Even though I've been a reader of fantasy for years, I've never been one to enjoy battle scenes. It isn't that I'm against violence. I just found a lot of them boring. In books I'd skim them, just refocusing back on the story when I'd see the dialog. In visual form, a lot of the times battle scenes only get interesting once things are dire and the cavalry rides in.
Now when it comes to historical battles, I actually do enjoy those. I love watching docs about them, especially Alexander the Great's because he's one of my favorite people. I think he's one of the reasons I will never hate Dany. To me, she's very much the Alexander of the story. In a fantasy world grounded in reality, she's larger than life. That's how Alexander the Great was.
When it comes to Game of Thrones, I have never been disappointed in their larger battle scenes. Some of the small ones annoy me, but the large, epic scenes never fail to impress. The Loot Train Battle impressed me a lot. It was a unique battle for this show because we had main characters on both sides. Okay, granted we did with Blackwater as well, but I never liked Stannis so it didn't matter. Here, I had emotional ties to several characters and that made for a greater emotional ride.
This battle also contains a great deal of character development. There aren't just political and plot level consequences to this. There are personal consequences as well and that is so important. This isn't a battle about glory. Battle of the Bastards, the battle at Castle Black, even the one at Hardhome were battles where we see characters have moments of glory. That never happens here. The decisions are character driven, the mistakes are character driven, and the outcome of the battle is very much pyrrhic.
THE SETUP
Jaime starts the episode, opening up a wagon full of gold taken from High Garden and giving Bronn a bag of it. Bronn notes that Jaime is in a foul mood and also that he still owes him a castle. Jaime, who is still reeling from killing Olenna and also from her confession that she killed his oldest son, tells him that the more stuff he has, the more miserable he'll be. There is always too much at risk and it's best to just travel light. Bronn disagrees with him but Jaime doesn't want to talk anymore. He sends Bronn off with the Tarleys to threaten the farmers of the Reach into giving them all of their food and supplies.
There is also a small scene where Cersei and the rep from the Iron Bank discuss her next loan. She says she may hire the Golden Company, which is interesting if they keep them anywhere near how they are in the books. It looks like she'll be able to do this because, in a later scene, Jaime and the Tarleys talk about how the gold arrived safely.
When we next see the Lannister forces, it's assumably a few days later. They're now making the slow move back to the capital with all of the foodstuffs. Jaime and Bronn ride over to Sam's brother and Jaime gets his name wrong again. When he says that it's "Dickon," Bronn laughs in his face then makes some comment about him going to 'fancy lad school' and knowing nothing about real battles. As they talk, they begin to hear the vibration of hundreds of horses riding towards them. It's the Dothraki and with them is Dany on her dragon.
THE BATTLE
The battle takes place from four points of view. Tyrion watching in the distance, Bronn and Jaime on the ground, and Dany in the sky. Normally we only get these battles from one point of view, perhaps two. Having four people giving their own narrative perspective was a brilliant choice for the directors because it allowed us not only a chance to get a lot of various visual ideas about the battle but also emotional ones.
The thing is, in earlier battles on the show, things took place at night. Nighttime can cover a lot of sins when it comes to staging a battle. Doing one during the daytime takes away almost all shortcuts. People have to work harder and better to make this feel right. In this case, they certainly did. We see the riders as they come. We see them standing to shoot their bows (special devices had to be made for that to happen). We see Dany on her dragon from multiple angles. I think they said they did like 80 shots of her on the dragon for this scene. There is battle chaos and people turned to ash, multiple explosions of fire hitting grain. It's glorious.
But as great as the scene is in a technical way, the best part is the emotional side of it. Jaime is hopeless here, watching as his world is changing, watching as he's losing the last advantages he had. He killed Dany's father for his insane antics with fire and now he's having to face her with dragons. All that he did in the first case LED to what he is seeing now.
Bronn is on foot for a lot of the battle and we get the most chaos from his perspective. Bronn is a great Reluctant Hero. He wants to just be a greedy mercenary, but that is in conflict with the fact that he sees Jaime as a friend. At one point, he loses his bag of gold and only hesitates about getting it for a second before he abandons it completely so he can try to take down the dragon. He actually almost succeeds with that, but only wounds Drogon before narrowly escaping the fire. The old Bronn would have seen this as his chance to just GTFO, but instead, he stays and saves Jaime's life.
Dany is focused and on point with all she does. She destroys the wagons, destroys what troops she needs to let the Dothraki do the rest. When Broon hits Drogon though, she has to face the fact that her dragons can die. They almost fall out of the sky with that hit, but he steadies himself. When they do land, she slides off his back to try and remove the bolt, horrified her 'child' was harmed during the battle. For perhaps the first time, she has to face how much her conquest is really costing her and everyone around her.
Tyrion is facing the same thing. As he watches the battle from the hills above, he realizes his brother is on the battlefield and could die. When Jaime begins to charge Dany, Tyrion faces the worst possible situation, either his queen or his brother might not walk away from this. He's pleading for Jaime to run, but of course, he wouldn't. Tyrion is really in a war against his family here and the reality of it isn't easy on him.
The episode ends with Drogon almost burning Jaime to death but Bronn pushing them both into the water to escape that. Of course, Jaime is in armor so he's sinking. A gold hand and a lot of armor will have to be abandoned if he's going to live. We'll see how that goes next week.
Truly, it was a glorious battle. I'm putting a link here to the making of it if you're interested. It's a long video, but worth the watch.
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