We finally get a good look at the real enemy in Westeros.
Open the gate and join us for a discussion of “Hardhome” with three fans with different perspectives: Laura Fletcher, a casual fan of the television and book series; Corrin Bennett-Kill, a dedicated fan of the book and TV series (she has read all the books four times!); and Cheryl Collins, who does not read.
Please join the discussion in comments!
Cheryl Collins
I really liked this episode. I didn’t know until I watched the post-show commentary that the Hardhome scenes were not “in the books.”
Laura Fletcher
I really liked it too! A strange mix of “chess movements” and then super-duper action.
Corrin Bennett-Kill
This may have been the best episode, certainly of the season, maybe of the series for me.
I think part of that is the not knowing. I’m finally on the same footing as everyone else. I don’t know what the f*ck is going to happen next!
Laura
Same! I think it also helps that I’ve been so underwhelmed (to put it mildly) lately that a good episode was like a tall cold beer on a hot day.
Corrin
The episode was like a case study on what it means to be human, the nature of our humanity. How we assign human-ness to others or strip them of it.
Laura
Especially the “humanity” of the wildlings as well as the White Walkers.
Cheryl
Great points. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? With two Lannisters held against their will in different circumstances: Tyrion and Cersei. What a contrast! First scene: Jorah and Tyrion at the bottom of those long steps.
Corrin
Tyrion and Dany, sitting in a tree… I love those two together.
Cheryl
I’ll say this: I think we got the themes they were going to explore right off: submission and domination, and justice versus revenge.
Laura
Ten points to Dany for seeing the value in Tyrion!
Corrin
Emilia Clarke was just quivering with rage at Jorah’s presence. I still wonder what it is that he is looking for from Daenerys. He can’t possibly think that he will win his way back into her good graces.
Cheryl
Perhaps he wants absolution?
What was interesting to me was watching Tyrion climb those steps slowly — in ascendance, as it were — while Cersei is totally dominated by that septa, totally at her mercy, and refusing to submit.
Corrin
I also liked how Tyrion found the middle path between acknowledging Jorah’s humanity and right to live with the reality that Dany cannot possibly keep him by her side.
Laura
It seems almost religious, Jorah’s devotion. Like it’s gone beyond adoration or love.
Cheryl
If I remember correctly, Tyrion says that Jorah should not stand “by her side,” and so she banishes him. I wondered then if Tyrion knew about Jorah’s “infection” and was banishing him for his own good, for everyone’s good, because he is so blinded by love he can’t think clearly. Meaning, I wondered if meant more literally than we knew that Jorah could not be “at her side.”
Corrin
I don’t know. Tyrion is nothing if not pragmatic about these things. It makes him effective. Pragmatic thinking married with compassion.
Laura
Interesting idea too that Jorah could be a whole other risk to her and her queendom/Meereen, like a Typhoid Mary.
Corrin
And now he’s seeking out the grand arena for another chance to, what? Prove himself to her? It’s a puzzle, people!
Cheryl
When Jorah was exiled — for the second time! — I thought, how many times does this guy need to hear the message?
Laura
There’s something religious with Jorah, I’m telling ya! Maybe he thinks it’s all a quest? And once he completes it Dany will let him serve her again? I truly don’t think he wants or thinks he can marry her. He lives to serve.
Corrin
Valar doheris.
Cheryl
We see Tyrion climbing those steps, coming up out of that crate he started from in the first episode this season, climbing back to power … and then we go to Cersei, who is on the floor, looking up at the septa, with the POV of the camera tilted up at her, showing Cersei’s total domination.
Laura
Ascension and decline.
Corrin
Ah, yes, the other Lannister child. I don’t think anyone is looking at Cersei at this point and not rubbing their hands with glee at her fall. If anyone deserves it, it’s Cersei.
Cheryl
What was striking to me about Cersei was her teetering between rage and trying to use her usual bag of tricks — threatening or promising wealth. She just does not have the depth to think beyond. Qyburn offered her another way — to confess — but she refused to even consider it.
Laura
Cersei is a fish out of water now.
Cheryl
She said she would not kneel before the Sparrow. She would not submit to him.
Laura
The septa, High Sparrow — all of them are immune to her tricks and bribery. A parallel with the wildlings!
Corrin
That’s just it. Cersei’s predicament mirrors Lady Olenna a couple of episodes ago. She just doesn’t understand that the people she is dealing with are uncompromising in a way she has never encountered.
