never even noticed in surroundsound in an 70 mm IMAX version of Dunkirk.
Still loved it though.
Martin, I can somewhat understand, but Cogman? Besides the Laws of Gods and Men, none of Cogman’s episodes have impressed me all that much. I find D&D to be much better writers and thought the Jon and Dany meeting was the highlight of a very strong episode.
First of all, we’ve never really seen Yara as a commander of a naval armada, so who could say this wasn’t in character? Second of all, Euron attacked in the middle of a storm, where visibility was poor.
People suspect it was Cersei, but they don’t know for sure. Just like people suspected that Joffrey and Tommen were bastards, but they didn’t know for sure. They didn’t have any actionable intelligence then, and they don’t have any actionable intelligence now.
How would those rumors travel? The North is very sparsely populated, and interactions between North and South would be at an all time low. Fanciful stories by Wildlings would have next to zero credence, too. And, of course, given simple Grimmsian laws, anything that had filtered south would be so altered as to not really be about Hardhome, anyway.
As for Thoros reviving the same guy over and over again, rumor about that might spread: but that would have as much bearing on stories about the Night King as putative Bigfoot sightings would have on stories about the Loch Ness Monster!
In this sort of world and particularly under these sorts of conditions, the stories going around would be absolutely nuts. Some red priest is reviving the same killed captain again and again? Uh huh, right: the people claiming to have killed him are just covering up their own incompetence. OK, sure, maybe Beric Dondarion has been badly wounded a few times, but obviously he hasn’t been killed. White Walkers are taking over the north with an army of undead? Uh huh, right. OK, maybe some wildling tribe is wiping out everyone else – they are bloodthirsty savages after all – and maybe they even are fooling other Wildings into thinking that they are White walkers – they are mindless savages after all – but they’ll prove to just be something “real” in the end.
And these would be just two of many, many similarly outlandish tales floating around Westeros at this time.
Markus Stark,
I can’t say I disagree with any of your observations. I myself would have had lots of notes after my third re-watch.
But all I know is that I was so lit up by the end of that episode I didn’t sleep at all last night. I haven’t felt that about thrones in a long time. Even Battle of the Bastards (an order of magnitude better directed episode) didn’t do that. It was over shadowed by #RamseyPuppyChow2k16.
And why wasn’t Sam zig-zagging?
Wait, sorry: why wasn’t Sam wearing a surgical mask???
😉
Yep. A whole different brand of creepy.
He knew it wasn’t Tyrion. But he never knew who it was or he would have killed them already when they were loitering in King’s Landing. But book Jaimie never even witnesses Joffrey’s death. So what’s the fuss?
Fiale,
But as mentioned it was also the fear factor that stopped Maesters from attempting it in the past, the fear of becoming infected yourself and spreading the infection in an epidemic. It’s little wonder that the Maesters were happy to keep this a secret.
Plus if Jorah’s infection was not so advanced and limited to the dermis then he would avoid any serious damage to internal organs. Don’t forget the common treatment of cutting off any infected limbs to stop it spreading can sometimes (supposedly) work.
Saying that though we should still query whether the infection although “cured” has any long lasting effects and stays in the system – maybe we will see later that it has only been a temporary fix after all.
Dany mentioned Torrhen Stark, thank the Seven! I have been waiting for that reference for a long time, almost as long as Howland Reed. We’ll see if D&D have time/desire to follow up on Torrhen/Aegon’s arc. :fingerscrossed:
I very much doubt the Iron Bank of Braavos is involved in the slave trade in the books, my impressions was that GRRM was setting Braavos up to be a counter power to Volanthis and the Iron Bank seems to be a nationalized entity rather than a private one, and I have a feeling it makes it beholden to Braavosi interests rather than simply individual bankers’ interests.
I think the change is a low key tell from the show runners to book readers that the Iron Bank will be backing a different horse while keeping Cersei in the dark about it. Note that the representative didn’t seem to confirm that Daenerys indeed did disrupt their investments, he just lets Cersei assume it did. The revelation of Braavos’ investment in getting rid of the slave trade will surface in some other episode to give clues to Unsullied show watchers, then there will be a reversal of the current streaks of wins from the Lannister camp based purely on the Iron Bank dropping their support for Cersei.
Mihnea,
Ugh spoilers. And I am reading now there was hack (again?) of HBO.
BlackBloc,
“Just lets Cersei assume”
The thought makes me so happy.. so I know it won’t happen.
That doesn’t make any sense.
We saw in Season 6 that the people loved the Sparrows. This was clear when Jaime tried to free Margaery, and there were several shots of the people agreeing with the High Sparrow that Jaime has no authority to do so.
In Season 6 Episode 4, Kevan says there will be “civil war” if they attack the Faith.
The High Sparrow was the High Septon. That was his position. Even if he was a radical, he was officially the Pope. And the people supported him.
Furthermore, she didn’t just kill the High Sparrow. She blew up the equivalent of the Vatican. A religious monument that has huge significance to the Kingdom and to the people. She also blew up a small portion of the city surrounding the Sept. We saw commoners die in the explosion. One was even crushed by a bell.
Plus, she killed the Queen, who was beloved, and she killed dozens of nobles from the Crownlands, as well as the Lord of the Reach.
For her to have any support is absurd.
HBO was hacked
http://gizmodo.com/someone-hacked-into-hbo-and-is-now-releasing-game-of-th-1797397619
Douchebags
Wimsey,
Don’t dismiss this so easy Wimsey. You are notorious for doing so. Two seasons ago you stated in numerous threads that no Northern House will believe Jon and the wildlings about the NK and the Army of the Dead and that he’ll have a conflict on his hands when he comes south because of this. You were quite snarky about it too. And it turns out you were wrong. I think if it traveled south that Rickon died at BotB then news should travel south about other things too. I’m not saying that it would be believed. Read my comment again and you’ll see I said rumors.
Also: I’m not in charge of writing. I don’t know how to make the rumors travel South. Word of mouth seems best, but maybe ravens too.
Maybe people are now just worn down by fear, after all look what the crazy bitch did when she didn’t have cause. What would she do if we really got her angry.
For Kim Jong-il to have adoration in the way we see it manifested in parades etc is absurd, but it happens if folks find the alternative more scary, smallfolk running to mummy – especially if they believe that they might be immolated by dragons any day.
OK that’s stretching it but you know, people are weird.
It would be, except that Daenerys and Jon have both just provided Cersei with what she needs: common enemies of southern Westerosi. Indeed, the fact that Tarley was sitting on the fence initially shows us just how despised Cersei is: having an unknown daughter of an insane and hated King has returned with despised foreign savages should have immediately unified the Westerosi lords, and yet it did not.
Human history can be summarized by the following: Me against my siblings, my siblings and I against our cousins, our family against the world. The Westerosi family is uniting against the world, but Cersei is so loathed that it took extra effort to do so.
Jen@HouseStark,
I was awed! I thought I was going to piss myself when she said it. I liked too that she ask forgiveness and that Jon stood his ground about bending that knee!!!!!!
Also: Davos- This is Jon Snow…………….
(long pause)
King in the Norf.
A damn bastard! LOL but those hard sons of bitches believe in him!
Chuck,
ughhhh!
Wimsey,
Cersei doesn’t have support. She has fear.
And while the common people love the Septon, it’s entirely possible the powerbrokers and decision makers aren’t sorry to see that smug sumbitch go.
Oleanna would have been perfectly happy to let the High Septon go up in flames, so long as Maergery, Loras and Mace (maybe Mace) got out of there first.
Wasn’t impressed with the dialogue. Sometimes it appears to me that the characters are just spelling out what the writers have discussed in the writer’s room regarding the circumstances of the scenes. Feels very meta to me.
