Last night’s episode of Game of Thrones was a bit long at 67 minutes, so after the jump there are way too many words about fake fantasy politics and Margaery Tyrell being amazing.
Spoilers after the jump!
Hogwarts, but for death. The episode opened with Arya hanging out in the mausoleum-like House of Black and White, a place devoted to how awesome death is. Jaqen H’ghar told her that “here we serve the many-faced god” and Arya, rather naively, asked which of the several statues were the many-faced god. She saw the Stranger (the god of death in most of Westeros) the Drowned God (whom the Iron Islanders worship) but no, specific many-faced god. “There is only one god,” said Jaqen, implying that all of the various gods of murder are the same entity, except wearing different pants.
The House of Black and White seems to be a place all about surrendering identity, becoming nothing, turning into an instrument of entropy, and all that fun nihilistic stuff. People aren’t “I” they are “a man” or “a girl,” and Jaqen tells Arya that she needs to get rid of her personal possessions and shed her identity if she wants to join the Faceless Men, an order of elite assassins. Arya, of course, wants to join the Faceless Men because she wants revenge for her family. She wants to learn how to kill effectively to destroy the Lannisters and anyone else involved in the deaths of the Starks. Giving up her identity isn’t really an option. She throws her clothes and other possessions into Braavos’ waterways, but not her sword, Needle. She hides that. The implication is that she isn’t really going to buy into the quiet nihilism of the Faceless Men. No, she’s going to fake her way through Death School so she can become better at killing and then bring down vengeance upon her enemies. So, she’s going to try to con an order of assassins who worship death into teaching her how to kill. That will probably go great.
Ramsay + Sansa = Ewww In a move that probably made a lot of people say “WHAT, THAT’S NOT IN THE BOOK” Sansa got engaged to Ramsay Bolton. Yeah, it’s not in the book. But what happens in the book is close enough to this in spirit that it still kind of works, so, shut up, nerds.
Creepy Uncle Littlefinger arranged for Sansa Stark to marry Westero’s most Hannibal Lecter-y of eligible bachelors, Ramsay Bolton. Littlefinger, as always, is playing a precarious political game. He tells Roose Bolton that he wants to combine the powers of the Eyrie and Winterfell to undermine the Lannisters, and he tells Sansa that marrying Ramsay will allow her to eventually exact vengeance on her family. So, he’s lying to someone. Maybe everyone. Very possibly, not even the writers know what his deal is, because that’s the sort of man that Littlefinger is: A man whose deal is not known.
Bri + Pod = Awww Also in the North, Bri and Pod are on the trail of Sansa and Littlefinger, because Brienne of Tarth is determined to do… something. I don’t know. Protect Sansa? Not sure what’s happening here, but it doesn’t matter because Bri and Pod are adorable. They had a moment when Pod talked about his old boss, a drunken knight that stole a ham, and Brienne opened up about a moment when Renly saved her from social ridicule. Several boys at a ball made fun of her behind her back but Renly insisted on dancing with her, and used his position as the king’s brother to help her save face in front of a bunch of awful, chattering nobles. After this exchange, Brienne tells Pod that she will, indeed, train him to use a sword and ride properly. Bri also vows revenge on Stannis, which is cool, because that guy is kind of a dick.
I love this part of the show. Book Brienne is boring and oftentimes far too passive. Her chapters are mostly about exposition, and not about actual people we care about. Bri in the show, though (along with Pod) is more fully-realized because of moments like this. I don’t care that she and Pod have an aimless quest that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. They’re vivid enough characters that I just want to keep hanging out with them.
Margaery Tyrell, having it all. Speaking of nothing characters that the show has made interesting, Margaery Tyrell won me over last night as she manipulated her new husband, King Tommen, and shut Cersei down. Way back in season one Cersei Lannister is the one who says “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die,” implying to Ned Stark that she was, in fact, a skilled puppet master, and that Ned was an oblivious pawn. It looks like it’s just as possible to fade into obscurity, though, and be buried among an avalanche of subtle barbs and insults, because that’s precisely what Margaery is doing to Cersei.
One of the more uncomfortable scenes in last night’s episode opened on Margaery in bed with her new husband, Tommen. (Mercifully, HBO did not show us kid nudity, but still…) Margaery started subtly suggesting to Tommen that maybe Cersei could go hang out at the Lannister’s ancestral home of Casterly Rock for a while. Like, maybe she should retire there. Get away from King’s Landing and all of its politics and relevancy. In person, Margaery also goes full Mean Girls on Cersei. Cersei walks in on Margaery hanging out with her girlfriends and the new queen says “I wish we had some wine for you, it’s a bit early in the day for us.” She also adds that she’s “exhausted,” with her message to Cersei being “You know your one surviving son? The king who means the world to you? Yeah, I hit that.”
