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So last night, I managed to watch the latest Game of Thrones episode. This was a huge episode, with the battle that I personally expected to see in the series finale. But after watching it, and without trying to tip anyone off regarding potential spoilers, it becomes quite apparent and understandable why they did this particular battle with at least one full episode left for the aftermath. I will delve into this a bit more shortly.
Now, before I really get into this, I have to do my standard warning for those of you who have not yet seen this (or some of the more recent episodes, to boot), but intend to. So, if you have not yet seen the most recent episodes, please stop reading at this point.
Now, before I really get into this, I have to do my standard warning for those of you who have not yet seen this (or some of the more recent episodes, to boot), but intend to. So, if you have not yet seen the most recent episodes, please stop reading at this point.
*** SPOILERS****** SPOILERS****** SPOILERS***
Okay, you have been warned. If you are still reading by this point, then you either have already seen the episodes, or for one reason or another, do not mind the spoilers to come. Just don't say that you were not warned!
We saw the second of the two big battles that were planned for season 8, and just like that, with one full episode left, Daenerys Targaryen has achieved her lifelong dream and taken the throne. Yet, almost surprisingly (and I need to emphasize almost here), that proved not to be the big story. While some of us may have been expecting Cersei to pull something off and retain the throne (I took the writers at their word that GoT fans should not expect a happy ending), and I also knew enough to suspect that Daenerys had a darker side to her, I did not expect Daenerys to completely lay waste to King's Landing after Cersei's army had surrendered. That was the big story, of course.
For all intents and purposes, no one on the other side is left. There were a lot of deaths of major characters in this episode, probably more than any other single episode in GoT, and that's saying something. In this episode, we saw Lord Varys die first, for scheming against Daenerys. He was turned in by Tyrion, who probably was really regretting not having worked more closely with Varys before he died. Even though he turned Varys in, we can feel Tyrion's pain at the loss of someone who had become one of his closest and most dear friends in life. We also saw the first glimpse of the dark side of Daenerys, although she conducted the execution almost sadly.
Yes, Varys is the first death, and this came within the first fifteen or so minutes of the episode. But his was certainly not the last death. It was said that there were about one million people living at King's Landing, and it at least appears that a huge portion of them, if not most of them, were killed. That also includes some major characters who fell during the Fall of King's Landing. The major death that everyone was waiting for, of course, was Cersei, who died in the arms of her brother and one true love, as well as the father of her unborn child (so it is revealed), Jaime Lannister. And so, the Lannister dynasty is finished, unless the writers produce something truly remarkable, and we see Tyrion somehow take the Iron Throne in next week's episode.
Those were the two most high profile characters that we saw the end of in this episode. But we also saw the death of Sandor Clegane, perhaps better known as The Hound, and his big brother, the Mountain. They had a fight to the death, and at several point, it seemed like The Hound had struck the lethal blow. But The Mountain simply did not die. So, facing his own death, The Hound manages to pull an Arya and, while being held by the much stronger and much bigger Mountain, he manages to sneakily stab The Mountain through his eye and into the brain, which again, should have killed him. So, the Hound does the only course of action left, which is to throw himself at the Mountain, and they both fall to their fiery deaths down below. If the fall does not kill them both, then the fire surely will.
We also saw the end of Euron Greyjoy, as well as the destruction of the Iron Fleet. Euron swims ashore and - surprise, surprise! - he runs into Jaime Lannister, who at that point is trying to reach Cersei. Euron taunts Jaime, calling him by the old name of the "Kingslayer," and asking if he wanted to add another king to his repertoire, and really become a legend. Jaime replies that Euron is no king, and then they do battle. Both are seriously wounded, perhaps fatally wounded, although we see Jaime survive and find Cersei, then die with her as the building collapses all around them.