And I was pretty much right about it, too, wasn’t I. The outpouring of support for Jon that some people predicted never materialized. The uncovering of Northerners “waiting for this day” when the White Walkers returned that some people predicted never materialized. The Umbers getting to known Osha and deciding that she was on to something never materialized. All of the scenarios that people envisioned for why northerners would be taking Jon seriously failed to materialize. Instead, we saw that most of the North turned their backs on Jon & Co. Some of them (e.g., the Glovers) did so in part because Jon had brought the Wildlings in Westeros. At the same time, we saw hostile factions (Umbers and Boltons) put aside their differences to unite against the Wildlings. The Old Bear had tried to warn them about White Walkers but nobody took him seriously; they didn’t take Jon seriously, either. Indeed, if there is a flaw in the storytelling at this point, it is this: why are the Northerners taking Jon seriously about this now?
Wait, why is it incumbent upon the writers to make the rumors travel south? Why not have it unfold as it would in, say, the medieval world under times of war and hardship? The word that should have gotten south is, at most, garbled nonsense. As for ravens, those were sent: and we got to see southerners scoff at them in season 2. We saw Jon reading rejection letters from Northern houses in Season 5.
This is something that actually comes up in the books; there are a few cases there where a character hears about events that happened to other characters in other plotlines, but the versions of the story are insanely garbled; if we had not read the original events, then we would have next to no idea what really happened!
alon who,
Interesting to see what the relationship between Bran and Littlefinger willl be (if any). Bran is the only person who knows every single duplicitous thing Littlefinger has done.
Anybody got a (Youtube) link to the Inside the Episode video(s)? HBO is being a real bitch this season by blocking videos and the entire viewers guide from non-US residents.
What way to beat the bankrupt Lannisters than intercept all that gold and food from Highgarden from which Cersi’s plan counts on,everything is so far gone her way and lets remember Euron is a pirate so when things go possibly bad does he stick around since he controls pyke.
Yes, because there was the FM that had the support from the poeple. Now such political entity does not exist.
Not the lords. And they are the people that matters.
Furthermore, she didn’t just kill the High Sparrow. She blew up the equivalent of the Vatican. A religious monument that has huge significance to the Kingdom and to the people. She also blew up a small portion of the city surrounding the Sept. We saw commoners die in the explosion. One was even crushed by a bell.Well, shit happens. She restored the stability and destroyed the movement that wanted theocracy. Olenna would still suport Cersei if she didn’t kill her family as well.
It’s not absurd, everything was explained, I have no time or will to say the same things over and over.
She killed the radicals, the queen was a collateral damage. And who will fight for the dead queen? The North? the Vale? Riverlands? Dorne, parts of the Reach and the Iron Islands fought against Cersei.
Apparently the next episode is online. Be careful everyone spoilers will be every where
This idea that great lords of Westeros would care that religious fanatic was killed is completely nonsensical.
There is absolutely no reason, other than wishes from usual show-detractors and hunters for “plot holes”, that any lord in Westeros should be opposed to the death of HS and destruction of the FM. They were a threat to everything they were and are doing.
Olenna Tyrell would never support Daenerys if she and Cersei worked together to blow up the Sept. She wouldn’t care for “Pope” or “Vatican” LOL
HS was a political enemy to the Lannisters, just like many others. And they destroyed them, just like they’ve destroyed many others.
Tycho Nestoris,
That makes sense. My only point was that despite the intentions of the founders of the city, at the end of the day the Iron Bank follows the money, and money and power ultimately corrupt.
I’m surprised no one is talking about Sansa’s words to Bran- ‘You are father’s last living trueborn son, you’re the Lord of Winterfell now’.
All her loving words to Jon in previous episodes were fake, she still sees him as a bastard who is undeserving of the title that’s been bestowed upon him.
Man this sucks. Hopefully, they don’t have the actual episodes. More importantly, hopefully the S8 scripts were not part of the leaked database!
mau,
This. Thank you for keeping up the good work in talking sense (a lot) in this thread!
The increasing improbability of Euron’s story arc and the silliness of the character in general are harming the season.
Jon is King in the North, not the Lord of Winterfell… Actually, Sansa was stepping down from her position of Lady of Winterfell in favor of her younger male sibling… So much for the fakeness you attribute her…
OMG. What utter nonsense! You sound like Trump now doubling down on your wrong statements. Yes, you are correct. It was raining and the crowd was bigger… Seven hells, but you are completely mad.
Yes, some Northern houses refused to help Jon defeat the Boltons because of the wildling alliance (no mention of the Others was made when the Umbers came to Ramsay). Some didn’t want to send more of their men die (Manderly). But they didn’t say they don’t believe the Army of the Dead is coming South, which is what we’re talking about here. The only time it happened and Davos said it on Bear Island, Lyanna Mormont backed him 100%. And now we’re seeing EVERYONE working together, even though no one has seen this zombie army (which was one of the points you kept harping on then). They support Jon 100%.
Also, you can bet your sweet tuckus that wildlings mingling with Northerners and Vale soldiers spread that NK and Hardhome Army of the Dead thingy better than Old Mormont’s ravens. Which is why word of mouth SHOULD travel. We no longer are talking about ONE guy at the Wall, we are talking one thousand wildings plus the NW former commander with Davos on the side. And you think there’s a flaw in the script, because people in the North believe them and make preparations (?)
Anyway, it seems to me you are confusing the topics and weather you do it to deflect and inflate your own rightness on other arguments I have no idea and it doesn’t matter. It is just wrong.
That cant be overstated enough.
For me, this was easily the best episode of the season so far.
I liked the first two–obvs–but they each had moments that were jarring to me in a weird way I still can’t quite place… maybe after a few more re-watches. Mostly related to dialogue, though I’m not sure if it was the writing itself or just something to do with settling in to the new pace of the show.
Other than a few scenes in the CR battle, and the fact there was no HG battle at all, “The Queen’s Justice” kept me in the moment throughout. Usually in a dialogue-heavy episode there will be a few things that miss the mark for me, but there was really nothing I cringed too hard at last night.
Very depressed this season is like half over already.
BranTheBlessed,
Well, “fake” is a pretty strong word. Fact is, Bran is the rightful heir. Hell, the northern lords can still name Jon king and Bran is still the rightful Lord of Winterfell. Jon can go operate out of the Dreadfort or have his own castle built.
Had Rickon lived, he’d be the heir, until Bran turned up.
But, I’m more interested in nicknames:
Brandon – The Wild Wolf
Ned – The Quiet Wolf
Lyanna – The She-Wolf
Benjen – The Young Wolf I
Robb – The Young Wolf II
Jon – The White Wolf
Those are the ones we know. Now mine:
Bran: The Broken Wolf
Catelyn: The Dumbshit Wolf-Fish
Sansa: The Lovely Wolf
Arya: The Batshit Crazy Wolf
Rickon: The Twerpy Wolf
I was on YouTube watching few snippets of this episode, and on one channel, the default video is Daenerys winning her Unsullied. That set me thinking. Back then, she had no Master of Whisperers, she had no Hand of the Queen, she was no Queen, she had nothing at all (other than Jorah and Barristan to protect her), except for three kiddie dragons. And she used one kiddie dragon to burn slave masters and free the Unsullied from a hellish life and in fact, change the way of creating Unsullieds. Fast forward a few years, she has so much more, but she has also lost most of that already. And her trusted advisors thwart the use of her dragons at every stage…… And then, in the last episode, she said that the only thing that she’s ever had, was belief in herself. Methinks…… we are going to see Daenerys rely on her own judgement much more in the next few episodes, and start to ignore the incompetent advice of Tyrion and Varys. I don’t think Varys will like that one bit – because what he desires most is to be the true power in the shadows, someone who can help rulers rise and fall. Dragons are coming into play, I bet!
One Stark reunion down – another one to go. It’ll be great when all the Starks are back in one place after such a long absence. And Sansa is the most normal of them! Ha! I love it! 😀
Succubint,
Cleganebowl will always be a thing until one or the other is dead. Seeing as how FrankenGregor is so lacking in emotion and conversation, I can’t see how it would be that entertaining unless Sandor will just be talking to himself as he ends that meatpuppet.
