Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 9

 

I think I can speak for everyone when I say last night’s episode was exactly what we’ve been waiting all season for – it finally lived up to its hype, and didn’t disappoint. The penultimate episode of Season 6 takes its place as the best episode of its respective season, like Season 4’s The Watchers on the Wall or Season3’s The Rains of Castamere. So because of this, and because narrative-wise we didn’t progress very far, this will be the shortest post of this run.

We pick up on Dany and Tyrion in the pyramid; Tyrion is desperately trying to defend himself as the city burns from the siege, which is still going on. That sort of surprised me in the best way possible, because instead of just having to assume Drogon went off and burned the armada in the bay – we actually get to see it! In broad day light!!!! More on that (obviously) in a second. Tyrion gets out that the city made a comeback (leaving out the part that he used a religious cult movement to accomplish this) in her absence, and the Masters of Slaver’s Bay didn’t take kindly to their good fortune so they’ve come to restore Meereen to its former (slave-holding) glory. Dany rattles off a few trademark comments about burning the Masters to ash and punishing them utterly for their transgressions; Tyrion pushes for an iota of mercy. He tells her that her father, the Mad King, had stored Wildfire under all of the important buildings in Kings Landing (which is our HINT HINT as an audience that next week, Cersei will likely be taking advantage of this) and he was likely planning to burn his own people with it (we know this is true because Jaime killed Mad King Aerys to prevent this very thing from happening, and he confessed as much to Brienne, but never told anyone else the real reason he killed the king). He pleads with her to take a course of action that would not punish innocent civilians for the crimes of their rulers – really he’s asking her not to live up to the Targaryen legacy of indiscriminate violence.

We cut to a scene with the Masters (those sleazy jerks with whom Tyrion made his “7-year slavery” deal) and Dany and Co. – it seems Dany is there to discuss terms of surrender (psh! As if!). The Masters gloat; demanding she leave and that she return the Unsullied and Missandei to Astapor. Mwahahaha. Dany follows up with “Oh, you misunderstood – we’re here to talk about your surrender. Don’t want to surrender? Cool -Ima get on my dragon and burn you mother fuckers and everything you stand for to the ground now.”

 

The sequence that follows is by far the most epic fantasy battle since the Rohan/Ghost armies swept in and saved the day in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Dany calls in Drogon (they must be psychically linked, or else they have really good time-management/planning skills), gets on his back, and takes to the sky. Way up high we can see Drogon’s brothers, Rhaegal and Viserion, break out of their cell under the city (why the heck didn’t they do that right after Tyrion unchained them?) because their leader has returned - and if you’ve been pent up in a dank basement for like a year, you would be itching to get out and burn some ships too. Dany commands Drogon to strategically burn down the ships with heavy artillery, and the Masters and their guards watch in horror. We also see that the Sons of the Harpy were picking off innocent Meereenese people as they tried to flee from the city: enter the wild hoard of Dothraaki led by Daario Naharis. Buh-Bye, SoH! Grey worm steps up and tells the guards they can leave in peace if they abandon the Masters, so they take off immediately. Then Tyrion informs the Masters that Dany wants one among the three of them dead as payment for their transgression; naturally the two guys turn on their “lowborn” compatriot, and Greyworm takes both of them out. The last is left to return home and inform the rest of Slaver’s Bay not to fuck with Daenerys Targaryen and that the practice of slavery is about to end abruptly, forever.

Later in the episode, we are treated with Tyrion belittling none other than Theon Greyjoy in the pyramid throne room! Looks like Theon and Yara arrived just behind the carnage in Slaver’s Bay. I admire their determination to make a deal: if I showed up somewhere to form an alliance and walked in on a giant murder scene, I would have circled the block a few times, you know?

Theon admits to his assholery and informs Dany and Tyrion that their father was murdered by their Uncle Euron and Yara’s justifiable claim to the throne was usurped etc etc. They tell her he will be coming to make a similar deal, except he wants to give Dany his “fat cock”  (erm, hand in marriage) but has no intention of being a true partner to Dany; Yara’s offer is simply her loyalty in backing Dany’s claim to the Iron Throne and her ships for the trip back to Westeros. Turns out they only have 100 ships; but combined with the ships salvaged from the siege they would have a small armada.

This was actually a really great scene. I think the Greyjoys are about as interesting as dirt, but to have two women making a deal to support each other in their respective quests to become Queen of their people was a first on the show, and probably in the history of this world. Dany agrees to Yara’s offer on the condition that the Iron Islanders put an end to their Viking way of life: no more pillaging, reaving, or raping. Yara’s like “….but that’s what we do?” and Dany is like “not anymore, did you see what I did to my enemies in Slaver’s Bay?” Smartly, Yara agrees: no more perpetual assholery in exchange for independence. They shake on it, and the most interesting alliance in GoT canon has been launched!

Now for the rest of this episode: the long awaited Battle of the Bastards. Where our time with Dany and Co. in Meereen was entirely uplifting and bright, our time in the North was anything but. Team Snow and Team Bolton meet to formally discuss the possibility of avoiding bloodshed. Sansa insisted on attending; feeling that by remaining in a tent she would be expressing cowardice. She wants Ramsey to see she’s not quivering by a fire in fear somewhere. Ramsey is of course his typical smarmy, psychotic self. John tells him he’ll fight him one on one, right there. Naturally Ramsey declines because he has far greater numbers. Sansa promises Ramsey that he will die tomorrow and rides off, in a commendable mic-drop.

