Just in time for the next season, here are my notes for 6.10! I can’t believe I actually did this project. I’ll have the numbers for the season and the series thus far up before season seven premiers, along with my favourite and least favourite seasons (and episodes therein).

6.10 - The Winds of Winter

This episode has a previously on. It concludes at 2:19, and unfortunately informs us that the Dornish plot continues to be a thing. On the funny ha-ha side, it also all but gives away R+L=J. Spoilers!

Miguel Sapochnik, save us!

(4:18) From a nice shot of the Sept of Baelor to pffffffffthahahahahaha oh my god, what is Cersei wearing? This is every bit as ridiculous as Sansa’s extremely empowered costume change at the end of season four, and Ellaria Sand’s extremely evil costume switch between seasons four and five. Female power is a black dress with bizarre shoulderpads, apparently. Swing and a miss, costume department. Swing and a miss.

(4:34) That said, I like this sequence of everyone getting ready. Better still, I like that we see that Cersei’s already dressed while the other major actors are still preparing. If this trial had been built up to better, this would be a kickass way of creating tension. (It’s still pretty good.) The show’s inattention to time and space, however, undermines all build-up, simply because we have no idea when disparate plots occur in relation to each other. The trial stops being a looming deadline, and becomes instead a thing that hasn’t happened yet.

(5:17) Ah, the first notes of a bit of music that really stands out. I’m not sure how I feel about this bit of musical direction. On the one hand, it’s so distinctive within the show, it’s used well with what’s on screen, and as a piece of music I rather like it. On the other hand, it doesn’t fit with the rest of the score.

(5:39) It’s Loras! He’s the heir to Highgarden, his sister the Queen made a deal for his safety, and he’s still unwashed and shaking in a corner, same as he’s presumably been for half the season. Plotwise, Margaery’s deal continues to be amazingly bad. Ethicswise, I do appreciate how this anti-homophobia storyline has just the one gay character and his role in it is to suffer and die.

(6:40) “Your grace? The trial will be getting under way soon.” Right, so, Tommen got prepared for this occasion, then sat down in a chair and did nothing. While we’re talking characters as objects, by the way.

(6:46) Apparently Cersei decided her outfit wasn’t ridiculous enough already and decided to add more shiny. I’d kill to know what this handmaid thinks of this costume change in-universe.

(7:16) Sex workers: 1. Female butts: 1.

(7:19) Boobs: 1. Theft of services jokes: 1.

(8:20) The best establishing shot of the sept thus far gives me a count of 112 people present.

(8:48) This makes me so mad. This didn’t have to be written like this. The writers could have had the fucking decency to instead have Loras say “you know what? Screw you all. I loved Renly. I’m not ashamed to say it.” It’s not out of book canon, given Loras’ “when the sun has set, no candle can replace it.” Show!Brienne is more true to Renly than show!Loras is. As for plot effects, they’re planning to blow up every character who hears this speech. Fuck it. Let him have his dying moment of awesome. Shell game this shit, keep everyone focused on how Margaery’s deal just fell apart, before blowing the place up.

(9:43) On the upside, I love how the iconography of the Seven is kept in view.

(10:20) While the idea of Margaery’s driving motivation being to protect Loras is a good one, this plot is yet another victim of authorial laziness. You’re telling me that the best that politically astute and highly intelligent Margaery could do, given the resources of her family on hand and the relatively small potatoes crime Loras is accused of, was to have Loras forfeit his inheritance? Really?

(10:31) Not to mention “I will never marry and I will never father children” is one hell of a nonsensical plea bargain term. Given the depiction of the Sparrows thus far, and their none too subtle analogue to modern conservative Christianity, you’d think the High Sparrow would order Loras to marry at the first opportunity, get him into the heteronormative box. Failing that, get him into the Kingsguard or the Night’s Watch, somewhere where everyone knows he can’t get married, obviously (and with that “no marrying” clause, Loras’ status can still be reconciled with the heteronormative agenda of the Sparrows). The writers don’t understand religion or politics, news at eleven.

