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May 23, 2019 Episode 71: The Iron Throne -
May 18, 2019 Feedback Post, Season 08 Episode 06: The Iron Throne
Winter has come! Welcome back Abe and Roberto!
Hey Roberto and Abe! Winter is finally here!
A lot of setup in this episode. There were a couple of good moments for me. Cersei and Jaime’s discussion I loved. My biggest concern since we are past source material is consistency with what will happen based on past relayed information with all the episodes of this season and next.
One quick example, Bran was touched by the Night King while he was warging into a weirwood tree and that brought the Night King to his location and broke the spells protecting the Three Eyed Raven and the Children’s cave system.
If Bran going through the tunnel at Castle Black doesn’t break the enchantment spells at the wall, I have a problem then with consistency of established narrative.
If the White Walkers simply just go around the wall through a castle by the ocean, why is it that they are doing that now instead of earlier sometime over the past several thousand years? If this is something they could have always done it just leaves me scratching my head.
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Arya body count: Off the scale now after this episode. It’s in the hundreds.
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Good:
* I have been hoping for years for Wight Giants and this episode didn’t disappoint. Wow!
* All of Jon’s decisions were very sound and had a nice mixture of being Ned-like honorable and also practical. The Karstarks and the Umbers were given something to fight for besides the Starks; their own castles. It also shows he’s willing to forgive them. The Free Folks manning the castles along the wall is also a very practical application. No one is using them and it also gives them something to fight for while teaming up with the Starks.
* The gross montage of Samwell changing and scrubbing bedpans and showing food being doled out to eat with quick edits was hilarious. Talk about boiling down the cycle of life and the passage of time. It doesn’t get that much more concise and disgusting as this does it?
* Cersei’s conversation with Jaime was well done. I was expecting her to ask him if he was afraid of her or hated her. It showed me how complicated his situation is with her. I am sure he does hate and fear her; obviously he couldn’t show that. She would put him to death in her state. In a lot of ways he’s the only grounding tether to reality she has left. He makes a perfect hand of the queen for her right now. Hopefully she listens although she seems to think they will be ruling for thousand years; not sure where the army is coming from to achieve that. She knows they are bankrupt and they are totally surrounded. Unless gold bricks start falling from the sky for the Lannisters I don’t see how their position will be sustainable that much longer.
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Bad:
I didn’t have an issue with the Hound seeing visions in the flames, however seeing what appears to be the undead army going *around* the wall through a castle by the sea, if true is weak sauce for me. For thousands of years the Night King doesn’t attack and then all of a sudden gets the brilliant idea from attacking at a castle by the sea? What prompted this?
I have to echo Robin Pierson about Arya’s abilities. When did she learn to make faces and imitate voices and personas? I don’t remember her learning those skills and when she acquired them so the cold opening didn’t have the impact I was hoping for. Yet another scene done just for the twist.
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Unknown:
* When Bran passed through the gate at Castle Black did he break the spells of protection on the wall?
* Does Samwell know Jon is at Winterfell or will his messages go to Castle Black?
* If Cersei will not enlist the help of the Euron Greyjoy who will fight for her? What does she have up her sleeve besides caches of Wildfire?
* What gift is Euron going to bring to Cersei to win her over?
* Is Arya headed to Winterfell?
* How far are the Brothers without Banners from the wall?
* It appears the army of the dead are walking past a castle by the sea marked by an arrowhead. Why has it taken this long for them to do that? Was it Bran going through the wall to break the spells on the wall?
* How long will Ed Sheeran last in this season?
* What does Little Finger want?
* Will we ever see giant ice spiders?
* How does the Iron Bank of Braavos figured into the Battles to come? Would they protect their investment by assisting Cersei? Or will they go against her?
* How conflicted is Jaime about the killing of innocents at the Sept of Baelor and the death of his children due to Cersei’s actions?
* Will Euron bring out Dragonbinder?
Ed Sheeran
Poor Ed Sheeran!
He offers up a song, rabbit and blackberry wine and you know he’s going to meet his end with the pointy end of needle!
🙂
Jaime
I was very disappointed in Jaime’s apparent shrug at the destruction of the Sept of Baelor. Cersei did exactly what the Mad King threatened to do. She incinerated innocent civilians in order to maintain power. Jaime gave up his oath to stop that once. Now he doesn’t comment on his sister’s massacre. This needed to be dealt with. If his love for her is that overpowering then there is no redemption possible for him.
Dragonstone Thoughts
I enjoyed this episode and I think it’s one of the strongest season premieres Game of Thrones has had.
I enjoyed the sequence with Dany arriving in Westeros. Dragonstone was a good starting location and it was nice to see some familiar sights from when Stannis was there. I loved the decision to have no dialogue until the last second which allowed for us to really feel how big of a moment this is. The message from Dany was clear as well: Dragonstone today, everything else tomorrow.