Even by the extraordinary standards that Game of Thrones has set, The Queen’s Justice was marvelous. Scenes that I’d waited years to see – namely, Jon and Dany’s first meeting – delivered in spades. Sansa and Bran’s reunion was beautiful, yet heartbreaking. Cersei’s vengeance upon Ellaria for the murder of Myrcella was exceptionally dark, but fitting, and exquisitely acted by both Lena Headey and Indira Varma (the latter entirely without dialogue). And the final scene between Jaime and Olenna was perfect. It’s been an extraordinary privilege to have Dame Diana Rigg on the show, playing this role, and her final scene opposite Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (who did some tremendous silent acting of his own) was one that I’ll remember for a long time. All that, and so much more.
Three episodes in, Season 7 is absolutely soaring in my opinion. It’s been thrilling fascinating, and emotional, and this was my favorite episode yet.
Cersei’s Brain,
The writing and directing quality was uneven, but it hit every emotional note it needed to.
He’s not named Stark because he believes his father is Ned and his mother slept with Ned. Bastards don’t get their father’s names without the approval of the King on the Iron Throne. But his grandfather, Rickard (Ned’s father) was certainly a Stark. And Rickard WAS bound and burned alive in his own armor, while Brandon (Ned’s brother), strangled himself on a noose trying to free him (similar to how Cersei arranged Ellaria and Tyene this episode.
While Bran has all the raw data it’s not yet information because he’s not yet able to piece it all together so you would imagine Littlefinger is safe for another episode or two unless he tries something before then.
It’s going to be interesting to see what Bran tells Jon, I reckon that’s episode 5 material given how the Director described the next two episodes on another article reported on this site.
Vincent Stark,
“Ps: I find it hilarious that Cersei makes her servants wear evil black outfits as well.”
And they’re rocking a sheared haircut! 🙂
Shock Me,
Plus, c’mon. He’s not being literal. Tyrion is saying “Well, Stark men don’t fare well down south.”
Jon saying “I’m not a Stark” is not “I do not consider myself Ned’s son and Robb’s brother, etc, so I’m safe,” but rather it’s “I faced down the Night’s King, came back from the dead and survived the Battle of the Bastards. I’m going to be OK.”
It’s actually kind of like whenever Dany says, “I’m not a man” when someone tells her no man has ever done something.
Jon Snowed,
I think Bran creeping Sansa out will also give Littlefinger a bit of leeway. “The boy is deranged from his time up north, Lady Sansa…”
BUT, then Arya shows up to tell what she has picked up. Then the Hound wanders through. And then Chekov’s Detailed Maester Records turn something up.
And then Brienne pulls Littlefinger’s lungs out through his pee hole.
I completely agree. This episode was dark and brutal and demonstrates how high the stakes are for all of the players.
We can only hope. I am tired of him smirking in the corners and giving gravel-voiced pronouncements. Since the wolves are returning to WF, I expect that his time is running out.
Jon and Dany’s new theme sounded nice.I want to hear more of it.
I don’t see it that way. Jon is King in the North. Lord of Winterfell is different. Sansa was completely accepting that Bran would take over the role she’d been playing, and more than that – she was happy for it. The smile she gave him when she told him he was Lord of Winterfell now – that’s the first time I’ve given a rat’s ass about Sansa. She meant it. Sophie did a great job this episode.
Also, LF’s words were meaningful and spot-on, not sure why people are rolling their eyes about it. It was good advice. It’ll bite him in the ass, but it was good advice.
When Sam offered his hand to Jorah, and the surprise/gratefulness on Jorah’s face….dammit I want them to be BFFs and they better damn well meet again! “The climate…” 😂 Jorah, you are the best fighter, but the worst liar. I thought Jim Broadbent was great as well as Ebrose (isn’t he always). He obviously has a bemused admiration for the strange, humble but determined Sam and his action to save Jorah.
Olenna likely wouldn’t out LF because for all she knows, he could still be valuable in screwing over the Lannisters. Jaime didn’t give much of a care at all about Joffrey, but the fact that Cersei now gets to know it was Olenna….mwahahahaha. He was likely envisioning the tantrum that will ensue. But I’m willing to bet he still would have let Olenna die painlessly. That final shot of her sitting upright in her chair, satisfied with her last little triumph….that was perfection.
Just watched again-so much going on!
Dragonstone- Jon and Tyrion’s conversations and warm looks were THE BEST. I loved them together in season 1 and they’re even better now. You’re making me feel like a failure at brooding.
Davos was great and his defense of Jon (which clearly made our humble Snow uncomfortable) was perfection.
Mel obviously got her mojo back before arriving at Dragonstone. She looks like she knows something again-like she’s aware what she did was wrong but she was back on the right path. Her chat with Varys felt important.
Dany has been both darker and more fragile/confused since she arrived in Westeros. I got a little frustrated with her one-track bend the knee focus. But I loved that he didn’t and she looks like she doesn’t know what to do with a guy who isn’t either adoring her or trying to kill her.
Especially since from the way he was standing for the first half of their intro-it looked like he was ready to be attacked.
Jon’s introduction after Dany’s was epic!
I think their alliance is pivotal for end game so I’m hoping they come to realize how much they have in common:
~Mothers died in childbirth ~Both treated badly by a family member (Viserys/Cat) ~Both initially put in situations of obscurity (Dany married off in trade/Jon to the Wall) ~Both fell in love with member of a wild warrior civilization (Dothraki/Wildlings) who were killed by people they both trusted (Mirri/Olly) ~Both have close relationships with rare pets (direwolf/dragons) ~Both fight for underdogs (slaves/the living) Both had an important Mormont in their formative careers (Jorah/Jeor)
*Biggest difference between them is that her dragons/her immunity to fire and her name gives her power (not negating her freeing unsullied and slaves because to me that’s very important point in her favor) while Jon is still believed by all to be a bastard and was followed and respected from early on due to his actions and integrity-the night’s watch and wildlings were following him BEFORE he died. And I think even when he knows he is the son of Prince Rhaegar and the actual heir to the throne, it won’t make a difference to his personality.
Winterfell-I’m going to say this-I’m not a fan of Sansa as a rule-but this episode I was. This is my favorite Sansa episode. She was embracing her training from Cat and her septa and for the first time very Stark-like with her plans centered on taking care of all the people who could end up in Winterfell for the long night. Also her warmth with Bran-fyi I agree that she was the one willing to step down as head of winterfell-since Jon is King in the North but not a Stark and he never claimed to be. For the first time I didn’t see Cersei in her-which I like.
I noticed LF noticing that info about Luwin making copies of all the Winterfell mail-definitely feels important. Also his LSD speech about everything happening at the same time right before Bran arrives does make it seem like something is coming between those two.
I think Bran is still Matrix’d out-sorting through everything he’s been seeing, which is why he was foggy and blank. Also I hope we see Meera again-she’s such a hero it would be weird if she disappeared now, plus she’s been Bran’s connection to humanity for a while.
King’s Landing
I’m confused about several things at King’s Landing. The people cheering for a Cersei/Euron victory even though she blew up the Sept after her walk of shame-which they also cheered for. This KL mob is weird, just saying.
I’m confused about Cersei saying the Iron Bank had it’s hands in slave trade when it and Braavos and the FM were founded by freed or escaped slaves and abhor slavery.
Another nod to people I never liked-Ellaria and Tyene’s silent horror was some of the best acting I’ve seen from the sand snakes. Cersei’s moment of vulnerability transforming to this almost sensual enjoyment of revenge was also-really fantastic acting…I still want her to die soon-but acting was great!
The aggressive bj for Jaime after she killed someone kind of felt uncomfortable and not remotely loving…Jaime’s tender smile as he watched her sleep made me want to slap him.
Also Cersei being okay with Casterly Rock being taken is interesting, even temporarily. Tywin is rolling in his grave.
Highgarden: More wanting to slap Jaime. HOW can the man who talked to Brienne in the bath about the Mad King and saving the innocents…how could that guy be okay with any of this? He wasn’t in the books and I know I know it’s show not books but he was evolving in the show and then they just kept pushing him back into this weaker role.