(11:21) Yep, this show is going there. We get to see a religious symbol carved into a gay man’s forehead for the crime of being gay. There was no reason to write this. We got the point that the Sparrows are evil and homophobic ages ago. The fact of the proceedings gets that point across. We got the point that Loras was suffering ages ago too. And in a few minutes, every character here will be blown up, rendering these events entirely pointless for the ongoing plot. Why show us the utterly gratuitous torture of a gay character, explicitly linked to their sexuality? What about this specifically is worth the screen time?

(11:34) I mean, it’s in detail and everything. We get to see Loras flinching in pain, we get closeups of the blood. What is the point. What is even the point.

(11:53) Tommen is still sitting in his room being a living prop for the stories of other people.

(12:35) “And where is the Queen Mother?” Hey, good question! Why wasn’t anyone asking this a while back, like maybe a quarter hour ago when she was supposed to rock up to the venue, especially considering that she killed a member of the last team sent to take her to meet the High Sparrow?

I will tell you why: because plot.

Unlike the books, the show is currently a plot-driven story - and a bad example thereof. Everything that has been done in this storyline has been to herd these half dozen named characters into this sept to get blown up. And if the High Sparrow, Margaery, and Olenna all have to lose their political acumen (and Jaime forget about the King) to accomplish this, so be it. On the flip side, we’ve seen Tommen consistently attempt to take action to protect Margaery, but in order to keep him out of the sept (and make his death somehow Cersei’s fault, as if Margaery hadn’t raped and abused him) today he has decided he doesn’t want to.

(12:42) “It appears the Queen Mother does not wish to attend her own trial.” Noooooo, what tipped you off? Was it the way she ordered her guard to kill one of the last people sent to fetch her somewhere? Can’t be, because if so, you’d’ve compelled her attendance beforehand and taken precautions against Frankengregor!

This is the final reason why “I choose violence” was a nonsense scene. Everyone forgets it happened and proceeds as if it hadn’t.

(12:49) The High Sparrow even sends his key witness to go get Cersei. If I had a desk I would be beating my head against it right about now. Why? Why would you do this? Why would anyone with an ounce of common sense do this, much less a character established to be intelligent?

I spot two Sparrows leaving with Lancel, making it 109 people in the sept.

(13:10) Lancel spots a suspicious small child existing. What about this has aroused his suspicion? It’s a kid. There are many in King’s Landing. What about this kid is worth blowing off his task of seeing the Queen Mother to her regicide trial?

This is just so freakin’ lazy on multiple levels.

(14:11) “What is the meaning of this?” Hey, another good question! Why did Qyburn lure Pycelle down here? Fortunately, we soon get an answer.

(15:03) And the answer is “sheer bloody laziness, again!” The writers did a copy/paste from ADWD, because its epilogue kicks ass, without trying to make it fit in their own story. Why does Pycelle have to die in such a cold dark place, when he was literally going to the trial before Qyburn intercepted him? I’ll give “ushering in the new” a pass because he’s supporting a ruling queen and that actually is new.

(15:27) Deaths: 1. Pycelle, murdered on Qyburn’s orders. By children established to be quite ordinary children working for Qyburn for sugar plums, by the way, rather than Varys’ trained “little birds.”

(16:03) Wow, lucky stab, to get Lancel right in the spine! If the kid had missed, what then?

(16:20) “What are you doing?” Wow, people are just full of good questions right now. What is this kid doing? The implication is that this kid lured Lancel down here, but why? The best explanation I can think of is that it was a last-ditch, poorly thought out means of keeping Lancel in the sept to get exploded. Speaking of. 110 people in the sept, overwhelmingly nobles rather than Sparrows.

(17:00) I want so badly to like this show for what it is. This sequence in particular is so well done, switching back and forth between Cersei patiently staring out over the Sept from a distance, Margaery waiting and trying to work out what’s wrong, and Lancel crawling towards the wildfire in a desperate attempt to stop disaster. The direction has earned the tension it generates here.