Qyburn also is gone, having died a foolish death trying to convince his Frankenstein-like creation, The Mountain, to stay at Cersei's side. It did not go well, to say the least, as The Mountain takes Qyburn by the throat and tosses him harshly down stone stairs, where he hits his head. That's the end of Qyburn, although Cersei manages to escape, by simply walking past both The Mountain and The Hound in plain view, ultimately to meet her own fate just a little later.
Then, of course, there are all of those civilians in King's Landing, not to mention the city itself, which burns. The Red Keep is destroyed. Hell, it looks like everything is destroyed. And the vast majority of it was destroyed after the surrender. Cersei had made it very personal, and the doubts in the mind of Daenerys clearly contribute to what happened.
Arya comes close to dying, but she survives. First, she seems as determined as The Hound for revenge, and she clearly wants to kill Cersei. But The Hound, of all people, warns her that she will not escape alive if she does so, and asks her if she really wants to end up like him. We see her continually struggling to get out of King's Landing, and she has to deal with the consequences of the excesses of Daenerys' determination to punish everyone at King's Landing. Arya survives
And that takes us to where we are now. Daenerys has achieved her dream, and taken over. She always had an absolutist mentality, allowing nothing and no one to stand between her and the Iron Throne. She demands that everyone "bend the knee," even the man she loves. And she makes one last attempt to be his lover again in this episode, although again, Jon Snow clearly feels too uncomfortable, and ultimately rejects her advances. She had just been talking about how Snow was far more beloved than her, and that people only seemed to fear, and not love, her. When he rejects her kiss, she resigns herself to that, to ruling through fear, and says so.
Which leads us to her very dark turn for the worst. A lot of people did not like her turn for the worse, but it is, in fact, in keeping with her character. True, it is a turn for the worse for a major character, and it feels almost worthy of Anakin's turn to the Dark Side, and becoming Darth Vader. But this also is not something that came completely out of the blue. It has been building towards this for a long, long time. Here is one explanation by Danien D'Addario of Variety from his recent review of the most recent GoT episode:
Daenerys’s tactics have always been more deeply rooted in dominance than in empathy (she spent an entire season insisting a peer united in the struggle with her “bend the knee”), and she has for seasons framed her politics as a generational struggle, rather than an evolutionary process that necessarily includes the freely-given consent of the governed. And, most notably of all, her case for herself as queen, and the actions she’s taken to get there, pivot around the idea of revenge. (Her story begins with her having been placed in exile from a birthright she takes increasingly baroque steps to regain.) If a city has to be wiped out in order to ensure no vestige of the old world remained, it’s a deal Daenerys would have taken at earlier points in the series.
D'Addario continues, accurately pointing out that a lot of doubts had not merely confused her, but also fueled the fiery determination within her:
She is one within whom a grand-scale vision is braided with the need to control the conversation around her (see: the execution of Varys, a nicely-drawn moment in which Daenerys is acting out of sorrowful obeisance to the demands of her view of progress) and to be at the center of the narrative, through love or fear. Clarke sold, well, the moment at which Daenerys has come so very close to achieving what she’s desired her entire life, and the throbbing cross-currents of loathing, pain, and mistrust that burned within her as an easily granted peace sat before her but the gratifications of destruction were but a dragon ride away. (The loathing has been a series-long story; the pain of losing Missandei and the mistrust as rumors about Jon’s rightful claim on the throne were, to my eye, completely credible motivations to send Daenerys on her rampage.) If the episode were missing one specific thing, it would be more close-up shots of Daenerys after she’s decided to burn King’s Landing, in order to allow us into the mentality of a character whose life has built to a decision made rashly and from a place of desperation.
That sounds about right.
And that leads to the final episode, when the people who visibly looked quite taken aback and doubtful about the wisdom of Daenerys deciding to attack a city that had already surrendered have to decide what to do next. That includes Jon Snow and Arya, as well as Lord Davos and Tyrion. Because even though he died for his beliefs at the very beginning of the episode, Lord Varys was proven right by the end of it.
