Game of Thrones S8 E6: The Iron Throne

I’m sorry, what? “Bran the Broken, First of His Name, Lord of the Six Kingdoms”? Get outta town, Game of Thrones. Really, I had to laugh last night. Of course, the character I absolutely cannot stand becomes king. Of course he does. It’s not that I expect anyone to write something just for me, and I’m not outraged or anything; just kind of amused and vaguely annoyed.

There are several reasons why Bran would be a bad king. He doesn’t have many actual skills. He can warg into animals and see the past, but that won’t help his subjects, especially when they need so much practical help after the destruction of King’s Landing. He is completely charisma-free, and not the type of person who could get people to follow him. Sure, Bran is the repository of a lot of wisdom and stories, but he hasn’t shown much that he actually cares about people, which is a trait good leaders would have. For years, people physically dragged him to hell and back and he never showed much gratitude or that he was concerned about those people’s well-being.

Also, didn’t Bran get the Children of the Forest killed because of his carelessness? Or are we glossing over that?

Anyway, meet your new king, Westeros, and good luck with that. Samwell tried to invent democracy, which got him laughed almost out of town. Sansa was smart enough to declare Northern independence in an unintentionally hilarious way: “Love you, Bran; you’ll be a great king; we’re seceding.” It was very gratifying to see Sansa ascend the throne. She’s been through hell. She started as a starry-eyed kid with unrealistic ideas about the world and love and royalty, and emerged as a real leader. Sansa has probably had my favorite character arc of the series. All hail the Queen in the North.

I thought about it between episodes and maybe I misread Daenerys’s nuking of King’s Landing. I think there was more rationality in her destruction than I appreciated at first. I watched the footage again and she and Drogon go back and forth across the city, almost like mowing a lawn. That’s more methodical and not the act of someone who just “flipped out.” Maybe Daenerys just believed a little too much in her own cause and went too far.

“Everywhere she goes, evil men die, and we cheer her for it,” Tyrion says. When Daenerys goes too far, King’s Landing becomes a nightmare, with the creepy Targaryen flag draped over the rubble as snow and ash fall (and a beautiful shot of Drogon’s wings emerging from behind Dany). She will liberate the entire world from tyrants, a promise that she pointedly extends to Winterfell and the Stark rule. I really liked Emilia Clarke’s performance this episode.

In the end, like Dark Phoenix, maybe Daenerys has killed too many people to be allowed to live. Jon, the only one who can get close enough to kill his queen, stabs her before she can even sit in the Iron Throne. The staging was sort of anticlimactic, although I did like Drogon poking at his mother’s lifeless body. Then the whole Iron Throne is gone, melted down by Drogon. It’s all over.

I think season eight could have used more episodes to flesh out Dany’s turn into destruction and Bran’s worthiness of the throne. I write these reviews off the cuff first thing Monday mornings, without much time to delve deeper, so my thinking on this season may evolve, and I’m open to be convinced of other points of view.

It’s all over. Game of Thrones is a show that I had not expected to enjoy, and I resisted it for a few years. It turned out to be a sprawling world of adventure combined with politics and intrigue, and I’m so glad I took a chance on it.  

Day 16,436

Awaken to well-deserved sunlight after days of rain. Odd dreams still linger involving messages gone unreceived. Heat back on again, infuriating in mid-May, hopefully for just one more day. Head downstairs with sleep in eyes. Greet husband, already hard at work downstairs. Pet cats. Make coffee and breakfast and gradually feel more awake. Shower and dress and get ready for new day. Line up the tasks of the day: Articles to edit, authors to solicit, calendar to plan. Say good morning to son and take him to school. Head to work for another day.

A little grayer, a little fatter. Knees ache after standing for too long. Glasses now required for reading. Still, feel like a million dollars most days. Come home to full house. Can’t complain.

Game of Thrones S8 E5: The Bells

After years of teasing that the Night King and his undead army were inevitable, it turns out the real inevitability was the madness of Queen Daenerys Targaryen.