And note how knowing when these events are occurring relative to each other makes the tension work! Even when we don’t know what the deadline is, we can see there’s a deadline, and that Lancel and Margaery are both racing against it.

(17:40) Margaery gets her moment of awesome, working out the problem (specifically noting that the threat must be to the whole sept because Tommen is not present, something that indicates to her that he’d be at risk if he was). The High Sparrow switched his brain off for the duration. One smart person per scene!

(18:02) But the leap to “we all need to leave” was a bit out of nowhere. I’d be expecting crossbows before wildfire, which should get a “send your men to search the building.” That would also mean you can stop the High Sparrow looking like more of a fool than he already does for not securing Cersei, spotting the same thing Margaery does and trying to prevent it.

(18:51) Instead of at this last minute, having the Sparrows prevent people from leaving. Because um reasons.

(19:49) Deaths: 113. Cersei blows up the 110 people I counted in the sept, including Margaery, Loras, the High Sparrow, Lancel, Mace Tyrell, and Kevan Lannister. Two more Sparrows die outside the sept.

(19:55) Deaths: 115. Two more people die getting hit by debris. So that’s 114 kills for Cersei. It’s implied to be more.

(20:05) And Cersei, who until now has killed a grand total of three people all series, smirks over the carnage. I find this horribly inconsistent with her characterisation thus far. This is in large part because of decisions made to “soften” Cersei, especially in earlier seasons. Book!Cersei continually demonstrated her incompetence in her failure to rein in Joffrey - and in her inability to see how what Joffrey was doing was a cause of many political problems. That also showed her own lack of empathy. Whereas with show!Cersei, we see her confiding to Margaery, with palpable grief and disgust, that Joffrey’s violence shocked her.

But character development? That reflection on violence comes after the character turning point that is Joffrey’s death. And while Myrcella’s death and Cersei’s (slight) escalation of violence coincide, they don’t seem to be linked well in the narrative, especially as season six makes no mention of Cersei’s hunt for Tyrion, nor includes any real effort on Cersei’s part to get rid of the Tyrells or Martells. I’ll get back to Cersei’s characterisation in a second.

(20:09) Cersei drinks: 1.

(20:30) Meanwhile, Tommen is left completely alone. Because this happens to kings on the regular.

(20:41) Septa Unella is now here and being tortured. How did she get here? Not a clue. Why is this happening? No in-universe reason, but the writers wanted a villain monologue, so here we are anyway.

(21:25) “I do things because they feel good.” Thus far, no. No, Cersei has not. She has, for the most part, been restrained and temperate, often putting aside her hatred of the Tyrells in the best interests of her family, without being browbeaten or overruled. This she was doing to the mid-season mark. Her affair with Lancel is one of the few things she’s done purely because it felt good to her and damn the consequences, but that affair ended four seasons ago. Her relationship with Jaime in the show also lacks (an intentional depiction of) the deeply embedded unhealthiness of its book counterpart. There is every indication that Cersei and Jaime are sincerely in love with each other and engaged in a healthy relationship that just so happens to be incestuous.

Show!Cersei’s overriding motivation has instead been the welfare of her children, to whom she has been a far better parent than her book counterpart. Crucially, show!Cersei has been able to see that her children are independent beings whose needs and desires differ from her own. Her threats to burn cities to the ground have been linked to the welfare of her children, and she hasn’t done it, because burning cities to the ground isn’t what’s best for her children. Until season six, she used violence directly only to protect her children, not to gratify herself, and in season six, her use of violence was directly linked to the sexual abuse and humiliation she suffered at the hands of the Sparrows. And so we now have a weird double standard where Sansa lashing out at her abuser = good, Dany burning down a patriarchal church = good, Cersei lashing out at her abusers (and her son’s abuser) by burning down a patriarchal church = bad.

(21:36) “I killed my husband because it felt good to be rid of him.”

