Note: I’m reviewing “Game of Thrones” from the perspective of someone who has read all of George R.R. Martin’s novels, while my colleague David Malitz, who hasn’t read the books, will be writing straight recaps. His write-up of episode 8, “Hardhome” appears at The Post’s Style Blog. This post discusses the events of the May 31 episode of “Game of Thrones” in detail.
For a season of “Game of Thrones” that largely feels like setup for larger events to come, I’ve still largely enjoyed our fifth year in Westeros and Essos, if only for the thematic strength of the episodes.
But even by that slightly reduced measure of success, “Hardhome” was a bit of a bummer. We’ve had enough bad action choreography, lately. And the White Walkers are by a considerable margin the most boring element of George R.R. Martin’s fictional universe to see in action, even if they are providing half of our climactic, story-ending confrontation. I appreciate the new information that Valyrian steel can kill White Walkers, I suppose. But “Hardhome” was a much more interesting consideration of identity and its evolution, loyalty and citizenship before it got punctuated by ten minutes of zombie fighting.
“We’re not friends. We’ve never been friends. We won’t become friends today,” Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) tells the wildlings at Hardhome. “This isn’t about friendship. This is about survival. This is about putting a 700 foot wall between you and what’s out there…These aren’t normal times. The White Walkers don’t care if a man’s free folk or crow. We’re all meat for their army.”
Jon is making a radical proposal: The wildlings should abandon the idea that’s been the source of their identities for centuries, their enmity for the Night’s Watch and the citizens of Westeros. Instead, he’s arguing that their primary understanding of themselves should be as citizens of the human race, defined not by their conflicts with the people who live in and on the other side of the Wall, but by their desire not to be turned into wights.
It’s a difficult leap, and Jon acknowledges that, reminding the wildlings that “I’m not asking you to forget your dead. I’ll never forget mine. I lost fifty brothers the night Mance attacked the Wall. But I’m asking you to think of your children now. They’ll never have children of their own if we don’t band together now.” In a way, he’s outlining the conflict that defines many of the characters on the show. Can you defy the caste you were born into and become something different, even something more? Can you defy the expectation of what your caste is and does? Will you be governed by history and tradition, or do you have the courage and the ability to forge your own path? These are vexed questions for any of us, but in the radically unequal society where “Game of Thrones” takes place, where people are born by rigid notions of class, family and geography, they are particularly difficult.
As Jon makes the case for a new way of thinking at Hardhome, Sam (John Bradley) is making a similar argument to Olly (Brenock O’Connor) back at the Wall. We’ve seen Olly’s distress over Jon’s decision growing for several episodes, and here he comes to Sam for counsel. Men are supposed to put off their old identities when they join the Night’s Watch, but Olly is young and a survivor of terrible trauma, and he reiterates the story of his family’s slaughter to Sam, adding a detail we hadn’t known before. Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju), the forceful wildling chieftan foresighted enough to sign on to Jon’s plan, is the reason Olly is so stuck in his past: Tormund led the raid that killed Olly’s entire family and community.
“Sometimes, a man has to make hard choices, choices that look wrong to others, but that he knows are right,” Sam tells his young Brother, trying to reassure Olly that Jon is doing the right thing, even if it causes Olly personal pain. But readers of Martin’s novels may suspect that Olly is taking away the wrong lesson from Sam’s lecture. “You believe that?” Olly asks Sam. “With all my heart,” Sam tells him. Sam may believe that he’s made Jon’s argument for him. But it’s possible that he’s also strengthened Olly’s resolve to take his own course of action.
While Jon is arguing and fighting in the North, “Hardhome” sets ups a gentler but parallel struggle for Dany (Emilia Clarke) in Meereen. As she tries to figure out whether to kill Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) or take him on as an adviser, and to reward or punish Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen), Dany is struggling with similar questions about whether to be bound by old promises and new loyalties, or to be flexible enough to consider new options.
In his early conversations with her, Tyrion makes the case for evolution by stressing his own differences from his family, and his own recovery from despair. “I know what my father was, what he did. I know the Mad King earned his name,” Dany tells Tyrion as they share an early meal together, clearly eager to prove her worth to Tyrion even though she pretends to be weighing his fate. “So, here we sit, two terrible children of two terrible fathers,” Tyrion tells her, explaining that he traveled around the world “To see if you’re the right kind of terrible…The one who keeps her people from being even more terrible….I’d given up on life until Varys convinced me you might be worth living for.”
Tyrion’s struggle to either earn his family’s esteem, or to live with their disapprobation, has generally been a tragic one up until this point. When he’s exceeded his father’s expectations, as he did during his tenure as Hand of the King to Joffrey, Tyrion hasn’t received the rewards that might have flowed to another man of his abilities and accomplishments. When Tyrion tried to buck Tywin Lannister’s (Charles Dance) expectations while his father was living, Tywin had enough power to punish and humiliate him, whether Tywin was having Tyrion’s first wife raped, marrying him off to Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) to punish them both, or taking Tyrion’s lover Shae for his own.
Tyrion may have been rich and privileged, but he wasn’t exactly free. He knows what he’s talking about when he tells Dany that “It’s a beautiful dream, stopping the wheel [of history]. You’re not the first person who’s ever dreamt it.” And Tyrion’s suffered enough from his own house’s misfortunes to be inspired when Dany tells him: “I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.”
In King’s Landing, Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) is breaking herself on the rigid wheel of the High Septon’s sense of justice. In a sense, the immense privilege Cersei has experienced all her life is her greatest weakness now. Because the only tools she’s ever had to use are her beauty and her family name, Cersei doesn’t know how to use any other skills. “I made him. I rose him up from nothing. I will not kneel before some barefooted commoner and beg his forgiveness,” Cersei tells Qyburn (Anton Lesser) bitterly when he suggests that she might confess to buy herself some leniency and room to plot new strategy. Qyburn knows a thing or two about recalibrating himself, given how far he’s risen since being chucked out of the Citadel. But he’s speaking to someone who has no understanding of compromise, and who is so thoroughly invested in the order that gave her status that to abandon it would be to lose Cersei’s very sense of self.
This might have been Sansa Stark’s fate, too. But as her dreadful husband Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) gets distracted with planning an attack on Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), Sansa takes full advantage of her respite to confront her most recent betrayer: Theon-turned-Reek (Alfie Allen). Sansa used to believe that being accommodating would get her everything she needed, but her captivity have taught her to be strategic with her obedience. And her confrontation with Theon produces a powerful new piece of information.
In the wake of Sansa’s rape on her wedding night several weeks ago, many critics suggested that her story was being subverted to Theon’s, and that he would ultimately redeem himself by rescuing her. Perhaps that may still happen in the chaos of the coming battle. But Theon will hardly be rescuing a helpless maiden. One of the strongest scenes in “Hardhome” was Sansa’s moral scourging of Theon, not simply for betraying her to Ramsay (who she cannot confront directly without risking death), but for his murder of her brothers. In telling Theon what she believes he deserves (and calling him by his real name, which restores him to full manhood and full responsibilities for his actions), Sansa gets an apology of her own, not one that Ramsay extracted for her as a display of his own power.
The Bubble Boy
Fun and Addictive Bubble Pop game! Get it free on Play Store.
Ø The Bubble Boy is an entertaining game for kids and all age groups.
Pop the maximum amount of bubbles without losing lives.
Soothing visuals and engaging sounds for immersive game play.
Choose between two difficulty settings. Easy and Hard.
Pop the power up bubbles to earn additional points.
Beware of the naughty bubble. When you pop it you lose a life.
No Ads while playing.
