Dragonstone Musings

Game of Thrones is completely into territory outside of the books now. And for once in my life, I'm not reading anything ahead of time or letting myself be spoiled. I thought it would be fun to write out my impressions and musings as the episodes happen. With that in mind, a warning that this WILL contain spoilers.

Arya and her life with the thrill kill cult.

In our cold opening, Arya, wearing the face of Walder Frey, has a dinner set up for all the males of the Frey line and poisons them as she explains to them why it was such a bad idea to leave Starks alive. On the show, the Freys are basically all just awful bottom feeders so when she does this, it feels justified and correct. In the books, some of the Freys are more nuanced, even to the point of having been so loyal to the Starks that they were sent away during the Red Wedding. On the show, however, the most sympathetic Frey we get is Fat Walda and she's already dead anyway.

I think we're going to at least explore how deep Arya's murder tendencies go. After killing the Freys, she meets up with a group of Lannister soldiers. They invite her to eat with them and all seem like decent people. One of them is even Ed Sheeran and what could HE possibly harm? So will she kill them, even though they are Lannister men? We will have to wait and see.

Variations on Experience with Jon and Sansa.

Jon is king and what he says goes. Jon has one priority and that is to get everyone through the winter without everyone turning into the undead. Good goal. He has seen war, the horrors of winter, and the army of blue eyed monsters. He wants people to focus on dragon glass and training (both boys and girls, which is practical and awesome).

Sansa has lived those same years surviving the Game. She knows the price of mercy. She knows the price of forgiveness. She's seen lots of people say they will do one thing and stab anyone they need to in the back as soon as it suits them. Bannermen betray you. Small folk will betray you. While Jon is thinking everyone will rally behind this Horrible Thing he has seen, Sansa knows that some people will rally and others will use this as their way to move forward.

The only thing Cersei trusts is the wine.

Jaime Lannister is in a bad place. His children are dead. His sister, the love of his life, has committed an act so horrible he once killed a king to keep him from doing the same thing. They have very few resources and no allies. The only ally Cersei can scrape up is Euron Greyjoy. He shows up and he's a jackass but promises ominous things. Jaime is beside himself about all of this. His sister seems to be making things up as she goes along.

The thing about Cersei is that she DOES do that. Her plans are usually effective in the short term but cause problems in the long run. Cersei is drunken chaos and that isn't a good description for a ruler. Jaime knows this, but what will win out, love or duty?

Old Town is full of annoyance. 

Sam's part went on for too long and it was gross. We could have skipped several minutes of disgusting duties and just had him talk with the Maester about books. Even the Maester's reaction seemed needlessly annoying. These people KNOW things are about to go bad. Protocol should be stopped so they can figure out how to help. This felt like conflict just for the sake of conflict. The only interesting part was getting to see the dagger used to try to kill Bran show back up in a book.

As if that wasn't enough, we find out Jorah is there. From the look of his arm, his greyscale is advancing quickly. Really Jorah? You met a woman back in Qarth who clearly had some knowledge of how to handle this condition and instead, you run as fast as you can to get to Westeros because you know that's where Dany is headed? Really? This was not only stupid, you obsessive dickbag, it was irresponsible.

With Sandor, it's complicated.

The man formerly known as The Hound does his best to keep his life simple. Kill things. Stay happy. Eat chicken. Stay away from fire. Instead, he finds himself in the middle of a moral redemption arch while surrounded by fire-worshippers. He seems to have listened somewhat to the Septon from last season. When he's confronted with his sins, he accepts them and does what small bit he can to atone. Honestly, that was a beautiful scene.

More interestingly, when asked by a red priest to look into the flames, Sandor seems to have actually had a vision. He knows the white walkers are coming and from where. The whole process added to his conflict. The last thing he wants to do is be a prophet for fire. It's hard to deny his skill and hard to deny the fact that he seems to have a role to play in all of this.

Sometimes you can go home. 

Dany and company made it to Dragonstone. It was very emotional to see her get out of the boat and touch the sand of her birthplace. She doesn't have an emotional memory connection to it because she left when she was so young, but she knows this is hers and she knows what this means. As much as I loved this moment, I did not love the following five minutes as we watched her and all of her people climb what seemed like miles of stairs to get to the castle. That got old. I mean, she has dragons. Fly the people up there.

Stairs or no, Daenerys Targaryen is home. The young girl who started out with nothing but a horrible brother and a pedophile barbarian husband now has three dragons, an army, a fleet, advisors, and the castle where she was born. That is quite an accomplishment.

Final musings.

The white walkers have giants in their army. This is bad.
Meera and Bran are back on the south side of the wall. This is good for them but potentially bad for everyone else as often as Bran screws things up.
Euron's ships are cool.
I wonder if anyone has told Tyrion that his niece and nephew are dead.
I wonder if anyone has told him that Sansa is at Winterfell and seems to have married (and widowed) again.
Sansa shut Littlefinger down beautifully.
Sam and Gilly have a cute little house.