That said I KNEW Olenna would go out like a queen. Best death ever. I want her to know it was me.
So is Jaime thinking that Cersei was wrong about Tyrion? That her accusation brought about Oberyn and Tywin’s death and sent Tyrion straight to Dany? (the same way her hiring of the High Sparrow and Loras/Marg accusation got her imprisoned and shame-walked which she followed up with wildfire) What will it take Jaime? Is Cersei going to make you stand guard outside while she has sex with Euron like you used to do for Robert? Is that what it’s going to take for you to finally catch a clue?
Sorry…it bugs me lol
Oldtown-I thought Sam would get in trouble, but I was wrong. In fact-Ebrose having him copy REALLY OLD scrolls is super important imo. I think that was his reward. I’m SO hoping he finds info that will help the fight and/or confirm Jon’s legitimacy.
Also that warm handshake with Sam and Jorah made me sniffle. I love them both so much!
LOVED the nods to history of Starks and Targs. LOVED all of these character meetings and reunions.
Next week looks insane and like it might be the best episode so far. (Field of Fire, Discovery etc) I’m ready.
Funniest moment was obviously the title list by Dany and following Jon and Davos reaction to it. I really laughed at how Jon stood there, especially that last look before Davos said he’s king in the north.
Shock Me,
Yes! I thought immediately of the Mad King burning Ned’s father while Ned’s brother strangled himself leaning into his neck shackle trying to save him.
I thought it was a brilliant way for Cersei to get her revenge/justice. Ellaria and the Sand Snakes happily killed their uncle and even joke-fought about who got to kill their cousin Trystane. They were heartless creatures who deserved what they got. It’s just too bad they got it from Cersei and Euron who are just as bad!
WWW, the thought of Brienne pulling LF’s lungs out through his pee hole made me laugh so hard. Delightful!
Mike B,
You realize that everything you criticized Dany about including her military tactics, lack of using dragons and allowing Jon to take dragonglass was ALL thanks to Tyrion’s “genius” advice. You should be blaming Tyrion about these stupid decisions, not Dany who was against them to begin with. She wanted to use the dragons and he said no and freaked her out about how she will look like her mad father when Aegon I used dragons to conquer Westeros and people hail him as the greatest conqueror ever. He was the one to convince her that she should allow Jon to get the dragon glass with nothing in return. Dany has proven herself to be a great military strategist in Essos and had always won her conquests. Its only when she started listening to Tyrion that she failed to conquer her target
Take away’s:
I believe Yara is the mole, with Euron torturing the information out of her with regards to Danaerys’ plans. She has been kept alive for that reason.
My question is, aside from being Kingsguard, what is the point of a terrifying Zombie-Mountain if that terror is not going to be utilized in screen? We keep getting hints of his evil, but they never seem to come to anything. He just stands there in his new Darth Vader armor. That question asked, glad the Dornish women are out of the way.
The Bran-Sansa reunion started great and fell very flat. Lay off the pipe, dude.
I cannot wait to see what is discovered in the copies of Maester Luwin’s raven correspondence.
I also cannot wait to see what Sam uncovers in those old scrolls!
I imagined Casterly Rock looking very different. Highgarden, however, was lovely, if brief.
Love the Better Off Dead reference in the recap, an old favorite movie!
Thronetender,
What about Euron? He leaves King”s Landing, catches Ellaria somewhere between Dragonstone and Sunspear. Then he backtracks to King’s Landing. We know the Unsullied have already left for Casterly Rock. Both Euron and Jaimie magically appear where they need to be after leaving King’s Landing (a second time for Euron) following the capture and poisoning of Ellaria in the dungeons beneath the Red Keep.
Euron goes to Casterly Rock sailing past the Stormlands and DORNE and Highgarden to get there.
Jamie stays at least another day for Twincest then Jaimie is out of town again to meet up with the lads who fled Casterly Rock and marche down both the Sea Road and the Ocen Road to meet whatever forces Jaimie stripped from King’s Landing.
It all happens in for “a fortnight” period allowing Jaimie to go to the Highgarden, sack it, and then come all the way back to King’s Landing to hand it over (they haven’t finished that fortnight by the end of the episode) to get Tycho his cash by sacking Highgarden and returning with those lovely gold ingots carried in wagons (which won’t slow them down right because gold is light as cotton candy).
Then Jaimie blurts to Olenna how isolated and far away Grey Worm is when the Unsullied are unencumbered by baggage and food and GOLD. But in a race to King’s Landing and Blackwater Bay Jaimie and the Unsullied are the same distance away and the Unsullied need no wagons because they have no food for whatever fraction of time is LESS than what remains of Jaimie’s “Fortnight”.
Why would they starve in only SEVEN DAYS at most when the ENTIRE Gold Road is UNDEFENDED with at least five major towns along the way in case the Unsullied are lazy and want to overnight in unoccupied Harrenhal and then go to Maidenpool and wait for the ships that brought the Dothraki after sending a Raven to Dragonstone for a meetup? They could then go ANYWHERE in the Crownlands they like.
WorfWWorfington,
Why would Jorah vouch for Jon? He’s never met him and Jon’s father exiled him. And why would Lyanna Mormont listen to a thing he said? Jorah disgraced the family first when he sold poachers into slavery to keep his young wife happy, then a second time when he fled Westeros instead of taking the Black as he was sentenced leaving his father to fulfill it instead.
Theon’s Limp Wet Socks,
You didn’t catch a (re-animated) Mountain being thoroughly utilized last season? It’s only episode 3 of S7, I’m sure we’re yet to see more of him. Or was there something specific you were expecting?
For those asking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN-rbTB0ds8
I made my peace with it, but feel really justified to know it bugged someone else!
Sharing my review with you:
Drums pounding as Parramandas’s banner gets raised again atop the tallest tower
Hello again everyone! The week is around and welcome to another review from Lord Parramandas. It’s time for me to continue the journey and yes, »Queen’s justice« was another amazing piece of the series. The fact, that a fellow LFU admin (who once described GoT as »without heart and soul«) liked it, says quite a lot. I still haven’t decided where to put it on my ranklist but by the time I reach the end, I will most likely be sure of it. A calm episode, but so many amazing character moments! So, let us begin.
DRAGONSTONE: So here comes the long awaited meeting. If I use Dee’s language: »THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!!!!« Yes, it did. »At last«, some of you may say. No, my head didn’t explode and I also didn’t die. I know many of you were »crazy« about this meeting. Well, it was not really the case with me. First of all, I’m not much of a Dany fan. Second, Dany and Jon are very much strangers to each other and strangers meet all the time in GoT. And third of all, I knew nothing could surpass Sansa/Jon reunion for me. So when it comes to it as a plot point, I wasn’t really crazy about it. But when it comes to scene itself, I can say it was really really well done. They didn’t rush to the scene, they used every opportunity to provide a build-up to it, such as Jon and Tyrion meeting at the docks, dragon swooping by and Melisandre staring at them from the top of the cliff. Yes, Melisandre’s role was finished for now at this point… she united Ice and Fire and now she is on her way to Essos again. But she mentioned she will return when there is time for her to die.
