"A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing ..."
Hello everyone!
Still with me here?
Hearing church bells ringing and thinking you need to take cover from a massive, pissed off dragon?
Or are you looking at the viral vitriol and dubious commentary wars and thinking "this season has gone down the gutter because the fans are now batshit"?
I hear you on both counts.
Actually, I hear you on ALL counts, because: my sentiments exactly.
After the third and fourth episode, I wasn't really holding my breath that the fifth was going to make things any better, execution-wise. The rushed season feels, well, rushed. So really, I went in with a lot of warnings from all around (looking at you, friends!) and emotionally detached.
I was pretty sure there would be great moments (Game of Thrones DOES have those), not-so-great ones (also Game of Thrones territory), illogical ones, and completely nutty ones.
The Bells was all of the above, so might as well put on your helmets and take cover.
As always, links to my previous reviews and recaps can be found down at the bottom of the page.
It's almost unbelievable how we're pretty much done with Game of Thrones. A show that started in 2011 and carried us through the years is now waiting on the last, explosive episode - although what's to explode now that the Wildfire has pretty much destroyed King's Landing after some helpful incineration from above remains to be seen.
Anyway, fans were warned about this episode, specifically; I, personally, was warned a hella lot.
Thankfully, my emotions have an off button.
Dragon? That's a horse if I've ever seen one!
Where to begin after the dubious massacre from last week's episode end? I'm still not over how insanely ridiculous taking out Rhaegal was, but I've come to terms with a lot of facts, so let's not dwell on the past too much.
There's a lot to chew through without it.
The only one not chewing anything is Dany.
As Varys notes when one of the kitchen kids comes up to interrupt his missive-writing (telling everyone and anyone that there's someone with a better claim to the throne than Dany) to tell him Dany isn't eating, to which he replies that 'they'll try again at supper'. Is Lord Varys subtly attempting to poison the Queen? There's a theory going about that it might be the case, although we never get more proof than that.
🎵Nothing compares to you ...🎵
But Dany really isn't looking good, and to be fair, girl's got 99 problems, and food ain't one of them.
She and Tyrion have a little chat during which Tyrion lets slip that Varys betrayed her, but Dany jumps to a different conclusion, which probably spurs all the online paranoia and madness theories when she corrects that it was Jon who betrayed her - she did ask him, after all, to keep his lineage a secret, but he told Sansa, and Sansa cheerfully volleyed that bomb at Tyrion, who told Varys ... who has now, apparently, told the world.
Actually, that's pretty sound logic (not counting the fact people are still up in arms about Dany wanting Jon to lie, but then again, Ned Stark DID lie about Jon's parentage for years and in all his truth-telling and honour managed to keep his pie-hole shut). Not a madman speaking. Or, madwoman, sorry.
Anyway, Varys has signed his death sentence, not only by telling Tyrion (who tattled to Dany) but also because Jon Snow, as much as it pains him, also believes he's a traitor since, on repeat please: Jon does not want the iron buttholder. He says so upon his arrival at Dragonstone.
In some really good, terrible movie magic, Drogon appears out of the darkness beyond his mama, and Dany does exactly what she promised Varys she'd do if he ever betrayed her again, which is to say, did we order the Master Whisperer originally or extra crispy?
So we're one more advisor short by the time the debate sparks about King's Landing and the impending attack while waiting for the Northerners to join the southern forces. Tyrion is BEGGING Dany not to do what Missandei urged her right before her death (that 'Dracarys!' was pretty telling), saying the people simply need to actually see Cersei can't hurt them no longer, and then they'll turn on her and to Dany. By that logic, if the bells are rung and the gates opened, the attack should be halted.
Note, please, that Dany never actually agrees to this - her nod is directed at Grey Worm about the Unsullied attack.
Also, Tyrion faces a similar problem as from a few episodes before: Dany's people have caught Jaime Lannister trying to sneak into the city (I've given up on travel routes and estimated times by this point), contrary to what Tyrion has sworn up, down and all around. If he fails her one more time, he will fail her the last time.
Drogon's still got fire in his belly, y'all.
Tyrion does what any good brother will do and runs over to Jaime to ask what his thick head is about, and we get to see the first step of a questionable regression since the Kingslayer admits he really doesn't care that much for the people of King's Landing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but did he not, at some point, explain and justify his murder of the Mad King precisely by saying HE CARES ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF KING'S LANDING AND DOESN'T WANT TO SEE THEM BURN?
