Once upon a time, Game of Thrones didn’t do proper finales. Those first three seasons, as Benioff and Weiss established the show first as a surprise critical hit, then as an audience driven one, and then into a global phenomenon, the show kept a strange rhythm not seen in other shows that came before–placing the big climax in the penultimate episode, and leaving the finale to basically function as a reset button, where everyone picked up the pieces from the fall out and found their marks to stay on until the show returned the next year. It wasn’t until Season 4, when the show reached the end of Martin’s opening trilogy (and some might argue the coherent part of the novels) that they first did something that amounted to a proper finales, with characters stories reaching their stopping points coinciding with the end of the season, as is more traditional.
Qyburn: “Sometimes before we can usher in the new, the old has to be put to rest.”
But though we have had now three proper finales in three seasons, none felt quite so final as this one. Season 4 seems to suggest a new chapter was going to begin for many of our players, while last year’s finale was a nadir, the darkest hour in a show that had plumbed the depths of darkness all season. This season, the show put on what might just be its finest hour to date, as our character found themselves with everything they ever wanted, since they were old enough to know what wanting was.
Cersei Lannister is Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and all that opposed her are dead. Jon Snow is King in the North, and the Houses all stand behind him, ready to fight the Night King. Arya Stark is murdering her enemies with the training she got from the Faceless Men. Sam has found heaven in the form of the greatest library in the world. (Complete with those same astrolabes that light the opening map!) Tyrion Lannister is Hand of his Monarch, not because his father gave it to him, but because he earned it. And Daenerys Targaryen is coming to Westeros, with her unstoppable army of everyone.
But for every “happy” ending in this finale, a shadow looms. The largest shadow of course, was the pall cast by the first half an hour of the program, dedicated to King’s Landing. The show, which has always been in a round robin format, switched things up again, with the opening scene taking up the majority of the hour–previously only episodes that were single location spent as long in one place during the top half of the episode. (Even the very first season, where there simply weren’t that many locations would cut away from Westeros to Essos before the half hour mark, and other episodes with long periods spent in one place–like the Purple Wedding, or Hardhome–saved them for the bottom half of the hour.) But then again, everything about King’s Landing was topsy turvey, not just where it sat in the episode, The music, for instance was striking–this was a track that sounded like nothing we heard played under our scenes in Westeros before, and with good reason. Even as we contrasted Margaery’s hair being braided for her, while the High Sparrow shrugged himself into his plain shift, something was already very wrong.
Cersei: “Confess it felt good beating me, starving me, frightening me, humiliating me. You didn’t do it because you care about my atonement, you did it because it felt good.”
In one fell swoop, Cersei took out everyone in King’s Landing who stood in her way, in the show’s largest bloodbath to date. (Olenna asked her sneeringly the last time she saw her: “What are you going to do, kill them all yourself?” Turns out the answer was “Well actually….”) The High Sparrow. Margaery, Mace and Loras Tyrell. Kevan and Lancel Lannister. Pycelle. Unella. Even Tommen. She may have kept him home and safe. (His absence, more than Cersei’s seemed to be what triggered Margaery’s certainty that something terrible was about to befall them all.)
But by leaving him in his chamber to watch the destruction of the Sept and her finest hour unfold, she revealed to him who would really be running things from here on out–and Tommen, knowing that he could never stand up to such a horror, did the only thing he could. He took off his crown, threw himself out the window, and joined her death toll. Ten episodes ago, it would have been the ultimate punishment. Now it was merely another notch on her belt, and the last hurdle removed from her stepping forward and sitting on the Iron Throne herself: Cersei Lannister, First of Her Name–the Mad Queen.
But though Cersei might have achieved her happily ever after, the shadow lies in wait. Down south, Olenna and Varys have finally come together to solve a problem like Dorne. (It turns out having the Queen of Thrones insult the Sand Snakes on the audience’s behalf is the answer.) In doing so, they also join forces with Dany and her oncoming army to take out the Lannisters. But the shadow also sits watching closer to home as well. Jaime rides to King’s Landing, thinking he will rescue Cersei from her trial, only to discover she’s moved beyond his help. And the horror he once worked so hard to prevent–the horror that drove him to slay his own king, forever ruining his name–had been perpetrated by his own flesh and blood.