We closed the previous episode on Sansa murdering her abusive husband in a situation where it was clearly apparent that he posed no threat to her any more and never would again. Cersei, meanwhile, murdered her abusive husband while they were still living in the same household as man and wife, he was still king, and he’d hit her across the face the episode before. One of these women killed her abusive husband purely because it felt good to be rid of him, and therefore one of these women is bad.

Just want to keep that double standard firmly in view here.

I mean, aside from the double standard where Cersei blowing up a church is bad, but Dany burning down a church is good.

(22:02) There is no way in hell that Cersei killed every Sparrow in King’s Landing. As I said, there were only about a hundred people in that sept, and most of them were nobles. She killed maybe twenty, twenty-five Sparrows max.

(22:31) Cersei says here that even confessing feels good under the right circumstances. So I’m taking this “feels good” explanation as a retcon. All those times Cersei says that she’s motivated by love for her boyfriend and children, they’re lies and/or denial. All the times she demonstrates by word, deed, or lack thereof that this is the case - that must be some sort of coincidence.

(24:13) There are certainly implications here, but Septa Unella’s exact fate is left somewhat ambiguous.

(24:31) This guy has just been popping in and out to check on Tommen.

(24:48) I like the detail of Tommen taking off his crown. Hell, I like the framing of this. It’s a stunning shot of the burning sept and Tommen’s removal from it.

(25:11) I even like how unceremonious Tommen’s suicide is. After the very dramatic sept explosion, this quiet death in the aftermath I think actually gets the despair.

That said, I loathe the writers’ statements outside the episode that this was all Cersei’s fault. They wrote a story in which Tommen was manipulated and exploited by everyone around him. In particular, we got a good look at how Margaery fostered in him a sense of dependence on her. There’s a strong case to be made that in the show, Cersei manipulated and exploited him least, and was the person most concerned with his welfare and wellbeing. The only reason she’s not here right now is because of sloppy character writing.

Tommen’s arc is a consistent story of the effects of emotional manipulation and abuse perpetrated on a young and vulnerable boy, culminating in his suicide when he cannot handle the sudden violent loss of his foremost abuser, his rapist of a wife. If the writers had the slightest clue that this was the story they were telling, it would have been a worthy and affecting use of screentime. Deaths: 116.

(25:28) All this cheering of “We send our regards!” In-universe failed meme.

(26:10) Arya Stark, world’s worst assassin, stares conspicuously at someone she’s thinking about killing. She’s terrible at this, she really is.

(26:25) Man called ‘cunt’: 1. Bronn’s vocabulary is slightly less limited than that of Karl fuckin’ Tanner, but not much.

(27:12) “Can’t go killing my son-by-law, it wouldn’t be right.” While this is supposed to be ironic, it’s also a pretty weak admission that the plot will be needing Edmure later. Presumably. I think he’s got a good shot of surviving the books, anyway, and wouldn’t be shocked if he was needed for something in the meantime. Re-retaking Riverrun, perhaps, or is that re-re-retaking Riverrun?

(28:28) A rare sign of book!Jaime in his visible discomfort with being compared to Walder Frey.

(29:03) Bookending the season with Cersei burying her children is in theory a very good idea.

(30:12) Ah, a peaceful, sunny green field. Sam and Gilly have arrived near Oldtown at last. What does this mean? Well, it means that Sam, while a guest in his father’s castle, stole a Valyrian steel sword from one of the most powerful men in Westeros and got away scot free.

(30:26) That’s a really nice view of Oldtown.

(30:39) And a nice view of the white ravens leaving the tower to announce to the realm that winter is here.

(30:54) Oh god he’s got a magnifying glass. This scene is going to be “comedic,” isn’t it?

(31:33) I question the decision to make this hall empty. The emptiness makes the Citadel seem unreal, rather than a hub of learning in Westeros.

(31:43) The Citadel is so out of touch that while everyone learned about Stannis’ defeat and Tywin’s death mere minutes after they happened, they still think Jeor Mormont is Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Comedy!

(32:47) And Gilly ends the season standing stunned and alone in the Citadel’s reception area! See you next year! Enjoy the wait!

