How ironic that the title of this episode is “The House of Black and White,” given the way most of our favorite characters spend the whole hour wrestling with brutally vexing shades of gray in previous episode of Game of thrones season 5.
Brienne’s sworn oath to protect the Stark daughters keeps running up against the stubborn resistance of the girls themselves; Jaime’s desire to do right by his sister-lover and niece-daughter is complicated by the fact that Cersei is pure evil; Jon Snow’s yearning to be a real Stark is undone by his allegiance to the Night’s Watch; and Daenerys’s noble goal of establishing the rule of law goes seriously haywire when one of her trusted advisors kills a man she’d been holding for trial.
At least Arya’s world is still neatly divided between right and wrong, or friend and foe. She’s still searching the outer reaches of the world for her old Braavosi pal Jaqen H’ghar, and still reciting the names of the errant souls on her “kill list.” I don’t think she meant to give up when she tossed that coin into the water if anything, she seemed to have an intuition that it belonged there. And she was right. After interrupting what could have been a highly entertaining three-on-one street fight (my only quibble with this excellent episode is that it could have used a smidge more action), that creepy monk walked her back to the House of Black and White, returned her coin, and revealed himself as H’ghar himself—except he’s not calling himself that anymore. He is No One. “And that is what a girl must become.”
This episode was all about daughters, really. Daughters and sons. Catelyn’s other daughter, Sansa, is not as blatantly homicidal as her sister, but if you ask me she’s a little too enthusiastic about learning the underhanded ways of Petyr Baelish. That said, you can’t really blame her for not wanting to fall under the protection of Brienne, whom she last saw bending a knee to the loathsome King Joffrey. Once Sansa rebuffed her would-be protector, it was a matter of time before the swords started swinging, and nobody swings them better than Brienne of Tarth. For starters, she cut through a wooden post on her way out of the tavern. And then, in her rescue of Podrick, she chopped a knight’s sword in half before plunging her own blade through his throat. Give this much to Brienne: whatever she lacks in people skills, she more than makes up for in combat technique.
But boy did she not want to hear Podrick’s rather sensible suggestion that she had dispatched her obligations to the Stark daughters. And she made a good point when she asked whether Podrick really thought Sansa was safe with Littlefinger. The question, though, is whether Sansa still deserves the protection her mother sought for her. How far has she already traveled across the line separating black from white?
Meanwhile, Cersei is her father’s daughter through and through, but how much sway does she really have over her son the king? We’ve barely seen Tommen so far this season, so it’s hard to say. Cersei is certainly presenting herself as his spokesperson though not the Hand, as a woman could never fill such a lofty office, as she declares with barely concealed disgust. But if she truly had control over Tommen, wouldn’t she have put this meeting on his calendar? And wouldn’t she be able to do something about his budding romance with Margaery Tyrell or, as Cersei likes to call her, “that smirking whore from Highgarden?”
It was delicious seeing Margaery’s ridiculous father inflate with pride at Cersei’s empty compliments, and it was satisfying seeing Pycelle huff and puff over the decision to hand Varys’s Master of Whispers role to Qyburn. But the best part came when Tywin’s brother Kevan Lannister blew his stack, informing Cersei that he does not recognize her authority. Something tells me Uncle Kevan will live to regret that outburst.
Meanwhile, Cersei is most concerned about her own daughter, Myrcella, who now dwells in Dorne a place where Lannisters are about as popular as Hummers on Earth Day. The late Oberyn Martell’s lover, Ellaria Sand, presumably sent Cercei that necklace in a cobra’s mouth but her real hope is to start air-mailing Myrcella’s fingers to Cersei one by one. She also has some ominous-sounding plans involving Sand Snakes (speaking of daughters). Luckily for the Lannisters, Oberyn’s brother Doran has a strict policy against mutilating little girls for vengeance, which, by Game of Thrones logic, means he’s probably about to be dethroned.
Either way, we now know that Jaime Fookin’ Lannister is headed their way, accompanied by Bronn, whose brief idyll with that yammering noble girl has come to a premature end. The grizzled sellsword can’t be too bummed to be leaving the quiet life behind, though I bet he wonders if he’ll ever get to claim the “much better girl” and “much better castle” that Jaime has promised him.
Jon Snow had a chance to claim a girl and a castle of his own, but he chose to stay true to his pledge to the Night’s Watch. So Stannis will have to find someone else to sweet-talk the North on his behalf. And even though life doesn’t actually work this way, it was genuinely moving to see Jon’s decision immediately vindicated when Maester Aemon cast the tie-breaking vote to name him Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. As Sam the Slayer put it so beautifully, “He may be young, but he’s the commander we turned to when the night was darkest.”
I don’t actually think Jon Snow is going to spend the rest of his earthly life abstaining from sex under the shadow of The Wall, but the logic of his character demands that he always make the noblest, most self-denying choice possible, only to be rescued at the last minute by some unlikely chain of events. It’s almost refreshing to have one character who operates in this hokey old way in a fictional universe where almost everyone else is a maze of conflicting, mostly horrifying impulses.
