Last Sunday’s Episode of “Game of Thrones” Was One of The Most Polarizing Ever

For one, Tyrion is trying to solve a problem: to stop the War of the Queens so both queens and their armies can aid Jon Snow in his war against the white walkers. Second, while Tyrion claims to believe Jon, he hasn’t seen one of the undead either. So what is the obvious solution? Show everyone the proof that this is happening. Tyrion is just being practical.

To Cersei, the white walkers are just stories to frighten young children. They’re myths, the Westerosi version of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. But I bet if someone dropped a Sasquatch off at your doorstep, you might suddenly become a believer. Also, Cersei is not Tyrion’s only audience. He has Jaime too, who seems to be much more likely to appreciate the danger of an undead army advancing on The Wall. If anyone can convince Cersei to do something, it’s Jaime.

Lastly, what other choice did Tyrion have? He knows his sister won’t entertain the possibility of white walkers without proof, and according to Jon, Westeros needs everyone to band together if they hope to win the war. So it’s not like they can just cut Cersei out of the plan, or let her ride roughshod over the Seven Kingdoms while Daenerys is off fighting beyond The Wall.

All this said, I wonder if Tyrion’s plan was invented by the show’s writers, or if this is really how George R.R. Martin intended things to play out? The idea led to the biggest game changer in the show’s history by allowing the Night King to claim his own undead dragon. If that event was envisioned by Martin – and I hope something as enormous as an undead Viserion actually was – then something needed to go terribly wrong beyond The Wall to allow that to happen. Of course, if Martin would just finish The Winds of Winter, we wouldn’t need to speculate anymore.

The Sansa-Arya Storyline

If there is one storyline the critics seem to hate most of all, it’s the feud between Arya and Sansa. Many think Arya is acting totally out of character, and that this is part of some ploy by the writers to manufacture conflict in Winterfell. The critics are certain Arya would never treat Sansa like she’s been doing, and they insist the two sisters should naturally rally together to defeat Littlefinger. Some even fear the writers are turning Arya into one of the show’s villains. My response to all of this: Relax. It’s not hard at all to believe Arya would react this way to Sansa. Here’s why.

In the books and in the show, Arya has always harbored huge resentment for her older sister. Here are the first thoughts Arya shares with the reader about Sansa in A Game of Thrones:

It wasn’t fair, Sansa had everything. Sansa was two years older; maybe by the time Arya had been born, there had been nothing left. Often it felt that way. Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells. Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother’s fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys. Arya took after their lord father. Her hair was a lusterless brown, and her face was long and solemn. Jeyne used to call her Arya Horseface, and neigh whenever she came near. It hurt that the one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse. . . .

Arya also came to hate Sansa for lying about what happened in the incident on the road to King’s Landing where Nymeria bit Joffrey, which resulted in the death of Arya’s friend, the butcher’s boy. This what she tells her father:

“I hate them,” Arya confided, red-faced, sniffling. “The Hound and the queen and the king and Prince Joffrey. I hate all of them. Joffrey lied . . . I hate Sansa too. She did remember, she just lied so Joffrey would like her.”

The two sisters were separated not long after this scene, and six full seasons passed before they were reunited. Anyone who has experienced a lousy sibling rivalry knows that, no matter how much people mature and change, those bad feeling linger under the surface and can erupt in ways that are entirely irrational.

Also, we need to view the situation from Arya’s perspective. She went back to Winterfell for Jon, not Sansa. If all Hotpie had told her was that Sansa’s back at Winterfell, I’m pretty sure Arya would have continued down to King’s Landing to kill Cersei, and then all this War of the Queens stuff and zombie hostage-taking could have been avoided. Instead, Arya arrived at Winterfell to find Sansa, whom she still resents, but no Jon. That had to be disappointing. And then, after watching Sansa not defend Jon harder against the Northern lords, it’s no wonder Arya is a bit steamed.

And let’s not forget that since Arya left the House of Black and White, she’s killed two men and baked them into pies. She’s also poisoned nearly everyone in House Frey. She may be the biggest mass murder in the recent history of Westeros. Are we to believe that someone who’s accomplished such things can quickly snap back into the role of a sweet little sister?

