Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 4 - The Spoils of War
FIVE UP:
1) I generally start with Jon Snow on these because….. Jon Snow. This week I’ll switch it up and I’ll start with Dany bitching out Tyrion. That was awesome and hilarious. This whole season I’ve been hearing how Tyrion is the worst general in Westeros, how he is subconsciously sabotaging Daenerys because he doesn’t want to kill Jaime and how he is just plain dumb. Watching him get roasted for all of his poor decisions was awesome and I woulda been real scurred if the Mother of Dragons had me on the spot like that. It reminded me of when we miss a deadline at work and my boss says “THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!!”… Except Daenerys could torch my ass while my boss could just fire me…….I guess either way I get burned (cheap pun, sue me).
2) Bronn is the man and has officially moved into my top 5 living characters behind Jon, Tyrion, Tormund and Davos. The first five minutes of his dialogue were hilarious, but his Cersei comment takes the cake.
a. Bronn: “And I’m sure Cersei’s reign will be quiet and peaceable”
b. Jaime: “Stranger things have happened.”
c. Bronn: “Like what?!!?”
d. Me: LOL
3) I love how I’m completely torn on who to root for right now. We all know GOT is capable of changing your mind regarding certain characters/events, but I’m honestly stuck. When the Lannister v Daenerys battle was starting I got legitimately nervous for the Lannisters and Bronn. I felt pure adrenaline watching the Dothraki horde charge and when Bronn said “these fuckers are gonna swamp us” my stomach dropped. Later on I genuinely felt bad while watching the Dothraki and Dragons slaughter them. When Bronn shot Drogon and escaped/narrowly missed the fire ball I actually let out a sigh of relief. Emma turned to me and said “what the hell? We want them to die!!!”…………….. do we?
4) I’ll dive in to this later because I’m split on this part (gee mixed feelings, what a surprise), but when Brienne booted Arya in the chest that was fucking HILARIOUS. I hadn’t laughed that hard since…..well since Bronn’s one liners to open the show. But you catch my drift, she absolutely bundled her hahaha.
5) The writing for this episode was great considering 3 of my 5 loves are about quotes or random dialogue. Going with that theme - Ser Davos had two hilarious lines that made me chuckle.
a. When Jon Snow says Daenerys has a good heart: “I saw you looking at her good heart” haha CALL OUT.
b. When Jon Snow says “We have 10,000 men? Less? And Davos says “Fewer” in a clear call back to Stannis.
c. TANGENT: I always wonder what Ser Davos now thinks about Stannis and his time serving him. Does he regret it? Does he wish he had let him starve at Storm’s End? On the one hand, Stannis made Davos a Lord and helped his family. On the other hand Stannis fell in with a religious fanatic, ignored Davos’ advice at nearly every turn, led them into a slaughter in which Davos’ son died and ultimately led him all the way to butt-fuck Castle Black. When speaking with Tyrion about the Blackwater he didn’t seem too upset about it, but you never know. It’s tough and I hope they have another convo about it in one of these episodes.
FIVE DOWN:
1) I don’t mind that we were left on a cliff-hanger, but I really don’t like how the episode ended…..with Jaime sinking to the bottom of a lake. First because of the obvious – even though it looked like a dried up reservoir to that point that body of water was at least 20 feet deep. Second is because Jaime SHOULD die in this situation. He’s a 200 pound man wearing at least 50 pounds of armor. Do you think Bronn is going to be able to swim to the bottom of a 20 foot lake and drag up 250 pounds worth of sister-fucker before he drowns? I don’t. In fact, a ton of men die like this in the books at various battles (mainly Riverrun – men drown in their armor all the time in this world). If I were writing it this is how I would have had it end:
a. Jaime is charging towards Drogon/Dany and the last thing we see is Drogon turning to face Jaime – then we cut to black. We don’t know if he killed him, we don’t know if Jaime killed Dany, etc etc. That woulda been a better cliffhanger IMO.
b. (Then the next episode we find that Jaime was tackled off his horse by Bronn and they surrendered or something.)
2) I also didn’t like how the guards at Winterfell were dumb as shit. You don’t know who Maester Luwin is? The Maester for over 20 years? You don’t know who Ser Rodrick is? The Master at Arms for over 20 years? Jesus this is like Randy Marsh on Jeopardy…… (10 bills to anyone who gets that reference). It was a cheap copy of the Red Keep scene where the Lannister soldiers weren’t letting Arya in to the castle (Season 1).
3) Okay back to the Brienne and Arya fight scene - kick in the chest aside, was the DUMBEST shit I’ve seen this season. There is just no way Arya could beat Brienne in a 1v1 fight.
a. Arya - was training to be a Faceless Man for maybe 1 year. They are assassins, not swordsmen. During that time she did not touch her sword more than 1-2 times and she certainly wasn’t training with it. She trained with a stick sometimes and spent the rest of the time washing bodies, cutting people’s faces off and learning how to mix poisons. Oh yeah and being a blind/homeless person. The last time she trained with real weapons was in SEASON 1. (The Hound did not spar with her.)
b. Brienne – has been training with swords in close combat for 10 if not 20 years (I’d guess Brienne is 25-35 in the show). Also, Brienne beat Jaime Lannister the Hound and Loras Tyrell in single combat – three of the most notorious fighters in this world. Brienne was also the first woman to EVER be named a Kingsguard (Renly). She’s famously skilled and as of Episode 3 was the best fighter in the show.
c. So in Episode 4 you’re telling me Arya is now the best fighter in all of Westeros? To quote the famous Ari Gold. GET THE FUCK OUT!!!