Walder Frey: “Here we are now, two Kingslayers!”
Jaime wasn’t the only shadow standing in the wings, regarding the horror taking place before him. Earlier that evening, another shadow had stood in the corner, watching him and Walder Frey. When Jaime saw her she smiled coquettishly and looked away, like a serving girl caught staring at the high born lord. But that face was merely one she wore. Underneath, we learned that serving wench had minced Walder Frey’s sons into the pie he was eating. Underneath that face was Arya Stark’s.
Audiences at home probably thrilled to see Walder die with the face of a Stark smiling down upon him, his own sons digesting in his belly, I have so many questions–starting with did Arya just grab a few faces from the hall on her way out the door? Followed by, are we really supposed to cheer on Arya, whose smile and face was as placid and cold as Cersei’s surveying the body of her last child before declaring his body should be burnt, and his ashes added to the pile of those that now were mixed in among the smoking ruins of the Sept? Arya Stark of Winterfell is supposedly going home, and may yet return to there, once news of Jon and Sansa’s great victory spreads. But the girl who left there so long ago is a cold blooded killer now, and one that should frighten anyone among whom she dwells.
Not that Sansa is much warmer. The scene between her and Jon earlier in the episode was one of the few sweeter spots in an episode of death, as they cheer on the official arrival of winter. (Dad did always promise.) But though Sansa says that only a fool trusts Littlefinger, the man still pours poison in her ear, how she is the trueborn Stark, while Jon is “a motherless southerner.” The way the smile slowly slips from her face as she catches Littlefinger’s eye, surrounded by chants of “King In The North” is worrisome. How long until her own ambitions begin to cloud her eyes to the truth of Littlefinger’s dream–it is he who sits upon the Iron Throne, not her.
Tyrion: “I’ve been a cynic for as long as I can remember. Everyone’s always asking me to believe in things: family, gods, kings, myself. It was often tempting until I saw where belief got people. I said no thank you to belief. Yet here I am. I believe in you.”
If Littlefinger and Sansa take Jon Snow down, there will be no resurrection either. Jon Snow has gone and done the honorable thing again–dismissing Melisandre from his service upon learning she burned Shireen at the stake. It may be true that these are the sorts of things he does not want done in his name. (And that Melisandre’s declaration last week that she’ll do whatever her god tells her, and pay no mind to Jon’s orders probably played into his decision.) But we already know that doing the “honorable” thing is also usually the stupid one in a world where the enemies are bringing the storm wherever they go.
Not just the enemies in the North either. The woman who is literally named Stormborn is finally turning her back on Essos, Meereen, and even Daario. She has no need for love. She has only the need of the best of those around her, be it their swords, their ships or their wisdom. It may seem like a bit of a motley crew that board those ships, from Theon to Yara, to Grey Worm to Missandei, to newly appointed Hand of the Queen Tyrion to Time Traveler extraordinaire Varys, but together with her dragons, they make a fearsome team. Westeros is never going to know what hit it.
But the shadow of the past awaits. Dany is not the only Targaryen in the world. Littlefinger may call him a motherless southerner. Lyanna Mormont may have just crowned him King in the North. But tonight, after nearly 20 long years since A Game of Thrones was first published, we finally saw inside the Tower of Joy. We finally saw Lyanna whisper to Ned Stark, and hand him that baby–the one he took back to Winterfell and told everyone was his bastard. (Nice dissolve from baby to Jon’s face, by the way.) And though the show didn’t spell it out for us this time, it didn’t matter much. R+L=J. It will have to do, as the shadow of the long wait for Season 7 is cast over us all.
Via http://winteriscoming.net/2016/06/27/game-of-thrones-the-winds-of-winter-thematic-analysis/
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