I suppose if Arya whacks Sansa on Sunday, the critics may have a point. But at the end of the last episode, Arya gave Sansa her Valyrian dagger. In doing so, she may have been saying, despite all this, “I’m not going to hurt you.” And if so, I suspect we may see the two sisters unite yet against their common foe. Littlefinger is playing a dangerous game, and I can’t help but think his days are numbered. (Though it would not surprise me a bit if he’s killed by white walkers and joins the army of the dead. After all, winter is here.) 

The Night King’s Decisions

Other groups of critics have wondered why the Night King didn’t just use his magic javelins to kill Jon, Jorah, and everyone else on that rock while they were waiting for Daenerys to save them? Or why he didn’t order his wights to create some World War Z-style zombie bridge to allow the rest of his forces to get to the rock? Is the Night King really that stupid? I think not.

The above criticisms assume all the Night King wanted to do was kill Jon and his merry men. But I don’t believe that was the case. He wanted a dragon (or two) and was waiting for Daenerys to arrive. Some may ask, how in the world did the Night King know she was coming? The answer, I suspect, is that he’s an undead version of the Three-eyed Raven. We already know he can sense Bran’s presence, and the Night King is far older and more powerful than the Greenseer who tutored Bran ever was. Why wouldn’t the Night King be able to see things similar to Bran?

This theory also explains why it’s taken the white walkers so bloody long to advance on The Wall. If the Night King believed he needed an ice dragon to destroy Westeros, he had to wait for Daenerys to get there. Now, if my theory is correct, should the writers have done something to show the audience that the Night King can see the future or spy on Dany? Probably so. But that doesn’t take away from the possibility the Night King’s moves have been logical from the start. He needed a dragon – and he’s had several seasons to forge those giant chains.

The Issues with Travel and Time

The issues with time and travel have been my biggest gripe all season, so this criticism will be the hardest by far to defend. Yes, it seems as if ravens in Season 7 move faster than text messages, and whole armies teleport from one place to another like the Rebel Fleet moving through hyperspace in Star Wars. The only way to rationalize such rapid travel is to assume that days or months are passing between scenes on the show.

This assumption was tolerable until last Sunday’s episode. Erik Kain of Forbes wrote an excellent piece explaining that, in a perfect world, it might be possible for a raven to reach Dragonstone, as well as for three dragons to fly to The Wall, in a matter of days. (You can read it here.) But this would mean Jon and Co. spent days on that rock. One has to assume they did, but the episode’s director could have done a much better job indicating the passage of time. Even a quip from one of the characters about how hungry he’s become after however many days would have helped.

Kain suggests the story would have been best served by having Daenerys, on her own, set off to The Wall after fretting about what might happen to Jon or Ser Jorah. I tend to agree. That would have been a much better way to handle it. But the fact remains that the boundaries of time and space were not necessarily broken last episode – so long as one assumes Jon and the others were trapped on that rock for a few days. (Okay, I’m pretty sure the judge rules against me on this one, but as they said in My Cousin Vinny: you win some, you lose some . . .)

But The Cracks Are Beginning To Show

Rob Bricken of io9 writes a good article suggesting Season 7 has so many problems they’re getting hard to ignore. (You can read his article here.) This is the one point on which I won’t offer a defense. As I noted in my first post about this season, I think the show is suffering a bit from the lack of source material. The show seems to be moving from one huge scene to another because that’s all the show’s writers have to work with from the outline George R.R. Martin left them. Even Martin, I suspect, hasn’t worked out all the details, because he’s still writing the story (we hope). As a result, so many of the things Martin wrote that made the show so great seem to be lacking in subtle ways this season. That’s because, for this season, Martin has not written them yet. And that’s not the show’s writers fault.

In Other News:  If you’ve enjoyed this post or like historical fantasy in general, you may also enjoy Enoch’s Device. The Kindle version of the novel is on sale this week through the final episode of Season 7 of Game of Thrones. (You can buy it here.) And if you’ve already read and enjoyed Enoch’s Device, now is a great time to recommend it to a friend! You can even read a sample of the novel here.