Some hours after the fourth season finale of Game of Thrones, I think I’m finally ready to talk about “The Children,” but be prepared: There will be a lot of eyerolling here.
Overall, I don’t think this season blew my mind; I think it had more disappointments for me as a book reader than it had excitement. And look, I know—I love to complain! But does anyone else feel like the show is just … coming apart? Messing with timelines? Moving some stories too rapidly and others achingly slowly? With two full seasons left to go, and some storylines already burning through the remaining two books from George R.R. Martin, I have no idea where we’re going. And while that’s exciting, I suppose, I also can’t help but be frustrated when I keep feeling like Benioff and Weiss are changing things just because they can. Not because they make the story better; not because the narratives are becoming more compelling. But just because. And that is infuriating.
It’s manifesting in storylines that don’t feel like they have momentum anywhere, don’t feel like they have a natural flow moving forward. They have positioned characters for the next season—Tyrion and Arya leaving, Jaime and Cersei back together, Brienne and Pod continuing on their quest—but I don’t think they have done a good job suggesting where we’re going or what we’re doing. That is perhaps because GRRM’s fourth book, A Feast of Crows, really resets things with the introduction of the Martells, but I don’t even think we spent enough time with Oberyn Martell to care about Dorne. Things just seem … incomplete.
I mean, let’s think about all the ways we wasted time this season. Craster’s Keep, am I right? That conversation between Malisandre and Selyse when the former was basically like, “Yeah, I’m fucking your husband Stannis,” and Malisandre was fully naked for seemingly no reason? Or how about those times with Gilly in Mole’s Town, where the prostitutes were just being so mean to her? Ultimately I don’t understand why in a season that left so much on the cutting-room floor—my main gripes are lacking character development for the Lannisters, a lot of Bran’s journey past the Wall, Sansa and Petyr’s time at the Vale, and a particular undead character that should have been introduced last night but wasn’t—we got so many filler seasons with ancillary characters that aren’t that important. Why so egregious, Benioff and Weiss? WHY. SO. EGREGIOUS.
If we’re talking about the season finale “The Children” in particular, I think a lot of it was well done: the fight between Brienne and the Hound, for instance, or Arya finally uttering “Valar morghulis” and having it mean something. But Tyrion killing Tywin lacked affect, I think, because of how the show has bungled the Tyrion-loves-whores storyline, and the Jaime/Cersei reunion—ugh, I can’t even with the Jaime/Cersei reunion. I really feel like the show mistreated the Lannister children this season, giving them all characteristics and BIG MOMENTS that play sometimes in direct opposition to what occurred in GRRM’s books, and I don’t think it worked at all.
But let me quit my generalized bitching, and get more specific, as we launch into what I think were the five biggest moments from last night’s “The Children.” And I’ll have some praise in here, too, I promise. Just … bear with me. (And, as always, SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.)
+ “You’re no son of mine.” Tywin Lannister does not, in fact, shit gold, despite rumors to the contrary. The King’s Hand and the Lord of Casterly Rock met death on the toilet last night, with two crossbow shots to the chest, courtesy of second son Tyrion Lannister, who had been set free of the dungeons by first son Jaime Lannister, lover to his twin sister, Cersei Lannister. To say the Lannisters are a fucked-up family would, of course, be an understatement, but I think the exact of how they’re fucked up was bungled in this episode. Let’s walk through the reasons why!
I know I introduced Tyrion already, but let’s actually begin with Jaime and Cersei, who at this point in the books should have (SPOILER ALERT) been broken up. Cersei doesn’t think Jaime, without his sword-hand, can protect her anymore, and the death of Joffrey has made her increasingly paranoid and maniacal. She tries to bribe Jaime into killing Tyrion with sex, and it’s at that moment that Jaime realizes their relationship is done and rejects her—so she calls him less than a man, and Jaime goes down to the dungeons to let Tyrion free. Jaime does not go down to the dungeons on a tide of goodwill after Cersei has pledged herself to him (maximum cheesy yuck factor to Cersei’s “I choose you”) and sabotaged her relationship with Tywin, because power-hungry, desperate-to-be-Tywin’s-heir Cersei would never admit to her relationship with Jaime to her father.
If anything, Cersei has been Tywin’s agent all along, siding with him in a hatred of Tyrion and being disappointed in how Jaime returns to King’s Landing, sapped of the one thing that made him remarkable. So having Cersei stand up to Tywin by coming clean about the true parentage of Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen is ABSURD. It is totally against her character, as is her going to Jaime and basically promising herself to him.
