Game of Thrones Discussion – Season 4, Episode 7: Game of Crones

Send in the crones! Who needs slender young women with perky breasts or even virile young men with muscular asses? In “Mockingbird” we receive what everyone has been waiting for: an episode featuring two pale, hollow-cheeked, thin-haired middle-aged whackjobs. And perhaps to reach the demographic not enticed by neurotic older women, we were gifted with very long long long shots of Melisandre in and out of the bath.

Share that bath with us — and eyes up here, please, I’m talking to you — and enjoy the viewpoints of three fans with very different perspectives: Laura Fletcher, a casual fan of the television and book series; Corrin Bennett-Kill, a hardcore fan of the book and TV series (she has read all the books four times!); and Cheryl Collins, a TV show watcher who has never read the book series.

Please join the discussion in comments!

Laura Fletcher
In the last episode we caught up with all the Lannisters’ doings, and this time we centered on the Starks again. Obviously the stories overlap at this point, and we’re reminded that one major hinge between them is Tyrion and Sansa. Both are underestimated at everyone’s expense.

Cheryl Collins
That’s a great point. They are both being held against their will, as well.

Corrin Bennett-Kill
I don’t know if either of you have experienced this while watching the past two episodes, but have they gone by incredibly quick for anyone else? I keep being surprised that the episodes are over!

Cheryl
Absolutely! The pace is leisurely, but they are flying by.

Corrin
As for Sansa and Tyrion, I think that this was an attempt to remind us that despite all the shenanigans that have been happening in the environs of King’s Landing, the North is still the key. And Tyrion through Sansa, if he retains his head, will rule the North. I think that it is something that is being lost in the show: that the real battle is North.

Cheryl
The other commonality highlighted between Sansa’s and Tyrion’s predicaments is that they are borne of old obsessions: Littlefinger’s obsession with Catelyn and Cersei’s eternal hatred of Tyrion.

The North has been in the background this season. It was nice to be reminded of Winterfell and to see Sansa’s pure joy at seeing snow in what must feel like forever to her.

Laura
As a book reader, I know they’ve “aged up” Sansa a bit in the show (which, in my opinion, made her first menstruation weird … how would a girl that tall not already be menstruating?), but I think they did a bang-up job of making that kiss by Littlefinger just as creepy as it was on the page. When he said she could’ve been his daughter in another universe, then kissed her? So bad!

Cheryl
I screamed “gross!”

Let’s go back. The show opens with Jaime yelling at Tyrion (it what sounded like an American accent!) that he had thrown his life away, then declining to fight on his behalf.

Corrin
Tyrion. Tyrion and Jaime. Tyrion and Bronn. Tyrion and Oberyn.

Tyrion’s confession that he enjoyed finally being able to best his father. To pull away from Tywin the certainty of victory. Although it wasn’t wise, he couldn’t stand the thought of his father getting what he always wanted. Although Tyrion wouldn’t sell his life for a murder he didn’t commit, apparently thwarting his father’s ambitions was sufficient to risk it.

Then the confession by Jaime that he couldn’t be Tyrion’s champion because he no longer had the skill.

Cheryl
The choice of a trial by combat was a risky chess move — a Hail Mary pass. A move made with the assumption that his brother or Bronn would stand for him.

Corrin
Which rolls into proposed champion Number 2, Bronn.

Cheryl
Who is movin’ on up.

Corrin
Cheryl, now you know why we stuck a pin in Bronn last week. We know what he’s been up to, namely, working for Cersei. He is, after all, a sellsword. Tyrion forgot that to his detriment.

Cheryl
I thought Bronn’s reply was perfectly lucid and sane.

Laura
He’s a realist, Bronn, and Tyrion knows it. That last line about singing a song about Tyrion’s battle (if he had to fight the Mountain himself) and Bronn looking forward to hearing it, rivaled Pod’s last scene with Tyrion for unexpected emotion.

