Hello and welcome to Game of Thoughts! I’m still alive and carving time out of my busy weeks for some Game of Thrones goodness. These posts WILL contain spoilers. They are nothing more than a recap and chance for GoT fans to have a bit of a natter and react as situations permit. They were inspired by the incredible, in-depth and insightful posts of Patrick Sponaugle, except his are intelligent and mine are just squeeing.
Ready? Then let’s begin.
Season 7 continues to be a strong ride out of the gate – we’ve got a lot of solid action, political maneuvering, drama, and a burning pirate-ship battle. What’s not to love?
Dragonstone
Danaerys had a bit of trouble getting her people to play nice at first, but showed herself a true negotiator and ruler by listening to Tyrion – ironically Olenna would tell her later this is the wrong thing to do. Tyrion shows his big sexy brains by pointing out that having ‘foreigners’ attack King’s Landing would be the exact wrong way to go, then makes the spectacular suggestion that the Unsullied attack Casterly Rock – his former home. NICE.
Varys makes his political affilation known – he’s for the people, as he always has been, and always will be. It was a strangely warm moment when he agreed to Dany’s request to tell her if she ever started going bad, and how she promised to burn him alive if he fomented rebellions against her. Say what you will, at least they know where they stand.
Missandei and Gray Worm got busy, and it was beautiful. Kudos to the writers for allowing the possibility that penises are not required for sexual gratification. Of course now we have to accept that because someone was happy, they’re going to die.
I am concerned that Melisandre is there, but at least we know Dany is fireproof.
King’s Landing
Once again Cersei shows her butt – she plays on the fears of the Tyrell bannermen that the Reach would he crawling with foreigners when Danaerys invades. Jaime was having a hell of a time convincing Randyll Tarly to join the cause, given the Lannister’s proclivities for screwing everyone… including each other. Maybe that should be their new house words. “House Lannister – We’ve Had Everyone.” Jaime even makes the hail mary pass to Tarly of being the Warden of the South after the war is over.
I kind of like Maester ‘Mad Scientist’ Qyburn, but now that he has a means for destroying dragons I do not. Also it doesn’t seem like a good tactic – seems like a giant catapult net would be better. That ballista would be a million-to-one shot. And screw both of them for defacing a priceless Westerosi antique. That was Balerion’s head!
The Citadel
I see you, reference to Sam writing the whole series! I see you!
Also, poor Jorah. I feel for him. I wonder what’s in store, and if he ‘ll survive the procedure. The man’s been through hell in a handcart like five times already, being mutilated while drunk should be a walk in the park. I bet he’ll be like, indestructible afterward, or something. I liked Sam’s mentioning Jeor ‘The Old Bear’ Mormont who I STILL miss. He and Barristan Selmy could have gotten Westeros running like clockwork, no doubt.
Winterfell
Sansa continues to speak sense, and Jon continues to not listen. He did make it clear to Littlefinger that there would just be a greasy Baelish-shaped spot if Sansa was touched in any way, so there’s that. I feel confident that means Baelish will amp up his scheming. Hopefully he will finally get caught in one of his own webs, and die. Or Brienne can just throw him off a tower, whatever.
Jon going south is a bad decision from the showrunners, who are thinking in terms of show and not the mechanics of the world. Jon Snow is going to White Harbor, to take a ship to Dragonstone. The KING IN THE NORTH, who is kind of important and a symbol of northern resistance and also the only thing forcing people to take the thread of the White Walkers seriously, went south with like, four guys. EVERYONE is going to recognize him. Remember in the first two seasons where he couldn’t go anywhere without people being lke ‘Oh hello Ned Stark’s Bastard!’ ? It will about 10 thousand times worse now that he’s defeated the Boltons, risen from the dead, and was lord commander of the Night’s Watch and all the other stuff he’s done. People will recognize him. Or they should, anyway. Should he meet Danaerys? Of course! Should have taken LOTS of dudes? Yes. Maybe he took more but they only showed a handful.
I wonder if during their meeting there will be some kind of confirmation of Jon’s parentage. Bran’s seen it, but nobody else knows about it. Speaking of Bran, where the hell was he?
The Riverlands
HOOOOOOT PIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!! THANK GOD. The return of Hot Pie warms my heart, even though that was a rough smash cut from Jorah’s grody surgery. Still, it’s good to know Hot Pie’s alive and well, and still dropping vital plot points and cooking advice to Arya. Their reunion was weirdly sweet, even if Arya and he are on very different life paths. VERY different.
Which brings me to the big news: ARYA IS GOING HOME! Oh, my heart grew ten sizes today. I hope she and Sansa get on well – heh, maybe Arya will be the one to kill Baelish. I did expect Nymeria to show up, and I figured the best we could hope for would be Arya being spared. I can’t lie, I wanted the Westerosi Disney Princess happy ending with Arya riding Nymeria into battle or someting. But honestly? I wouldn’t be surprised if Nymeria showed up again. Maybe she’ll have her pack keep Arya safe from afar or something.