(33:38) It’s the library from Beauty and the Beast! It’s definitely not like the Library of Alexandria and it’s definitely not doomed. At least Sam has something to do while he waits for next season. And a plot. Maybe some character development. Anything but going from point A to point B repeating the same stale “story” he’s had for the past three seasons.

(34:39) While I think it’s perfectly legit for Jon to be upset about being seated so far away from his family in a manner that states “you are not worth as much as they are,” saying this to Melisandre…might not be the most tactful.

(55:12) Halfway through the final episode of the season, eleven episodes after Shireen’s death and almost ten since Davos and Melisandre reunited, Davos thinks to pursue the line of questioning about Shireen. Liam Cunningham and Carice van Houten do their utmost, but there’s no hiding the fact that this discussion has been postponed in a way that makes absolutely no sense for Davos’ character, to serve the plot interest of kicking Mel into another geographical area.

(36:05) “If he commands you to burn children, your lord is evil.” This is why Stannis’ plot came with the whole fate-of-the-world aspect, so readers could engage with the discussion of lesser evils, rather than pile on with STANNIS BAD. STANNIS WRONG. STANNIS EVIL.

(36:50) Goddamn, the acting here.

(37:52) In the conclusion to this scene we’re shown a few things about Winterfell’s politics right now. Davos and Mel are both treating Jon as the authority in this castle. If Sansa really wants to be Lady of Winterfell, she’s way behind the eight ball on this one. Lacking a formal decision about who’s in charge, Jon is acting as though he is in charge in a way that Sansa is not. I have no doubt that Jon didn’t think about it; I can’t believe that Sansa is supposed to be this political mastermind now if she’s missed this fact.

Second, it’s nice to see a little justice around the place. Punishing Mel for Shireen’s burning gets Jon nothing except Davos’ good opinion, and not even that unreservedly since he went with banishment rather than execution; he’s clearly doing it because burning children = bad. But at the same time, he asked Mel to speak in her own defence, listened to her arguments, and modified her sentence. This is a good solid stab at being fair and just from Jon.

Finally, last season I mentioned I don’t see how Shireen’s burning caused the retaking of Winterfell. Did the storms hold off all season because of that sacrifice?

(38:48) Lovely shot of Jon and Sansa.

(38:56) “I’m having the lord’s chamber prepared for you.” So Jon’s been giving orders to the castle staff as well, once more in a way that demonstrates his love and respect for his trueborn siblings. Watch Jon accidentally Bavarian Fire Drill into kingship by acting like the Lord of Winterfell while publicly going against Westerosi bastard stereotype. I really don’t think the writers knew what they were writing here.

In the meantime, what has Sansa been doing? I mean, I know the writers can’t actually think of things for her to do, but this is getting ridiculous.

(39:08) Jon shows a far greater appreciation for the symbolic value of that bedroom than Sansa has. And she’s supposed to be the politically astute one?

(39:18) No. No, Jon, you are not standing in Winterfell because of Sansa. You nearly failed entirely because of Sansa. You lost hundreds of your own men because of Sansa’s incompetence and bad faith.

Jon made a bad decision on the day of the battle. It was a shocker. It was really, really bad. Before that point, he had bad options, worse options, and limited means of telling which was which.

Sansa, however, has been lying since 6.05, withholding not tactical information, but strategic information. Those lies shaped the entire campaign. Sansa tells Jon that they might be able to get the Vale on side? They can go to every Northern lord and say “the Knights of the Vale are riding to our aid, they’ve retaken Moat Cailin, they’ll be available when the plot requires,” thereby offering far greater chances of success and incentive to North Remembers. If Sansa didn’t see how her lies affected the way in which the entire campaign was fought, she’s staggeringly incompetent. If Sansa did see this, she’s staggeringly malicious.

And, possessed of detailed information about Jon’s plan, Ramsay’s likely counters, the composition of both armies, and the terrain on which the battle would be fought, she clearly did not relay this to the Vale commanders and okayed the charge right into Stark forces. That’s plain old incompetence. That incidentally got a lot of people on her own side killed. (Or at least it should have, given the shots of the battle we were shown.)