Corrin
I was glad it wasn’t a scene of betrayal. I wasn’t sure how they were going to deal with Bronn switching to the Lannisters.

Laura
And Bronn was willing to come back to Tyrion if he could beat Cersei’s price. Sigh.

Cheryl
Bronn weighed his options. You had a sense that if the odds weren’t so high against the Mountain, he’d consider it.

Corrin
And then we come to Oberyn. By the time he enters the picture we see just how beaten down Tyrion is. He has given up hope for living through the trial by combat with the help of a champion. And the story that Oberyn tells of his first meeting with Tyrion (taken almost verbatim from the book and impeccably told, by the by) just rammed home the feelings of anger and despair wafting off Tyrion.

And then … hope. Another Peter Dinklage Emmy reel moment.

Laura
There was much hooting at our house when Oberyn dramatically offered to be champion. This show knows how to build up to a moment, eh?

Cheryl
Yes, Tyrion’s reaction shots as Oberyn was telling the story — in extreme close-up — said so much. It was as if the key to his life’s pain was being revealed to him.

And Oberyn, too, is working through an old obsession: to revenge his sister’s rape and murder.

Corrin
Even knowing it was coming, it was still thrilling to watch.

Cheryl
GoT, it seems to me, has a habit of choosing which plot threads to feature to help contrast or highlight certain themes. So, interestingly, we had a lot of cuts from the Wall and Castle Black back to Tyrion in his cell. Do either of you see a connection?

Laura
Hm, interesting. Yes, I think we should dig into that, especially with an episode title like “Mockingbird” that I think begs us to see mimicry and parallels.

Cheryl
Jon, in prison-like Castle Black, is seriously constrained as well — just like Tyrion and Sansa. Also, it flows into what Corrin mentioned — all roads lead back North.

Laura
We’re reminded again of that early Season 1 episode “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things” in which Tyrion allies himself with both Bran and Jon.

Cheryl
I had the same thought Laura: that the fruits of that alliance are to come.

Corrin
I wanted to mention something that I think works in well here. The Stark words are “winter is coming.” The contrast between the ballyhoo at King’s Landing and even Dany’s exploits in Meereen completely ignore the fact that the Citadel declared the long summer over. Winter, and a years-long winter at that, is nearly here. That is what the looming Wildling attack and the lack of true preparation at the Wall, or rather the vulnerability of the Night’s Watch, feels like to me: the oncoming winter. And the destructive wars in the South that have displaced so many means that EVERYONE will suffer deeply in the coming winter. The Night’s Watch, it seems to me, is the larger issues of Westeros writ small.

The things that are happening in King’s Landing are compelling and interesting, but ultimately a distraction from the big picture.

Laura
Yes indeed.  And perhaps that’s why it was perfect to have Sansa’s snow scene at the Eyrie in this episode. In some places not so far north, it’s winter already.

Corrin
The Lannister summer is ebbing, and perhaps, the Stark winter is on the rise.

Cheryl
Kind of like the Benghazi committee in Congress versus the mass extinction and rising sea levels caused by climate change.

Laura
Forest for the trees. But Jon and Tyrion have always been good at that.

Corrin
Given so much death and mayhem in the North it’s hard to remember that only one Stark child (Robb) is dead. The rest are very much alive.

Cheryl
And this was our first sign of the winter south of the Wall, with that snowfall in the Vale’s courtyard.

Laura
The Starks, even without parents or the eldest son, are survivors. Perhaps no other landed family is as well suited as they are to survive the winter.

Cheryl
Disaster looms, and the leadership is not listening to Jon. At what point does he choose mutiny, I wondered, for the good of all? Again, a commonality with Tyrion.

Laura
I enjoyed Alliser Thorne’s reaction to seeing Jon return unscathed, with his direwolf back no less. There was some fear in his eyes. He knows Jon is both popular and strong, and growing more wise to others’ machinations daily.