Thought these two articles were interesting for any GoT fans who wanted to speculate on some of the things from Season 8, Episode 5. The first examines Daenerys and the consistency of her dark turn. The second asks the question that some are asking, as to whether or not Cersei actually is dead or not. Enjoy!
‘Game of Thrones’ Review: Why Daenerys’ Fiery Rampage Is Utterly In-Character by Danien D'Addario of Variety, May 12, 2019:
Cersei Lannister Deserved Better By Jen Chaney@chaneyj, May 13, 2019:
We saw the second of the two big battles that were planned for season 8, and just like that, with one full episode left, Daenerys Targaryen has achieved her lifelong dream and taken the throne. Yet, almost surprisingly (and I need to emphasize almost here), that proved not to be the big story. While some of us may have been expecting Cersei to pull something off and retain the throne (I took the writers at their word that GoT fans should not expect a happy ending), and I also knew enough to suspect that Daenerys had a darker side to her, I did not expect Daenerys to completely lay waste to King's Landing after Cersei's army had surrendered. That was the big story, of course.
For all intents and purposes, no one on the other side is left. There were a lot of deaths of major characters in this episode, probably more than any other single episode in GoT, and that's saying something. In this episode, we saw Lord Varys die first, for scheming against Daenerys. He was turned in by Tyrion, who probably was really regretting not having worked more closely with Varys before he died. Even though he turned Varys in, we can feel Tyrion's pain at the loss of someone who had become one of his closest and most dear friends in life. We also saw the first glimpse of the dark side of Daenerys, although she conducted the execution almost sadly.
Yes, Varys is the first death, and this came within the first fifteen or so minutes of the episode. But his was certainly not the last death. It was said that there were about one million people living at King's Landing, and it at least appears that a huge portion of them, if not most of them, were killed. That also includes some major characters who fell during the Fall of King's Landing. The major death that everyone was waiting for, of course, was Cersei, who died in the arms of her brother and one true love, as well as the father of her unborn child (so it is revealed), Jaime Lannister. And so, the Lannister dynasty is finished, unless the writers produce something truly remarkable, and we see Tyrion somehow take the Iron Throne in next week's episode.
Those were the two most high profile characters that we saw the end of in this episode. But we also saw the death of Sandor Clegane, perhaps better known as The Hound, and his big brother, the Mountain. They had a fight to the death, and at several point, it seemed like The Hound had struck the lethal blow. But The Mountain simply did not die. So, facing his own death, The Hound manages to pull an Arya and, while being held by the much stronger and much bigger Mountain, he manages to sneakily stab The Mountain through his eye and into the brain, which again, should have killed him. So, the Hound does the only course of action left, which is to throw himself at the Mountain, and they both fall to their fiery deaths down below. If the fall does not kill them both, then the fire surely will.
We also saw the end of Euron Greyjoy, as well as the destruction of the Iron Fleet. Euron swims ashore and - surprise, surprise! - he runs into Jaime Lannister, who at that point is trying to reach Cersei. Euron taunts Jaime, calling him by the old name of the "Kingslayer," and asking if he wanted to add another king to his repertoire, and really become a legend. Jaime replies that Euron is no king, and then they do battle. Both are seriously wounded, perhaps fatally wounded, although we see Jaime survive and find Cersei, then die with her as the building collapses all around them.
Qyburn also is gone, having died a foolish death trying to convince his Frankenstein-like creation, The Mountain, to stay at Cersei's side. It did not go well, to say the least, as The Mountain takes Qyburn by the throat and tosses him harshly down stone stairs, where he hits his head. That's the end of Qyburn, although Cersei manages to escape, by simply walking past both The Mountain and The Hound in plain view, ultimately to meet her own fate just a little later.
Then, of course, there are all of those civilians in King's Landing, not to mention the city itself, which burns. The Red Keep is destroyed. Hell, it looks like everything is destroyed. And the vast majority of it was destroyed after the surrender. Cersei had made it very personal, and the doubts in the mind of Daenerys clearly contribute to what happened.