At this point in GRRM’s books, Cersei has already become a bona-fide villain. She is steadily cheating on Jaime, because she thinks sex brings her power, and she only wants power. She is lying to everyone, because she’s so insecure and maniacal. She has already begun to demonstrate an unhealthy attraction to dangerous things, like fire. I could keep going! But I feel like Benioff and Weiss are trying to make her sympathetic—why?why?why?—and so we have her and Jaime being portrayed as these star-crossed lovers. Ugh.
And in turn, that portrayal of Jaime and Cersei being happy in this moment then affects Jaime and Tyrion’s farewell. Jaime lets Tyrion go because he knows he’s innocent, and also because he feels guilty for the years of torture Tyrion has faced at the hands of Cersei and Tywin—so he tells Tyrion the truth about his first wife, Tysha (who Tyrion told Shae about, way back when they first met). Tyrion thought she was a whore, but in reality, she was just a young girl who fell in love with him when they were teenagers; Jaime admits that he lied to Tyrion at Tywin’s request, which led to the gang-rape of Tysha by Tywin’s men and her being paid for her “services,” the ultimate shaming move by Tywin. So basically, Jaime tells Tyrion that the only person who really loved him for just being a man, not a Lannister, was ruined at Tywin’s hand. That is what drives Tyrion to confront and kill Tywin, and in extension, Shae. It is not the betrayal of Shae that motivates his murder of his father, but his father’s betrayal all those years ago. This is far better storytelling, I would think, but perhaps Benioff and Weiss don’t think our memories are that long? I don’t know. I don’t get it.
In retaliation, then, Tyrion tells Jaime about how Cersei has been cheating on him, with his cousin Lancel Lannister (who we haven’t seen on the show in a very long time) and with some gross knights named the Kettleblacks (who have been removed from the show entirely, it seems, which is weird given how integral they are to GRRM’s fourth and fifth books). That then clues Jaime into Cersei’s betrayal, and so we have both Lannister brothers dealing with the treachery of their family. It’s a far more affecting goodbye between the brothers than the hunky-dory family moment we got last night, and I simply don’t understand why Benioff and Weiss are retconning the Lannisters in this way. They are a terrible, awful family! Let them be terrible and awful!
The only thing I can think is that we will get the breakup of Jaime and Cersei next season, inspired by Tyrion’s murder of Tywin and Jaime’s hand in letting him go, as opposed to Cersei stepping out on Jaime while he was gone. Which, you know, fine. But ultimately I feel like Tyrion was laid aside during the course of this season, and when the show got him back, they sapped his big moment of the emotional impact it needed to have. Yes, Tywin was always a terrible father. But he’s been a terrible father for a very long time, and I think the episode sacrificed the character development and background needed for both Tywin and Tyrion in this climax.
+ “He came from the sky. The black one. The winged shadow.” Let’s talk about the storyline I think was handled best in this entire episode: Dany. Beautiful, ruthless, vengeful, naïve Dany. We’ve seen that her rule of Meereen has not gone as well as she would have liked—being sweet-talked by Hizdahr zo Loraq for one, being betrayed by Jorah Mormont for another—and here we get another two chips in her armor: Slaves wanting to be sold back into slavery and her dragons growing out of control. Because the Mother of Dragons cannot, in fact, have it all.
I think we should talk about the slave Fennesz first, who broke my heart because he a. looked too much like my father for me not to be sad and b. demonstrated how although Dany is making a new world, not everyone from the old world is finding a place in it. In an episode named “The Children,” Fennesz demonstrated how the future of the world isn’t here yet—there’s still the old generation hanging around, trying to determine where they stand, still trying to survive. And as Fennesz says, “For those of us too old to change, there is only fear, and squalor.” So how does Dany take care of all of her “children,” everyone she’s set free? By giving them the choice to abandon their freedom. It’s a tough one, and we can see that it takes a toll on Dany—making her question, yet again, whether her tactics to this point have been sound.
And, well, maybe they haven’t been, because Drogon has killed a young girl and fled Meereen. The peace and freedom Dany has promised her new “children” is in danger because of her first “children,” and so she makes the choice to chain up Viserion (the gold dragon) and Rhaegal (the green dragon) in the catacombs beneath the pyramid. How can Dany be the “Breaker of Chains” when she’s doing the opposite to her dragons? There’s a conflict brewing in Dany, between who she thinks she is and who she needs to be, and it’s going to come to a head as seasons four and five progress, I think.
Until then, those dragons crying after their mother? I shouldn’t have teared up at CGI monsters doing that, but, well, I did. Mock me all you want, but I HAD A LOT OF EMOTIONS.