Corrin
A Stark with his direwolf is a Stark on the rise.

Cheryl
Yes, I want that direwolf to attack Thorne by the throat. Let’s go back to Jon’s sister Arya and the Mountain’s brother, the Hound.

Corrin
The Hound and Arya are wicked awesome.

I have to say that the thing that we get from the show that is impossible to get from the books’ first-person narratives is the evolution of these secondary relationships. We are getting to know the Hound and Podrick and Shae in a way that never did. We are bearing witness to the blossoming of the relationship between Arya and the Hound that is only possible because of the perspective of the camera, and (credit to my husband for this insight) the tremendous talent of the actor playing the Hound.

Cheryl
I wondered why there was such camera time spent with the dying man they stumble across. What was his message to us? Why place him there? His primary message was “I’ve always believed in fair exchange” and “there is no balance anymore.” The world is sliding into chaos, where fairness — that old Stark doctrine — is in eclipse.

Laura
Maybe it was another reminder that the Hound and Arya are rubbing off on each other. The Hound doesn’t just stab him through the heart, he gives him water.

And then Arya just stabs the heck out of Rorge.

Corrin
I think the dying man is Westeros. Or all the common people. There’s no room for fairness and balance. There is the point of a sword.

Cheryl
And the hope of a quick death. Oddly, that scene seemed key to me.

Corrin
Perhaps adapt or die?

Laura
When we get these less-action-y episodes, we are often rewarded with these little nuggets of philosophy and/or metaphor. I bet we can take it lots of ways. It’s also a bit of “know your role,” right? Or even a callback to Valar Dohaeris/Valar Morghulis.

Cheryl
And yes, what is evolving between Pod and Brienne is nothing short of beautiful — and it was great to see Hot Pie. He delivers the big news: Arya is alive.

Corrin
Brienne and Pod were definitely the Frick and Frack of this episode.

Laura
That encounter was another book invention in this episode that I think made a lot of sense.

Corrin
Well, the whole dynamic between Brienne and Pod is, Laura. A great addition to the story that is pretty nonexistent in the books.

Laura
That wiggle-eyebrow knowing look that Brienne gave Pod when Hot Pie proved her point about being open about their Sansa search? Price. Less.

Cheryl
Two people who are perpetually underestimated. Should we talk first about Lysa?

Corrin
Yes!

Cheryl
Farewell, dear, Lysa …

Corrin
Crazy McNutjob and her long fall. I’ll miss her.

Laura
She was a scenery-chewer in the best way. Robin’s overacting was childlike and appropriate, but irritating. Hers was incredibly creepy and awesome.

Cheryl
It was of course ironic that after Robin talked at length of how great it is to have a Moon Door to get rid of all the bad people and the people you don’t like, and Lyse talked in detail about what happens to bodies that fall through … out goes Robin’s breast-est friend.

Laura
ba dum ching

Cheryl
Another act of karma, which is all about righting balance.

Corrin
If by karma you mean Petyr. Although we certainly appreciate the way he is dispatching many unsavories, he is doing so for his own very particular ends.

Laura
Right. He’s no reliable ally.

Cheryl
I mean, Lysa created a little monster of a boy who loved “making things fly” and was obsessed with the Moor Door. She had killed for Petyr … so it was her turn.

OK, now back to Melisandre and that other middle-aged female nutjob. I have not thought of it before, but Lysa and Stannis’s wife Selyse do have many similarities.

Corrin
It has been interesting to see what they’re doing with Selyse’s character. She is one-dimensional in the books. A “fanatic” and that’s it. Seeing her develop a bit and perhaps have a larger role like they did with Shae is intriguing to me. I’m also psyched to see Stannis leaving Dragonstone.

Cheryl
Again, she seemed a “twin” of Lysa. What did you all make of her lingering glances on Melisandre’s body?

Corrin
I don’t think it was husband jealousy, but rather “I wish I was like that.” Like, if she looked like Melisandre, Selyse could have that kind of power. Or perhaps it was more basic.

