This week on Game of
Thrones, two characters reclaim their birthrights and each gets a nifty
sword as a souvenir.
What a relief to see Arya finally leave those losers at the
House of Black and White and take back Needle. I’d been aggravated with her training
for weeks and couldn’t understand why she’d voluntarily subject herself to such
misery. Get out of Braavos and do something worthwhile with your life instead
of getting blinded and beaten. Seeing that play has increasingly reminded Arya
of the tragedies of the recent past and the unfinished business at home, as she
extends a mercy to the actress Cersei. Now she just needs to land a solid punch
in the Waif’s smug face.
I wanted Sam to throw that dinner roll at his father. What
would he have had to lose? It’s not like they could have disowned him more. It
was a relief to see his mother and sisters at least standing up to the jackass
of a father, who apparently doesn’t see Sam doing the most dangerous job in
Westeros (rather than live a cosseted life in a castle) as worthwhile. At least
Slackjawed Sally finally made herself useful by standing up for Sam.
Margaery appears to have drunk the Flavor-Aid and consented
to merging church and state. I’m not sure how to read this. Margaery is such a
master manipulator, and has such a poker face, that it’s hard not to believe
that this isn’t part of some plan to put herself back on top. This is the woman
who doesn’t just want to be queen, she wants to be the queen. There was some foreshadowing in the King’s Landing play
when Arya said the actress playing Margaery wanted the actress playing Cersei
dead.
After all that, Jamie is no longer the hand of the king and
instead has to go to River Run with nasty old Walder Frey. Benjen Stark is
back. All this will come together, of course, but I have a hard time keeping
some of the characters and histories together, and it didn’t help that I was
tired last night after coming back from vacation.
Bran’s visions were interesting, a greatest hits of moments
we’ve seen and moments we haven’t, like the Mad King trying to burn down King’s
Landing with dragonfire. I know Bran is for this reason important to the story
and nobody will let him die but I still resent him. He just seems kind of
ungrateful, lying on his sled having visions while poor Meera has to lug him
around. I know he’s crippled and all but he seems so entitled. Meanwhile, just
about everybody who has gone out of the way to protect him is dead. I’m just
never going to like that kid, no matter how integral he is.
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