It may be true that the knights of the Vale only rode north because of Sansa. It does not absolve her of the veritable mountain of bullshit that was denying Jon and through him Team Stark of all the benefit of those knights until it suited Sansa’s personal agenda.

There is no way around it. Bad writing, specifically the rape-revenge plot the writers were so eager to insert and the side effects of this plot, have utterly destroyed this character as a consistent, intelligent, decent protagonist. This would not be an issue if Sansa had stayed in the Vale, or even if the writers had boned up on the most basic information about medieval warfare. The staggering incompetence here is to be found on the writing staff.

Oh, and if Jon doesn’t see this, it reflects poorly on him as well.

(39:36) “Only a fool would trust Littlefinger.” I can’t decide whether that’s Sansa bashing herself, the writers bashing Ned, or both.

(39:42) “I should have told you about [Littlefinger].” YES. YES YOU SHOULD HAVE. This apology is so inadequate under the circumstances I cannot even.

(40:20) A sibling moment of trust and affection, emphasising the importance of sticking together in tough times. I don’t suppose this is going to be undermined later.

(41:13) Olenna’s historical references prove that the showrunners have read the books. At least once. Or they skimmed it, at least. Look, they’re long books, okay.

(41:19) “You murder your own prince, and you expect me to trust you?” So many good questions.

(41:35) Ah, Olenna’s consistently-depicted misogyny. How I’ve missed it. Obara was making a point quite civilly - not delicately, but civilly. No call for rudeness.

(41:44) I think the Sand Snakes were as poorly-written as the next critic. That doesn’t mean I think it’s good storytelling to see diplomatic mastermind Olenna Tyrell be horrible to them (since that apparently demonstrates that she’s clever and no-nonsense), nor entertaining to hear yet more sexism from her.

(42:04) There’s no telling how removed in time this scene is from the beginning of the episode. It clearly has to be a while.

(42:23) More copy/pasting from the books without thought about how it fits into the story the show is telling. “Our heart’s desire” doesn’t work with Ellaria as it works for Doran, because Doran’s the one with almost two decades of investment into seeing the Lannisters brought down.

(42:39) Hey, Varys. Nice to see you here in Dorne.

(43:42) It’s nice that the writers found a way to further whittle down the cast list without outright killing everyone inconvenient. This is just a nicely-timed breakup from Dany.

(45:36) They’re just tying up Meereen with a nice little bow, all its problems magically solved. How wonderful that this seasons-long plot can be left behind in such a state.

(47:51) Dany admits she felt nothing as she said goodbye to Daario. Easy enough to depict. Not like we’ve been getting much of Dany’s interiority all season, since she’s mostly been bouncing from plot point to plot point. Daario and Tyrion have both outlined how she feels at points, but Dany herself has done precious little expressing her own emotions.

(49:05) I would like to enjoy this scene for what it is, too, but Dany and Tyrion have barely interacted. The only time they’ve done so this season, Tyrion was too busy covering his ass to actually help her.

(49:55) Like the Citadel, the Twins has cleared out so the main characters can interact unbothered by pesky extras.

(50:52) Arya got the hang of dramatic baking. No, I don’t know how she got the two Freys alone, killed them, butchered them imperfectly, and found the time and materials to bake them into a pie in a busy castle kitchen, or the reasons she would do this particular grisly act specifically (unlike Lord Manderly who served people who were definitely not his guests as a pie at a wedding), but who cares, it’s Frey Pie. Copy/paste from ADWD, it always works!

(51:09) Arya, confirmed. Don’t ask how she got here from Braavos, either.

(51:24) Deaths: 117. Arya kills Walder Frey. Disturbing and intentionally so, which actually makes it a terrible leaving-off point for her. We already knew she was capable of this sort of violence. So hooray vengeance, I guess, but what does this mean for Arya that we don’t already know?

(52:24) Being a smart, empowered woman, Sansa is now an atheist. The sensitive and nuanced depiction of religion continues.

