Game of Thrones episode 6.08” “No One”
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scifi_rewatchAs we inch closer to the penultimate and final episode of the season, I find myself feeling less gracious towards the show. It chronicles my least favorite part of the Faceless Men storyline; other fans seemed to dislike it, too, albeit sometimes for different reasons. Also, I’m trying to think of one character on the show, neither a fool nor a pawn, who espouses peace. It’s a far more thoroughly explored idea in the novels—when has revenge gone too far? When do we realize that more bloodshed won’t bring our loved ones back? Even the minor characters can’t seem to have backstories that don’t espouse violence. I think I might have to make cases for the peacemakers, wherever I might find them.
Anywho. Other than Arya’s continuing adventures, Jaime is at least taken to task for his deeds, and questioned on the moral scale. Cersei, who quite literally proclaims, “I choose violence,” discovers that there’s still a way for the rug to be swept out from under her. The Brotherhood Without Banners makes a more official reappearance. Things come to a head with Brienne and the Tullys, and Meereen is back like a nightly news segment; how have Tyrion’s political gambits taken hold? Stay tuned to find out! :P
Summary
The Riverlands
The Hound is back on the gory warpath with his axe, but Beric Dondarrion, Thoros et al return to stay his hand; turns out the killers from the last episode were renegades after all. The Brotherhood hangs them for betraying their name, allowing the Hound a small pittance of revenge. But over food they talk about bigger matters; the war to come in the north and how Sandor can “make things right” by joining them.
King’s Landing
Lancel and the faith militant arrive at the Red Keep to escort Cersei to the High Sparrow; she responds by having Gregor eviscerate one of them. Later, as Kevan stonewalls his niece, Tommen abolishes trial by combat as a brutal practice. Stripped of her best defense, Cersei nevertheless learns a piece of ominous news from Qyburn…
Riverrun
As Bronn and Pod have a bromance, Brienne and Jaime come to an agreement about the Blackfish; she’ll try to convince him to lead his army north so long as Jaime gives them safe passage. But the Blackfish, though sympathetic to his great-niece’s entreaties, is adamant about staying to protect his home. Jaime uses Edmure as bait by threatening the man’s baby son; as official Lord of Rivverrun he’s granted access to the castle, which he promptly gives up to the Lannisters and the Freys. The Blackfish dies fighting; Brienne and Pod escape, giving one nostalgic goodbye wave to Jaime from the water.
Meereen
The city is thriving with the Red God priests singing Daenery’s praises; Varys leaves for Westeros to acquire allies and ships. A decent joke session with Missandei and Grey Worm is cut short by the alarms; the slave cities have reneged on peace and have come with war ships! As Tyrion feels the guilt and Grey Worm mounts the defense a thump is heard on the top of the pyramid; it’s Drogon, and Daenerys has returned!
Braavos
We get to hear Lady Crane’s more vengeful speech at Joffrey’s death before she goes backstage to find a bleeding Arya. She patches the girl up nicely, but ultimately the waif arrives, killing the actress and chasing Arya throughout town. Beaten and bloodied, Arya leads the waif to her hovel but it’s a trap; in the dark, she kills the waif, gives her face to Jaqen, then proclaims her identity and says she’s going home.
Possible Book Reveals
The Riverlands—at the moment there’s no indication that the Brotherhood will go north, despite the cosmic significance of the White Walkers. With Lady Stoneheart in charge, they are fully focused on revenge against the Lannisters and the Freys.
King’s Landing—it would certainly behoove the High Sparrow to disallow trial by combat, but his grip on the crown isn’t as ironclad as it is in the show. The Tyrells, for example, have influence, and with Loras’s upcoming trial they would have something to say about this development. Kevan is also far less hostile to Cersei in the books and he at least nominally supports Ser Robert Strong as her champion. He still sees her as a Lannister, so her reputation should at least be somewhat protected, but it’s true that he doesn’t want her to have much political power.
