Eastwatch Musings

A while back, I mentioned that the problem with the speeding up on Game of Thrones is that we're not taking the time to really let people emotionally reflect on things. There are small seconds of it, but not many. We're not seeing any kind of character growth or development and this is a problem. It's also a problem because the payoff that we need on this show, even more than any cool action battle, is rooted in the emotions of the characters.

REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO . . . .

Last season,  Jon and Sansa saw each other for the first time in years, I actually cried. The payoff on this scene was massive. Reunion scenes have a big emotional impact and if you don't handle them properly, they leave a bad taste in people's mouth. This is exactly how things went with Jaime and Tyrion's reunion. After seeing him almost die on the battlefield, it was clear Tyrion still loves his brother. After everything he's gone through, it's clear Jaime has changed and realizes the world is more complex than he thought. Their reunion should have been one of the bigger moments of this episode, but instead, it's just a hurried infodump/guiltfest.

Jorah reunited with Dany and Tyrion this week. The meeting with Dany was weirdly more emotional than I expected. Then again, I guess she assumed he was going to die. His meeting with Tyrion was better, honestly, it was more oddly touching than the Lannister's meeting with his brother. Tyrion gave Jorah a coin he'd been keeping for good luck, one they'd had since their time in captivity.

One of the problems with the Jorah stuff is that he shows up, says hi to Dany, and then the next scene with him, he's deciding to leave again and the reasons just honestly aren't clear. There are guesses one can make. He feels guilty about his father dying. He feels like he cheated death and maybe he owes it to everyone to go on a really dumb and deadly mission?

Oh, and about this mission . . . Jon knows he has to convince everyone down South about the army of the dead. So he and Tyrion (and Jorah, who jumps in to help) decide to go past the Wall, grab a wight, and bring it South. This is an idiotic plan. The dead people North of the Wall aren't spread out in little convenient groups. They are all together as one big army. I'm pretty sure they'd notice the living people wandering around. Though, maybe they won't notice Jon? He is kinda dead too.

Anyway, this leads to the WORST of reunions. When they get to the Wall (because that is a thing that is happening by the end of the episode. It took Jon and Tyrion like two episodes to get to the Wall from Winterfell the first season but honestly travel just does not matter now), Tormund has captured Thorros, the Hound, and Beric. He's keeping them in the dungeon for some crazy reason. Jon and company go to look at them and it's basically this:

Jon: Yor the Hound you helped kill my family.
Beric: That's Jorah Mormont!
Tormund: Mormont? Yor da kilt the free folk!
Gendry: The Brotherhood! They sold me to Fire Witch!
Davos: Fire Witch evil!
Beric: *starts to make speech*
The Hound: All of you should fucking shut up.
Jon: Oh! We all alive (mostly). We on same side. GO KILL WHITE WALKERZZZ!

Okay, it was a little better than that, but only a little. Oh, and Gendry is back. In fact, he and Davos had the best reunion of anyone. They actually seemed reasonably emotionally connected to one another, spoke about the time that had gone by, reconnected, and seemed to have a sense that things were good.

I JUST MET YOU AND THIS SOUNDS CRAZY . . .

Reunions are a tricky business and the same could be said for characters meeting each other for the first time. With certain characters, there are levels of context, especially when they have situations and other characters in common. This works out well in situations like a few episodes ago when Sam met Jorah. When Sam realized the context of who Jorah was to him (the only son of the Lord Commander), Sam knew he had a duty to Jorah and risked everything, even his own life, to save him. Jon and Dany have a lot of tension when they first meet due to what her family did to his.

The show is moving so fast, however, that certain relationships with complications are just being brushed to the side. Davos seems rather calm about the fact that Tyrion made decisions that lead to his son's death. Jaime seems to have forgotten that his sister's Hand saved his life and always acts like he can't remember who he is. In this episode, we have an instance where one of these situations goes poorly and two where they go very well.

The poorly done one is when Jon and Jorah meet. They have a huge history together. Ned sent Jorah into exile. Jon served under Jorah's father. Jon 's brother got the majority of Jorah's family killed in his war, and yet Jorah's only remaining cousin (Lyanna Mormont) is perhaps Jon's biggest ally. Oh, and most importantly, JON HAS JORAH'S SWORD. Longclaw was given to Jon by Joer, but he always intended for it to eventually return to Jorah. And yet, none of this is mentioned, discussed, anything. That's disappointing because a real conversation between them could have been the emotional volley needed for them to decide to go on this stupid death trap mission.

Now the episode did get this correct in a couple of places. When Jon met Gendry, it was great. Gendry brought up what and who they have in common. It created a quick bond between them. We got to see two characters actually warm up to each other and it was well done.

But the BEST example of this, and really, the BEST scene in the whole show was Jon meeting Drogon. I'm linking to this scene because it's so perfect. Jon is just standing there, watching Dany come back, expecting her to land somewhere else. Drogon insists on landing close to Jon because he CLEARLY senses something about this person. Drogon's instincts are telling him this is another Dragonlord and something inside Jon wakes up and he realizes it too. No matter how else Jon's heritage is revealed (which, is actually done by Gilly on this same episode but Sam doesn't notice), THIS MOMENT is the truest and most pure moment of that revelation. Jon is a Sighted, Prophecy-linked, destined to save the world Targaryen, just like Dany.

People have a lot of opinions about Destiny Families in their fantasy stories. Many people see the trope as overdone, overused, and overwrought. But that will never be the case for me. I LOVE Destiny Families. I love knowing my story is about this crazy, magical family with a complicated history, lots of violence, and a zigzagging path to saviorhood. There is something about this concept that pleases me to no end. With that in mind, the Jon and Drogon scene sold the episode for me. Everything else could have been bad puns and plotholes and I would not have cared.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Okay so Cersei made the Tarleys the paramount family of the Reach. Dany killed Sam's father and brother, so I guess this means Sam will probably end up being Lord of the Reach. This is quite funny because it means that Craster's incest son could end up one day being Lord of the Reach.

Speaking of Sam, he finally got sick of the Maesters, stole a bunch of books, loaded up Gilly and Little Sam, and GTFO of Old Town. This is the second time in two seasons that Sam has left somewhere in the middle of the night, angry, disgusted, and full of stolen goods.

Speaking of Cersei, she's pregnant again and plans to publically claim Jaime as the father. I'm sure that will go over well. She also plans on being clever to defeat Dany and thinks everyone is betraying her.

Oh, and Jaime is alive. Bronn saved him and told him that Jaime isn't allowed to kill himself or let dragons kill him until Bronn gets his castle. Only Bronn can kill him. Bronn also arranged the meeting between Jaime and Tyrion to try and discuss a peace deal.

Tyrion is all angry and salty about Dany killing her enemies. He didn't seem to have too much of a problem when she was doing this in Essos, but now that it's HIS people, he's having qualms. He and Varys had a talk about how Dany needs to be better advised.

No one is happy with their monarchs. The lords in the North way to elect Sansa as Queen now because they've figured out she's better at it than Jon could ever be. She declined but somehow ended up in a fight with Arya about it anyway. Arya is sneaking around, spying in Littlefinger. She found the note Sansa sent back in Season One about how the Starks should follow the Lannisters. Littlefinger was really unsubtle about her finding this, almost to the point of twirling his mustache when she did. This whole plot point is annoying me because it's taking time away from the areas where we really need character development. Just kill Littlefinger and be done with it!

Anyway, we only have two episodes left. Next week will explore what happens when a small band of idiots goes to face a massive army of ultrafast ice zombies. As I mentioned above, I'm sure that will go really well.