(52:42) Being a smart, empowered woman, Sansa despises her past self for being a little girl.

(53:36) Show!Littlefinger’s endgame is apparently him on the Iron Throne with Queen Sansa. He also only apparently acts if he thinks the action will bring him closer to that endgame. How did marrying Sansa off to Ramsay, whom Littlefinger know nothing about, while Winterfell was about to be under siege, help in the slightest? It doesn’t and it hasn’t.

(54:20) Forget Sansa for the moment, I can’t believe Littlefinger is very good at politics if he’s missed how Jon’s back in Winterfell getting the castle reorganised and settling disputes between important political figures while Sansa sits outside in the snow doing nothing. When he asks “who should the North rally behind” he’s ignoring the fact that in the castle, yes that castle, the one over there, the North’s already looking in a particular direction - because on the facts, Jon’s the one trying to do the job. And Littlefinger should bloody well know how a man lacking station can wrangle greater authority than his birth might otherwise allow.

It’s the writers. It’s always the writers. They don’t understand how this works, and they consistently have problems finding Sansa things to do.

(54:33) Littlefinger reminding us of Jon’s lack of mother and giving us, for the first time, the information that Jon was born in the south.

(55:22) A good sensible reason for Uncle Ben not crossing the Wall with Bran and Meera, foreshadowing the “while it stands” part…but they still look a fair ways off the Wall to me.

(56:45) Why Bran is so eager to hop right back into flashback town is also an in-universe mystery. Out of universe, well, we got some longstanding mysteries to reveal in a super inappropriate place. But at least we’ll stop getting jerked around by the showrunners on this count.

(57:27) “Ned?” “Lyanna!” See how much better that was done than “that’s my father!”

(58:46) While this scene is mostly really good, they left out one single detail. Rhaegar. This single detail puts everything into context. Hence the flowchart HBO had to release after the episode to show that no, Jon isn’t Ned’s son by his sister. Imagine if this had been foreshadowed, though! That would have been really good!

(59:13) And while Isaac Hempstead-Wright has been really good this season, his reaction shots are missing the mark here a bit, in that I’m not sure what he’s feeling about what he’s watching. Is he confused? Upset? I can’t tell.

(59:32) Then we cut to Jon, so the audience puts it together. Who knows if Bran did? Who cares if Bran did, amirite? What a twist this is!

(59:48) Even more shocking, there are Northern lords. They exist!

(1:00:41) Not going to elaborate on this “the enemy brings the storm” business, Jon? I think most of the people in this room could do with a firsthand account of your fight at Hardhome, backed up by Tormund and crew…

(1:00:58) Now they’re just rubbing in the lack of North Remembers, by referencing Lord Manderly who didn’t do a damn thing in spite of the fact his son was murdered at the Red Wedding.

(1:01:20) Lyanna Mormont’s got a better grasp of rhetorical device than Ramsay Bolton did. “You refused the call” is working for her a lot better than “come and see” did for him.

(1:01:45) Oh boy. Politics. Ever the strong suit of the writers. There were ways this scene could have made more sense if they tried for it, and Lyanna Mormont’s speech hit none of them. The object of this scene, crowning Jon king, is fighting a steep uphill battle against precedent. If Jon is crowned while Sansa is alive (and, like, right there), every lord in that room and their wives have to worry about their bastard siblings and children. Lyanna Mormont’s speech does not address this important issue. All she has to say about Jon’s bastard status is “I don’t care.” Great. Solves everything. Not.

This speech could also have put forward a strong argument against Sansa, leaving the meat of the role to Jon by default (since none of the assembled lord here know Bran’s alive). Sansa’s been married into not one but two enemy houses. Sansa’s a girl. We need a strong (read: male) leader through the winter. Someone could bring up the fact that she’s been lying for months, to the very great detriment of House Stark (but that would have its own backlash with the Vale knights). Unpleasant and nakedly sexist, but within in-universe bounds thereof, not far off how book!Kevan was planning to shunt Cersei, Lady of Casterly Rock, to one side. I can see why the showrunners opted against that.