Riverrun—Brienne never reunites with Jaime at the castle, nor does she try to sway the Tullys to fight for Sansa. Jaime does threaten Edmure’s son, leading to him surrendering the castle to the Lannisters and the Freys. But rather than give up his uncle, he facilitates the Blackfish’s escape. Presumably the showrunners wanted to get rid of an extraneous character, and they’d already acknowledged that Edmure and the Blackfish have a shitty relationship. Sigh. Just the final nail in the coffin for complex Tully characterization. Jaime is also not motivated by his love for Cersei, but rather out of a sense of familial duty.
Meereen—the siege is longer and more complicated in the books, of course, but it’s plausible that Daenerys and Drogon might return to intervene. Varys doesn’t support Daenerys in the books, has never been to Meereen, and therefore doesn’t go off to get her allies and ships. Tyrion’s involvement in the siege is from the other side of the city wall, and he’s looking out for his own vengeful interests concerning Casterly Rock.
Braavos—Linda from westeros.org posits that it’s possible that Arya might use violence to escape the Faceless Men, but it’ll be a more drawn out affair than the show has time for. Personal vendettas are unlikely to take any part, as there’s no antagonism with the waif and she’s not seen Jaqen since the second book. Her relationship with any of the other members in the House of Black and White is far more distant.
Thoughts
It’s been several weeks since I wrote the above, and I might be feeling more charitable again. :P Though I’m also very conflicted. My favorite storyline of the night—the Jaime/Brienne interaction at Riverrun—is probably also my least favorite, hee. A close second for me is the Arya storyline, where I hate the plot but love Maisie’s acting, as always. Pretty funny moment when our youngest Stark girl protests to Lady Crane that she wouldn’t be a good actor, lol.
I’ll go through them all, and pay particular attention to the role of vengeance, or lack thereof.
To be perfectly fair, the Hound stuff is a lot less vengeful than it first appears, when he’s mercilessly gutting enemies and upping GoT’s gore factor for the week. He comes across the Brotherhood, which isn’t evil after all—they are executing these traitors for killing innocents. (Though honestly, guys, if you really want to go for a “humane” killing, why not a sword to the neck, Ned style?) They refuse to let the Hound resume with the gore, and in fact have a new mission for him—travel north with us to fight the fight that really matters! Looks like Jon has found his first non-northern allies there!
This also serves as testament to what the Brotherhood could be like without Stoneheart making sure that they stay narrowly focused on vengeance. Perhaps a moment will come soon when Thoros remembers his Red Godesque obsession with the White Walkers. It’s a bit of a relief, really, to see more people other than Jon’s ilk acknowledging the bigger picture.
Show Catelyn was very much like Lady Stoneheart anyway, and I’m reminded of that when Jaime compares her ruthless defense of her children to Cersei. It’s true that Catelyn from the books made some decisions that ultimately didn’t turn out to invite peace, but it was never as vicious and intentional as it was on tv. The Jaime/Edmure talk was interesting, because even if the former doesn’t respect the latter, like he does with Brienne, he still seems to consider, briefly, how he’s justifying his actions so as to see himself as a “good person.” But all of that is submerged by his loyalty to Cersei and to his House. For Edmure’s part, his baby son is someone that he would put above the demands of his House, and honestly, who could blame him? Now his son can live in noble captivity rather than be dead. But I still won’t forgive the show for having him betray his uncle. I get it—they basically want to write the Tullys off now, which is perhaps also part of the reason why Edmure couldn’t stand in for the Blackfish in the Jaime/Brienne deal about helping Sansa. But it makes them weak and selfish and so unbooklike. A sad little swan song. :/
…though of course I loved the Blackfish lauding Sansa’s spirit, because c’mon. :P But undoubtedly the best part of this entire arc was Jaime/Brienne. We get a little bit of a reprieve from all of the vengeance of this episode to take a look at these two people who respect each other too much to be enemies, even if politics may ultimately demand it. But it seems that they got off easy for now, and that final goodbye wave on the river might be the most human moment of the episode.
Some people might’ve preferred the Bronn/Pod reunion, lol. At least their talk of sexual innuendo didn’t end with the Hound coming up and spilling their guts, so that’s a good day!