Re the wildings: right, Laura. It’s why Mance Rayder chose the stake and death instead of kneeling.
Cheryl
Cersei does not understand religion or religious devotion. Maybe that’s your connection with Jorah, Laura — it is devotion immune to reason.
Laura
It seems Westeros hasn’t seen this kind of “revolution” in generations.
Cheryl
She was in that box-like cell with its single small window, similar to Tyrion’s crate.
Laura
Jorah, we may wonder, what does he expect to gain out of this? And the answer may be: nothing. Only to serve. To be able to see Dany, perhaps, even if not at her side. He’d probably be her servant and lick her shoes clean if she asked.
Corrin
Truly uncompromising people cannot exist comfortably alongside those who govern. Governance is ALL about compromise. Even Dany is getting to know that. The trick is knowing what compromises don’t really matter. Something that Master Tyrion excels at.
Maybe that’s another reason Jorah cannot stay by her side. He is as uncompromising in his devotion as the septs and septas in Kings Landing are.
Cheryl
The absolutists cannot rule, ever.
Qyrburn still calls Cersei “my queen.” And he departed with the cryptic “the work continues.” I wondered if that was some kind of wink wink to her about … what? That the Mountain-stein is going to break her out of there?
Corrin
Qyburn owes whatever power he has to Cersei. As to “the work,” I thought of the Mountain too, but am not sure.
Laura
I think Qyburn was obliquely referring to the Mountain. To what end? Icky ends.
Cheryl
If this was a Time magazine political recap, we’d say Tyrion is UP and Cersei is DOWN.
One last thing about Tyrion: he gave back talk to Dany and refused “to submit.” He was like, “who says you’re good enough for me to work with? I’m not gonna ‘serve’ you. I will not bend the knee. But if you interest me, I may assist you” (to wildly paraphrase).
You may “deserve my service” is how I think he put it.
Corrin
Tyrion is just everything Dany needs in an advisor.
Laura
Similar sassiness made Dany like Daario, come to think of it. Though he was all “here are the heads of some other dudes while you bathe,” so not exactly.
Cheryl
Another thing with Jorah: we saw him connected somehow to Jon through that sword. I wondered if that’s why the two were put in this episode together.
Corrin
Long Claw is the Mormont family sword. Jon has it now because Jorah was in exile. His father gave it to Jon before he died.
Laura
Meanwhile, Jaime is in Dorne. What will he do (and what will the Martells do) when he hears the news from King’s Landing?
Cheryl
So, back to Sansa and Theon/Reek. She now knows her younger brothers are alive.
Laura
Re Theon/Reek: the transition between the two seems awkward onscreen. In the books it’s an internal struggle explained by first person narration from his POV. I’m having trouble understanding where he is in the transition now. But maybe that’s the idea?
Cheryl
A small smile almost crossed Sansa’s face at the revelation: a moment of relief, and hope.
Laura
Now that Sansa knows they’re alive — or were recently — she has a little more reason to keep going, not to give up to despair.
Corrin
Sansa and Theon/Reek are obviously being drawn together. It may be a while before it’s full-blown conspiracy between them, but it’s brewing. Sansa is cowed by Ramsay Bolton right now, but nowhere near broken.
I’m still expecting a pointy thing to the jugular mid coitus from Sansa at some point.
Cheryl
Love that thought.
Minor point about Theon/Reek: we saw in one of the first eppies this season that he has a lot of knives at hand, as he was carving meat. They made a point to show us that.
As someone who does not know the books’ perspective, for me Theon is fascinating because it seems to me he is “playing” more at Reek than he is really, but we’re not sure. How much is his deception (from fear) and how much is derangement?
Corrin
Each of these characters has been sufficiently altered by the show writers and the actors playing them that it is well and truly up in the air.
Reek from the books is deranged, utterly broken. Theon/Reek from the show, not as much. Not really.
Laura
And that’s a bit unclear even in he books, I’d say.
Cheryl
In a weird way, Theon is the flip of Ramsay because all Theon wanted was the approval of his father.
When Reek tells Sansa that bits of him were cut away and Sansa replies “good,” Reek looks up in surprise — he’s hurt. To me, that said Theon is still there.
Corrin
Broken, yes. Crazed, yes. Beyond redemption, or the hope of redemption, I’m not so sure.
We also got a glimpse as to how ill-prepared Ramsay is for command, as well as how ice cold Roose Bolton is.