Of course I’m still holding out hope that Jon Snow will eventually end up with Daenerys, whose decision to stick with her principles yields much more problematic results. In fact, she’ll be lucky if she doesn’t end up having to put down a revolution. It all starts when Daario Naharis helps Grey Worm locate the Sons of the Harpy assassin who killed White Rat in the season premiere. “Someone who’s forgotten fear has forgotten how to hide,” Daario declares before jamming his knife into the wall and into the leg of the Harpy, who comes tumbling out through a haze of plaster dust.
At least Arya’s world is still neatly divided between right and wrong, or friend and foe. She’s still searching the outer reaches of the world for her old Braavosi pal Jaqen H’ghar, and still reciting the names of the errant souls on her “kill list.” I don’t think she meant to give up when she tossed that coin into the water if anything, she seemed to have an intuition that it belonged there. And she was right. After interrupting what could have been a highly entertaining three-on-one street fight (my only quibble with this excellent episode is that it could have used a smidge more action), that creepy monk walked her back to the House of Black and White, returned her coin, and revealed himself as H’ghar himself—except he’s not calling himself that anymore. He is No One. “And that is what a girl must become.”
This episode was all about daughters, really. Daughters and sons. Catelyn’s other daughter, Sansa, is not as blatantly homicidal as her sister, but if you ask me she’s a little too enthusiastic about learning the underhanded ways of Petyr Baelish. That said, you can’t really blame her for not wanting to fall under the protection of Brienne, whom she last saw bending a knee to the loathsome King Joffrey. Once Sansa rebuffed her would-be protector, it was a matter of time before the swords started swinging, and nobody swings them better than Brienne of Tarth. For starters, she cut through a wooden post on her way out of the tavern. And then, in her rescue of Podrick, she chopped a knight’s sword in half before plunging her own blade through his throat. Give this much to Brienne: whatever she lacks in people skills, she more than makes up for in combat technique.
But boy did she not want to hear Podrick’s rather sensible suggestion that she had dispatched her obligations to the Stark daughters. And she made a good point when she asked whether Podrick really thought Sansa was safe with Littlefinger. The question, though, is whether Sansa still deserves the protection her mother sought for her. How far has she already traveled across the line separating black from white?
Meanwhile, Cersei is her father’s daughter through and through, but how much sway does she really have over her son the king? We’ve barely seen Tommen so far this season, so it’s hard to say. Cersei is certainly presenting herself as his spokesperson though not the Hand, as a woman could never fill such a lofty office, as she declares with barely concealed disgust. But if she truly had control over Tommen, wouldn’t she have put this meeting on his calendar? And wouldn’t she be able to do something about his budding romance with Margaery Tyrell or, as Cersei likes to call her, “that smirking whore from Highgarden?”
It was delicious seeing Margaery’s ridiculous father inflate with pride at Cersei’s empty compliments, and it was satisfying seeing Pycelle huff and puff over the decision to hand Varys’s Master of Whispers role to Qyburn. But the best part came when Tywin’s brother Kevan Lannister blew his stack, informing Cersei that he does not recognize her authority. Something tells me Uncle Kevan will live to regret that outburst.
Meanwhile, Cersei is most concerned about her own daughter, Myrcella, who now dwells in Dorne a place where Lannisters are about as popular as Hummers on Earth Day. The late Oberyn Martell’s lover, Ellaria Sand, presumably sent Cercei that necklace in a cobra’s mouth but her real hope is to start air-mailing Myrcella’s fingers to Cersei one by one. She also has some ominous-sounding plans involving Sand Snakes (speaking of daughters). Luckily for the Lannisters, Oberyn’s brother Doran has a strict policy against mutilating little girls for vengeance, which, by Game of Thrones logic, means he’s probably about to be dethroned.
Either way, we now know that Jaime Fookin’ Lannister is headed their way, accompanied by Bronn, whose brief idyll with that yammering noble girl has come to a premature end. The grizzled sellsword can’t be too bummed to be leaving the quiet life behind, though I bet he wonders if he’ll ever get to claim the “much better girl” and “much better castle” that Jaime has promised him.
Jon Snow had a chance to claim a girl and a castle of his own, but he chose to stay true to his pledge to the Night’s Watch. So Stannis will have to find someone else to sweet-talk the North on his behalf. And even though life doesn’t actually work this way, it was genuinely moving to see Jon’s decision immediately vindicated when Maester Aemon cast the tie-breaking vote to name him Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. As Sam the Slayer put it so beautifully, “He may be young, but he’s the commander we turned to when the night was darkest.”
I don’t actually think Jon Snow is going to spend the rest of his earthly life abstaining from sex under the shadow of The Wall, but the logic of his character demands that he always make the noblest, most self-denying choice possible, only to be rescued at the last minute by some unlikely chain of events. It’s almost refreshing to have one character who operates in this hokey old way in a fictional universe where almost everyone else is a maze of conflicting, mostly horrifying impulses.
Of course I’m still holding out hope that Jon Snow will eventually end up with Daenerys, whose decision to stick with her principles yields much more problematic results. In fact, she’ll be lucky if she doesn’t end up having to put down a revolution. It all starts when Daario Naharis helps Grey Worm locate the Sons of the Harpy assassin who killed White Rat in the season premiere. “Someone who’s forgotten fear has forgotten how to hide,” Daario declares before jamming his knife into the wall and into the leg of the Harpy, who comes tumbling out through a haze of plaster dust.
0 comments:
Post a Comment