I also loved seeing Jon and Sansa arguing over their leadership. There is some tension there and I’m interested to see where it will lead. Sansa is becoming smarter and I presume it’s only a matter of time before she takes out Littlefinger for good. Will she turn against Jon too? Will Jon lose trust in her? Will Sansa aim to take Winterfell and control over the Starks for herself? There are lots of intriguing questions raised for the upcoming season and I’m excited to see more.
Sam’s time at the Citadel was good. I loved the montage of him scrubbing down dishes and organizing books, it showed the passage of time well and made for some good comedy. I also had some Harry Potter flashbacks with Jim Broadbent telling Sam not to go to the restricted section :). Jorah’s presence was a pleasant surprise too. The big discovery of the dragonglass on Dragonstone has huge implications since it now seems likely that Jon, Sam and Jorah will have to meet with Dany to get their hands on it. I’m very excited to see the meeting.
I enjoyed the opening scene for what it was, but I felt it would have had more impact in the last season’s finale so that Walter Frey’s final scene could have more of a sense of triumph to it than shock value. Arya’ faceless assassin abilities also really confuse me. How is she able to wear faces? How does she impersonate their voices? It’s all far too vague to make her scenes be good television.
Ed Sheeran’s cameo was anything but subtle, but inoffensive. The kindness shown by the soldiers was out of character for the world of Westeros, but I suppose after seeing so much darkness over the years I was happy to see some lighter scenes for once. Also Arya is apparently gunning for Cersei which is an interesting development.
I really liked the scenes between Cersei and Jaime. Cersei asks Jaime if he hates her or fears her and Jaime clearly does but knows that he can’t say anything or risk the same fate as The High Sparrow and the others who died in the Sept. Cersei seems to have flew off the deep end after everything that’s happened and Jaime clearly wants to help her but he’s not sure how. I predict that Cersei’s death will be at Jaime’s hand in the long run. It’s a logical conclusion to their story arc which should have some emotion.
Euron’s alliance with Cersei is very interesting and is just the thing Cersei needs to be a threat. It seems that Euron has replaced Ramsay as the big bad of the show and I’m interested to see what will be done with his character. The one problem I had with this was his ships. As far as I remember, Yara and Theon stole majority of Euron’s fleet and he had to build new ones. Now a few episodes later, he has a full fleet ready to go in far too short of a time period. I may be missing something, but this seems a little sloppy.
One last nitpick, how did Cersei know that Tyrion was Dany’s hand?
I really enjoyed The Hound’s scenes. He is getting a redemption arc which I am totally behind and seeing him show some remorse after being indirectly responsible for the death of the family was wonderful. The fire scene was very curious too. I won’t criticize the White Walkers seemingly going around The Wall yet because I have faith that the writers will provide a logical reason for why they waited until now to do it.
Speaking of the White Walkers, their army is massive and that scene of them marching towards The Wall was amazing.
Lastly, this episode had a better pace than most of the other premieres. It didn’t feel like we were just catching up with the characters, and a few major scenes happened like Dany’s arrival and Euron’s alliance with Cersei. The story actually did progress a little with this episode and I liked it.
Overall I had some nitpicks, but this was solid stuff and did its job by making me excited for the rest of the season.
Great points about intel of Tyrion
Hey Aaronic,
Great point about Cersei knowing Tyrion is Dany’s hand now. You would also think she would know about the three Dragons and what damage they can cause her and her armies. If you couple that with Jaime’s lines of them having at best three kingdom’s behind them to fight with, why isn’t Cersei showing more signs of concern or stress due to the dire circumstances? Unless of course at this point she’s just clearly delusional. I think we either need a scene of her alone with her thoughts or revealing to Qyburn that she’s massively worried about what is to come or at least show us Jaime confiding to someone about the pending outcome of the situation. The only problem with the Jaime part is there’s really no one for Jaime to confide in except maybe Bronn.
Expanding on Robin's points about Jaime.
It’s really hard to get a measurement on Cersei and to Robin’s point about Jaime, we really don’t know his thoughts about Cersei due to the current circumstances since he hasn’t really acted like we would expect him to.
Hopefully the show runners don’t forego character development over providing a twist like showing us nothing of Jaime’s feelings only to have him run Cersei through with a sword just before she sets off cache’s of wildfire that might blow up King’s Landing (just like with the mad king) right? Oooh irony…. I personally would love to feel his inner struggle right now over that plot line.
Some changes in direction for GOT.
Hi from the UK! Great to see GOT back for a new series. Loved the surprises in this episode – not sure about Ed Sheeran singing and Richard Dormer from Fortitude however!! Richard Dormer has been excellent in Fortitude and I hope that somehow the producers find a lengthy role for him. He did look excactly the same though – ie the bushy beard! I assume Ed Sheeran must be a fan and somehow pulled a few strings – I hope this isn’t going to part of a trend with other well known celebs popping up…. I also thought some of the characters were playing to their characters – e.g. the Baelish and Sansa interchange!! I also wasn’t sure about the Samwell Tarly funny skit – although it did have me laughing during the shit / slop carry on… The other thing that’s worth praising is the computer graphics, particularly during the final Daenerys scenes. I’d give the episode 4/5.