Conveniently, this is never mentioned again, so we can move on to Tyrion freeing his brother, thanking him for the life they've led,and arranging with Davos to have a boat waiting for Jaime and Cersei to get them out of Westeros and across the sea, so they can start a new life, with their child.
Hope springs eternal, right?
Meanwhile, hope has died for Daenerys, because she realizes that Jon's Northern upbringing will never allow him to be with her, and she also points out what his honesty and blind honour have brought about (in other words, you still know nothing, Jon Snow), and that she isn't actually loved here in Westeros.
Which, to be fair, is accurate. Conquerors aren't usually loved. So Dany opts for the other choice when it comes to the ruling stick: fear.
Women invented furious revenge, Jon Snow.
This means that when the attack actually begins, and Drogon drops from the clouds above the Iron Fleet to take out the scorpions that killed his brother (never mind the fact that somehow or other, out of the supposedly thousands of ships and weapons not one of them manages) and move on to the ones mounted on the wall of the city. I'd urge anyone trying to point out that Rhaegal's death was followed after a surprise attack to consider that dragons are still animals, and as such, should be able to sense, scent, hear or see something that isn't right, especially big predators who, by nature of being predators, should be aware of what's going on around them at all times. Apparently, the scorpion weapons and their turning points needed to be showcased, but also, Drogon is at this point probably invincible.
Oh, side note, you know all those people Cersei was letting into the Red Keep? Well, doors closed now. With Jaime still on the wrong side of them, but he's crafty, our Jaime.
He heads along to the beach where there is, in fact, a little boat waiting (with compliments by Ser Davos), but also, there's Euron Guyliner Greyjoy, who somehow managed to evade changing his name to Dragonchow, and is now more than happy to duke it out with the Kingslayer because ... honestly, I don't think anyone has a good explanation for this. In other words, Jaime gets mortally wounded and doesn't bleed out, but kills Euron, who dies happy.
On the flip side of things, Drogon perches on the walls of King's Landing (making me think, for some reason, of Christopher Paolini's Eragon series and all the city sieges in those books that involved dragons) while everybody waits. Dany busted the gates open for her troops and Jon is there with Grey Worm when the Lannisters throw down their weapons and the people cry for the bells to be rung.
The Golden Company? What Golden Company? Also, Golden Cloaks who now?
Cersei is in the Red Keep when the bells are finally rung, saying the keep has never fallen and won't fall now, but even Qyburn is starting to think she needs a plan B, because when the bells ring out, Dany goes full-on nuclear: despite what Tyrion THOUGHT they'd agreed on, she takes Drogon to the skies and torches the city (and its people), and her armies on the ground push forward against their disarmed opponents.
Burn, baby, burn!
It's about time for Cersei to find a better place to hide, but she's kind of waylaid by one Sandor Clegane, who has by this point sent Arya out fo the Keep, telling her to LIVE, not to want revenge so much (and it was touching how she called him 'Sandor' before they parted ways), and who is demanding his position in the Cleganebowl.
He gets it, after his brother tosses Qyburn aside like a ragdoll and the two Cleganes don't give two figs about Cersei anymore as she scuttles off while they go at it like rabid dogs.
I had strong Aragorn vs Lurtz from Fellowship of the Ring vibes during this fight for some reason, probably because the Mountain JUST WOULDN'T DIE. But I mean, we did get the Cleganebowl at the end, so there's that.
Yo brotha, you good down there?
And Cersei? She reunites with Jaime, and even as they try to escape through that secret underground tunnel only to find it blocked because Dany has now actually attacked the Keep and the stones are crumbling, the two of them stare into each other's eyes while the whole thing collapses on their heads.
Lesson: never ask an angry Targaryen to redecorate with a dragon.
So we're a couple of major players down, and outside, Jon is disgusted by the acts committed by their army (he even stops a potential rapist, and it's actually an interesting callback to season one where Dany stopped the Dothraki from continuing their raping and pillaging though she now has no problem unleashing her forces on the city she wants burned), but more worried than anything else, because he sees green flames spouting off across the city.
GREEN. FLAMES.
This wasn't in the script!
"Everybody out!!!" is probably what most of the fans were shrieking because Wildfire is NOT to be trifled with, and Drogon has pretty much started it across the entire city, so the army beats feet out of there like you wouldn't believe. There are much better ways to die than being buried by rubble!
