Game of Thrones S8 EP5 – For whom the Bells Toll

Last night’s episode is now the lowest ranked episode in the history of Game of Thrones, considered even worse than the Season 5 disaster  Unbowed, Unbend, Unbroken and for the first time in this entire season, I disagree. It wasn’t the best episode, but it wasn’t the worst. There was a multitude of logical lapses but it took the show to a definite direction of a conclusion.

‘The Bells’ starts with the completely justified execution of Lord Varys. (Obviously in the context of GOT coz otherwise I am strongly against capital punishment!)

A grieving, seething Dany has finally accepted that she will not be accepted in Westeros as a ruler and unleashes her inner Targaryen. She finally goes to war with Cersei and in about fifteen minutes decimates her entire army with her single dragon!

As predicted here the Golden Company were completely useless, but what came as a total surprise was that Drogon had always been enough. So, all this time Rhaegal and Viserion were just your regular surplus dragons! And of course, the Scorpion bolts that proved so deadly in the past were completely rendered useless.

King’s Landing surrenders, the bells toll from the tower in surrender and the crowds wait for the carnage to stop. And then Daenerys looks down, decides that she has had enough of these ungrateful fuckers and continues to rain fire and blood. Several hundred thousand are burnt alive in King’s Landing while Jon Snow and Tyrion watch on baffled. The episode ends with Daenerys Targaryen as the Queen of Ashes.

In Defense of Dany’s Character Arc

I have been reading a lot of reviews online and I am a little surprised at the shock and anger at the turn of events. I argued in my last post that her transition from a righteous tyrant to a regular tyrant seemed forced and should have been more nuanced. And I stand by that. The execution has been annoyingly blatant, however, this is where the story had to go. This at least had been foreshadowed from the beginning.

For starters, I don’t think Dany went mad. I know it’s tempting to call her the Mad Queen and rant about her character assassination. But there is nothing random or crazy about Dany’s behavior. Her cruelty is nothing like the unhinged behavior of Ramsey Bolton. In this episode, Dany’s makes cruel choices that are not that different from the other contenders for the throne before her. I do no doubt for a second that either Tywin or Cersei Lannister wouldn’t have nuked their enemies.

When Jon rejects her advances and the sinking realization  hits her that she can’t rule Westeros with love, Dany says “Alright then. Let it be fear.”

I think this moment and her conversation with Jon Snow did more for her character arc then anything else ever on this show. She has always wanted the throne. So far, she has chosen to rule with the love and support of her subjects. Since she has no longer had that, she still wants the throne anyway and she will do so with fear. It’s a choice that she made.

In Essos she conquered a bunch of free cities by liberating their slaves and fighting for their rights. But she didn’t leave them free, she became their queen. She essentially established absolute monarchy to a place that didn’t believe in rulers. That in itself is problematic.

Varys says that ‘God flips a coin every time a Targaryen is born’. I would extend that to any dictatorship based on inheritance. Which is why I strongly believe that the only way to ‘break the wheel’ is to destroy the Iron Throne ( if they can find it in all the rubble).

There are many ways to interpret what was going on in Dany’s mind when she heard the bells ring and we will never know. But that she could unilaterally unleash a weapon of mass destruction, is terrifying in itself.

The Lannister Siblings

There is nothing as strange or toxic as the relationship between the three siblings – yes, I am throwing Tyrion in there too. They hate each other but they have always protected each other. Cersei had multiple opportunities to kill Tyrion over the last two seasons, but she didn’t. More obviously for plot reasons, but I like to believe there is something deeper.

Like many others, I do wish that Cersei death would have been way more satisfying if she had been killed by Arya. I still loved the way she died though. Yes, it was under a pile of rocks but not before she lost everything. Cersei has been on a losing streak since the day her youngest son jumped out of the window. And of course, Jamie and Cersei were going to die together. I never for once thought that Jamie would kill Cersei.

There is no redemption for Jamie and I am not entirely sure there ever was going to be. Time and again, he has returned to Cersei and stood by the terrible choices that she made. I think his brief affair with Brienne was more of ‘what could have been’ than anything else. There was no way he was going to end his days in Winterfell without ever returning to Cersei.

I don’t know why folks keep looking for heroes on this show, a show made famous by the beheading of its most decent character in Season 1. Game of Thrones is a medieval fantasy drama which is ridiculously close to the real thing, with dragons thrown in for fun. It’s not a fairy tale.

The Body Count That We Had Been Waiting For!

So this was the episode where bodies fell left, right and center. We had half a dozen major character deaths with Varys, Jamie and Cersei being the most significant. The Clegane brothers came to a fiery end after the much awaited Cleganebowl ( ok, honestly never got that!). Euron stupidly got into a fight with Jamie and died! The funniest death, of course, was Qyburn who got murdered by the monster he created – this is what I call poetic justice.

And of course, let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians who died under Drogon’s fire. All you faceless people of Westeros, RIP.

CGI Battle Part Deux – In the light of the day!

The scouring of King’s Landing was as grand and horrifying as it was promised. And we could actually see what was happening – which I think was a nice bonus! Drogon incinerated King’s Landing and the Red Keep came tumbling down. The dreaded Scorpions were destroyed in minutes and Cersei had no backup plan. The city was doomed.

If there is one thing that GOT has done successfully over its many battle episodes, is completely deglamorized its battle scenes. War on GOT is dirty, bloody, messy and desperate. Brains and guts fly, jets of blood spring from amputated limbs. Screams and chaos everywhere. There are no false notions of valor and honor. The conquering army rapes and pillages. The plebeians die on the streets or beg for mercy or as we saw, get burnt to ashes. There are no happy endings to battle.

WTF Moments!

The duel between Euron and Jamie – Seriously, WTF was that? Why would Euron want to challenge Jamie to a fight when everything is literally falling around them? This was the most contrived scene in the entire episode with only one goal – to get rid of Euron Greyjoy.

Arya in King’s Landing – Unless this is explained next week, I am extremely confused as to why she was there in this episode. She was supposed to kill Cersei, then got shit scared and ran for her life. I mean this is the kid that defeated the Night King! Why did she turn back?  Why do we see her running for her life in the streets of Kings Landing if she is not going to die?
Is she going to take out Dany now? Also what is with the white horse, the one that everyone is saying has ‘biblical’ implications. I mean D&D had trouble sticking to The Song of Ice & Fire, can we please the Bible out of it!

Absolute uselessness of the Scorpion Bolts – This was the most one-sided battle ever. In a way, I am glad coz this meant that the Night King was the real enemy but WTF! Last week, when Rhaegal went down, it seemed that the playing field was leveled. Now it seems, that all along, Dany ever needed was Drogon. She didn’t need her damn boats or even the Unsullied.

The End is Here for GOT

This has been less than a stellar season, but it’s still going to be very difficult watching the last episode EVER of GOT. What am I going to do on my Sundays?! ☹

My predictions for next week include a possible execution for Tyrion. Dany has been itching to do this for a while and she may want to eliminate the Lannister bloodline completely. Especially now that Tyrion helped Jamie escape!

She may also threaten the Starks, if she finds any resistance from Sansa or Jon Snow. This may be the tipping point for one of the Starks to kill her.
It’s going to be Jon Snow #forthethrone and he doesn’t bloody want it. I hope to God that he destroys that miserable thing and sets up a republic.
(P.S – I know Sansa is a really popular choice, but she is a graduate from the University of Cersei & Littlefinger so I wouldn’t trust her with power either!)

For review of previous episodes, go here