That Ramsay even considered leaving Winterfell’s walls show him to be an overconfident idiot.
Laura
Right! He’s a northerner but not a smart one.
Corrin
How about Arya?
It was interesting to see her beginning to inhabit the role the Faceless Men see themselves as holding. Part of their claim on her is her desire for justice.
When she went out into the marketplaces of Braavos and was told to look and see, she saw the injustice right away. Even though there wasn’t anything in particular the whatshisname wanted her to look for.
Cheryl
Justice versus revenge.
Laura
Arya sees both as complementary. They should be the same, to her.
Corrin
It’s a hard sort of justice.
Cheryl
Or is she learning the greater possibility of justice out of her desire for revenge. Cersei wants revenge against her captor, dreams only of it …
Corrin
I think Arya is learning the difference between the two.
It’s kind of like the differences between equivalence and equality in social justice theory.
“Equivalence” claims that all people get the same regardless. This is vengeance. You get death because you wronged me. “Equality” includes restorative justice. That some will have less in the interest of restoring balance. This is the justice that the Faceless Men seem to seek.
Laura
That’s fascinating. Restorative justice indeed!
Cheryl
The Faceless Man does seem to seek out a much larger sense of justice, trying to right the karma wheel.
Tyrion learned the hard way that revenge (like killing his dad) does not necessarily bring pleasure.
Laura
Defeating injustice doesn’t necessarily being about justice.
Cheryl
Back in one the first episodes, when Bronn was walking by the water with his then-betrothed, he said something like “mean people get what they deserve” or something close to that. I wondered at the time if that would serve as a theme.
Laura
And the Lord of Light is pretty justice-focused but uses injustice to get there.
Cheryl
In any case, I like seeing Arya wearing something different!
Corrin
So, Sam, Gilly and Olly. I could have done without the references to their shagging. Because ew. But it was a pointed conversation with Olly.
Cheryl
I thought this interaction between Sam and Gilly was so much more touching and tender than the last. It was so much more of what I wanted in their first sex scene. Shared close-ups, unspoken feelings, long glances that said so much – this small scene was much more fulfilling than the emotionally dead deflowering scene, which had all the warmth of porn.
In the shared close-ups, while she was tending his wounds, you had a sense that they were a team, working through whatever was coming together. She was not merely an adjunct to his deflowering.
Corrin
Also, the idea of being a man is doing things that you know are right despite the costs or consequences.
It’s been fun to watch Sam become a man in truth after his rather poor start at the wall.
Cheryl
Yes, against all odds, Sam has become someone who has found his voice and earned respect.
Laura
Olly at first seemed like a narrative device. Now he’s becoming a character in and of himself. I hope.
Cheryl
Did anyone else wonder about that plate of food? I wondered if it was poisoned. Sam gives him the talk about “hard choices” that seem wrong in the short term but are good for the long term, and then Olly turns and asks “do you really think so?” I wondered, was he put up to making one of those hard choices?
Corrin
I did think that for a second. The show has jaded us.
Cheryl
We can’t trust anyone on this show, even little Olly.
Corrin
The scene with Sam, Gilly, and Olly was the set up for Jon’s expedition to Hardhome. The message: despite everything, the wildlings are human beings, and the REAL enemy is not.
Cheryl
OK, you two, as this was all new material to you (and now we are at the same level!), what was your take?
Corrin
It was such a departure from the books that I was immediately absorbed. I initially thought that this was just going to be the diplomatic mission.
In the books, Cotter Pyke, the commander of Eastwatch by the Sea, goes to Hardhome and “something happens.” Jon hears about what’s happening by messenger, but doesn’t ever leave Castle Black.
So, there was that part of it. The newness.
I also didn’t expect there to be any real evidence of the White Walkers this episode. So when that fog started rolling over the cliffs, I was all, what the hell is that? It was awesome!
It’s also what I’ve been yelling about for all these seasons to everyone who would listen, “You’re focusing on the wrong stuff, people!”
Cheryl
I can see why the showrunners inserted the Hardhome scenes: they had to show the true, real menace of the advancing hordes. It’s not theoretical now.
Corrin
Right! We book readers had tiny glimpses of a menace in the north, but it’s all sightings and shrouded. This is the first time any of us have seen what’s really coming. I mean for realsies.
Cheryl
To your point, I kept thinking as I watched these scenes: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Meaning, people, look at the big picture!