Oh wait ...
A final character beat is on Arya after everything is over (and the Wildfire bombs stop exploding) when she realizes that the people she'd tried to save during the destruction are dead, finds a pale horse, and rides off through the streets that should remind everyone eerily of Pompeii after Vesuvius got its groove back under control (ironically enough, Kit Harrington was in that movie as well, and he probably felt he'd need another two weeks to get rid of all that ash AGAIN).
And in the background, Rains of Castamere begins playing, a sort of fitting tribute since the song originates from when Tywin Lannister razed Castamere to the ground because of his opponent's defiance.
RIP
Let's take a moment to mourn before we give some final thoughts.
Firstly, Cersei Lannister became a footnote in her own show. That's incredibly sad because I suppose we were all sort of hoping for more Dany vs Cersei like in the Dragonpit, and also, there really ARE better ways to die than being buried by rubble. After so many rather memorable deaths on this show for characters who have done far less, it's a little disappointing that both the Night King and Cersei kicked the bucket in relatively short, sweet and to the point manners. I can't decide if I agree with people saying it was a perfect death for her because all her world was literally crumbling around her and she was just too frozen in her supposed power to react better, or if I'm on the other camp that says she deserved a Dracarys herself. Hell, even a dagger from Arya!
Now we got that out of the way let's look at the thing that's sparking debates and arguments and even commentary wars: Dany and the burning of King's Landing. Or really, just Dany and burning in general.
I'll make only one last remark which is that I'll be using Mad and mad from this point forward; Mad meaning insane, and mad simply standing in for rip-shit pissed.
Bow down to your Queen.
People are saying Dany refused to eat out of paranoia and fear she might be poisoned, that she burned Varys because she was starting to lose it, that she slipped when Jon rejected her (and Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, we should probably ask Lucifer for more details about this soon), and that the ringing bells literally made her snap, starting off the destruction of the capital city. In a way, I suppose, this COULD be a really good, solid theory, especially backed up by different instances throughout previous seasons when Dany was only restrained from burning everything and everyone (as they say) and becoming Mad because she had advisors.
It's a good theory. She IS the daughter of the Mad King, after all, and we know Viserys was quite obviously Mad. But Rhaegar kind of wasn't (jury's still out which head he was thinking with during his last days though). It really is a coin-flip, and that's the engaging part of any story: will the character go Mad, or will they defy the odds?
Like I said, the theory is good, and let's say I even allow for the groundwork to have been laid in during the previous seven seasons. But I'll give you a strong argument why this isn't and wasn't the best execution (and I know HBO might think partly the same way because why else would they be so fast with all their defences?):
Does she have green eyes?
this kind of thing works best if you have continuous groundwork over a span of time, leading up to the culmination, and not all of it needs to be subtle. The truth is, this plot COULD have worked if this were a regular show season on a show that lasts from October to May, where you wait for only a few months before the new season, and your memories are still relatively fresh.
The problem with Game of Thrones is that some things are just TOO subtle - and it takes ABSOLUTELY FOREVER to get from point A to point B between seasons. Especially with the wait for this final one, and its shortened length in number of episodes, it shows that the execution failed. They might have wanted people to be on board the Mad Dany Express - but you do need some constant reminders, nudging the plot along, etc, and I'm sorry, but it wasn't THAT obvious that she'd go Mad. She coul have gone either way. Mad was just what they chose.
Now let's look at it from the flip side of the coin: Dany's just mad. Pure and simple.
Think about it. She's been sold by rape to a husband who did eventually grow to love her, but it was a foreign culture and foreign land, and she then had to navigate much of her journey on her own. Incidentally, she did a lot of burning along the way as well, but, here's the thing: THIS IS NOT THE MODERN AGES. The Geneva Convention isn't even a blip anywhere.
Hi, we haven't met: my name is Drogon.
It's a dog-eat-dog kind of world. She either had to kill someone, or she would have been killed herself. Self-preservation at its finest.
And yes, she is largely ruled by her emotions - much like Cersei, which is a whole other argument. It's why she surrounded herself with smart advisors, but by this point, her advisors are either useless or dead, and those she killed herself were warned what would happen should they choose to go against her. That's not unlike what monarchs have done all through our own history. Henry VIII chucked Thomas Cromwell into the Tower and had him killed because he didn't like the wife Cromwell had him marry (there were other reasons too, obviously, but it was as good of an excuse as any!).