Then there’s Meereen, which I suppose on its surface says that negotiation never works, so why put down the sword. :/ But meh, a fight about keeping people free is one of those “just” battles. At the same time we’ll never really get the emotional gravitas, because the Meereenese are only side characters. Felt like this big battle was just shoehorned in at the end. But on the bright side, Tyrion’s jokes and repartee with Missandei and Grey Worm seems to be improving. :P Especially nice after his sad little goodbye with Varys. Though damn, guys, if you wanted to not make it obvious that you were together before Varys sailed off to Westeros, maybe refrain from walking within three feet of the gate together, and then shouting your final words at each other? :P
And finally…the conquering hero returns, looking rather messiah-like with her golden hair, intense expression and Drogon flying in the background. That’s kind of her role in all of this, and it’s a big reminder about how Meereen, especially on the show, is really just a big backdrop before her return to Westeros. And Dany is the epitome of vengeance—fire and blood and all that. Sometimes she can mix in a little mercy, but perhaps not so much with slavers flowing fireballs at you.
King’s Landing! I mean, Cersei literally says “I choose violence,” but she does have to face consequences for that. Kind of a shame that it comes from a bunch of religious fanatics. I guess I can’t have my non-vengeance cake and eat it, too. The Faith Militant wants to do away with the barbaric Trial by Combat ritual (yay!) but they also want to punish people for having the “wrong” sexualities (boo.) Cersei’s a bad person, but I’m not sure I want a bad organization to judge her for it.
And then there’s the matter of Tommen—poor, sweet Tommen. I suppose he challenges me as a character as well, because I like what he stands for but I have to acknowledge that he’s a puppet. And that maybe his beliefs about how to perpetuate fairness come with their own price. The world isn’t as black and white as our poor, sweet king would like to believe. And surely he has to contend with the fact that he knows that he’s making things more difficult—possibly even deadly—for his own mother, because you can see it scrawled on Dean Charles Chapman’s face. Guh.
Final moment between Cersei and Qyburn is just a tease about how, even when made more defenseless, Cersei refuses to go down without a fight. Many people could probably guess her intentions, given the clues and backstory, but we have to stay tuned to the season finale to see the payoff! /zips lips
And finally…Braavos. Which also starts with a “Cersei” being incredibly vengeful in Lady Crane’s new, Purple Wedding speech. And this is surely a testament—vengeance sells, because it’s so compelling to watch, not only how it goes down, but how it affects people.
But fast forward to Lady Crane’s apartment, and I’m annoyed that she knows how to patch up Arya because she used to “put holes” in unfaithful boyfriends. *sigh* Arya’s jocular response is a testament to the pro-female “badassery” campaign. But I’m here to question that bullshit. Why does everything have to be so violent and “badass”? Why couldn’t Lady Crane have learned about patching people up because her parents were nurses or something?
But every “badass”—except maybe Arya—has a reckoning at some point, and Lady Crane doesn’t survive the episode. :/ Killed by the waif who is on her way to kill Arya. Chase ensues, which first off—isn’t Arya still in recovery for a vicious stomach wound? Which re-opens after a bad fall, yet still she’s able to lure the waif into a stunning defeat? Sigh.
But the biggest thing I don’t like is Arya confronting Jaqen—saying that she’s someone, that she’s going home, and his response is “yeah, okay.” Speaking of backdrops, the Faceless Men are now just a huge one for Arya. They only exist on the show for her to have a cool place to play Assassins Creed for awhile. I have my issues with the books, and with Arya’s “badass” storyline, but there’s no way that GRRM would allow her to escape the Faceless Men so easily. The rules are that once you join us, you’re either no one or you die, so there should be some retribution for Arya’s betrayal. They should have enough backstory of their own to not just be here to service her plot.