+ “You spent too much time with us, Jon Snow. You can never be a kneeler again.” Wise words from Tormund Giantsbane, who analyzes the predicament Jon Snow is in quite succinctly. Dozens of Night’s Watchmen are dead. Jon Snow isn’t in control there, and two of his friends are gone (R.I.P., Grenn and Pyp!), and the love of his life, Ygritte, is dead, too. The wildlings are still around, and so is their King Beyond the Wall Mance Rayder, but now Stannis is there, and Malisandre, and things are going to look very different. Stannis will expect Jon Snow to kneel. But as Tormund points out, going past the Wall changed Jon Snow. He may never kneel again.
For everyone wondering where Stannis and Davos were going, why they borrowed money from Braavos, why they needed so many ships—well, here we are. They efficiently slaughter many wildlings in their ambush of Mance Rayder’s forces, leading to Mance’s surrender to protect his people, and they set up shop at Castle Black (doubtful that Selyse will be very happy with their conditions there, but at least she brought Shireen along, now that Malisandre has informed her that her daughter is important). Stannis running things, though—the Night’s Watch won’t stand for that. They’ve been separate from the goings-on in the Seven Kingdoms since the beginning, and it’s doubtful that they’ll change now, even though Stannis and Co. did them a solid by stopping the wildlings. (Especially with Maester Aemon around—he gave up the Targaryen name to serve, and understands the duty of the Wall, and it’s doubtful that he’d let the younger Baratheon just waltz in and try to take charge.)
So watch for lots of friction between Jon Snow and Stannis next season, and that look Malisandre gave Jon Snow through the fire—that’s not necessarily a good look. No look from Malisandre is necessarily a good look. Also, remember these lines from Mance to Jon: “My people had bled enough. We’re not here to conquer; we’re here to hide behind your Wall. Just like you. We need your tunnel. And we both know that winter is coming, and if my people aren’t south of the wall when it comes in earnest, we’ll end up worse than dead.” That’s a significant clue for what will happen at the Wall in GRRM’s fourth and fifth books, and if Benioff and Weiss follow that source material, we should get a lot more of Mance next year. Which, you know, good! Ciarán Hinds has been underused until this point, and with the wildlings continuing to be a problem, the King Beyond the Wall should be around, too.
+ “You’ll never walk again. But you will fly.” You know how I’ve been complaining about Benioff and Weiss messing with timelines? Well, the Bran storyline is the most outlandish, because we just jumped forward two whole books for Bran. Everything that Bran goes through in GRRM’s fourth book, A Feast of Crows, and fifth book, A Dance with Dragons—yup, we’re not getting any of that. Instead, we end up where Bran is at the end of A Dance with Dragons, finally having met the Last Greenseer and the Children of the Forest. So it’s safe to say that everything else that will ever happen to Bran on the show is totally new, and could either be entirely Benioff and Weiss’s creation or spoilers given to them by GRRM. But with three seasons to go on this show, why move so fast? I understand that Hodor dragging Bran and Meera and Jojen trailing behind was getting slightly old, but to completely scrap two books’ worth of material—that just seems unnecessarily ballsy.
Anyway, let’s return to what actually happens with Bran: They reach the heart-tree that he saw in his visions, but as they approach it, weapons-wielding, skeletal wights that look straight out of The Mummy(seriously, these effects were awful) attack them, forcing Bran to warg into Hodor to defend his friends.
And then a little girl—a Child of the Forest, an ancient race of people who were around before the humans we know now, and whose magic helped create the world, and who have since been forgotten, and who now basically only live in the heart-tree—helps them by throwing fireballs that blow up the wights. Yay!
Jojen still dies (and when he gets hit by a fireball, fulfills the vision he saw of his own death, way back at Craster’s Keep), but the Child of the Forest takes Bran, Hodor, and Meera into the tree, where they finally meet the three-eyed raven—or, as he also calls himself, the Last Greenseer.
So who is this dude? In GRRM’s books, he was a member of the Night’s Watch, countless years ago, and is so old that the roots of this tree have grown through his body (not sure if we saw clear details of that last night, though). He’s ancient, but he can essentially warg himself into other heart-trees, meaning his reach is infinite—as he told Bran, “I’ve been watching you, all of you, all of your lives. With a thousand eyes and one.” And this is the guy who is going to teach Bran how to use his powers, “so you could find what you have lost.” Bran may never walk again, but he can fly—which seems like a nice promise, but the Last Greenseer is old as fuck. Will Bran have to be that old to finally realize his full potential? We’ll have to wait until next season to find out, but spoiler alert: Probably not.
+ “It’s not silver. It’s iron.” And finally, let’s talk about the last storyline of the episode, which is Arya sailing off to Braavos with Jaqen H’ghar’s iron coin paying her way. “Valar morghulis” indeed—all men must die—but where Arya is going, she’ll learn the meaning of “Valar dohaeris”—all men must serve.
