Leveling Up In Game of Thrones This Week

Saw this week's episode a bit later than usual, but here's what we've got:

Game of Thrones is one of those stories that is so long that the tight plotting of the earlier installments was captivating but as one gets farther in, it starts to feel like the show is holding out on you. Really, I think the dirty secret of all storytelling is that the beginnings of stories are better than the endings. Season one got to hint at things like magic, dragons, ice zombies, and pull the rug out from under us with the death of the protagonist. You could argue that the story has been a slowly-unfolding tragedy, but if you look to Shakespeare, you'll notice that even in his tragic tales, the bad guy also gets what's coming to him. Hamlet dies, sure, but so does Claudius. Othello does kill Desdemona, but Iago has been caught and exposed for the treacherous bastard he is and is due for a hanging or whatever method of execution they used in Venice at the time.

So the early tragedies of Ned's death and then the Red Wedding have stoked the fires, making us yearn for vengeance. Sure, Joffrey, Tywin, and many other villains have died, but their deaths have been largely just the catalyst for new problems. It's not enough that the villains pay - we want to see our heroes empowered.

Spoilers for this latest episode beyond the cut.




Castle Black:

Big things happen this episode, and one of the biggest is the reunion of Jon and Sansa. As far as Stark siblings go, these two were never terribly close. Sansa tended to refer to Jon as specifically her half brother, qualifying it over her embarrassment of having a bastard sibling. But both of them have gone through a ton of maturing over the past several years, and now they're just happy to know that they have some family left in the world.

Sansa's game plan is to rally the Northern families to take back Winterfell. The news that Rickon is held captive there galvanizes them, convincing Jon to agree. Jon is firm in his insistence that he is no longer part of the Night's Watch. Getting murdered will do that to you.

Meanwhile, Brienne says hi to Melisandre and Davos, letting them know that she killed Stannis and that she's still pretty pissed about the whole black-magic-assassin thing. So let's put a pin in that one.

Winterfell:

Sadly, Osha miscalculates, trying to seduce Ramsay just as she did Theon way back when. But while she grabs for a knife on the table, Ramsay pulls his dagger and gets her in the throat. Bye, Osha.

Mereen:

Tyrion is trying to play the diplomatic game, proposing a compromise where the Wise and Great Masters get seven years to phase out slavery if they agree to stop funding the Sons of the Harpy. This is a pretty one-sided deal, but a lot of Daenerys' people are still pretty pissed at this newcomer bargaining away seven years of innocent peoples' lives. That said, if there is to be a peaceful solution, or even a solution that involves fucking with the Masters' heads, Tyrion's probably going about it the right way.

King's Landing:

As Margaery is being prepped for her own walk of shame, and Loras seems to be mentally broken by whatever torture the Faith Militant has been inflicting on him, the Lannisters and Tyrells agree to a deal where the Tyrells come and rescue Margaery (and put down the Faith Militant) while the Lannister guard pays lip service to the king's commands not to attack the church by simply stepping aside. This cannot go well.

The Vale:

Littlefinger plays some quick-thinking logical gymnastics to put Lord Royce on the edge of a knife, securing his support for an invasion of the North to fight the Boltons on behalf of Sansa. While it'll be great to see Ramsay flanked like this - an attack out of the blue - I also strongly advise against having Petyr Baelish for an ally.

Vaes Dothrak:

And here's the real set piece. While GRRM has insisted that Daenerys' fire-immunity is a one-time miraculous thing involving the birth of long-extinct dragons, the show has decided that this is more of a permanent trait.

First, Jorah and Daario sneak into Vaes Dothrak (not before Daario finds out about Jorah's greyscale infection.) Daenerys is prepped to see the Khals, who will get to decide whether she gets the honor of joining the Dosh Khaleen and being stuck in Vaes Dothrak forever. In her meeting with the Khals, though, she plays her trump card - Jorah and Daario (who she meets before this event) bar the doors while Dany tells the Khals off, explaining that none of them are fit to rule the Dothraki, but she is. This of course angers them, so she takes a nice firm grip of some fiery braziers and tosses them to the ground, burning the building to the ground around her and immolating the Dothraki Khals.

But as the Dothraki converge upon the building, looking in awe and terror, Daenerys the Unburnt steps out before them (Power Nudity!) and the masses kneel down in reverence.

What I find particularly interesting about this is that this is the second time in as many episodes that we've seen a large number of people from a barbarian culture look upon one of the story's heroes - a character who should be dead, but is not - and revere them as a god.

Something I've often thought about is why George R R Martin decided to tell this story in this world. The history of Aegon's Conquest, or the Dance of Dragons, or Robert's Rebellion would have all made epic fantasy stories. But even though the series is grounded in a realistic look at medieval culture and life, what we're seeing is a kind of new age of myth. Daenerys and Jon might be fulfilling prophecies, but perhaps what's really happening is that we're seeing the birth of a new age of heroes.

To get a bit meta for a second, these characters are far more important to us as readers and watchers than Aegon or Bran the Builder or Lan the Lucky. But maybe that's not purely narrative convention, and is instead due to the fact that when all is said and done in A Song of Ice and Fire, the future of that world will look upon figures like Daenerys, Jon, and maybe others (Tyrion, maybe?) as legendary figures that could birth entire new religions or at least shape the way that people see their world.

All the things that are considered incredibly important in the backstory will, in the future history of Westeros, be considered mere prologue to the events of a Song of Ice and Fire.