Tl;dr—actions should have consequences, and as desperate as I am for Arya to return home for a Stark reunion, I don’t want her to be immune. This is the story that shocked most of us by having Ned’s actions lead to his beheading. I don’t want—or believe—that his daughter has to die. What I really want is for her to question her assumptions and grow as a person, like all good characters on this show. (And that sooort of happened with her identification with Lady Crane’s Cersei earlier.) But Arya being a universally beloved “badass” who never has to answer to anyone other than herself…far less interesting, imho. Time to take her off of her pedestal.
Anywho. Other than Arya’s continuing adventures, Jaime is at least taken to task for his deeds, and questioned on the moral scale. Cersei, who quite literally proclaims, “I choose violence,” discovers that there’s still a way for the rug to be swept out from under her. The Brotherhood Without Banners makes a more official reappearance. Things come to a head with Brienne and the Tullys, and Meereen is back like a nightly news segment; how have Tyrion’s political gambits taken hold? Stay tuned to find out! :P
Summary
The Riverlands
The Hound is back on the gory warpath with his axe, but Beric Dondarrion, Thoros et al return to stay his hand; turns out the killers from the last episode were renegades after all. The Brotherhood hangs them for betraying their name, allowing the Hound a small pittance of revenge. But over food they talk about bigger matters; the war to come in the north and how Sandor can “make things right” by joining them.
King’s Landing
Lancel and the faith militant arrive at the Red Keep to escort Cersei to the High Sparrow; she responds by having Gregor eviscerate one of them. Later, as Kevan stonewalls his niece, Tommen abolishes trial by combat as a brutal practice. Stripped of her best defense, Cersei nevertheless learns a piece of ominous news from Qyburn…
Riverrun
As Bronn and Pod have a bromance, Brienne and Jaime come to an agreement about the Blackfish; she’ll try to convince him to lead his army north so long as Jaime gives them safe passage. But the Blackfish, though sympathetic to his great-niece’s entreaties, is adamant about staying to protect his home. Jaime uses Edmure as bait by threatening the man’s baby son; as official Lord of Rivverrun he’s granted access to the castle, which he promptly gives up to the Lannisters and the Freys. The Blackfish dies fighting; Brienne and Pod escape, giving one nostalgic goodbye wave to Jaime from the water.
Meereen
The city is thriving with the Red God priests singing Daenery’s praises; Varys leaves for Westeros to acquire allies and ships. A decent joke session with Missandei and Grey Worm is cut short by the alarms; the slave cities have reneged on peace and have come with war ships! As Tyrion feels the guilt and Grey Worm mounts the defense a thump is heard on the top of the pyramid; it’s Drogon, and Daenerys has returned!
Braavos
We get to hear Lady Crane’s more vengeful speech at Joffrey’s death before she goes backstage to find a bleeding Arya. She patches the girl up nicely, but ultimately the waif arrives, killing the actress and chasing Arya throughout town. Beaten and bloodied, Arya leads the waif to her hovel but it’s a trap; in the dark, she kills the waif, gives her face to Jaqen, then proclaims her identity and says she’s going home.
Possible Book Reveals
The Riverlands—at the moment there’s no indication that the Brotherhood will go north, despite the cosmic significance of the White Walkers. With Lady Stoneheart in charge, they are fully focused on revenge against the Lannisters and the Freys.
King’s Landing—it would certainly behoove the High Sparrow to disallow trial by combat, but his grip on the crown isn’t as ironclad as it is in the show. The Tyrells, for example, have influence, and with Loras’s upcoming trial they would have something to say about this development. Kevan is also far less hostile to Cersei in the books and he at least nominally supports Ser Robert Strong as her champion. He still sees her as a Lannister, so her reputation should at least be somewhat protected, but it’s true that he doesn’t want her to have much political power.
Riverrun—Brienne never reunites with Jaime at the castle, nor does she try to sway the Tullys to fight for Sansa. Jaime does threaten Edmure’s son, leading to him surrendering the castle to the Lannisters and the Freys. But rather than give up his uncle, he facilitates the Blackfish’s escape. Presumably the showrunners wanted to get rid of an extraneous character, and they’d already acknowledged that Edmure and the Blackfish have a shitty relationship. Sigh. Just the final nail in the coffin for complex Tully characterization. Jaime is also not motivated by his love for Cersei, but rather out of a sense of familial duty.