And now to the meeting itself… it was intense, like I predicted, a clash of two egos. But before anything could start, Missandei had to recite all those countless titles again… yes, I know you’re a queen, Dany but how did Tywin say… »Anyone who says I’m the king is no true king«. So maybe a couple titles less will do you service? And »rightful ruler«… sorry lady, but »rightful« is quite subjective term at this point. I must say I was on Jon’s side for the whole time of discussion as he actually made some points while Daenerys was all about her status as a »rightful queen«. So what was the tension about? Well, Jon didn’t want to bend the knee to her and Dany didn’t believe his story about White Walkers and the army of the dead. And I really enjoyed the moment when Dany pointed out that House Stark pledged fealty to Aegon the Conqueror for eternity, but on the other hand Jon pointed out that her father murdered Lord Rickard and Brandon Stark, his grandfather and uncle. Every time the topic focuses on Aerys, Dany becomes uncomfortable and tries to back out from the conversation… well lady, your father was a really cruel man and a madman. People from Westeros surely won’t forget it. And Targaryen dynasty being a »golden era« of Westeros… apart from Aerys, the Targaryen kings weren’t really saints: Maegor the Cruel, Aegon II and Rhaenyra, Aegon IV the Unworthy… those were tyrants when it comes to ruling. And then we have incompetent rulers: Aenys I the »king abomination«, Daeron I the Young Dragon, Baelor I the blessed… I really wouldn’t say Targaryen dynasty was admiration-worthy. Like I said, things got really heated between Dany and Jon and I really like when Dany stated that her father’s crimes are not part of her… only for Jon to respond that if that’s the case, then Starks’ fealty is not part of him either. It all came to the point when Dany proclaimed Jon a rebel to the realm. Well, miss, you will have to learn that the world is not spinning around you alone. I’m really happy Jon didn’t bend the knee to her, but showed the true Northern spirit. Dany learning that she cannot get everything she wants is my way to liking her.
KING’S LANDING: The climax between the tense Dany/Jon meeting got interrupted when Dany got the message about the anihilation of the Iron fleet. And here we move to King’s Landing, the most disturbing part of the episode… more exactly to Euron delivering his »gifts« to Cersei. Ellaria and sweet Tyene were dragged through the streets like common criminals and would meet a woman whose daughter they murdered and nothing good awaited them. Many people speculated… what will Cersei do to Ellaria now? What horrific thing she had in mind? Well, we got to know soon… after a formal meeting in the Throne room, which included Ellaria spitting at Cersei, Jaime making those priceless looks and Cersei somehow accepting Euron’s proposal, everything moved to the dungeons. How can you break such a strong woman like Ellaria? It was quite simple… it was obvious to me Tyene would play a role in it. Eye for an eye. It it was quite simple… a poisonous kiss on Tyene’s lips and a pair of chains for both of them. Sure, the Long Farewell may not be really nasty as poision but put yourself in Ellaria’s skin: she will be there chained to the wall, knowing that her daughter who is a couple feet away from her will die on some day. And after she would die, Ellaria would watch her corpse slowly decaying and rotting. A mother watching her daughter turn into nothing. If that’s not a cruel punishment… as for Ellaria herself, she was condemned to life imprisonment in a manner »I forbid you to die«. A powerful ally… gone! Or should I say disabled. I think this is pretty much it when it comes to Ellaria and Dorne in the show.
Another bit I need to focus in KL is the arrival of Iron Bank (in form of our good old Mark Gattis), this time outright demanding from Cersei to pay the debt or else, they would support Daenerys. But Cersei again pulled a Ben Linus (»I always have a plan«) and managed to at least delay it… to think about, Cersei’s rule may not be so fragile after all. I also really liked how sinister Tycho seemed in this episode, compared to all his previous apperiances, where he seemed a common »banker«. The manner he spoke really indicated on IB’s darker side.
OLDTOWN: Only a few words this time… simply put, Sam actually managed to heal ser Jorah! Prior to S7, I never even imagined it to be possible but now, the real ser Jorah is back in action! He’s one of my favorite characters and I’m so happy for this. And archmaester Ebrose was kind enough to not expel Sam from the Citadel as he saved a man’s life, but on the other hand, he gave him punishment which involved copying a series of dusty old scrolls. I wonder if those scrolls contain anything significant to the story.
WINTERFELL: This story was such a delight to me! After being named Lady of Winterfell, Sansa was really trying to do her best to improve life there and prepare for possible war. But the snake, the snake is still there… Littlefinger I mean. And he immediately used an opportunity to get into Sansa’s head again, how she should play the game in a twisty manner… but at this very moment, Sansa was summoned to the gate and there was her long lost brother Bran. And here come the feelings again as Sansa hugged him and was brought to tears in the process… here, I can really sense how much family means to her now and she’s such a shining character to me, especially this season and she seems everything else but the character described in interviews. The most distanced Stark being the most heavily involved in reunions. After all she’s been through, she totally deserves it. Not to mention she even offered Bran the title of Lord of Winterfell… so much about power-hungry Sansa as some expected her to be this season. Really Sansa, this is an opportunity for you to show how much of a Stark you are… and that snake in LF’s form really needs to go. And I would be happy even if Sansa sacrifices her life in order to take him down, as long as her heart remains with her family.
BACK TO DRAGONSTONE: The initial tension began to calm down, especially when Tyrion had a lenghty discussion with our Targaryen queen and advised her to do something nice for Jon. And both Dany and Jon shared more private moment… and it resulted in Dany allowing Jon to mine dragonstone that he needed for dragonglass weapon, somehow indicating Dany is willing to believe his story. Funny, how Dany refused to believe the story about White Walkers and yet, she has dragons that many people did not believe in either. But moving to more important stuff now… the Conquest. No, Dany’s conquest is not as flawless as Aegon as she already suffered one loss more than Aegon. Iron fleet was gone, Ellaria was a prisoner of Cersei… but the plan was still intact. Grey Worm and his soldiers would capture Casterly Rock while Tyrells would lay siege to KL. And as Daenerys has a gentle heart, she doesn’t want to attack with dragons as it could result in deaths of thousands innocent people. So, she still had a plan. What could go wrong?
THE CONQUEST: And so it happened. Grey Worm and his soldiers managed to infiltrate otherwise well-defended Lannister stronghold due to Tyrion’s extensive knowledge of its sewer system. So the Unsullied pulled some sort of a Trojan Horse and opened the gates from the inside and as Tyrion predicted, the castle fell easily. But something… something wasn’t right. Due to Tywin and Kevan being dead and Lannisters fighting no field battles at the moment, there were way too less soldiers present in the fortress. Where were the rest of the troops? And that’s not all. At the same time, Euron’s fleet appeared and destroyed the rest of the Targaryen fleet. Another score for Cersei. So to anihilation of Iron Fleet and Ellaria’s capture, we can now add the destruction of Targaryen Fleet as well. But there is still the question… where are all the soldiers?
It became clear soon enough. The full Lannister force and several bannermen from the Reach under command of ser Jaime Lannister and Randyl Tarly were marching on a lone castle, revealed to be Highgarden. And whatever force was guarding it, they didn’t stand a chance… it was a clear victory for House Lannister again. To think back… the mighty alliance between Targaryens, Tyrells, Dorne and Iron Islands against Cersei who had no allies… the alliance is nowhere as mighty now as Dany basically lost all allies from Westeros. No, Cersei is nowhere as incompetent as we initially assumed and quite a big threat to Dany’s claim. So here, all that remained was to tie up loose ends… with Olenna’s death. Lady Tyrell was always a brave woman and this scene was no exception. She confronted Jaime, willing to embrace death. And Jaime, being more kind-hearted than Cersei, offered her a Socrates-death… drinking a vial of poison. No not the strangler or tears of lys, something more gentle. And Olenna did so and admitted before her death that she was the one to poison Joffrey, bringing much unease on Jaime’s face. But on the other hand, Jaime now knows Tyrion is not guilty and maybe this will now drive a wedge between him and Cersei… I believe Jaime is not yet too far gone and that he may still have a chance to change. So, another powerful ally… gone! Things surely aren’t the best for Dany. Now I wonder who is the next heir to Highgarden…
So here, I will conclude this review of mine. As I said at the beginning, this was a really exceptional episode which deserves a spot among my 10-rated ones. After scrolling through my ranklist, I decided to put this episode on rank 12, ahead of »Book of a Stranger« and behind »And Now His Watch is Ended«. This season is really shaping up to be one of the best yet.
Jason,
Ah, I see… And that would make sense if that was the way of GOT. But it’s not. The Lannisters don’t say “A Lannister/ (whatever else they are) always pays their debts”… They just say Lannister. The Starks motto isn’t “Winter is Coming” AS WELL AS “Family, Duty, Honor”… It’s only Winter is Coming. Because GOT focuses solely on the heritage of the father. So repeatedly mentioning that Jon is half Targ, is claiming his right to his FATHER’S side… I’m not sure where my point was lost?