Victory was hers. Daenerys rides Drogon to destroy the Iron Fleet, and the Lannister army and Golden Company surrender to the forces of Jon Snow and the North. The bells ring out and the gates of King’s Landing open. And something in Daenerys snaps permanently. With a terrifying look on her face, she gives into her rage and pain and destroys the entire city, killing untold innocents.

This has been coming for a long time, at least as far back as when she crucified the slavers in Meereen. Some of this insanity and cruelty is probably innate to her character as one of the Targaryens, but some of it she was pushed into. After losing her two most trusted advisors, Daenerys feels backed into a corner, paranoid and betrayed by everyone on her side. Lacking the love of the people, she decides she will lean into the fear she inspires. Dany is a powerful, ruthless and compassionate woman, but she is also mentally ill and nobody does much to help her.

And it all ends in disaster. Everybody completely freaks out. Grey Worm furiously mows down everyone in his path. Jon stops his own men from killing innocents. Arya tries to help some women and children escape, only to see them turned to ashes by dragon fire. Everything crumbles completely and it’s horrifying.

Varys was right about Daenerys not being able it hold it together and he pays for it with his life. Tyrion betrays his friend, betting everything on the dragon queen, and risking execution by freeing Jaime in an emotional scene.

Arya and Sandor slip into King’s Landing to kill Cersei. (I had to laugh at them announcing this to some soldier, who was like, “I have to ask my supervisor.”) The Hound gives her some parting wisdom by telling her the quest for revenge on Cersei isn’t worth it, since she’ll die anyway and it will just make Arya more like him. Clegane Bowl becomes a standstill, with the Hound stabbing the Mountain in the eye to no avail. Finally, the brother who was so afraid of fire throws them both off a ledge to perish in the dragon fire below. This was more affecting than I expected because their relationship was not that of normal adversaries. It built instead on an abusive relationship.

Cersei’s smugness crumbles along with the Red Keep. Her last doomed moments were poetically staged, with everything falling apart around her, her sanctuary and her plans crashing down on a map of the Westeros that she once ruled. Jaime chooses to return to Cersei and they both die in one another’s arms as brother tells sister, “We’re all that matters.” Cersei had very little to do this season.

With Daenerys going mad, the Hound locked in battle with his brother and Jaime returning to Cersei to die with her, Game of Thrones is making a dark comment on how none of these characters can escape the cycles they were trapped in. Maybe this whole world can’t escape the cycle of conquerors and war it’s trapped in.

Where does the show go after this slaughter for the last episode? I’m not sure but I’ll bet that when Dany and Jon next see each other, the burning of King’s Landing will come up in conversation.

Game of Thrones S8 E4: The Last of the Starks

Tyrion almost convinced Cersei to back off. Invoking the one positive trait of his sister, her love for her (dead) children, he got the queen to wobble a bit, a crack showing in her smirking façade.

But no. A moment later, Cersei steels herself and Missandei loses her head. The scene is an obvious echo of Ned’s beheading. Both times, they told you what would happen if someone didn’t comply with an order, and it happened, and heads rolled. I feel bad for Missandei. She finally escapes slavery, learns 19 languages, and with an easy life at the beach with Grey Worm close enough to taste, she goes down. All the foreshadowing of the death of one of them before the Battle of Winterfell was accurate, just a little early. It was painful to see one of the show’s nicest characters die, and the implications of killing her are unfortunate.

Losing two dragons and two advisors, and realizing her nephew/lover has a better claim on the throne than she, Daenerys all but audibly snaps this episode. Like, they could have added a “snap” sound effect and had her eye start to twitch. She holds back from ordering the remaining dragon to BBQ Cersei, even after Missandei gives her blessing with her last word “Dracarys,” but she’s only barely hanging onto self-control. Who could blame her for feeling the pressure? She held back earlier from BBQing Euron’s fleet when it was clear he had a weapon that could destroy a dragon.

Game of Thrones has for some time been building to the idea that Daenerys may become a Mad Queen after all. I think this is a compelling story idea. Varys lays it out as clearly for her as anyone ever has: Don’t let your destiny mislead you into destroying the people you want to save. Cersei works this dynamic by placing the people of King’s Landing as human shields, so even if Dany takes the city, she’d do it by killing untold numbers of people and would lose the trust of her new subjects.