But Arya has already served, hasn’t she? Served realness by basically telling the Hound to fuck off and leaving him to die. (Although I do think her last line to him from the books should have been maintained: “You should have saved my mother.”) That fight between him and Brienne was impressive, wasn’t it? Although I do think it also served an important purpose: Brienne may have seen the softer side of Jaime Lannister, and she’s not necessarily “working” for him, per se, but to anyone else with eyes, her “quest” is going to be laughable. She made a promise to Catelyn Stark, she made an oath, but a Valyrian steel sword is not inconspicuous. Fancy armor is not inconspicuous. Sending Brienne to gallivant around the countryside during a war was not Jaime’s smartest move, and I think we’ll see that come to fruition next season—HOPEFULLY WHEN WE GET THAT CHARACTER I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR SO DESPERATELY.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand: Brienne and Pod find Arya, still with the Hound, but fuck up with her rescue, allowing the Hound to suggest that Brienne is just taking Arya back to the Lannisters to be killed. This was a bit of a protective moment from the Hound, sure, but also brutal honesty: “Safety, where the fuck’s that? … There’s no safety, you dumb bitch.” And you can’t help but think Arya had that ringing in her ears when she set off for Braavos, on her own, the one place no one would ever think she would go: “I don’t need saving,” indeed. If there’s no safety here, leave here. Go somewhere else. Become someone else. Maybe someone faceless? Probably someone faceless.
On to the next one, you guys. But before that, let’s talk some final thoughts.
+ “The process may … change him … somewhat.” Yes, ex-maester Qyburn is going full Dr. Frankenstein with the Mountain, Gregor Clegane. Get ready for some grossness.
+ All book readers that are smarting over Tywin not saying “Wherever whores go” before he gets shot with the crossbow: I feel you. But at least Tyrion’s “I’m sorry” to Shae after killing her was well-acted by Peter Dinklage, I guess.
+ Oh, and if you didn’t catch it: That’s Varys going with Tyrion, fleeing King’s Landing. A weird change from the books, but fine, I’ll go with it.
+ Things Cersei said this episode that she would never, ever say in the books: “I will burn our house to the ground before I let that happen” (sike, she would never compromise House Lannister in any way, at least not intentionally) and “I don’t choose Tywin Lannister. I don’t love Tywin Lannister. I love my brother. I love my lover. … I don’t care.” Yes, I get that the writers were trying to mirror her “I don’t care” with Jaime’s “I don’t care” when he basically raped her next to Joffrey’s body, but it’s not working for me, guys. This whole consumed-with-desire star-crossed lovers angle—no.
+ “Mag the Mighty … he was their king, last of a bloodline that stretches back before the First Men.” I remain sad for the death of the giants, especially when they’re being eaten by crows—although I do think this was a sly nod to the next season being based off the fourth book, A Feast of Crows, maybe? Or am I giving Benioff and Weiss too much credit?
+ I love Mance Rayder’s sassiness: “We’re not in the Seven Kingdoms, and you’re not dressed for this weather. … We do not kneel.”
+ “Did you love her? She loved you. … She belongs in the north, the real north. You understand me?” I think Tormund Giantsbane was the closest thing to a father Ygritte ever had, and that funeral pyre Jon Snow built for her was somewhat cheesy, but still impactful. Emotions!
+ Loved this interaction between Brienne and Arya: “I swore a sacred vow to protect her.” “Why didn’t you?” Excellent encapsulation of Brienne’s unwavering sense of honor and Arya’s cut-the-bullshit approach.
+ The fight between Brienne and the Hound was definitely well-choreographed, and I also think it threw some bones at book readers: The Hound’s bite way back when was from Biter, who in the books actually bites Brienne; and Brienne biting the Hound’s ear off is actually a move she makes against Vargo Hoat, the man who chops off Jaime’s hand, but in the show was renamed Locke and sent to the Wall to die. So lots of rearranged moments in that fight from the books, but I think they largely worked.
+ I’m going to excerpt the entire pleading speech from the Hound right here, just so you can re-experience his journey from asshole to pathetic: “Go on, girl. Another name off your list. You kept promising me. I cut down your butcher’s boy, the ginger, he was begging for mercy. ‘Please sir, please don’t kill me, please, please.’ … your sister. Your pretty sister. I should have taken her, that night the Blackwater burned. I should have fucked her bloody. At least I’d have one happy memory. Do I have to beg you? Do it. Do it. Do it. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.”
+ And finally, WHERE IS GENDRY, YOU GUYS? I MISS THAT BITCH. There’s always next season, but seriously, I need that Baratheon bastard in my life.
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