Back at camp, the guys talk strategy, and Sansa blows up on Jon for not including her in the conversation. Normally I’d disagree with Sansa; what does she know about battle? But she insists that unlike Jon or Davos: she knows Ramsey. She saw what he did to Theon, what he did to countless people, what he did to her. She tells Jon that Rickon is as good as dead. John, the commensurate good guy, says they can’t just abandon him. Sansa warns Jon that Ramsey will find a way to fuck with them and PLEASE: don’t take the bait.

Of course, Sansa is right. Before I move on, I’ll mention that Jon paid a visit to Melisandre and told her that if he dies, he doesn’t want her to bring him back. She says she has to do what R’hllor wants; they have an interesting exchange about the nature of gods:

Melisandre: Maybe [R’hllor] brought you back here; only to die again.

Jon: What kind of god would do something like that?

Melisandre: The one we've got.

Davos and Tormund bro out together about how they both came to be in the service of Jon Snow; their male bonding was a good example of how people with vast differences can work together for the common good. Also: Davos finds the wooden stag he carved for Shireen in the remains of her sacrificial pyre, which means he’s on to Melisandre. I won’t be upset if he kills her next episode for her gross human transgression.

Speaking of child murders, it wouldn’t be Game of Thrones if an innocent child didn’t die, so of course, Rickon Stark is murdered. This is the situation Sansa (sort of) predicted: Ramsey sets Rickon free and commands him to run to Jon across the field between them, and then starts firing arrows at him. Predictably Jon takes off to try and save his baby brother, only to watch him get shot through the back, and die (mercifully it seems he died rather quickly instead of suffocating on his own blood).

 

That does it –Jon blows the plan and charges Team Bolton – one man against 6000, 2000 of which seem to be archers because within seconds Jon’s horse is shot through and he’s running on foot.

What follows is a feast of cinematic war-porn. The contrast from the Tolkienesque Battle of Meereen is shocking: instead of dragon fire and shrieking horsemen, we are forced to watch the disorienting mess that is actually war. For millennia: this is what war looked like in human history. Blunt force trauma and chaotic blood and guts; the sensation of not being able to process what’s going on before having to act or else die. The cinematography here is Emmy worthy, for sure.

To sum up – Team Snow is surrounded, trapped between the Bolton infantry (with a shield formation reminiscent of the Spartans in 300) and a literal wall of dead bodies, over which the Umbers stand to pick off anyone trying to flee. Things felt and looked grim – but due to the formulaic nature of GoT’s battle sequences (plus the knowledge that Sansa called in an assist from Littlefinger) it wasn’t truly a surprise when the Army of the Vale came riding in Rohan-style to save the day. But talk about relief! With Ramsey’s army under siege, the cowardly SOB flees the battlefield and retreats to Winterfell. Jon, WunWun the Giant, and Tormund follow in pursuit on foot. The front door in busted down by WunWun, the last of his kind. Rest peacefully, large sir, for giving your life in an effort to save what was left of your Wildling brethren. Ramsey is as good as dead, because there’s no stopping Jon now: he catches three arrows with a shield at close range and beats Ramsey half to death with his bare hands. He only stops because Sansa has arrived and is staring at what’s left of Ramsey Snow.

 

LONG LIVE HOUSE STARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, a fucking win for the Stark family (even though the only true living heir -that they know of- has just died). Ramsey wakes up in the kennel where he keeps his starving hounds, with Sansa on the other side of the gate. This miserable SOB can’t accept defeat so he taunts her: "You can't kill me," he says. "I'm a part of you now." I worried briefly that this would be factually true, that Sansa was pregnant (if Melisandre can make a shadow baby assassin, I bet she can perform a mystical abortion), but really it’s a bleak statement about the nature of abuse. Even though, as Sansa points out, Ramsey will effectively be erased from history along with his father’s house, what he’s done to her psyche has permanently changed her as a person. Sansa was already tainted by Littlefinger’s devious influence: now she’s got a cruel streak in her that wasn’t necessarily there even after Joffrey beheaded her father in front of her. Let’s hope Jon’s positive influence can keep her from making any more epically bad decisions in the future.  I was happy with Sansa having the last laugh, smirking as Ramsey’s starving dogs ate him face first. The lesson learned here is that dogs are like humans: they may be “loyal beasts” but if you mistreat them long enough, they will turn on you.

Aside from being a great episode cinematically, it was a success thematically as well. Dany says in the throne room, to Tyrion, Theon, and Yara that all of them had evil fathers; that those men left the world a worse place than they found it, and that their generation would leave it better than they were given. Everyone fighting in this episode was fighting more than just a physical war – they were fighting against a corrupt system, fighting to remake the shitty world they were given into a place worth living in. Dany and Jon triumphed and for a change, the good guys came out on top. I’m not going to be too quick to call Dany a good guy though – her conqueror’s mentality was tabled in favor of Tyrion’s pragmatism today, but now that she’s won in Essos: will she be able to take Westeros in a way that doesn’t detract from her accomplishments? Next season I wonder if she and Jon might join their forces to defeat the Night’s King/White Walker army in a deal to guarantee her place on the Iron Throne, even though we all know Jon is a secret Targaryen and he would be a kinder, fairer ruler. Maybe it’s a Batman situation: Jon is the hero Westeros should want, but Dany is the hero Westeros deserves. Only time will tell.

Next Week: Cersei’s barbeque –erm, Trial.