Margaery, you are fabulous. You are a magnificent bastard. You are Queen Bitch of My Heart. I hope that the final battle of Game of Thrones is Margaery Tyrell doing z-snaps at the Night’s King and a horde of ice zombies, and they all melt under the unrelenting force of her sick burns.
Jon Snow: Now with competency! At least one person had to die violently in this episode. I think that’s in some HBO series bible or something somewhere, that every episode of Game of Thrones has to have at the very least one horrifying act of violence. Last night’s unpleasant act of premature surrender to oblivion came courtesy of Jon Snow, the newly elected leader of the Night’s Watch.
Jon doesn’t have to be the leader of the Night’s Watch. Stannis Baratheon offered to legitimize him, to become Jon Stark, and to serve as Warden of the North. Jon, though, kept saying no. He swore an oath to the Night’s Watch, and intends to keep it. Davos, though, emphasized that Jon Snow will eventually need to move against the Boltons. Holing up at the Wall while a horde of dudes who literally have a skinned man as their symbol run rampant probably isn’t a good idea.
As the new leader of the Night’s Watch, Jon needs to delegate and assign jobs. He gives one of his previous opponents, Alliser Thorne, the prestigious job of First Ranger. Hey, remember when Obama made Hillary Clinton the Secretary of State? I guess this is sort of like that.
However, Jon’s other major order didn’t go so well. He gave Janos Slynt, his other major opponent, command of one of the ruined Night’s Watch castles. Slynt was the former commander of the guards in King’s Landing, and betrayed Ned Stark to the Lannisters back in season one, so there’s something of a history there. Slynt loudly refuses his orders and Jon asks for his sword. One of the first things we see in season one is Ned Stark personally carry out an execution, and this scene was an obvious callback. Janos Slynt begs for his life, Jon Snow says nothing, and cuts his head off. From across the way Stannis Baratheon nods knowingly at Jon. If this were a video game like Dragon Age or Skyrim or whatever, a little message would have popped up that said “STANNIS APPROVES, +5”
And now, mandatory HBO nudity. This scene made my viewing party let out a few audible “What the fucks?” and sundry other swear-ful expressions of surprise. At one point, out of nowhere, we see an old naked guy surrounded by nice looking nude women. We had no idea who this naked guy was, who the ladies were, or why there was a guy in a fake beard there.
It turned out it was the high septon, Westeros’ pope, in a brothel doing sex roleplay. The hookers were variously dressed up as the gods, and the high septon wanted to fuck the gods. This is kind of like the actual pope going to an actual brothel wanting to sex up a lady dressed as the Virgin Mary, so naturally a lot of the actual faithful were pissed. A crowd of religious folk stormed the brothel, dragged the naked septon into the street, and beat him for his blasphemy.
Naturally, the septon complained to Cersei and her small council. Cersei, though, didn’t just bow to the septon. She sought out the religious zealots who called themselves Sparrows, and found their leader, an old man with no shoes who was giving soup to poor people. In conversation with the High Sparrow (as he is known) Cersei revealed that the old, blasphemous septon was now in a dungeon. The conversation ended, but the implication is that Cersei probably wants to elevate the leader of the zealots as the new high septon. This will give her a religious leader who (she thinks) is beholden to and dependent upon her. That should work great, just so long as the shoeless guy giving soup to people isn’t motivated by “idealism” or “actual religious feelings.”
In all the brothels in all the world… Tyrion, sick of living in a wheelhouse with Varys on their way to meet up with Daenerys, insists that they go outside. In Volantis, Tyrion encounters slaves of various kind, and a red priestess similar to Thoros of Myr or Melisandre preaching to the crowd about how the Night is Dark and Full of Terrors. Also, Dany might be Jesus. We’ll see. Tyrion eventually went to a brothel where a hooker was cosplaying as Daenerys Targaryen (weird!), found out that he did not, in fact, want to hook up with a sex worker who seemed nice, and then got kidnapped by Jorah Mormont. Shouldn’t have gone out and about Tyrion! You should have listened to Varys! The possibility of you getting kidnapped was… Really low, actually. It is improbable that he and Jorah would have been in the same brothel at the same time. Still! Varys is going to be telling him “I told you so” for a while after that, assuming they both survive, of course.