Meereen—the siege is longer and more complicated in the books, of course, but it’s plausible that Daenerys and Drogon might return to intervene. Varys doesn’t support Daenerys in the books, has never been to Meereen, and therefore doesn’t go off to get her allies and ships. Tyrion’s involvement in the siege is from the other side of the city wall, and he’s looking out for his own vengeful interests concerning Casterly Rock.
Braavos—Linda from westeros.org posits that it’s possible that Arya might use violence to escape the Faceless Men, but it’ll be a more drawn out affair than the show has time for. Personal vendettas are unlikely to take any part, as there’s no antagonism with the waif and she’s not seen Jaqen since the second book. Her relationship with any of the other members in the House of Black and White is far more distant.
Thoughts
It’s been several weeks since I wrote the above, and I might be feeling more charitable again. :P Though I’m also very conflicted. My favorite storyline of the night—the Jaime/Brienne interaction at Riverrun—is probably also my least favorite, hee. A close second for me is the Arya storyline, where I hate the plot but love Maisie’s acting, as always. Pretty funny moment when our youngest Stark girl protests to Lady Crane that she wouldn’t be a good actor, lol.
I’ll go through them all, and pay particular attention to the role of vengeance, or lack thereof.
To be perfectly fair, the Hound stuff is a lot less vengeful than it first appears, when he’s mercilessly gutting enemies and upping GoT’s gore factor for the week. He comes across the Brotherhood, which isn’t evil after all—they are executing these traitors for killing innocents. (Though honestly, guys, if you really want to go for a “humane” killing, why not a sword to the neck, Ned style?) They refuse to let the Hound resume with the gore, and in fact have a new mission for him—travel north with us to fight the fight that really matters! Looks like Jon has found his first non-northern allies there!
This also serves as testament to what the Brotherhood could be like without Stoneheart making sure that they stay narrowly focused on vengeance. Perhaps a moment will come soon when Thoros remembers his Red Godesque obsession with the White Walkers. It’s a bit of a relief, really, to see more people other than Jon’s ilk acknowledging the bigger picture.
Show Catelyn was very much like Lady Stoneheart anyway, and I’m reminded of that when Jaime compares her ruthless defense of her children to Cersei. It’s true that Catelyn from the books made some decisions that ultimately didn’t turn out to invite peace, but it was never as vicious and intentional as it was on tv. The Jaime/Edmure talk was interesting, because even if the former doesn’t respect the latter, like he does with Brienne, he still seems to consider, briefly, how he’s justifying his actions so as to see himself as a “good person.” But all of that is submerged by his loyalty to Cersei and to his House. For Edmure’s part, his baby son is someone that he would put above the demands of his House, and honestly, who could blame him? Now his son can live in noble captivity rather than be dead. But I still won’t forgive the show for having him betray his uncle. I get it—they basically want to write the Tullys off now, which is perhaps also part of the reason why Edmure couldn’t stand in for the Blackfish in the Jaime/Brienne deal about helping Sansa. But it makes them weak and selfish and so unbooklike. A sad little swan song. :/
…though of course I loved the Blackfish lauding Sansa’s spirit, because c’mon. :P But undoubtedly the best part of this entire arc was Jaime/Brienne. We get a little bit of a reprieve from all of the vengeance of this episode to take a look at these two people who respect each other too much to be enemies, even if politics may ultimately demand it. But it seems that they got off easy for now, and that final goodbye wave on the river might be the most human moment of the episode.
Some people might’ve preferred the Bronn/Pod reunion, lol. At least their talk of sexual innuendo didn’t end with the Hound coming up and spilling their guts, so that’s a good day!
