Arya has joined the ranks
of the mass murderers of Game of Thrones,
poisoning the entire House of Frey. It fooled me. I assumed it actually was old
Walder Frey in a flashback sometime after the Red Wedding.
Next stop: killing Cersei,
as predicted (Steve said “I’m going to kill the queen” out loud the moment before
Arya said it). To me, this all begs a question of how much vengeance is too
much? Arya has now killed a ton of
people. When does the punishment outweigh the crime? The seventh season is
clearly setting her up for some kind of look-in-the-mirror moment.
“Dragonstone” was filled
with characters sort of zooming out to look at the big picture in Westeros. For
Queen Cersei, it’s a world of traitors all around her. As she walks all over a
map of the continent, she plots the establishment of a dynasty for the
surviving Lannisters. “They’re ashes,” she says to Jamie of her children. “We’re
still flesh and blood. We’re the last ones who count.”
I’m intrigued by the
philosophical differences arising between Jon and Sansa, who hash out their
differences awkwardly in public. Jon sees the big picture, arguing that the
differences between the houses won’t matter once the Night King swoops in with
his army of the dead. He’s right but Sansa is also right that the interaction
among the houses is something that won’t go away and they still all have to
live in a world with those ancient divisions and loyalties. At Winterfell,
every person over age 10 is enlisted in the fight, including Lady Mormont, who
won’t be told by her grandfather to sit on the sidelines, knitting by the fire.
You tell him, Lady Mormont.
In Oldtown, the archmaester
takes an even longer view, arguing that even the war with the white walkers is
something that will pass. “Every winter that has ever come has ended,” he tells
Sam. That internship at the library is a pretty rough time for Sam, spending
his days in a montage of diarrhea and gagging. I’m not sure what the map to
Dragonstone was supposed to mean. What were they going to get out of a little
pencil drawing?
Why was Ed Sheeran there?
This was too close to stunt casting for my taste, which the show doesn’t need.
There were a few subtler
scenes I liked. I liked the reveal of Jorah in the cell at Oldtown, asking for Daenerys.
I also liked the Hound’s creepy vision of the white walkers in the fire, and
how he was burying the family he condemned to death awhile back by taking their
money and saying they were just going to freeze to death anyway, which is what
happened.
It looks like it will be
the Lannisters allied with Euron battling Daenerys allied with the rebel
Greyjoys. Casting off her flowing Meereen gowns, Daenerys dresses in an outfit
severe enough to rival Cersei, walking silently around an abandoned throne
room, echoing the one in King’s Landing, and an abandoned war room, echoing the
one Stannis used to use. Shall we begin?
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