It’s the penultimate episode! That usually means we get
an epic fight with all the extras and lots of little modal cities burning down!
Oh yes, it is epic
Starting with, shockingly, the least and most epic… in
Meeren Daenerys returns home to be very Unimpressed with Tyrion and the state
of her city.
She is all for wrath and vengeance while Tyrion counsels
some restraint because wrath and vengeance is something of an unfortunate Targaryen
habit. Instead she parlays with the representatives of the great masters. They
present their case, full of condescension and threats to return everyone to slavery
She rebuts with dragons. Three of them. Against a fleet of wooden ships
And whatever argument they have against that she counters
with Dorthraki. Lots of Dorthraki. MOOOOORE Dorthraki. ALLLLLL the Dorthraki
It’s a compelling argument. The two more awful great
masters get murdered, the remaining is left to spread the tale and go and plot
for the future (and yes, plotting is an issue. Look at Westerosi history – the Targaryens
and their dragons were forced to treaty before by the Dornish who wouldn’t
fighy in the open field. Daenerys and her Unsullied were frustrated by the
hidden Sons of the Harpy. Guerrilla war has always been effective against
Targaryen dragonfire).
I’m torn with Daenerys’s victory, which is something I’ve
been touching on in recent episodes. A large part of me wants to cheer and yell
“epic epic epic” because she does have some of the more epic scenes. It’s
amazing, it’s shiny, and I love the dragons burning all the things and some
nice burny victories.
But this is how Daenerys achieves power – woo-woo and
dragons. Now it’s not all she has going for her – she’s extremely charismatic,
unbelievably determined and damned inspirational. She’s also genuinely kind and
compassionate – albeit patronising and condescending with it
But if there’s one thing her little Meeren adventure has
taught is, it’s that she actually isn’t all that skilled in administration,
diplomacy or politics. She receives people as a supplicant – even sycophant –
or an enemy to crush. I do hope that we’re seeing a shit of this when Yara
comes to treat with her (along with Tyrion thoroughly putting Theon in his
place. I liked his point about height jokes and how everyone making them feels
they’re being original. We see this a lot with insults of any marginalised
person – there’s little originality in bigotry). Daenerys and Yara bond over
the idea being the first queens of their people, as well as acknowledging they
had ineffectual and even evil fathers. Tyrion remains dubious about any
independent part of the 7 kingdoms, but I think given it’s a feudal system there
are given levels of independence
What I find most interesting here is their pledge to be
better than their fathers – that’s Yara, Daenerys and, really, Tyrion. They’re
pretty much all descended from The Worst and it’ll be interesting to see what
each path takes since each of them have part of their fathers in them.
Yara has already been told to desist raping, pillaging
and ravaging even as she protests that it’s their way of life. But isn’t this
what she herself realised back on the Iron isles? That the Iron Islanders would
reave and cause problems until the other kingdoms finally got tired of them and
slapped them down over and over and over again. They only get to reave, like in
the north, when the other kingdoms are more bothered by other things – their way
of life constantly destroys them. Her people’s redemption could literally save
them
Then there’s Daenerys – with the direct comparison Tyrion
draws with her father. So far we’ve largely been able to cheer her “kill ‘em
all” policy because her enemies have been caricatures of awful. Her enemies
(conspicuously POC, as well it has to be noted) are rapists, slavers and
generally terrible people. Her enemies have been designed to be caricatures for
us to hate – if that were any more plain they’d be raising swastikas
But what when her enemies are not (POC) caricatures, but
(white) characters? What about her reaching Westeros and the city she wants to
burn to ash isn’t Astropor, but Winterfel or Highgarden? What when her enemy
isn’t some slaver or Khal whose name we don’t remember – but Margaery or Sansa?
Her narrow, and very Targaryen, view has allowed her to
be largely viewed as one of the “good guys” because her enemies have been the
worst of the worst. Put her in a position where it is Jon Snow facing dragon
fire or Arya Stark in the path of the Dorthraki horde or even the Hound facing
the Unsullied and her simplistic narrative is going to crack quickly.
Now to Westeros and the battle of the bastards – Snow vs
Ramsay
And from the very beginning Sansa tells us it’s going to be a disaster. Sansa, the only one who knows Ramsay, Sansa who has grown much harder and wiser as the series progresses makes it clear this is going to be a disaster
Of course, Jon is not entirely wrong when he points out
they have little choice.
The battle itself is… huge and terrible and terrifying
and in some ways NOT epic. It has epic numbers, but it’s brutal and grubby. It
has no dramatic dragonfire or alchemist fire, no heroic sieges, no moments of
glory. It’s brutal, confusing, chaotic, nasty and just plain awful. It’s an
ugly savage brawl with no glory or passion or redeeming features. It’s brutal
and nasty and really, perfect. This is war, nasty, horrible, awful war.
And while Jon is an excellent warrior, Sansa is right, Ramsay is a bloody brilliant general. From using – and sacrificing – Rickon to bait his trap, to rendering Jon’s archers useless, to using his own archers and pikemen to utterly dominate the field, Ramsay not only has the better army but his mastery of tactics is pretty much unmatched.
Jon’s force is almost annihilated. No amount of courage
or passion or sword work change that. He is saved only by… Sansa. She may hate
Littlefinger but if it’s a choice between Ramsay and… well… anyone she
definitely sides with Littlefinger
Arriving just before utter destruction with the Vale
Knights cavalry (remember, other than Doorne, the Vale is probably the only one
of the Seven Kingdoms that hasn’t been savaged by war – which will be important
I think) Sansa saves the day. And we see that pike formations are all very effective
- but a cavalry charge to the back just slices right through them.
I have heard some criticism of Sansa waiting “until the
last minute” or implying she was devious or sacrificing Jon’s troops here… I
don’t buy that. She may be cunning and even ruthless here but I see no
advantage to her in having Jon’s men slaughtered – if anyone more Northerners
would benefit her in stopping them being dependent on Littlefinger. Can the
devastated remnants of the Northern army face off against the Lannisters? Or
the Lannisters and the Tyrells? So why the delay?
She can’t teleport – frankly it’s already slightly
dubious that Littlefinger had a sufficiently large number of Vale knights close
enough to help that Ramsay didn’t discover.
Ramsay tries to flee but, with one more sacrifice of the
last giant, the gang breaks down the gate and takes Ramsay captive (after Jon
brutally smacks him unconscious with a shield). He then hands him over to Sansa
Who is epic, awesome, terrifying and quite willing to
feed Ramsay to his own hounds. Sansa, all of the applause.
Now it remains to be seen where they go from here. How
many northerners do they have left? And does the Vale really have sufficient
armed forces to bolster them against a Lannister/Tyrell counter attack led by
Jaime Lannister? Or are we relying on Shit Happening in Kings Landing to
fracture that alliance and/or distracting Jaime back down south. Is the north (Tullys,
Arron and Stark) pretty much reliant on southern politics pulling them apart at
this point?
And just what will be left when Daenerys finally crosses
the ocean? And will that be able to face the white walkers (since they have
dragonfire, I’m going to go with “probably”)?
Of course (and I have to say this every episode to annoy
Renee,) Jon could marry Daenerys. Though a Sansa, Yara, Daenerys triad would be
pretty epic.