Now we’ll find out if Alliser Thorne will see it.
Corrin
Right! The Thenn walks away saying that the Watch is the enemy, then mid-battle we see him confronted with his own ignorance and the reality of Jon’s words. Suddenly, humanity became a stronger bond that they thought.
Cheryl
Those advancing hordes seem pretty relentless — and a huge, huge challenge of course for Jon, Castle Black, and everyone else.
Corrin
Suddenly the Wall makes a lot of fucking sense. “To guard the realms of men …”
Cheryl
The small differences between men melt away. Kind of like Dany’s words that she wants to break the game of the houses.
Now tell me your thoughts on the White Walkers — and what about Jon’s battle with that Johnny Winter–looking dude?
Corrin
The implication from the rest of the series are that the White Walkers are all brothers, all Craster’s sons. And a breed apart from the army of the dead.
Remember when the Walker came and took the baby boy from the woods? That had been the fate of all of Craster’s sons.
Cheryl
Makes me worry about Baby Sam, who is thus related.
Corrin
And we first saw the Night’s King when he touched the baby’s cheek and turned his eyes blue.
As for the White Walker who fought Jon, I think he just came down from the cliff to show a) that his presence could quench regular fire, and b) that Valyrian steel can kill the Walkers.
There’s no strategic reason why they should risk themselves by coming off the cliff. Not when every human that gets killed becomes one of yours.
Cheryl
“Regular” fire, as opposed to dragon’s fire, eh? wink wink
Corrin
nudge nudge
Cheryl
And that kick-ass Wilding fighter mom, I loved her instantly, and knew she would not be able to “kill” kids, even if they were already dead.
And what about her daughters that set off on the boat — we have Gilly, Baby Sam, Olly, and now those two girls. This has the making of some interesting sitcom set up.
I was biting my nails throughout, though of course I knew Jon would live … still!
Laura
I was legit worried about Jon. Never trust GRRM or Benioff-Weiss!
Cheryl
Especially after Sam says, “Don’t worry about Jon, he always comes back!”
Corrin
That should have been a pretty good indication of what was about to happen.
Laura
The White Walkers clearly have a plan. And each is distinct.
That faraway shot of Jon on the boat as the White Walker guy raises the dead is the shot of the season.
Cheryl
You can see the thought bubble: “OMFG.”
Did you notice how the wildings kept calling Jon “King Crow.” More submission and domination.
Laura
Speaking of OMG faces: of the the White Walker, when Jon smashes his sword. Another wow.
We had no idea that would work. Book readers are hyperventilating at his point.
Cheryl
That look on both of their faces — they were both surprised! Kind of like Jaime and his golden hand in that sword fight.
Laura
We all kind of wondered if the dragons would be some secret to defeating the White Walker horde. Valyrian steel is a good twist.
Corrin
Well, the Targaryans are of Old Valaria, and the Dragonstone (that Stannis said had all the dragonglass), so it follows that the swords would have some impact.
Brienne has the Valyrian steel sword that Tywin had made for Jaime from Ned Stark’s great sword, Ice. Tommen has the other sword made from Ice.
Dragonstone is the island from which the Targaryens conquered Westeros. Stannis holds it now for the Baratheons.
Cheryl
All in all, I am much more fired up after this episode. After the last two, I had no desire to go back and rewatch or look forward to the next. But I am now looking forward to the next episodes.
I’m betting we’ll see Bran by season’s end.
Laura
It feels like we have to! At least a glimpse!!
Corrin
Anything is possible at this point. I have NO idea what to expect anymore. It’s refreshing!
Cheryl
It’s fun again! Thank god. It took a long time to get here
Squawks
Cheryl
- I found the dialogue just terrible in the Hardhome scenes. After I found out that it was all new material, I understood. Lines like “good luck with that,” “they give two shits,” “I fucking hate Thenns,” “what the fuck you looking at?” and “at least we’ll give the fuckers a fight” (paraphrasing but not that much). It’s like Martin Scorcese went to Westeros. All very lazy writing. “Good luck with that”? That’s a bit casual 2015, or right off of “Friends.”
- Those wilding hordes look like they include some extras who sit and stand in the background in Castle Black. I guess there are only so many extras to go around.
- Sam and Gilly seem imprisoned too, in that room with the small window.
- This is Johnny Winter. Tell me he does not look like a White Walker. RIP.
Please comment! But no spoilers, please!