It was a surprise to see Bronn pop up and make the clever move of negotiating a bigger salary from the Lannister boys, ensuring he’ll be Lord of Highgarden. He’s smarter than a lot of the people contending for the Iron Throne. Gendry also gets his prize, becoming Lord of Storm’s End, a move that on Dany’s part is as much about rewarding Gendry as removing him as a legitimate claimant to the Iron Throne while gaining an ally in one of the Seven Kingdoms. (At the same time, this move could backfire, since she legitimized him as a Baratheon, giving him a stronger claim to the throne, although, realistically, I don’t think Gendry doesn’t have a power base.) However, Gendry misses out on getting a wife, as Arya makes what I think is the right move for her character in turning him down. Jaime does get a non-incestuous love interest in Brienne (it was fun seeing them play drinking games and I’m glad Brienne got a piece of happiness). But it doesn’t last, as he leaves her in (out-of-character) tears to go kill Cersei. I have long thought it would be the most poetic, Shakespearean option for one twin to kill the other.

Hilariously, none of the Starks can keep their mouth shut that Jon is Aegon Targaryen. This sets up a fascinating conversation between Varys and Tyrion, who flirt with the idea of a coup to install Jon instead of Daenerys. This is the part of Game of Thrones I like: Thoughtful debates on leadership, succession and politics. I don’t think Jon’s a great choice for leader. The audience likes him and all that but he’s failed in several battles, and his followers did actually mutiny and murder him, which doesn’t bode well for him assuming a throne he doesn’t even want.

Daenerys could go Mad Queen and set everything on fire, and that would be an interesting end to the story. At this point, I’m rooting for her to topple Cersei and keep her shit together as the queen.

Avengers: Endgame

I expected a lot of spectacle from Avengers: Endgame but I didn’t expect all the emotional catharsis the movie delivered. This was a fantastic movie and it was so much fun seeing it in a theater where the whole audience was severely amped up. People were cheering and hollering at the screen during the rousing moments, and were dead silent during the sadder parts.

I was wary of sitting in a theater for three hours but the movie didn’t feel that long. The middle section, when the Avengers travel through time in search of the six Infinity Gems, was pure Marvel, where countless comic stories involve the heroes splitting up to find objects of value and combining them into one to defeat the villain. It was amusing watching the team parade through greatest hits in movies such as the first Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Doctor Strange, Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy.

There was a touch of sadness in the midst of all the fun. Half the universe’s population dying is of course unimaginable. I wish the movie had time to show more of the consequences of the halved population, as well as the consequences of what happens when those people reappear five years later. It was an emotional roller coaster up to that final confrontation with Thanos. The Black Widow’s death was tragic and more meaningful that it drew on her decades-long comic history with Hawkeye. It was moving to see Captain America, bloodied and broken, stand up to Thanos as he did in the original Infinity Gauntlet.

Then the cavalry comes in, via teleportation discs from Doctor Strange moving the resurrected heroes to the battle, and it’s on. Seeing little groups of heroes appear out of nowhere to take on the Big Bad is a classic Marvel storytelling moment. There were so many great touches to this sequence, each of which got a huge cheer:

·      Captain America wielding Mjölnir in battle, proving that he is as worthy as Thor to carry it (something the comics use to signal that the situation is a true emergency, and a moment that took my breath away)

·      Black Panther and the Dora Milaje reappearing with the “Wakanda Forever” chant

·      The Scarlet Witch staggering Thanos with her power, living up to her true potential (git it, Wanda!)

·      Iron Man’s emotional reunion with Spider-Man

·      The women of Marvel—Captain Marvel, the Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, the Wasp, Okoye (and, I guess, Mantis)—gathering together (which I think was a really subtle callback to an obscure comic moment)

·      Doctor Strange holding up one finger surreptitiously to Iron Man, a winking acknowledgement that this is the one scenario of billions in which they will win

·      Cap finally saying the old battle cry “Avengers Assemble”

It just went on and on. It was a huge, fun, thrilling catharsis.

