Tyrion Isn’t Jealous, But He’s Threatened

Published August 29, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hello boys,

Great season. I’ve enjoyed following along.

I just had to write in after this last episode. With all the gushing over it, I was not a fan.

It was a nice slow episode, reminiscent of older seasons. However, I found the dialogue to be lacking the prose of the previous seasons. There was a time where every line was so weighty, where now they seem a bit plastic. Instead of the words between characters conveying the history, emotion, and motivation, now we just have callbacks to old lines.

I did enjoy all the reunions, even with their cheesy lines.

Highlights

Cersei, waiting for all her guest to arrive so that she could make a queen’s entrance, only to be usurped by Dany on her dragon. During the waiting, we get the best looks between the Cersei-Jaime-Brienne triangle.
Qyburn’s zombie boner.
Long tension with the hound opening the box was well worth the wait to see that pure look of terror on Cersei’s face.
Jaime rides off into the night to find his true love, Brienne.
Stark Children unite. I feel a bit emotionally manipulated by this whole story line, so it’s good that they’ve finally come together.

Cringe moments

Anything with Bran.
Ice dragon shooting blue fire that seems to cut through the ice instead of melting it. I didn’t see water gushing everywhere, just chunks of falling ice.
Jon and his “Bill Nye the Science Guy” impression
Theon finding his balls by realizing he had none could have been a bit shorter or completely chopped. I don’t give a crap about Theon and even less for a slow clap moment on GoT

Open questions/comments:

Clegane-bowl didn’t happen, but I wonder if what the Hound said to his bro might have some hidden meaning. We know that Gregor pushed Sandor into the fire when he was young. Their younger sister and father also died under suspicious circumstances. I wonder if young Sandor (perhaps unknowingly) worshipped the lord of light. Perhaps even as a child, he would look for visions in the fire. Thoros seemed to be confident that the Hound would see something in the fire at the old cottage and promptly trusted that what Sandor saw was true. So perhaps the Hound is actually telling the Mountain that the fire (i.e. R’hllor) is coming for him.
Arya- Sansa. First, can I just say that I hated the way Littlefinger died. I wanted true suffering. I wanted his deeds to really backfire on him. I’m still glad he’s dead and also that it was Arya who did it. When the girls are debriefing afterwards, Sansa pushes the responsibility back onto Arya, “You did it!”. Arya then says that she was just the executioner, and it was Sansa that passed the sentence. BUT didn’t Ned always used to say that the one who passes the sentence must swing the sword? Is Sansa weak or breaking the mold?
Why didn’t Cersei send Euron to Essos to retrieve the Golden Company earlier? She’s had the gold since episode 4. It’s not like she ever changed her mind about going to war against Dany. I think Euron’s going to flip on Cersei. He’ll have the golden company, fully financed by the Iron Bank. What motivation would he have to support Cersei now? Maybe he’ll find Daario and coax him away from Meereen.
Cersei’s pregnancy has me confused. Is she or isn’t she. I suspect that she used her pregnancy to bluff Tyrion and try to leverage his guilt over Marcella and Tommen. We don’t hear what happens in the rest of that conversation. Is it possible she made Tyrion promise her something in return for joining their fight? Could this have anything to do with Tyrion’s boat lurking?
Tyrion the green-eyed monster. There is speculation that Tyrion was jealous and is really in love with Dany, but I have a slightly different take. Tyrion only found out that Jon had bent the knee in the dragonpits, like at the worst possible time. He had a plan and it almost worked. You could see it in his posture, Tyrion’s back is turned to Jon when he tells him he’s glad he bent the knee. Add that to the fact that Tyrion has made some bad strategic moves of late and Dany had already started to ask for Jon’s opinion. Tyrion must be feeling threatened. He was also questioning Dany’s line of succession, perhaps seeking to cement his future. Seeing Jon and Dany hooking up and the potential for creating an heir would push him even further out of the loop. Plus, he made her leave Daario behind so that she could focus on her career, and now she goes and does this.
Bran said early in the season that he really needs to speak with Jon. He sent a raven to him about the army of the dead heading towards Eastwatch. Why has he not been tracking Jon by weir-net or at least how did he miss the dragon being turned in the first place?
The wall. I am so pissed off about the wall. 6 seasons and 5 books. History and lore. Everything tells us that the wall is magical. We get clues that make us speculate on how the army of the dead will get across. Is it Bran touched by the Night King or the magnificent seven six (RIP Thoros) bringing a wight through the tunnels at Eastwatch that will somehow disrupt the protective spell? Will the water in the bay freeze and create a land bridge? But no, it’s the frickin’ magic weapon that they only acquired the episode before!!!! What was NK’s back-up plan. This was way too much of a spectacle and I felt like they are not paying enough respect to the source material and its decades of building rules for this universe.

Fun season. Glad you guys did GoT, and looking forward to whatever you do next.

Xo Jez

p.s. – please don’t break up the band

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