Then there’s Meereen, which I suppose on its surface says that negotiation never works, so why put down the sword. :/ But meh, a fight about keeping people free is one of those “just” battles. At the same time we’ll never really get the emotional gravitas, because the Meereenese are only side characters. Felt like this big battle was just shoehorned in at the end. But on the bright side, Tyrion’s jokes and repartee with Missandei and Grey Worm seems to be improving. :P Especially nice after his sad little goodbye with Varys. Though damn, guys, if you wanted to not make it obvious that you were together before Varys sailed off to Westeros, maybe refrain from walking within three feet of the gate together, and then shouting your final words at each other? :P
And finally…the conquering hero returns, looking rather messiah-like with her golden hair, intense expression and Drogon flying in the background. That’s kind of her role in all of this, and it’s a big reminder about how Meereen, especially on the show, is really just a big backdrop before her return to Westeros. And Dany is the epitome of vengeance—fire and blood and all that. Sometimes she can mix in a little mercy, but perhaps not so much with slavers flowing fireballs at you.
King’s Landing! I mean, Cersei literally says “I choose violence,” but she does have to face consequences for that. Kind of a shame that it comes from a bunch of religious fanatics. I guess I can’t have my non-vengeance cake and eat it, too. The Faith Militant wants to do away with the barbaric Trial by Combat ritual (yay!) but they also want to punish people for having the “wrong” sexualities (boo.) Cersei’s a bad person, but I’m not sure I want a bad organization to judge her for it.
And then there’s the matter of Tommen—poor, sweet Tommen. I suppose he challenges me as a character as well, because I like what he stands for but I have to acknowledge that he’s a puppet. And that maybe his beliefs about how to perpetuate fairness come with their own price. The world isn’t as black and white as our poor, sweet king would like to believe. And surely he has to contend with the fact that he knows that he’s making things more difficult—possibly even deadly—for his own mother, because you can see it scrawled on Dean Charles Chapman’s face. Guh.
Final moment between Cersei and Qyburn is just a tease about how, even when made more defenseless, Cersei refuses to go down without a fight. Many people could probably guess her intentions, given the clues and backstory, but we have to stay tuned to the season finale to see the payoff! /zips lips
And finally…Braavos. Which also starts with a “Cersei” being incredibly vengeful in Lady Crane’s new, Purple Wedding speech. And this is surely a testament—vengeance sells, because it’s so compelling to watch, not only how it goes down, but how it affects people.
But fast forward to Lady Crane’s apartment, and I’m annoyed that she knows how to patch up Arya because she used to “put holes” in unfaithful boyfriends. *sigh* Arya’s jocular response is a testament to the pro-female “badassery” campaign. But I’m here to question that bullshit. Why does everything have to be so violent and “badass”? Why couldn’t Lady Crane have learned about patching people up because her parents were nurses or something?
But every “badass”—except maybe Arya—has a reckoning at some point, and Lady Crane doesn’t survive the episode. :/ Killed by the waif who is on her way to kill Arya. Chase ensues, which first off—isn’t Arya still in recovery for a vicious stomach wound? Which re-opens after a bad fall, yet still she’s able to lure the waif into a stunning defeat? Sigh.
But the biggest thing I don’t like is Arya confronting Jaqen—saying that she’s someone, that she’s going home, and his response is “yeah, okay.” Speaking of backdrops, the Faceless Men are now just a huge one for Arya. They only exist on the show for her to have a cool place to play Assassins Creed for awhile. I have my issues with the books, and with Arya’s “badass” storyline, but there’s no way that GRRM would allow her to escape the Faceless Men so easily. The rules are that once you join us, you’re either no one or you die, so there should be some retribution for Arya’s betrayal. They should have enough backstory of their own to not just be here to service her plot.
Tl;dr—actions should have consequences, and as desperate as I am for Arya to return home for a Stark reunion, I don’t want her to be immune. This is the story that shocked most of us by having Ned’s actions lead to his beheading. I don’t want—or believe—that his daughter has to die. What I really want is for her to question her assumptions and grow as a person, like all good characters on this show. (And that sooort of happened with her identification with Lady Crane’s Cersei earlier.) But Arya being a universally beloved “badass” who never has to answer to anyone other than herself…far less interesting, imho. Time to take her off of her pedestal.