Then Iron Man makes the ultimate sacrifice, in a scene that was an amazing sendoff for his character. Pepper tells him she and their daughter will be OK and that he can rest. Tony Stark, who had settled into a quiet life and wanted no parts of superheroing, saves the universe.

Captain America gets a happier ending, going back in time to live out a full life with Peggy Carter, coming back as a 100-year-old man and passing the shield to Sam Wilson. The last scene shows the two dancing to a song they never got to dance to in the original timeline. It was a lovely, emotional, perfect end for this character.  

Avengers: Endgame made me reflect on how visible comic book characters are now as a medium. I read my first issue of the Avengers in 1983 and since then, in one form of another, I have a good chunk of the original run of the series. Yet in those early years, not a lot of the general public would have known who most of these superheroes were. Now they’re everywhere, and it’s amazing to see so many other people getting joy out of what has brought me joy.

The great thing about seeing this movie in a theater was that we could all react together. Each sequence in the battle with Thanos had its own group of people cheering for it. Everybody had their own favorite character to root for. Someone was cheering for the Scarlet Witch (tied for my favorite character with Storm) and it just made me feel this stranger and I had something in common, a fleeting connection with someone I’ll never meet.  

Game of Thrones S8 E3: The Long Night

It wasn’t looking too good for our heroes at the Battle of Winterfell. The White Walkers had outmaneuvered the fiery defenses, neutralized the dragons and invaded the castle. The Night King was approaching Bran and about to do something horrible to end everything.

Then Arya appears out of nowhere, shivs the Night King with Valyrian steel, shattering him and destroying the entire army of White Walkers. This girl, who once tried to subsume her own personality into “no one,” saves her ancestral home and saves the whole shebang. Arya Fucking Stark, ladies and gentlemen. God, that was stunning and exhilarating. Between that and Avengers: Endgame (more on that tomorrow), it was a weekend of fist-pumping and yelling at screens.

That was a surprisingly low body count, at least for the marquee characters. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think we only lost Lyanna Mormont, Jorah Mormont, Theon Greyjoy, Dolorous Edd, Beric Dondarrion and Melisandre. There was such a fog of war that it was hard to tell what was going on through most of the battle. I kept checking to see if people were OK (thank God for Brienne’s shock of blond hair as it helped keep tabs on her). I was afraid Sansa and Tyrion would die when they started exchanging meaningful glances, and for only the second time in Game of Thrones history, there was some piano in the score. But most of the characters made it, despite the foreshadowing last week. Of course, there are three episodes left and they could all still die.

Those who did die got some great sendoffs. Lyanna Mormont dies brutally but like a badass, with the youngest and smallest cast member stabbing a reanimated giant in the eye. Theon finally redeems himself by saving his adopted brother and gets absolution before he dies. Poor Jorah finally gives his life to save his beloved khaleesi.

It was interesting to see Daenerys at loose ends without her dragons. She’s a forceful leader but she’s not a hand-to-hand combatant, although she did acquit herself pretty well with the dragonglass. Along the same lines, it was interesting to see how helpless everyone in the crypts was. Varys, Sansa, Tyrion and Missandei are brilliant people but not trained in the sort of fighting this episode needed (Tyrion has fought and led in battle before but he’s been diminished lately). Of course, Samwell’s actual job is hand-to-hand combat and he folded here. Jon wasn’t much of a factor either.

Speaking of non-factors, what is the point of Brandon Stark? I was convinced he was going to do something badass against the Night King but then he just didn’t. It was amusing that he was dithering around and then his younger sister just cut the BS and ended it. Without meaning it, Bran has caused so much misery, so I’m hoping there will be a payoff down the line for this kid and what he means to the series, or else the latest senseless casualty will be Theon and the Ironborn dying for no reason.  

“The Long Night” was hard to watch in the sense of the whole battle being spatially disorienting and dark. The play of darkness and fire was creepy. It was the first battle in the series to be filmed as horror, particularly with the scene with Arya evading the White Walkers in the library.