Welcome Back Roberto and Abe.
I am so glad you guys are back. I hope you, and all of your listeners, enjoyed the break and are excited about season 7. After I watched the episode I was complaining to my wife until she reminded me that it is only a show and a show with dragons in it so it does not have to follow any logic. She is write so I am going to try to look at it like that.
This was only the 3rd cold opening of the entire series and it fell flat to me for a couple of reasons. Ignoring the ridiculousness of the premise that somehow Arya can act like Walder Frey for as long as it took to muster his entire family and ignoring the fact that no one seems to notice that his two most eldest sons are missing, I knew it was Arya from the start and I did not know who any of the Freys were so I did not care about any of them or this scene. I do think they (Dan and Dave) are using Arya as a revenge deus ex machina. Which is fine as long as the murders she commits have some emotional sense for the viewer. Instead they are just going for revenge porn.
I felt that Sam’s poop montage was a bit long. We get it, being an acolyte kind of sucks but get over it. For some reason the Citadel is being very lenient in allowing Sam to live off campus with his baby-momma. For some reason the Citadel (a celibate organization) does not seem to care very much that one of their newest members, a sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch (a celibate organization) is living with his honey bunny. I guess if you are a member of two celibate organizations they cancel each other out? Kind of like a double negative.
The dialogue was really good this episode. Every one’s speeches were tight and to the point. Dragonstone was beautiful. Daenerys’ homecoming was nice I guess. I understand the symbolism they are going for but they really need to hire a military advisor. Her allies control Dorne and the Reach, landing at either place would make strategic sense, especially the Reach. The Dothraki are light cavalry. The key component of cavalry are horses. Horses need to eat. Dragonstone does not have the pasture land for 10,000 horses let alone 400,000 to 500,000 horses (100,000 Dothraki and their remounts). The Reach does and every ounce of food that is consumed by the invaders is one ounce of food that is not sent to King’s Landing.
Finally, Dragonstone was just abandoned by Stannis, wait what? No one occupied it after he sailed North? He did not ;eave a garrison behind? Even in the show Stannis launched his season two invasion of King’s Landing from Dragonstone. Every single ship that entered King’s Landing had to pass Dragonstone and no one ever mentioned that the island was abandoned? If the island was abandoned who swept the steps before Daenerys showed up? The Iron Born had to sail past the island twice while Daenerys was sailing to the island. I spent 21 years in the Navy, many at sea. Two, thousand ship fleets are very hard to hid from each other. Wait I forgot the teleporter.
I don’t mean to complain. Really I am only continuing to watch the show because I have invested so many hours into the first couple of seasons that were really good. I just want the writers to watch the old episode to make sure there is some continuity. For example, Moat Calin, very important in the first few seasons, does not even exist anymore, I guess. The Vale army, who should not really care who the king in the north is, somehow marched past is without Ramsey finding out but in season 1 Ned orders a few dozen additional archers to the area because that is all that is needed to prevent an invasion from the south. Now Sansa is worried about a Lannister invasion from the South.
If food is important to the Lannister army, mostly an infantry force (Jamie just said it was), then it should be just as important to a mounted force that needs to feed men and horses.
But hey Sandor dug a grave, in the frozen earth, so gravedigger fan service is complete. Euron looked like a drugged out former heavy metal band member. I know he is supposed to be menacing but I just got drunken fool with eye liner.
I hope they turn it around for the rest of the season but I doubt it.
***Post Podcast Comments**
I loved the podcast. You guys cover everything so well and with such care and detail.
Beric asks Cleghan after he sees the vision in the flames if he believes they are all still there for a reason? For me, this implies that in this world there is destiny regardless of followers of religions believing in a divinity driving destiny.
Does the Hound say a prayer for the dead father and daughter in respect of their god or because he believes now in Faith of the Seven?
I loved how you trashed Euron’s fashion sense and the concept of a Westerosi Tiled bottom Pool!
I have heard the poisoning called: ‘The Reverse Red Wedding’ and the ‘The Red Party’.
If Arya kills the Lannister soldiers, after they had offered her hospitality she will violate guest rights and piss off the Old Gods and the Faith of the Seven.
If you couple that with killing the Freys (pissing off the Faceless God) it appears now that puts Arya on a hit list for all the gods that are around except maybe the Lord of Light.
When Sam is reading books with Gilly, he looks at a picture of a dagger one page before the picture of the dragon glass picture at Dragonstone. Is that that same dagger that was used to try and kill Bran in first Season?
If you pause the video, the page opposite of the dagger talks about curing ills with Dragon glass through ingestion. Perhaps this could cure Ser Jorah’s greyscale?
If Dragonglass can kill White Walkers and Valyrian Steel swords can kill White Walkers, is Dragon Glass used in the making of Valyrian Steel Swords?
If Dragonstone is built on a huge pile of Dragonglass does that make Dragonstone the safest place in all of Westeros from the White Walkers?