Or, Sansa could have given this speech. This makes it clear that Sansa’s exercising her own agency, abdicating her claim on Winterfell, and that Jon taking over is an exception to the rules about bastards inheriting. It’s also far better from a character standpoint, as by doing this Sansa would make it clear she’s picking Jon and House Stark, and fuck what Littlefinger wants.

(1:02:23) “I didn’t commit my men to your cause, because I didn’t want more Manderlys dying for nothing.” First, grr, not nothing. The Manderlys stood to benefit quite substantially from an independent North, as they hold the North’s only warm-water port and were angling to mint the North’s currency. (In the books, anyway.) Second, so what he’s saying is, if he’d been told the Knights of the Vale were heading up the Kingsroad, he would have committed to the Stark cauase.

(1:02:34) Jon Snow avenged the Red Wedding? The only thing we’ve heard Northerners say about the Red Wedding thus far is “Robb deserved it!” Not a peep about the other Northerners murdered in that slaughter. The Tullys were more pissed off about it!

(1:03:33) THE KING IN THE NORTH! Is seriously undermined by the failure to address the whole “bastard” thing, the fact that every astute political move he’s made in the past two episodes was essentially an accident by the writing staff, and his major fuckups in the most recent battle!

(1:04:09) Sansa’s sitting there, not saying anything, but looking very pissy again. Well, she could have said something. She could have been saying something all season. And she could have done things to reccommend herself as a leader.

I will say this for the Northerners. They may have picked an incompetent leader, but they at least picked a leader acting in their best interests and in good faith. Show!Sansa has demonstrated that she’ll do the exact opposite.

(1:04:29) Another very nice shot of the smoking Sept of Baelor, from Jaime’s perspective. Still don’t know when these scenes occur relative to each other.

(1:04:45) Oh my god. As if that first black outfit with ridiculous shoulderpads wasn’t bad enough, here’s another one! Now with even more ridiculous shoulderpads!

(1:05:58) Here’s where I’m going to talk about acceptable breaks from reality again. In a fantasy series, I honestly don’t mind if the writers let physics slide a bit. In many ways, that’s the genre for you. But fantasy lets physics slide so it can tell stories about people. That, for me, is the cardinal sin of any fantasy work - not telling a story about people. A candle going out instantly when it’s cut in half bugs me, but I can let it go. A city full of people standing idly by after their major religious institution and their beloved queen were blown up? Nope.

The Dorne scene almost has to be a flash-forward weeks after this event. Cersei should not be alive at this point. Mob rule should have overtaken King’s Landing. Why would even the Lannister guards follow Cersei after she blew up their holy place, and a bunch of their colleagues (since Kevan was there)? Where are the thousands of people who massed outside that sept to watch Margaery take a walk of shame? They’re not dead. They can’t be. Where is the mass protest? How can this coronation even happen under the circumstances? Shouldn’t all these nobles be run off their feet trying to defend their holdings in or near the city?

These people aren’t behaving like people, and I find it far less believable than a candle going out.

(1:06:27) Jaime, like Sansa, also finishes out his season looking somewhat pissy.

(1:06:49) Love this shot of Theon looking at the Greyjoy flag.

(1:08:19) The only complaint I have with closing out the season on Dany setting sail is the fact that Varys is here.





Game of Numbers S06E10

Deaths: 117. I know! This episode is less lethal than Battle of the Bastards! I’m as surprised as you are! Anyway, Qyburn kills Pycelle, Arya kills Walder Frey, and Tommen commits suicide. The other 114 casualties of the episode, including Margaery, Loras, Lancel, Mace Tyrell, Kevan Lannister, and the High Sparrow, are all Cersei’s work.

Boobs: 1.

Abs & pecs: 0.

Female butts: 1.

Male butts: 0.

Sex workers: 1.

Woman called ‘cunt’: 0.

Man called ‘cunt’: 1.

Tyrion drinks: 0. (He does have a decanter of wine close to hand, though.)

Cersei drinks: 1.