This was a great way to bring back Melisandre and take a deeper look at her character. She’s done awful things—getting Shireen killed was one of the most unforgivable things in a series of full of them—but she’s also resurrected Jon and gave a powerful boost in this battle. It was interesting that Melisandre’s initial efforts, like many of her efforts, failed in the end. She lights the sickles of the Dothraki but minutes later, it doesn’t matter, as the fires wink out in the distance as the White Walkers overwhelm them. (It was kind of tone-deaf that the Dothraki and the Unsullied, largely non-white, took the heaviest casualties). She lights the spikes on fire but then the White Walkers find a way around them. Melisandre’s real contribution was to inspire Arya with a great callback on what you say when facing down death: “Not today.”

It was an interesting choice to show the big battle halfway through the season, not killing that many main characters. My first thought was, “What do we do with the last three episodes?” Personally, I’m fine with this. I’ve never been as interested in the White Walkers as I have the machinations of power and the conflicts between families, and I welcome a showdown with Cersei, who is much more interesting than the Night King. We’ve been told for so long that nothing will matter when winter comes, so defeating the White Walkers so decisively was kind of a brilliant way to show that all the petty conflicts between the different families still do matter.

I nominate Arya Stark for Queen of Westeros.

I Don't Understand

I don’t understand everything and am willing to educate myself on some of those things if I care enough, or if it’s something I really need to know. But there are a lot of things, whether due to my age or general lack of interest, that I don’t care about enough to understand. Point me in the direction of supplemental reading material if you must, but I just don’t care enough to read any of it.

Take Lil Tay (please!), for example. I understand that she’s some 10-year-old on the internet who acts as if she has a lot of money, although she does not, being 10. I read that she posed once with a sports car, and bragged about having the car, which she cannot drive for six more years. Lil Tay brags a lot about the money she is adjacent to.

I don’t understand this at all. Neither does my son, who is the same age, and rolls his eyes at the mention of his contemporary. I don’t blame this preteen for acting arrogant and profane or whatever. I think the mother is an idiot, since she lost her job for borrowing her boss’s sports car for her daughter’s video. I don’t envy any of the potential money that might come with this nonsense. We wouldn’t put our child on the internet like this because 1) we’re not a trash family and 2) we would rather teach him that the smart way to build wealth is by getting and keeping a decent job and being smart with money, rather than losing a job by borrowing a sports car so your kid can pose with cash.

I guess this girl is one of the “influencers” I hear about. Maybe I’m showing my age here but these just seem like spokesmodels to me. I read an article about the Instagram aesthetic changing (it’s completely different than it was in the Before Times of late 2017) and now people are taking different photos than they were. I missed this entire thing and I don’t care. None of these people influences me because I have never seen any of them. I’m just not going to go on Instagram and see someone posing in a coat or whatever and say, “I really need that” and pull out my credit card. It was funny that the article on Instagram said “Everyone is trying to be more authentic.” If you have to try to be authentic, you’re not authentic.

Speaking of kids on the internet, I also didn’t understand that girl who went on Doctor Phil or whatever and copped the attitude. Was it “Cash me outside” that she said? I’m too uninterested even to open up another tab on my browser and search for this child (although not uninterested enough to write about her, apparently). Anyway, if there was a joke there, I didn’t get it. It would be like explaining color to a blind person. She’ll be as much of a footnote as when Bart got 7.5 minutes of fame for being the “I didn’t do it” kid.

I don’t understand Bitcoin either. I know it’s a cryptocurrency and the CEO or whoever died without leaving password information to people’s accounts so they got locked out of their money. If someone tried to explain Bitcoin to me, it would be like being cornered at a party by someone who wants me to switch utility providers from the stable utility company to some shady startup company so I can save 5 percent: I’d smile and nod and back away. I could learn more about Bitcoin but it would be like researching phrenology: completely pointless. I’ll take my money backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government and kept in an FDIC-insured bank, thanks.

If I don’t care, why did I write all this? Because I wanted a break from work for a few minutes yesterday. And we can all understand that.