4) This is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I’m kinda turned off by the whole dragons thing. I’ve never been into “high fantasy” and that’s the reason I never watched Lord of the Rings or anything like that. I got into GOT because it was sorta fantasy, but most of it was realistic. Now that dragons and white walkers are a part of it, I gotta be honest – it takes some of the fun out. Watching a CGI dragon roast troops of men doesn’t do much for me. Watching the Bolton cavalry and the wildlings smash into each other at the Battle of the Bastards does do something for me. Even the white walkers/wights are more reasonable because they fight like men. The dragon is just like a cheat code. It’s like using the short cut at Waario Stadium in Mario Kart – it takes the fun out of it.
5) I hate how the show keeps botching these Stark children reunions. If you’ve ever watched the news or seen any other movies you’ll notice that refugees/separated families are PUMPED to see each other when they first meet. They hug they cry they celebrate etc (and with good reason). It’s only after the initial shock is over that things start to go differently. When they realize the person is no longer who they used to be THAT’S when things can get uncomfortable. GOT is doing this totally the opposite - characters aren’t that excited to see each other, but then warm up after a period of awkwardness. I don’t get it, I guess they’re just blaming it all on trauma.
FIVE IN BETWEEN:
1) Let’s check out the timeline and see if it makes sense. From what I remember we:
- Started in Reach with comedy hour
- Head to King’s Landing and Cersei’s power trip
- Trek up to Winterfell for some reunions and terrible Bran scenes
- Dragonstone for sexual discussions and sexual chemistry.
- Our Dany firing Tyrion scene
- Back to Winterfell for a scene I’m gonna forget about
- Back to Dragonstone when Jon and Theon have a reunion – note: Daenerys is gone.
- Last but not least - Field of Fire.
b. So does it make sense? I honestly think so - it seemed like they kept the pacing and storyline pretty straightforward. The only potential faux pas is Daenerys and 40,000 Dothraki making it from Dragonstone to King’s Landing in between the Tyrion tirade, Arya’s duel with Brienne and the Jon/Theon talk. I’m willing to let that one slide and based on the geography I think it’s reasonable that they could have bypassed King’s Landing. Overall I have no complaints there.
c. What I do have complaints on is the fact that none of these armies have scouts. In season 1 scouts were a HUGE thing. The Lannisters and the Starks were tracking each other’s movements. Robb scored a huge victory when he lied to a Lannister scout and ended up capturing Jaime. Now though? Armies don’t use scouts. If they did they wouldn’t have let a Dotraki horde and a billion horses sneak up on them like that. DUH.
2) I know everyone is celebrating the fact that Littlefinger looked like he was scared of Arya…..but he shouldn’t be. All he has to do is say “Oh hey, remember that time when you were Tywin Lannister’s cupbearer at Harrenhal? You saw me, I saw you, you spilled wine on me….but I didn’t tell Tywin you were there? Oh yeah, you remember? YOU OWE ME BITCH”.
a. Once again, how do I remember this shit (fastforward to 2 mins)
3) The Jon and Daenerys potential love story is really picking up steam. I think we all let out an “OH SHEEEETTTT” when the King in the North touched her arm in the cave #swoon. While everyone wants them to happen I’m gonna make a prediction that it DOES NOT happen. I think GOT is just gonna tease us with it and they’ll part on good terms. I can’t really see another love story coming out of this – Jon even said “there’s no time for that”.
a. Tangent: While we’re on the subject, incest is disgusting. Jaime and Cersei are disgusting. As someone who is a twin they put our kind back 1,000 years with this shit. People already think we’re weirdos and now these two….
b. Tangent 2: I said that I didn’t think GOT would actually have Jon and Dany hook up. I could definitely be wrong on that and we could be facing an Oedipus Rex type of situation. Stranger things have happened. (Cue Bronn: LIKE WHAT??)
4) The Arya and Sansa reunion was okay in my opinion, part good and part bad. The one thing I did take note of was when Arya said “It doesn’t even look like him”. Sansa replies “Everyone who knew his face is dead” Yeah…….except for the Glovers, the Manderlys, the Cerwyns, Littlefinger, Cersei, Jaime, Varys, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Jon, Ser Jorah, Tyrion, Gendry, Howland Reed, Edmure Tully, etc etc.
a. Kidding, but I honestly want to know what the population of Westeros was before the series and what it is now. THEY HAVE BEEN DECIMATED by wars and winters and I’d really be curious to see what the figures look like.
5) I know some people disagreed with this, but I think it’s official that all of the gold made it into King’s Landing. This means that all of the Iron Bank’s debts were paid off and if the banker keeps his promise, the Iron Bank will support the Lannisters. But does anyone really think that’s going to happen? My guess is that the Iron Bank takes the money, says “we’re square” and peaces out. There is just no way they can continue to support Cersei after Daenerys showed her power this past episode. Also, losing the Iron Bank would put Dany and Cersei even in this back and forth battle. They each have three wins and three losses – BEST OUT OF SEVEN?
a. Cersei’s Three Ws:
i. Euron sinks Yara’s fleet
ii. Euron delivers Ellaria Sand
iii. Jaime allies with the Tarlys and takes Highgarden
b. Daenerys’ Three Ws:
i. Obliterates the Lannister army
ii. Captures Jaime (everyone thinks that’s going to happen right?)
iii. Iron Bank abandons Cersei
