Game of Thrones S8.05 — Dracarys
Spoilers below for Game of Thrones S8.05 — The Bells
Isn’t it great when people work out their differences and come to an agreement without ending in violence?
Well, that is certainly not what happened in tonight’s episode of Thrones. The episode starts with Varys writing a note that Jon is the rightful heir to the throne, which I’m pretty sure was sent, though we don’t know to whom. Shortly after, Tyrion tattles on Varys to Daenerys, who is more than a little shook by the beheading of Missandei. She is obviously pissed that Varys has committed treason, but she understands that the impetus for this act came first from Jon telling Sansa and the game of telephone that followed. Treason all around her.
Varys is burnt alive, but not before cryptically telling them, basically, that he did what he did for the realm. We get it. Tyrion is now pretty nervous around Daenerys and he is trying his best to remind her that innocent people should not die unless it seems absolutely necessary. He explains that if they ring the bells in King’s Landing, it means that they have surrendered. Grey Worm hears this and Tyrion makes a point of telling Jon as well.
Tyrion hears that Jaime is held captive by Daenerys’ army after he was caught trying to sneak back into King’s Landing to help Cersei. Despite literally all better judgement, Tyrion goes to his tent and releases him. He tells Jaime to sneak Cersei away through the underground tunnels and out in a dingy. He reminds him of the bells as well and tells him to ring them when they are leaving. Then, he frees him.
Daenerys’ army gather outside the gate at King’s Landing, where they are waiting for her signal. On the Bay, the Iron Fleet waits for her, too. This time, she somehow very quickly surprises them and makes short work of their scorpions and ships. It was funny that they kept yelling “fire” because that’s exactly what they got. Euron’s ship is hit, but I’ve heard enough times from Dan that characters are not actually dead unless you see them die, so we were pretty sure that wasn’t the end of him.
And what’s Daenerys’ signal? The gates erupt in flames and so do most of the Golden Company. Well, that was easy. The ones that weren’t completely massacred by the dragon are then attacked by Dothraki and Unsullied. This doesn’t seem too bad after everyone worried that she wouldn’t be able to beat them because her army was injured and greatly reduced and she lost 2 of her dragons.
The army heads into the city and meets the rest of the Golden Company. At this point, Daenerys and her dragon have basically done their job and she is sitting on the top of a tower, looking towards the Red Keep, where Cersei is watching. There’s a pretty long pause where she stares at the Red Keep, Cersei stares at the dragon, Jon & Grey Worm stare at the Golden Company, and Tyrion stares at the bell. They cut between these longing glances a few times until we really, really get the picture and then the bell rings. (One note: we still don’t know who rang the bell).
Tyrion breathes a sigh of relief. The Golden Company drop their swords. A single tear runs down Cersei’s cheek.
On her dragon, Daenerys is suffering from inner turmoil. She realizes that they have surrendered and at the same time, how much she wanted to wreak destruction and burn this mother to the ground. All of her life, she has dreamt of the moment she could come back to Westeros and take revenge on all of the people who wanted her dead and who hurt her family. They made a point to remind us that Targaryens be crazy (at least half of them) and the entire show has been leading us to this. Will she be able to control her anger and fire-lust or will she end up like her father, the Mad King?
The dragon is off and the carnage begins. Meanwhile, Grey Worm remembers the vengeance he wishes to seek and, even though the Golden Company had nothing to do with her death, throws his spear at the unarmed men and the fighting begins again.
Jon, ever the idealist, is aghast and tries to pull his men back, but it’s a little difficult to do in the midst of serious fighting. He saves a woman from one of his own men who is trying to rape her and does a lot of brow furrowing while he considers what a terrible person his aunt has turned out to be.
The burning, raping, and pillaging continue for a long time, making up most of the rest of the episode, so I’m not going to spend much time on it. I will say that there is a woman and child we see a lot, who I guess serve as a reminder that the people who are being burned are human. I think we all knew that, but in case there were any Daenerys’ watching, it would help them.
Jaime couldn’t get into King’s Landing through the gate, so he took the long way. As he’s heading up from the beach, he runs into Euron, of course, who is coming up from the water after he jumped ship. He basically challenges Jaime to a duel, which everyone knows Euron should win. They fight, Euron lands some really bad stabs on Jaime, and then somehow Jaime kills Euron, and walks away pretty normally.
Arya & the Hound do make it into King’s Landing and the Red Keep. They have a final conversation where the Hound explains that if she continues this life bent on revenge, she will end up like him. More scared of ending up like him than anything else she has faced in her life, she thanks him and decides to leave.
Unfortunately, back out in the streets, she is trampled, knocked unconscious, and almost killed. She sees the mother and child ( HUMANS) burnt almost beyond recognition and jumps on the magical horse that was waiting for her. I’m hoping that she is heading north to rally Sansa and the troops so they can come and take Daenerys down.
And we finally get Clegane Bowl. The Hound encounters the Mountain, Qyburn, and Cersei on the steps as they are attempting to get her to safety. All the Hound wants is to kill his brother, so when Cersei and Qyburn try to get the Mountain to return to her side, he throws Qyburn against the wall, splattering his brains. Cersei, taking her cue, walks right by the Hound. Couldn’t he have just reached out and stabbed her??
The brothers fight and the Hound is basically getting his ass kicked. He finally stabs the Mountain, sending the sword all the way through…but obviously that didn’t work because he isn’t alive! The fight is a bit one-sided now, so the only chance the Hound has is to hurl the both of them off the platform, where they die together.
If that sounds anticlimactic, just wait. Jaime catches up with Cersei and he takes her down to the underground tunnels. The dragon has been blowing everything to smithereens so they are all blocked up. The ceiling crumbles as they die together, underground. Wow.
What is most disappointing about this episode and this season is that they have removed the personalities that we have grown to know and love from these characters and instead made them all basically bland or stupid. For example:
- Tyrion was the smartest and most cynical and now he is an idealistic idiot who believes everyone at face value.
- Cersei was a cunning and ruthless villain who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted and now she is just crying in the Keep while she loses her throne.
- Daenerys was a complex woman with a real passion for making the world a better place and a propensity for mental illness and now she is a monster obsessed with fire and revenge.
- Grey Worm was a strong and thoughtful military leader and now he is attacking unarmed men.
- Arya was literally the most badass assassin who was never scared and did not need help from anyone and now she is running away from the #1 on her list and letting innocent people die around her.
- Jon was a brooding, naive annoying guy and now…he’s still all that but he will also be the king of Westeros likely.
But actually, my hope is that the show ends with no Iron Throne. Maybe they melt it down and do something cool with it, but basically the goal would be that everyone can rule their own areas because that is what makes the most sense. Jon can go back North with Sansa, Yara can stay in the Iron Islands, hell, I’ll even let Gendry keep Storm’s End. No more Iron Throne, just lots of feudalism.
I guess we’ll see next week, though.
Originally published at http://lizziekreitman.wordpress.com on May 13, 2019.