So I guess the next episode is where things come undone for Cersei?
She’s been playing a game much better than Dany and Dany is just going to stop playing and set fire to all the pieces.
It’s quite an interesting tactic really when you consider that the two main characters in this saga called ‘Game of Thrones’ aren’t really players at all. They tend to do their own thing. lol
Casterly Rock looks nothing like Casterly Rock I’m afraid.
How the fuck did Euron get his fleet around Westeros that quickly?
Why is the Iron Bank bothered about Dany interrupting the slave trade, when they actively oppose it?
Why has Mel gone back to Volantis? Oh, by the way, they really like slaves there.
Bran is being a prick and I don’t like it.
Is the secret to destroying the army of the dead to release a swarm of ‘flesh eating book bugs’ on them?
Does anyone else here like a finger up the bum?
harma dogememe,
One of the things about Game of Thrones that’s great is that nothing is black and white. There is nuance and that reflects real life. Despite the founding principles of Braavos it does not shock or surprise or dismay me that the main financier, the money changers, the Iron Bank, would be involved in unsavory affairs if it benefits their bottom line.
To use a modern-day example the United States has been a financial and strategic ally with Saudi Arabia for decades and Saudi Arabia has some of the worst human rights records in the world. Its highly hypocritical, but its real life.
Money and politics are not tied at the hip to public principles.
Ser Broccoli McBroccoliface,
Then that should be acknowledged so that we can see from watching the show that at least the writers are aware of the fact that Braavos is offically anti-slavery.
I wasn’t referring to the lords and ladies, I was referring to the common people, his constituency. The increased agency of the common people is what that whole phase of the story is about.
What the lords and ladies would be angry about is the massacre of nobles attending the trial, including Cersei’s own uncle, well-beloved in the Westerlands, and Mace Tyrell.
Riots rarely have leaders. They break out as a result of mass discontent. Who lead the riots in Ferguson? Nobody. Who lead the bread riots in S2E6? Nobody.
No, I recognize many variations. It’s the show that never manages that.
Posting a lookout is something any mariner knows to do. Not even for battle, for the weather.
I laughed out loud. It’s so true.
About Bran. People thought he was cold on purpose, but he literally got all of time and space in a jumbled puzzle shoved into his head during the Night King attack and then he went back for more after Benjen left them. As he sits there, as people talk to him-I imagine at this point they are just as real and present as his visions.
Edd asked a question about him being a Stark and he responded by recounting a few of Edd’s adventures beyond the Wall.
He sensed Sansa’s worry and focused on her-but just enough to give her an apology for what happened to her in their home and freak her out. He’s not doing it to be mean. I imagine when he looks at her-her entire life is playing out in his head.
He’s no longer just Bran or completely human. He’s the living embodiment of recorded history and one of the best weapons they have against the Night King-especially since most of their knowledge from the last long night consists of vague stories and legends.
He’ll have more control over time but right now I’m surprised he’s not a drooling vegetable. At least he’s talking and he wants to talk to Jon. That’s a good sign imo.
I really liked the episode. This season is surprisingly good, I’m not used to being satisfied with the storytelling on this show! I loved how everything Dany said made Jon look much worthier than her.
I liked everything except the total butchering of Jaime’s and Bran’s characters. It seems like their only function is to serve the plot. I loved the Jaime/Olenna scene but why didn’t Olenna try to turn Jaime against Cersei harder? Why hasn’t anyone played the she’s-been-cheating-on-you-you-idiot card yet? Whether or not it’s true is irrelevant. They just need to make Jaime consider it. And surely Varys must know about Lancel? Very convenient and frustrating if he doesn’t.
RG,
And bear in mind that he would’ve seen some appalling things among all the visions he’s seen.
He saw Ned beheaded, Robb and Cat murdered, Hardhome, we now know that he saw Sansa’s wedding night (yikes!)… he’s basically experienced all of the horrors that we’ve seen all of our characters go through in the show, and much more.
That’s gotta leave a person pretty devastated emotionally.
The only problem with that is time. As it is the show is moving at a blistering pace, trying to get everything important in by the end of the 7th episode. Adding dialogue simply for the purpose of satisfying book readers who know intimate details that Martin can spend 50 pages delving into, doesnt work in the show, or at least not given the time frame that Dan and Dave have put the show under.
Id like for the season to slow down a little concerning plot and development, but theres only so much time. Its not a big deal at the end of the day.
Tywin’s Ghost,
Jorah will see Longclaw and realize his father trusted Jon. That will carry weight with Dany.
And Jeor didn’t leave because Jorah traded slaves. Jeor abdicated in order to let Jorah take over. And then he traded slaves
The use of a body double for Lena was ridiculous. If Lena doesn’t want to do nudity, then don’t show Cersei naked. It was not necessary as it was for the walk of shame.
Sophie Turner being taller now than Adain Gillen gives an extra dimension to the changed dynamic between Sansa and Littlefinger.
Tycho Nestoris,
At that point, they don’t know about Bran’s status. Remember last season Theon told Tyrion & Dany that he didn’t kill the Stark boys. So they know about Robb, obvi & probably heard about Rickon.
Karabas,
What are you on about? That was one of the best episodes of the series, and IMO, better than most stretches of the books.
Gigoran2016,
Most stretches of the books lmao…Bravvosi bankers engaging in the slave trade, every single bannerman in the Reach abandoning their House, the Dornish armies being pushed out of the war because 2 women were captured and 2 more were killed (where’s the other Dornish nobles), Dany being told that the Casterly Rock fight will be tough on her Unsullied and that the Dornish are out, yet she doesn’t go to CR or to Highgarden to shore things up, and Brandon is suddenly a robot (no more emotions).
Elli,
yep I forgot that interaction with Theon and Daenerys
Worfwworfington,
You’re right about the abdication. However, there’s no way Jorah would vouch for someone obstructing Dany’s claim to all of the 7 kingdoms. He’s not going to like Jon at all when he shows up.
Tywin’s Ghost,
Longclaw. Samwell. Jon being a Targaryen. They be just fine
Tywin’s Ghost,
there also might be a tinge of jealousy. jon being close (one might even say “son”) to jeor *and* a potential suitor to daeny
My two little notes on the episode-
I kind of expected Jon to say that the North had placed their trust in him to lead them through The Long Night but that if Daenerys will help them then maybe after the Night King is defeated that they may be able to see a united Seven Kingdoms again.
I also expected Sam to reveal something additional about the greyscale cure along the lines of ‘well it said to use the sharpest blade to remove the flesh so I used my family’s valerian steel sword’ and Ebrose would kind of note that down.
Mawk,
Heh, yeah, this. Tho IIRC Muad’Dib was still human or had human emotions. Bran doesn’t – but I think he is sorting things out. He’s new at this, he wasn’t supposed to be 3ER yet, so hes learning how to be at the same time he is downloading all these visions. I don’t get that he’s a creep at all. I get that he isn’t sure how to interact with others anymore.
O Wow! …didn’t catch that parallel. 🙂
That was my first thought – as soon as the Master gave him the ‘punishment’ my eyes lit up, and I thought, ” oh no don’t throw me into that briar patch” . He’s going to be i second heaven!
Mike B,
Totally agree with you. Did the same thing when he was trying to get the northern lords to be concerned about the WWs. He expects them to have esp or something.
Better the devil you know…
ash,
How would telling anyone about Hardhome change their minds? He already told them of the White Walkers’ existence and that he has first hand knowledge of it.
Mihnea,
Here are some things I’ve wondered – when was the first 3ER? What was his purpose How long did the 3ER in this show live? And what would happen if Bran as 3ER dies? Does it have anything to do with how the white walkers were formed?
René,
Her choice. Not yours. Why do you need to see her naked so bad?
