Thoughts on GoT Season 8: Episode 5
OK, so I have had some time to process now and I have some thoughts which I am going to share on the latest episode of GoT. Apologies in advance, I know many people will disagree with me.
1. I am aware that a lot of fans really, really hated this episode, particularly those who wanted Jaime to become a better man or Dany to become the good queen Westeros needed. I’m not one of them. There were things right with this episode, and things wrong with it, but overall I thought it was a fascinating watch.
2. Firstly, Jaime and Cersei reuniting and dying in each others arms. For me, this worked beautifully. Yes, I like Brienne, but her and Jaime never made sense to me. He was always so obsessed with Cersei, and despite moments of honourable behaviour (particularly towards Brienne and Tyrion) he was always basically a selfish character, caring only for himself, Cersei and their children. It made sense that he went back to her in the end. Clearly, I do not like Cersei, because she’s evil, but she has been a terrific character, beautifully acted, and such a crucial part of a great series that I was glad she got that emotional death scene, all her plans and power crumbling around her, in the arms of the only person who ever really understood her, the man she was born with.
3. Jon. I feel like I could have done with more of an insight into what Jon is thinking in this episode. His expression is increasingly confused. He seems to be pulling away from Dany, although it is unclear whether this is because she is his aunt (why the hell have the two of them never even talked about this?) or because her actions are starting to frighten him. At the same time, he seems to be sticking doggedly with her, unable or unwilling to do anything else. Presumably, this episode is supposed to provide the final straw which makes him reject her, but I don’t think it should have needed that much.
4. Dany. I will confess here that I have never been a huge Dany fan. She has always been so nakedly ambitious, so absolutely convinced of her right to rule, that I have found her hard to root for; an attitude like that tends to make a tyrant. She has never seemed overly worried about killing people in pursuit of her goal, and this was always going to be a point of difference between her and Jon. She has also been visibly on the edge for a few episodes, with understandable grief about her lost dragon, Ser Jorah and Missandei, as well as the fracturing of her relationship with Jon (although I would argue that she handled the news of his parentage really badly, showing that she cared far more about her claim to the throne than about him). I can understand how, in this mental state, she could snap, and be far more brutal than she would otherwise have been in the assault on King’s Landing.
But. I think it is a HUGE leap from that to slaughtering every innocent man, woman and child in the city and razing it to the ground. As well as demonstrating a vicious sadism and cruelty, which she never has before, this makes zero sense if she actually intends to rule Westeros. In my opinion, the episode would have made much more sense if she had ignored the surrender bells, blazed a path to the keep and razed it to the ground, showing her fury and bloodthirsty desire for revenge on Cersei (which would, in my opinion, have been entirely in character) and causing enough unintended civilian casualties to worry Jon and Tyrion, but not then going on to kill everyone in a totally unjustifiable way. We are being pushed towards the conclusion that Dany has simply gone insane, the old ‘mad Targaryen’ idea, and that is, in my opinion, slightly lazy writing.
5. Arya and the Hound. I thought these two had a great dynamic, was glad they got a proper moment together, and was glad that the Cleganes finally faced off. It was a gruesome and awful fight, in old-fashioned Thrones style, and even if the Mountain was unrealistically hard to kill, it was poetic to have the brothers falling into the flames and rubble together. Arya, on the other hand, spent far too much of the episode wandering around covered in dust, although I get that they are trying to ram home the whole traumatic, this-will-change-the-way-she-feels-about-Dany thing.
6. Tyrion and Varys. I may be the only person who thinks this, but Tyrion and Varys have been my two favourite characters for a while now. I loved their whole dynamic. I was sad to see Varys die, as he did clearly have the best interests of Westeros at heart, and I think the same is probably coming to Tyrion, who is also a heavily flawed but surprisingly moral character who has really kept me watching all these years. I thought their conversations, and Tyrion’s betrayal of his friend, beautifully set up the choice that everyone is having to make about whether Dany is really the best person to rule Westeros, taking us all into that debate with them and making us try to pick a side.
Just for the record, I think that they were both wrong. Dany is too tyrannical to be a good queen, and showed in Essos that her heart lay not in government, but in conquest. Jon is not clever or cynical enough to hold the Iron Throne.
I still have no idea how this will all end, but I look forward to finding out.
dededos
prguitarman
romaincrisis
ellievsbear
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