Meera looks off into the distance on Game of Thrones
Photo Credit: HBO
Some quick thoughts on this weeks Game of Thrones right
after I take a glimpse into Hodor’s past…
Whelp…
Since Jon Snow’s death the sole thing that has been
lingering in everyone’s collective mind is when and how are they going to bring
him back. This is not necessarily a good thing, as it seems that people wanted
Jon back not necessarily because he was a dynamite character but rather that it
was a particularly stupid time to kill him off. Jon, at the end of season five,
played a big part of one of the show’s most central plotlines ie the battle
with the white walkers. There was absolutely no reason to kill Jon Snow other than
shock factor and shock factor should not usually be the reason to potentially
muddy up one of the main plotlines on a particular show.
Yet I still admired the guts that Martin and by proxy the
show displayed in adding a little bit of chaos into maybe its most important
storyline, even if I remained baffled as to why. I mentioned in last week’s
review that I was interested in the chaos that the death of Jon Snow could
actually provide. The steps that were taken in the previous episode were
interesting and the conflicts that could have taken place at least peaked my
interest a little bit. Maybe just maybe something interesting could come out of
this chaos, and there will be no need to find a cheap way to have Jon come back
to life.
What foolish hopes those were. One of the other main problem
with killing Jon Snow was that no one reasonably believed that he would stay
dead and everyone was right. The whole crux of the hype around this season was
when and how Jon Snow was going to come back to life so we could all move on
with our lives. And turns out that when was the end of “Home” which featured
Jon Snow miraculously coming back to life via the magic of Melisandre to the
surprise of literally no one. It was so inevitable that Benioff and Weiss would
not be able to write themselves out of this corner that it makes one wonder why
they bothered following Martin’s script and killing him off in the first place.
They did try to make the revival of Jon Snow work well but
it still ultimately came off as an admission that killing him off was not a
good idea. They did keep the revival within the rules of the world for one, we
had seen a light god priest revive someone in the past and so Melisandre trying
to revive at least made since, but it still felt like it was just the writers
scrambling for a way to bring him back. There is a conversation between Davos
and Melisandre to set up the episode’s climactic revival that plays entirely
like the writers admitting that they could not entirely pull it off and apologizing
for such. The death and revival of Jon is just ultimately not satisfying and
has ultimately led to accomplishing nothing but running around in circles.
The rest of “Home” had its ups and downs. The ups were
everything to do with the Lannisters. I am enjoying the slow burn that is going
on with the plotline between Jamie, Cerci, Tommen, and the High Sparrow. The pieces
are slowly beginning to take shape, Tommen is slowly moving around Cerci’s
finger allowing her to again slowly gain the control she had been desperately
seeking since Margery entered the picture, and Jamie is slowly realizing how
much power the Sparrow is gaining. Both arcs are moving at just the right pace
slowly brewing a large conflict that will no doubt begin to take shape late in
the season.
On the other end of the world everything to do with the slow
build of Tyrion has been working great as well. The scene where Tyrion is
talking to and unchaining the dragons so that they can finally get something to
eat was marvellous mostly thanks to the continued greatness of Peter Dinklage.
Beyond it being a great moment for Dinklage it’s interesting to see Tyrion
being put in a character arc in which he is slowly becoming more and more of a
leader. I have been frustrated with Meereen and its general lack of movement
but if it can continue providing great Tyrion character development like it did
here while teasing some movement at the same time I can warm up to it.
The downs of “Home” was everything involving Ramsey Bolton
who has now just transformed into a cartoon. It was never as if the Ramsey arcs
were ever particularly good but now it is just pretty much unbearable. It has
just become sadism for the sake of sadism and his murder of both his father,
mother, and new born brother were the peak of that. At least Joffrey, who bordered
on this level at times, had an interesting chaotic sway on the storytelling.
Ramsey is just here to be an evil cartoon and it has become pointless and
annoying at this point.
What “Home” will ultimately be remembered for though was the
revival of Jon Snow. I am hopeful that what comes of this arc is actually
interesting and not just a continuation of the Wall arc as if the death and
rebirth never happened. Who knows maybe what comes next is super interesting
and the arc of death and rebirth will make since. For now though Jon Snow is
alive and we can all hopefully forget about this strange creative period for
Game of Thrones.
Some other Musings:
- This was not a good episode for the dads of Game of Thrones. Not only did we get the death of Roose Bolton we got to see Balon Greyjoy getting pushed off of a bridge as well. It was prominent enough for me to compel make a bad Prince reference (RIP Prince) in the title of this review so take that for what you will.
- We got the first Bran appearance in a while in “Home.” More importantly though we got HODOR BACKSTORY! Turns out he was once just a lonely stable boy who had a crush on a beautiful lady and could speak! MORE HODOR LORE IS NEEDED!
- Arya is still toiling around without eyes. At least she got to reunite with her clan now. I hope this is going somewhere.
That’s it for this week. Long live Jon Snow!
That's just me though. What did everyone else think
No comments:
Post a Comment