How dare you suggest Sansa is anything but pure evil made of crystallised evil with evil sprinkled on top ?
mau,
Yep. Cersei is bad but, to many highborns and lowborns alike, she is bound to look far less terrifying than the other two propositions. She symbolises continuity and a form of familiarity. Even her brand of dangerosity is a frame most Westerosi can comprehend and within which they can operate somewhat comfortably.
Conversely, Daenerys and Jon look like unknowns in a political equation many inhabitants of the Seven Kingdoms are tired of attempting to solve.
Nice to see that someone else appreciated this Littlefingerism. ^^
The line was indeed meant as a transition and introduction to Bran’s omniscience-in-progress and, as such, it worked fantastically. But even on its own, it had value.
Baelish was telling Sansa to accumulate as much knowledge as possible in order to plan for every contingency which, in a situation of chaos, is the only strategy that makes sense and can bring a hope of success. It is not enough to have a plan A; one needs plans B, C, D… all the way to Z so as never to be caught entirely on the wrong foot. An important piece of advice considering what happened to Jon on Dragonstone and to Tyrion’s plan for Casterly Rock (and to Baelish himself with Ramsay !)
Littlefinger also advised Sansa to be ready to ally with anyone if needed and drop anyone if necessary. Sentiments do not matter; only the endgame does. A rather sound consideration in a perpetually shifting power struggle.
Baelish’s emphasis on knowledge was similarly crucial given that line came as a response to Sansa’s entirely erroneous summary of Cersei’s alleged crimes. Baelish knows Joffrey, not his mother, was the one who ordered Ned’s death just like he must at least suspect Tywin, not his daughter, was the architect of the Red Wedding so he is aware that, while Sansa understands Cersei on an emotional level, her knowledge of the queen’s actions is lacunary and that is problematic.
On a sidenote, I giggled when Baelish revealed that he was already thinking about the Great War’s aftermath instead of the Great War itself. That is so completely in-character ! ^^
I agree. Unfortunately, the “obvious” tactics is quickly becoming the only one Daenerys can or will pursue, if her line in the trailer is to be believed. With Lady Olenna’s added endorsement of a dragon approach to problem-solving, the future looks bleak for the Breaker of Chains’s intended image.
Does Bran know everything yet ? I have read many comments stating that Bran’s omniscience is already a given but it seems to me that he has quite a lot of work to do still before he can completely control and practice his abilities. He only sees what he looks for so, unless he knows where to look, he is bound to be fumbling in a mess of flashes and disconnected narrative strands.
Young Dragon,
He has first hand knowledge of it, but doesn’t give specifics. That would help.
Hahaha! I guess I never learn…
ACME,
I am also interested in the extent of Bran’s knowledge/power. Sansa was married in the godswood with the weirwood “looking on”. The other visions were run by 3ER in the mother base. Bran does *revisit* ToJ but I am interested to how necessary the weirwood “line of sight” is at his current level.
Raenarys,
I don’t think your point was lost, and it was another person that said it and not myself, but while your point wasn’t lost I think her point may have been. She was actually agreeing with you, if you read the comment again, just saying that there is no point for people to say “half Targ” when he is full Targ, much like you said.
Also, I would point out that the children having the father’s name is typically common in more than just GoT, but in the end everyone is agreeing and saying it a different way
You incorrigible delinquant you ! You should know better by now !
For penance, thou shalt write 50 times on a blackboard “Sansa Stark is the devil incarnate” 😛
Tycho Nestoris,
It is quite puzzling, isn’t it ? The logic of his greenseeing abilities escapes me, I have to admit. My sense of it so far is that a 100% trained Three-Eyed Raven can see whatever he wants, regardless of the presence of a weirwood tree in the vicinity which is why Bran’s mentor was able to show him the way directly to the courtyard of Winterfell and the Tower of Joy. However, Bran is not fully trained, his education having been cut short by a swarm of dead people ^^
Therefore, I would guess that Bran, at the moment, can plug into any event that happened near a weirwood tree and follow the event’s actors afterwards, hence his knowledge of what happened to Sansa after her wedding. But he may not yet be able to direcly connect, with a high level of clarity, to deeds that took place away from a weirwood tree, which is why his other visions (the Mad King in the Throne Room, the shadow of a dragon flying over King’s Landing, the wildfire explosion, etc.) were scattered and out of focus.
That, to me, explains why he told his sister he still needed to work on his powers. If he were already omniscient and capable of looking into anything at will, such work would be unnecessary, I believe.
TormundsWoman,
Ohhh, yeah! I was doin’ the happy dance! Give me that prophesy, you sh*ts! 🙂 Hugs, TW
mau,
Personally, I wish they’d really be meticulous about the time everything takes, explain every detail in exquisite fashion, get really super specific about the motivation of every action, suck every ounce of energy from the story and never finish the show.
I’ve been on all the threads, because this episode got to me far more than I first realized and I can’t get enough of reading about it, and you are the first to add any sense or reason to LF’s run-on speech about how Sansa should train her thinking processes. How’s that for a run-on sentence? It makes sense to me that she hears it from his mouth, (make no mistake, she listens to his shit even though she grandly dismisses him afterward) and becomes far more interested in and accepting of Bran’s situation because she believes it will be of use to her.
I’m not so sure. Again, with the bittersweet – we’ve known Bran since he was a lively little wall-climbing boy. We saw how the previous 3 eyed raven turned out, living in the wild, a deformed hermit. (the first guy had tree roots going through him, they jazzed up the situation with the second one) watching the world tear at itself for hundreds of years. I think we are going to see Bran left in that same situation. Not what we’d want for him, but that’s his purpose.
How many times have we heard a character talk about songs being sung? They’ll sing songs about this for a thousand years. Didn’t we see Joff, early on, do damage to a minstrel singing a song about Robert’s untimely death? It was a pretty accurate song, too. And Cersei was adamant about wiping out anyone who told jokes or sang songs about her walk of shame.
So, even though we don’t actually see more than one minstrel, we are led to believe, throughout the series, that minstrels are indeed strolling the countryside, earning money as entertainers and newscasters, by composing songs about current events and singing them all over the place. Even in the episode with Arya and the Lannister soldiers, one of them mentioned songs. Most of Bronn’s life before and during Tyrion was singing songs in bars. We saw in season 6, the acting troupe performing their version of the news. It was a horrifyingly wrong version, but the townspeople ate it up.
It happened that way in real life, especially in the back country and small cities. Seems to me HBO had a show that demonstrated in a small way how news could travel to the small cities via a traveling troupe. Series was named Carnivale. Some of you may remember it. So don’t let anybody tell you that there was no way news could travel – people are and have always been starved for news, and there have always been travelers, actors, singers and merchants more than willing to trade some news for a meal. That’s how news would move quickly through an area. Not as quickly as now, within seconds of an event, which is going to cause an evolution of brain increase unseen in human history, but that’s just mho.
Genuine question but when has Dany ever demonstrated her military expertise? Meereen isn’t clear who organised that, the other city was Daario so surely these are the first real battles she’s been involved in? I agree that it’s more Tyrion but there are good reasons why she’s been advised against fire and blood and there will be consequences when she ultimately deploys those methods.
That was not what I meant. I meant that the nude scene was not necessary/functional enough to hire a body double for. And since Lena didn’t want to do it then why have nudity in this scene?
Having seen Bran’s odd answer that it is complicated had me wondering if the previous Three-Eyed Raven is not an old Targ bastard from the Dance of Dragons as many fans speculate, but instead [potentially] the oldest true-born son of Eddard Stark who had at some point in the future traveled to the distant past.
ACME,
You win the recap comments for the day by making me Google “lacunary”.
I just love it when I learn a word that is new to me!