If we draw right from Game of Thrones lore, Jon Snow had his murderers and back-stabbers hung for betraying and killing him. Robb Stark beheaded men who defied his orders. Ned Stark BEGINS the show by beheading a deserter from the Night's Watch.
The point is, almost everyone on the show has killed people who weren't facing them with weapons.
If you want to burn something ...
Does this justify what Dany did to King's Landing?
Obviously not.
But if you look at it from the point of view of how mad she was (and one can argue that as she hears the bells she's ANGRY at being thwarted, she WANTS people to suffer for what has happened to her, and she's being DENIED that opportunity), and the lesson she wanted to teach the people of Westeros, it isn't that out of the realm of logic.
But if you look at it from the point of view of how mad she was (and one can argue that as she hears the bells she's ANGRY at being thwarted, she WANTS people to suffer for what has happened to her, and she's being DENIED that opportunity), and the lesson she wanted to teach the people of Westeros, it isn't that out of the realm of logic.
She promised, a long time ago, that when her dragons were grown she would take back what was taken from her family, and burn cities to the ground. And purely from a tactical standpoint, no emotions or morality involved, razing King's Landing basically ensures that nobody will dare defy her again unless they want that same fiery death to fall upon their heads. Aegon the Conqueror did the same thing at Harrenhal. They pretty much rolled out the welcome mats for him any time he popped up anywhere after that one.
... might as well get a Targaryen to do it.
Of course the other argument is that Dany has never before killed innocents, and it's a strong one; I kind of agree that the whole thing is out of character no matter which side you look at it from, because of shoddy execution.
I'll refer to another historic note here, just because.
After the time of Genghis Khan when his sons and grandsons split his empire, Hulegu laid siege to Baghdad. In keeping with his grandfather's way, they gave the city time to lay down its weapons and open the gates, before the hammer fell on their heads. The city took its sweet time, and even when negotiations finally concluded, to apparent all around satisfaction, Hulegu STILL ordered the sacking of Baghdad. I'm not defending it - it remains a shocking slaughter to this day. But you can kind of see the logic behind it.
"I asked you to disarm, and you did not. I asked you to make an accurate tally and you did not. I asked you too surrender and you did not; perhaps I would have been merciful then. It is too late for that now." (C. Iggulden, Conqueror, p. 241-252)
Oh you did NOT.
Similarily, Dany did ask; when it happened, if we're going with the mad theory, it was simply too late in her mind - or she was just too pissed to care at this point. She wanted people to suffer.
She wanted to burn and let out the emotions roiling insider her. Was it a fair choice? Obviously not. The city had surrendered to her; this was just her letting off steam (or being Mad, if you're into that theory). I'm not saying it was good, nor am I saying Genghis and his line were humanitarians. Uh, no. Genghis literally anihilated so much of the world's population that he sparked climate change.
Still.
'In essence, being conquered by the Mongols meant that all local armed forces had to stand down. If word got out that ANYONE was moving soldiers, they could expect a tuman to turn up on the horizon. It is a difficult concept to understand eight hundred years later, but the fear induced by Genghis' mobile forces was perhaps as effective in controlling a beaten province as the stolid presence of Romans. In the seventeenth century, the Muslim chronicler Abu'l Ghazi wrote:
Under the reign of Genghis Khan, all the country between Iran and the land of the Turks enjoyed such a peace that a man might have journeyed from sunrise to sunset with a golden platter on his head without suffering the least violence from anyone.' (C. Iggulden, Bones of the Hills, p. 541-542)
Of course, this only works if the reasons behind any decision were logical. Sadly, they probably weren't ... So no, this wasn't a hugely successful episode to me, because of the sheer mad rush in flipping Dany to Mad within maybe an episode and a half. Also, no, I don't agree with the burnings, and I STRONGLY disagree with the explanation for them. I'm mildly disappointed in character arc regressions, logical plotholes where military tactics are involved, and how some things became footnotes.
Mostly, however, I feel like they missed the emotional beats: if they wanted us to go OMG SHE BURNED THINGS NOOO they should have made sure we were properly horrified about it and not cheering her on in earlier seasons. Then the beats here would have been right.
Can this season just be over already?
Also, Jon Snow still knows nothing.
xx
*poster image and video not mine, screencaps by me
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