Laura
It was desire, but not sexual. I pegged it as jealousy, too. Then again, maybe I underestimate Selyse!

Cheryl
Lysa and Selyse, two women getting their needs met in not the healthiest ways: Lysa through ongoing breastfeeding as she spends decades pining away after Petyr, and Selyse, subsuming her body’s needs and wants into her fanatacism. Melisandre reminds that poor old washed-out Selyse that “flesh needs what it needs,” which she seems to have forgotten.

I pegged Selyse’s staring to revelation. She was beholding a woman who was shame-less — that is, without shame — and fully comfortable with her body, her sexuality, the needs of the flesh.

Corrin
It was an interesting interlude and not one that I see leading to any particular place.

Laura
Yes, interlude is right, I think. More thematic than plot-related.

How interesting to see Melisandre admit how much of her “magic” is trickery. Back to that whole Mockingbird angle. She’s an interesting analog to Littlefinger, in fact!

Corrin
Speaking of owning one’s sexuality, how about Dany, Daario, and Ser Friendzoned?

Cheryl
“She’s in a good mood now” — ZING!!!!

Corrin
(I can’t claim originality on that nickname, but it makes me LOL.)

I am SOOOOOOOO glad that the relationship that has been pending between Dany and Daario began as it did. A strong female character initiating and directing a sexual encounter merely for the pleasure of it. Also, Daario? Nice ass. I mean, damn.

Laura
It’s too bad we were denied some kind of frontal nudity — though we at least saw Dany gazing. (Think it was the actor’s rear or a stunt double?)

Cheryl
Game of Asses starts again. Dany is certainly not shirking from the needs of the flesh, and her long lingering stare at what Daario had to offer shows it.

Laura
What a contrast with her first (virgin) night with Khal Drogo, eh? (Which I wish the show had made less rape-y, as it was consensual if fraught in the book.)

Cheryl
Just to note, after that scene with Daario’s ass, it is CUT TO Melisandre and her breasts. Fair and balanced.

Laura
Right. Five seconds of boy butt equals an entire scene of naked lady. Game of Thrones, you won’t ever change.

Corrin
And we get a moment of Dany tempering her bloodthirsty sense of justice with mercy. Listening to good advice.

Cheryl
So after a night of whoopee with Daario, she throws Jorah a bone — so to speak — and tells him she of course could never trust Daario, and yes, please go tell him YOU changed my mind. Keep your councilors off balance and coming back for more, girl.

Laura
resisting … a bone joke … about Jorah …

Cheryl
Yes, Corrin, her fine ideas seem fine until they became tangible; that is, Jorah would not be there if he had run into the Dany buzz saw instead of the Starks. Those ideas are all good in theory, until you test the reality.

Laura
I actually really liked the Dany scene this week. I also liked that she immediately had someone in mind to be her envoy (Hizdahr zo Loraq from last week) — kinda Tywin-like in her planning, no? As in, maybe she had that up her sleeve from the start, and was saving it for a rainy day?

One last thing: the Mountain. Somehow he’s not what I expected? (And I know he’s been recast, but that’s not it.)

Cheryl
Didn’t we see him before, at the joust?

Laura
(Cheryl, the actor is new. He’s actually the third Mountain now!) I wanted him to be scarier. He needed some booga-booga makeup or something. Since we’ve already seen such horrible violence, that alone didn’t make me scared or in awe of him. Or not enough, anyway. Also, in the books he’s supposed to be nearly eight feet tall, which I understand is a bit of a casting nightmare.

Corrin
I don’t think anyone could match with reputation. Anyone actually human. I think you get a better sense of his sheer scale in the preview scenes fighting with Oberyn.

Cheryl
Right. They had to try to create a sense of his size by the camera shot choices

What did you think about those shots in the bath? Or anything else? Share your thoughts in comments — but no spoilers, please!