Arya comes close to dying, but she survives. First, she seems as determined as The Hound for revenge, and she clearly wants to kill Cersei. But The Hound, of all people, warns her that she will not escape alive if she does so, and asks her if she really wants to end up like him. We see her continually struggling to get out of King's Landing, and she has to deal with the consequences of the excesses of Daenerys' determination to punish everyone at King's Landing. Arya survives
And that takes us to where we are now. Daenerys has achieved her dream, and taken over. She always had an absolutist mentality, allowing nothing and no one to stand between her and the Iron Throne. She demands that everyone "bend the knee," even the man she loves. And she makes one last attempt to be his lover again in this episode, although again, Jon Snow clearly feels too uncomfortable, and ultimately rejects her advances. She had just been talking about how Snow was far more beloved than her, and that people only seemed to fear, and not love, her. When he rejects her kiss, she resigns herself to that, to ruling through fear, and says so.
Which leads us to her very dark turn for the worst. A lot of people did not like her turn for the worse, but it is, in fact, in keeping with her character. True, it is a turn for the worse for a major character, and it feels almost worthy of Anakin's turn to the Dark Side, and becoming Darth Vader. But this also is not something that came completely out of the blue. It has been building towards this for a long, long time. Here is one explanation by Danien D'Addario of Variety from his recent review of the most recent GoT episode:
Daenerys’s tactics have always been more deeply rooted in dominance than in empathy (she spent an entire season insisting a peer united in the struggle with her “bend the knee”), and she has for seasons framed her politics as a generational struggle, rather than an evolutionary process that necessarily includes the freely-given consent of the governed. And, most notably of all, her case for herself as queen, and the actions she’s taken to get there, pivot around the idea of revenge. (Her story begins with her having been placed in exile from a birthright she takes increasingly baroque steps to regain.) If a city has to be wiped out in order to ensure no vestige of the old world remained, it’s a deal Daenerys would have taken at earlier points in the series.
D'Addario continues, accurately pointing out that a lot of doubts had not merely confused her, but also fueled the fiery determination within her:
She is one within whom a grand-scale vision is braided with the need to control the conversation around her (see: the execution of Varys, a nicely-drawn moment in which Daenerys is acting out of sorrowful obeisance to the demands of her view of progress) and to be at the center of the narrative, through love or fear. Clarke sold, well, the moment at which Daenerys has come so very close to achieving what she’s desired her entire life, and the throbbing cross-currents of loathing, pain, and mistrust that burned within her as an easily granted peace sat before her but the gratifications of destruction were but a dragon ride away. (The loathing has been a series-long story; the pain of losing Missandei and the mistrust as rumors about Jon’s rightful claim on the throne were, to my eye, completely credible motivations to send Daenerys on her rampage.) If the episode were missing one specific thing, it would be more close-up shots of Daenerys after she’s decided to burn King’s Landing, in order to allow us into the mentality of a character whose life has built to a decision made rashly and from a place of desperation.
That sounds about right.
And that leads to the final episode, when the people who visibly looked quite taken aback and doubtful about the wisdom of Daenerys deciding to attack a city that had already surrendered have to decide what to do next. That includes Jon Snow and Arya, as well as Lord Davos and Tyrion. Because even though he died for his beliefs at the very beginning of the episode, Lord Varys was proven right by the end of it.
Thought these two articles were interesting for any GoT fans who wanted to speculate on some of the things from Season 8, Episode 5. The first examines Daenerys and the consistency of her dark turn. The second asks the question that some are asking, as to whether or not Cersei actually is dead or not. Enjoy!
‘Game of Thrones’ Review: Why Daenerys’ Fiery Rampage Is Utterly In-Character by Danien D'Addario of Variety, May 12, 2019:
Cersei Lannister Deserved Better By Jen Chaney@chaneyj, May 13, 2019:
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