I wonder if Tycho Nestoris will double-cross Cersei in the end. I know, the cynical view is that, founded by freed slaves or not, Braavosi can still put profits above ethics by indirectly benefitting from the slave trade. But it would definitely be more interesting and more satisfying if, after getting their old debts paid for with the “spoils of war” from the sack of Highgarden, the Iron Bank says “SUCKER!!!!” and backs Dany instead. 😛
Oh wow. Only now got the chance to watch the episode and absolutely loved it. There was so much in there. Every scene, bam, bam, bam! it’s all happening now. So difficult to chose a favourite scene.
So many wonderful moments. Missy intoning “You are in the presence of Daenerys Targaeryen (titles, titles, titles)”. Davos: “This is Jon Snow.” loool! Jon gave Davos side-eye and he pointed out that Jon is the King in the North.
Cersei in the dungeon with Ellaria and Tyene. I’ve seen some comments that their end wasn’t cruel or gruesome enough, and I’m WTF? What can be more cruel than making a mother watch her child die, helpless to help or even comfort her, and then making the mother watch her beloved daughter’s dead body decompse. That’s proper mad queen stuff there, from Cersei. She even gets sexually excited about it and takes initially reluctant Jaime… Mad King echoes, anyone?
Sansa running WF and the North quite ably, then the heartbreaking Stark reunion. Bran isn’t the baby brother anymore. Sansa tries to connect, as a friendly, loving big sister and Bran responds by recounting her most traumatic event. Ouch!
Finally, the Crown army (Lannister, other Westerlanders, Tarly and many Reach houses following them) take Highgarden. I loved the long shot of Jaime purposefully walking through the aftermath (we got a good glimpse of gold bars) all through to Olenna’s solar. That scene between Jaime and Olenna was just pure gold. NCW was great but Dame Diana Rigg was suberb. And Olenna, proud, decisive and waspish to the last.
What an episode!
ginny,
Heh, that would be cool.
speaking of spoils of war – I am remembering a filming scene
Was that just speculation, or……
We’ve been talking about manufactured numbers of men and unrealistic ship building times… There’s one thing I have to point out and/or question as we move forward. We were pretty much told by Jaime and given the strong indication that what he had on the field at Highgarden was the bulk of the Lannister army and allied ground forces (Tarly) save for the token brigade at Casterly Rock and possibly still some smatterings of troops here and there (like Sheeran’s small group). That should be pretty much all of them or a huge majority, right?
This crossed my mind watching them marching in formation and how many could have been wiped out had Daenerys done just one flaming flyby with all three dragons. Swooping in from behind they wouldn’t have been ready or have the distance to get off any fatal arrows before she was out of range.
WotW spoilers and possibly trickled leak stuff:
I bring this up because the “field of fire (2)” is happening in the next episode. All the information we’ve gotten is that Jaime with his Lannisters and Tarly with his men are involved. That to me says that all of what we saw approaching Highgarden is in the battle, or in other words, a high majority of Cersei’s army. We also know that Daenerys essentially wins the battle. The Lannister brigade at Casterly Rock is wiped out already.
So basically, Cersei’s army SHOULD be decimated with this battle. Even if they round up men that manage to flee and those small smattering of troops elsewhere she shouldn’t have a formidable army left. She’d have her Greyjoy navy, but even with exaggerated numbers shouldn’t be that many… and they suck at land battle.
Of course they’re likely to have many of the Dothraki killed as well so both sides are severely depleted, but there will still be dragons and should be many more Dothraki alive, Unsullied. Here’s the whole point of my post… If after this battle Cersei is still able to field ~20k men plus Euron’s navy I will be calling total bullshit! From my perspective she should only have enough left to defend KL & Red Keep from a siege. I get the feeling that I’ll be getting the bullshit and Cersei will have plenty of numbers as long as they want to drag it out.
René,
To show how comfortable Cersei is and how much she DGAF and also, because, boobs and butt make the world go around.
Were you the one who kept insisting Lena wasn’t being professional because she didn’t do nudity for the Walk of Shame? It was creepy then (whether it was you or not) and it’s creepy now.
You got to see boobs. Maybe someday, some desperate girl will let you touch one. Call it a victory and go home.
Very good point. He told Sansa it was all fragments right now. He might see a vision of something and have no idea how it fits in with anything else. But he seems to have been working first on discovering the history of his family – when he starts tracking all the pieces of what happened to Ned at Kings Landing, visions of Baelish will be prominent, especially that one where Baelish put a knife to Ned’s throat and hissed into his ear “I did tell you not to trust me.” I think he’s already on Baelish’s case and will be very disturbed if Baelish dares to go face-to-face with him.
You are partially correct
WorfWWorfington,
Wasn’t me.
And it was not what I meant. I clearly said nudity wasn’t necessary. You’re the one with the boob-obsession. Good luck with that.
A little late to the party, and most have already said a lot of what I think about the episode. Will add, though, that I was delighted to see them throw a couple of Jon/Rhaegar parallels in there.
Davos saying that the men of the NW and then the North chose Jon as their leader because they believe in him, a callback to episode 303 when Barristan says men followed Rhaegar into battle for that reason. And just before he dies in 504, Barristan and Daenerys share a scene in which he speaks of Rhaegar again. Daenerys says Viserys always told her Rhaegar was good at killing – something Barristan says he didn’t enjoy; Jon is also good at killing, but he made clear to Daenerys it isn’t something in which he finds enjoyment either.
I found it fitting, given that Jon and Daenerys were meeting for the first time, and I did have a bit of a nerd squeal when she said Rhaegar’s name to him.
The one call back to the past in this episode that I have not seen anyone mention is that after Marcella’s death, Cersei tells Jamie that she essentially was tortured with imaginations of what her dead mother would like every day after she died. She kept imagining her decay and the destruction of her mother’s beauty. Now she tells Ellaria that she will experience exactly this torture in reality. She describes the decomposition of Tyene in the same way she was describing the decay of her own mother that happened in her imagination.
Shock Me,
Ha ! My vocabulary is usually less exotic (or accurate). I lucked out on this one because it looks a lot like the French version of the word 😉
Thronetender,
I agree completely; Bran does seem quite mystified by his own powers and abilities and in need of practice to make sense of it all.
And you may be right; perhaps he is currently trying to piece together his family’s recent history but I have a few doubts. I would be tempted to believe he did not choose to explore his relatives’ respective journeys but instead “plugged into” the Winterfell weirwood tree because that is what he can practice with now and it accidentally led him to the discovery of Sansa’s wedding and its aftermath. Right now, I cannot quite see why Bran would choose to explore what happened to his father (or any other Direwolf, for that matter). For the moment, he has no reason to suspect anything particularly fishy occurred there and then so why would he bother ?
In Bran’s mind, there are probably more urgent matters to focus on, like the White Walkers (their origins, behaviours and weaknesses) and Jon’s lineage.
Stark Raving Mad,
Oh I think many people were remembering that very conversation when they heard what Cersei had in store for Ellaria and Tyene. I had lots of sympathy for Cersei back then, and while I think she is a monster, I totally get why she’d do this
Melisandre said where he would die – but did she say when?
ramses,
ramses,
I suppose I DID expect a bit more from the Mountain, especially after that amazing scene with Septa Unella. I know sometimes things are more horrifying when left to the devices of our own imaginations , such as Unella’s fate. (Although I’d love a quick screenshot or update on how she fared.) I guess I just keep seeing him attending Cersei to all of these gruesome tortures and expect him to play more of a role, aside from the mere threat of his presence. Apparently I am spoiled from seeing the majority of Ramsay’s horrors being realized on screen. This show IS about characters behaving their worst, ultimately.
I get Dany not wanting to use her dragons to take out armies/strongholds and scare her future subjects.
That being said, why couldn’t she take one (or two) and Jon and use them to go see the Army of the Dead for herself? Jon seems to have an idea of where they’re heading (i.e. sending Tormund. The only obstacle might be a limitation on their flight range.
When Bran first began having visions from earlier episodes, one of the things he envisioned was the Iron Throne covered in snow. He didn’t understand what that meant at the time. But I’m assuming it was a foreshadowing of things to come — most likely that Jon Snow (get it?) or someone from the northern regions will ultimately become the next ruler of Westeros.