Happy endings

One of Ramsay Bolton's quotes has become something of a tagline for Game of Thrones: "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." It's not from the books but it's assumed that it was directed at the audience of both books and TV show, since so many people are programmed from childhood to assume that "... happily ever after." is the natural order of stories. No one should have ever assumed that about A Song of Ice and Fire and this latest episode kind of drove that point home, albeit somewhat obtusely.

This is the first episode of the season where I felt that Benioff and Weiss were back to hewing to Martin's template, rather than just trying to tie up plot threads in as expedient a manner as possible. The end of some major characters and the transformation of others were things that were essentially fated to happen. Despite Varys' good intentions, the idea that the entire power structure, tradition, and thousands of years of history (and the entrenched power that dictated that history) of Westeros were going to transform into a peoples' utopia through the efforts of a small group of those same power-wielders was never anything more than actual fantasy. Similarly, anyone that was actually paying attention knew that Dany was weighed down by her heritage and, when push came to shove, was going to follow in the time-honored path of most Targaryens: fire and blood. There are no surprises here; a rather demonstrable lack of subtlety perhaps, but no surprises.

Likewise, Jaime and Cersei's story was always going to end in tragedy. Despite both of them being among the most interesting of all characters in the story (especially Jaime, for me), it was written into their bones that they would not be creating a new life in Pentos when the Dragon Queen took over. Cersei's ambition and viciousness were inevitably going to end her and she was the addiction that he simply couldn't break. You don't need a prophecy to tell you that (and I guess you could say he fulfilled it by taking her down to the catacombs where they both died, but that is a rather oblique finish.) Furthermore, her ending was always going to be kind of routine. There would be no moment where the audience could feel satisfied that the Evil Queen got her just desserts. Cersei as much as predicted what would happen during the siege of the city by the Baratheons; the same things that always happen to non-combatants in war. Their end was perfectly in line with expectations. What I think all of this appropriate drama suffered from is that the story is simply too large for the show to handle and always has been.

Dany's descent into the Mad Queen took place off-stage, between the execution of the one person she genuinely trusted and the opening of this episode. That's it. It's a progression that would have taken a few hundred pages in the novels, if not more. We didn't even get to see it because the series is wrapping up. It's the same problem that surrounds the Night King's demise. Here are huge events in the story, even on a very personal level with Dany, that need room for the audience to breathe in and absorb. Instead, they're happening like someone flipped a switch. And it's not just with Dany. Her decision to light up King's Landing even after hearing the bells is immediately taken up by her army, Dothraki, Unsullied, and northerners alike, with a show of bloodlust that fairly belied the circumstances. Here was a standoff where one side was visibly giving up and when the dragon starts roasting them anyway, that's a signal to attack...? There's plenty of history that tells you that when armies enter a city after a long siege, the looting and the raping and the pillaging begins. But this was a siege of a couple days and the scene didn't play that way at all. Dragon knocks doors down, army enters to little resistance, enemy surrenders, and... killfest time? Dany's descent into familial madness doesn't mean that everyone around her instantly follows. I guess you could argue that the nature of the Dothraki and the pent up anger of the northerners toward the Lannisters and the Unsullied led by the extremely outraged Grey Worm all contributed to that instant battle frenzy, but it struck me as very awkward.

But this is where epics sometimes run aground. Everyone who reads or watches a story has their own estimation of what the ending is going to be like and you're rarely going to please everyone. Take a look at the endings of shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad as examples. But when you're irritating pretty much everyone, not just with the events, but how they're delivered, there's something else that's wrong. And, again, this is the problem of switching media. D&D are trying to end this epic. These are tragedies that Martin has been building toward for 20 years. Trying to do justice to them in the space allowed by six episodes of TV just isn't feasible. This was the episode where it really felt like the series was back to the flavor and character of Martin's writing after a two year absence. But it's also the one that perhaps shows how it was never going to work in the first place.

Technical stuff:

George Patton once said: "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man." But he was speaking from the perspective of someone in the 20th century, fully engaged in the concept of modern mobile warfare. Back in the Middle Ages or the approximate technology level of Game of Thrones, the worst possible thing you can do when trying to defend your fortification is walk outside your fortification! But now we've seen it happen in two episodes this season. Maybe you can justify it in the battle of Winterfell, since the whole plan was a delaying tactic until the Night's King could be drawn out... but, no. This episode had even less justification, since the troops were sheltering inside a ring of scorpions to keep the dragon away. Stepping outside to meet the enemy in the field wrecks that plan quite nicely. I'm not normally one to nitpick things in a fantasy story, but they at least have to make some kind of sense. This doesn't. Also, what exactly is the point of having gates with a visible gap between the doors, as one set in the inner walls of the city was shown? Inner walls are supposed to be used as stages to drop back to when under siege, which means that gates there should be the same as the ones shown outside and not be useless in a fight. Production error, like the magical coffee cup?

Speaking of scorpions, one upside was that we finally got to see what it's really like trying to use siege weapons against anything other than things that don't move (aka walls): They're slow, heavy, and clumsy. "Reload! Faster!" No, no, you're just not going to do it "faster" because siege weapons are not fast, especially when trying to engage the medieval equivalent of an F-15 with a fully automatic howitzer. Also, perhaps I missed something, but how exactly were the bells pertinent to Dany? We saw Tyrion explain his plan to Jaime and then explain it to Jon, but Dany wasn't privy to those conversations. So, when the bells are rung, that's what triggers her to act on Missandei's last word? That just seemed like something hit the cutting room floor that we otherwise should have seen.

One real downside of Martin not having his effective hand on the tiller is the degeneration of Tyrion as a character. As noted before, Tyrion's adherence to his new outlook on life has become less tragic and more annoying than anything else. He's wedded to the same fantasies that Dany and Varys were, but has spent all of this season and much of the last two expressing them in an ever more dolorous fashion. In the middle of trying to insist to Dany that she should find another way of taking the city, he insists on the crackpot plan of escaping to Pentos for his two siblings. Family loyalty and childhood memories run deep; I get that. But woeful, tragic Tyrion is a lot less interesting than canny, smart, and still tragic Tyrion. Martin has said before that the Imp is the character he's closest to and who carries what is essentially GRRM's outlook on life and it's never been more obvious that D&D don't have anywhere near the grasp on him than it has been since the series departed the books.

It was a nice touch to see Arya standing alone in the aftermath, which highlights her character in many ways. Adding in the pale horse ("Then I looked and saw before me a pale horse; he who rode upon it was named Death; and hell followed with him." - Revelation 6:8.) was also appropriate for those of us into those kind of apocalyptic scenarios.

Two fight scenes, two impressions: The Clegane Bowl was decent. I kind of wish that there'd been a way to distinguish between what the Mountain could endure just because he was Gregor and what being a zombie version of Gregor was able to grant him in that fight. Having to follow the typical zombie routine of "aim for the head" was, however, quite disappointing. But the Euron/Jaime "showdown" was completely superfluous. It was basically just a way to give Euron something to do other than being roasted by a dragon with hundreds of others and somehow grant a latter-day lover's quarrel between the two of them over Cersei. That's just completely ham-handed writing and a real waste of a few minutes of screen time.

Lines of the week:

"Alright, then, Let it be fear."
Kind of a setup line for something everyone could see coming, but at least it was delivered with conviction.

"I drink to eat the skull keeper."
Communication is essential.

But the winner, as always and forever, is the Hound:

"Yeah. That's you. That's what you've always been."
That line applies to so many characters in this episode.

Still the best character in the story, dead or alive.