Game of Thrones: The Winds of Winter

cerseiI will start every one of these posts off with this warning about spoilers. There will be plenty of spoilers. Seriously, if you have not watched the episode, do not read this post. I will also be mentioning stuff from the books. These are not straight up recaps of episodes, nor are they reviews. I will just mention the stuff I liked/disliked and probably give some opinions about what could happen next.

I do not even know where to begin. It may just be easier to dive right in to each story. And since my brain is still trying to process everything, bullet-point style and tons of rambling!

-Cersei! Okay, so it was becoming abundantly clear that she was off her rocker and that she was going to do something destructive with wildfire. I figured there would be some death, but never really saw it being as extensive as it ended up. She not only blows up the Great Sept of Baelor, but think about the numerous lords and ladies that were in there. Queen Margaery, Ser Loras Tyrell, Mace Tyrell, Kevan Lannister, the High Sparrow, countless other Septons, and whoever else decided to show up to see a good old fashioned religious trial. Oh, and what happened after? Well Cersei’s last child, the King Tommen, commits suicide. And somehow that makes Cersei the new Queen of Westeros (actually, I read somewhere that the line of succession would actually go a different way and it would end up being Jaime).tommen death

-I need to make a point about how much GRRM loves to fake us out. In the first book and maybe second, the way he talks about Jaime and Loras, there is this sense that they will have a showdown at some point (same with Ned and Jaime). It also seems like the perfect set-up for the Mountain versus the Hound. And yet, no trial by combat. We may still have the Clegane Showdown, but maybe not. This series loves to take what we expect and twist it around.

-Ramifications of Cersei’s actions? Well for one, Olenna Tyrell and Dorne are forming an alliance and guess who they are siding with? I will give you a hint, she has dragons and an army. Yep, we see Varys and he is there to pave the way for Daenerys Targaryen.

-Okay, what was everyone’s opinion of Jaime’s look when he saw Cersei being crowned? Was he happy? Was he troubled? Does he realize that she is slipping into madness? I did enjoy the way he put Walder Frey in his place. I wonder if there will come a point where Jaime will be forced to kill his own sister.

-As a quick aside, was the music for this episode amazing? The entire opening was very chilling. You could just feel the impending doom. And then the way they kept using old music to underscore certain characters. You could almost have the episode play without any words, just the music and it would still make sense. sept

-Littlefinger finally tells us his ultimate plan. He wants to sit on the Iron Throne. Everything he does is to get him closer to that goal. I guess in that context, it makes a little more sense. Unfortunately for him, Sansa does not care about his plan and she wants nothing to do with his goal of having her by his side.

-I honestly did not expect Jon Snow to be crowned the new King of the North. I figured everyone would swear fealty to Sansa and House Stark. I thought that she would name Jon Snow to some position where he would be in charge of defending the North, especially against the Night’s King. Leave it to Lady Mormont to give a great speech and put the lords of the North in their place. As she said “the North remembers.”

-I loved seeing Oldtown, even if it was only for a minute. I am guessing that Sam will be turned away. I think in the books he has begun his maester training, but I feel like the show just does not have the time for that and instead while staying at Oldtown, he will discover something in the great library and need to return to Jon Snow. Some long lost secret about the Night’s King and the White Walkers.

-Daenerys has her ships, she has her army, her dragons are huge and it looks like everything is ready to go. She makes the tough decision of leaving Daario and the Second Sons behind to run things while she is gone, but she made a good point. He had a great line though about how the Lord of Westeros are not ready for Daenerys Stormborn. The scene with Tyrion was also very touching. It brought a little tear to my eye when he said that he believed in her and that all he had to give was his counsel and she responds by making him the Hand of the Queen.

dragons-Where do you think she will land? Does she head to King’s Landing and decide to attack there first? Does she destroy Cersei (is that how the throne room is destroyed via her vision?) or does she start elsewhere and conquer the lands before turning on Cersei (who at that point may have no one supporting her at all). I wonder if once she takes care of the south will she turn her attention on this new King of the North and attack him? Possibly while he is fighting at the Wall? Will that be Bran’s great moment? He will warg into a dragon and somehow convince Daenerys that Jon Snow is not only on her side, but also her family.

-Oh yeah, Bran finally enters the Tower of Joy with Ned and sees what happened. Lyanna gave birth to Rhaegar’s son and gives him to Ned with the instructions to protect him. She says his name, but I could not make it out (I am sure some people will slow down the episode and read the lips and figure it out). She also says that she knows Robert will kill him if he ever found out.

walder frey-It was sooooo satisfying to finally have the R+L=J theory confirmed. I wrote this back in 2009 after reading the first book:

Jon Snow, the bastard son of Eddard (Ned) Stark, will turn out to be someone very important. I wonder if he is actually the son of Lyanna (Ned’s sister) and Rhaegar Targaryen. Ned keeps remembering Lyanna as she died and how she kept saying “Promise me.” At first we are led to believe that she means that he must promise to take her back to Winterfell when she dies. Later when Ned is delirious he remembers when Rhaegar wins a tournament and gives the crown of beauty to Lyanna instead of his own wife. I believe that instead of kidnapping and raping Lyanna, they ran off together, had a kid, but she died during childbirth or shortly after. Ned came and found the child and promised to raise him.

Back then, I did not know that there were tons of book fans who wrote countless pages about the theory. I remember when I discovered some of those sites and how excited I was over it.

-My favorite part of the episode was the death of Walder Frey. The way Arya Stark reveals herself, after killing his sons and baking them into the pie, was one of those “FUCK YEAH!” moments. I guess that answers the question of what will Arya do next. Vengeance. She still has a pretty long list. Maybe she will be paying Cersei a visit.

I am going to watch the episode again soon and will probably think of a million new questions before season seven even starts filming.

Author: Ngewo