Still, Arya has had her hopes crushed so many times I felt that it was a bit of a false note for her to ask Nymeria to come with her. Still, it was lovely seeing it. I wonder if she and Ghost will get together and have puppies! MORE DIREWOLVES ARE NEEDED.
The Iron Fleet
The best part of this segment was Yara’s ‘Eh, what can I do?’ shrug as Ellaria is coming on to her. Yara is not responsible for the effect she has on women. I am still sad for Theon. People like to sexually exhibit at him for some reason.
I appreciated the showrunners reminding us the Sand Snakes were aboard the Sea Bitch just in time for them to die. Thanks, showrunners. I didn’t hate the Sand Snakes storyline, but they didn’t get enough time to actually showcase their abilities, and so they just seemed preposterous a lot of the time.
Euron is dreadful and even though that was a good fight, with lots of great moves from both Yara and the Sand Snakes, he is somehow still alive. I can’t stand Euron. So good job, actor playing Euron, I guess. Now I am even sadder for Theon, who could not pull himself together to save the sister who risked her life countless times to save his. I hope he gets to pull off a moment of heroism, save Yara and I don’t know, use that ballista thing on the Mountain. I really do feel for Theon and I want him to be happy.
So that’s all I have for this week’s episode! Join us next week when we continue seeing what plot threads are tidying up and which ones are still flying around loose!
Boy, THAT escalated quickly! There I was, settling in for Ellaria getting some action, and then BOOM! All hell breaks loose. Euron, that glorious psycho, became my favorite villain in the series now! The Greyjoys have been the whipping boys of Westeros for 6 seasons, a shadow of their former selves, metaphorically castrated every time they were reminded their little rebellion got crushed, when not literally castrated by a sociopath. It was actually kinda cool to see them have their “Darth Vadar moment” when they were unstoppable killing machines, savage in battle and drunk in victory! Tongues for trophies, though? Cool, but…ew… Say what you want, but Euron knew how to make an entrance with that crazy insane fanged gangway!! PRESENTATION!! 😉
The clever editing contrasting food with something disgusting seems to be leitmotif of this season.
Arya going home is an exciting moment! But Jon is already on the way to Dragonstone, maybe they meet on the road somewhere? She and Sansa had such significantly different experiences that have hardened and tempered them, it will be interesting to see how they react to each other.
The Sand Snakes fought well, but a whip and a glaive? Not the most efficient weapons on the deck of a ship. Tyene’s daggers fared better. Were this battle fought on the sands of Dorne, it would have ended differently, I believe. Euron was just too experienced with close quarters combat on a rolling ship’s deck.
Damn, Theon. The boy needs therapy. Does he not know that Ramsey was killed and the Boltons have fallen? Probably not. There’s another low-key running theme of misinformation, or more specifically, old information in Westeros. It’s like we needed to be reminded that this is a vast, medieval (ish) world, the most efficient methods of communication are ships and ravens. So it should be no surprise that the most up to date events in Westeros wouldn’t be known by people outside the region, or even outside the events themselves for weeks or even months until word reached them.
Belerion’s skull was awesome. I want one for the house! When we saw the ballista, I was just too wrapped up in “oh, the thing from the Hobbit what’s his name killed Smaug with”. I was expecting something more, elaborate? Original? Qyburn is sick genius, I wanted to see weirder looking weapons from him. But I guess it’ll do the job. Who gets to pull the trigger, and which dragon will be on the business end of it?
Generally speaking, dragons were so easy for people to believe in, even those that haven’t seen one, but the White Walkers are unbelievable fairy tales? Even with Jon telling everyone “I fucking killed one in hand to hand combat and watched hundreds of screeching zombies swarm over Hardhomme, but yeah, go ahead and don’t believe me!! Dicks.” I guess since the Long Night was thousands of years prior, the threat of the White Walkers faded into misty memory. I try to see it from the skeptic’s position, if someone went on CNN and said a bunch of 5000 year old moldy Egyptian gods are going blast through the pyramids and start wreaking havoc on the Earth with mummies and armies of Anubis dog-men and whatever else, I’d be hard pressed to believe it, too. Especially since it’s been so long since armies of dog-men and mummies scoured the Earth…
God, this season has really delivered, and with only two episodes thus far!
Oh, apologies! I thought I’d already responded to this!
Yes, gross stuff then food is definitely a thing.
I had that same thought, concerning how people consider the Night’s Watch duty to be to guard the realm from Wildlings, not from the White Walkers – how seriously would I take it if someone was like ‘Oh, yeah, there are ancient Mesopotamian demons that are going to come out of a gate adn stalk the earth.’
Yes! Arya going home gave me all the feels!
Sorry I forgot to reply last week, I had a death in the family and sort of zoned out on my blog. I’m working on tonight’s entry now though!