Game of Thrones Discussion — S6, E10: A World Turned Upside Down

Bastards become kings. Gods become monsters.  The dead are resurrected. Dragons fly.

The world is full of irregularities, allowing radical new possibilities in the universe that is Game of Thrones.

“The Winds of Winter” marked the end of an epic and emotionally exhausting season.

Process and recover with three fans with different perspectives. Rosalyn Claret, who has read the books yet says she “forgets” how many times; Laura Fletcher, a casual fan of the television and book series; and Cheryl Collins, who does not read. 

TLF GoT editorial central thanks all readers and appreciates patience with posting this season. A special thanks to Karl, Fernando, Andrew and all commenters for their incisive opinions.

Please watch for a Game of Thrones Season 6 wrap-up soon.

Join the discussion in comments!

Laura
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “no surprise” and 10 is “a sloth suddenly appears in front of you right now,” how surprised were you at Cersei’s shenanigans?

Rosalyn
They teased the wildfire so much that I was not surprised at that, but they did get me on exactly how it came about!

And I didn’t expect her to take the Iron Throne, though I should have. I just hadn’t thought past “shit blows up.”

Laura
I totally didn’t see that either! And I saw Cersei taking herself out with the blast (inescapably/fatalistically)!

I may have had nightmares about Qyburn’s murder-children, too.

Cheryl
Immediate reactions? Thumbs up? Down?

Rosalyn
What a badass episode! Turning points, all around!

Laura
THUMBS WAY UP. It’s a caps lock-worthy finale.

Cheryl
That opening wildfire sequence was operatic. We were in some new territory, it seemed. Did you have that sense?

Laura
The tone of that opening sequence, visually and audibly, was so different than Game of Throne’s usual options.

Cheryl
It opens with the shots of Tommen, Margaery, Cersei, and the High Sparrow getting dressed — literally tied into their garments — as though they were being tied into, bound into, their fates.

Laura
For Cersei, putting it on like armor. Cersei had a high protective neck, with fabric that’s scaly and fierce.

Cheryl
And she wore dark colors: her look was both funereal and martial. No Lannister reds and golds.

Tommen was bound — from above and below — by that crown and chain.

Rosalyn
That was a very striking intro. The music was so unusual. Everyone was being girded for battle. We have never seen Cersei wear anything like that.

Cheryl
Let’s start with the preview — which was itself odd, with that different, new piano music. Something was afoot, we knew, by that music. It was so stark and evocative.

Rosalyn
I thought it was an effective “previously on” but also very different tonally. Pretty masterful. I found the music notable but it carried me.

Laura
I was absolutely rapt at the music, and the relative silence. That piano music made me think of a horror film — when you know something terrible is coming. Which was true.

Cheryl
To me it was a signal: we are entering new territory.

So we get to those first shots: Margaery, Tommen, the High Sparrow, Cersei. Tommen is not eager to go to the trial. And then the Mountain stops him from attending.

Rosalyn
All of them look like they are being armored. Garbed for battle.

Cersei, along with the change in style, has never worn such a short dress, either, I noticed. Very martial. She’s some sort of reverse unholy Joan of Arc.

Loras is the only one not really shown being prepared in the same way. He has given up.

Laura
Almost everything is washed in grey.

Loras is just dragged out of his cell, unprepared but girded for what he must do.

Rosalyn
I was also struck by the visual of the round sept, with people entering on all sides, contrasted with the very linear dais of the throne room, and the galleries, and the orderly ranks and hierarchies where people stand.

Laura
Or even contrasted with the Meereenese throne room, which has been changed by Dany to be less vertical but is nevertheless in no way circular or flat.

Cheryl
With those overhead shots in the sept — from above — like god.

Rosalyn
To me, the significance of that circular space was reinforced when the High Sparrow started looking from place to place on the pantheon when talking about how the Warrior’s judgment and the Mother’s mercy both are at play; there was a kind of balance, and it was represented visually and physically.

Laura
Some shots from above, and some from far below, almost at the knees of people. We look Loras in the eyes several times.

Rosalyn
It was a marked difference from the other trials we’ve seen, where rank is clearly indicated by where people stand. This shot of the trial was anchored by the effigies of the Seven and an open space in the middle.

Cheryl
Loras was totally humbled, and he renounced his title. I still don’t understand why the High Sparrow made him do that, and what his long game was there.

Rosalyn
I thought Margaery’s pain was palpable, but you knew this was part of her effort to save her brother’s life.

Laura
I think the Sparrow’s long game involved bringing down the most powerful houses in Westeros, so the Faith would remain in charge.

Rosalyn
He underestimated Cersei. But Margaery knew.

Cheryl
Margaery was totally focused on saving her brother —”stay with me” — one of the numerous sibling pairs highlighted in this episode.

Laura
I love that Margaery knew something was happening without having any clue as to what. She knew based only on knowing Cersei.

Rosalyn
The Sparrow actually seemed shocked for a moment when she said, “Screw your bloody gods” or whatever — she’d had him convinced to date at least that much!

Cheryl
That look on the Sparrow’s face at the end was priceless.

Laura
I was even happier to see him go up in a sudden gust of green flame than seeing Ramsay die.

Rosalyn
I don’t know if he had invested enough seriousness in either Margaery or Cersei as players. Cersei for scheming and being this beyond the pale, and Margaery for totally, 100 percent, having Cersei’s number.

Laura
Margaery’s death was the one moment that took me out of enjoying this finale. I was angry.

I’m curious as to why the High Sparrow ordered the Faith Militant to keep everybody in. Was it just to make sure they witnessed the trial he was bound and determined to have?

Rosalyn
Maybe the High Sparrow is like Melisandre. Too confident in his interpretation of events. After all, he had all the information he needed at his disposal, just as much information as Margaery had. He thought he was one up on everyone else and closer to the gods than they.

I think he just didn’t believe it or couldn’t comprehend it, yet.

Cheryl
Olenna told Cersei a few episodes ago: “you’ve lost.” Cersei had zero constituencies.

It seemed to me the High Sparrow suffered a failure of imagination — which was not Margaery’s problem. It was not until the last seconds that he realized he had been outplayed. He never thought for an instant it was possible. Hubris, my friend, hubris.

Rosalyn
Letting them go would have been admitting that he was wrong.

I am much more upset about Margaery’s death than I ever would have guessed. Props to the writers and to Natalie Dormer.

Laura
The High Sparrow is also like Ramsay, in that way — the High Sparrow is a master manipulator (and perhaps a sadist on some level), but he also doesn’t realize what he doesn’t know.

Cheryl
That’s the thing with formal religion: it’s all about rules. Do what you’re told. You must stay in. Stand up. Sit down. Follow the leader. Etc.

Laura
Right! And again we’re being shown that formal religion is not the thing that will save us. Another parallel with Melisandre, though we’ll get to her anon.

Another parallel: when one of Qyburn’s “little birds” seems to lure Lancel into the wildfire pits. That was very much like the last scenes with Arya and the Waif.

Cheryl
Yes, I thought that too: into the heart of the labyrinth Lancel was pulled.

Rosalyn
Point of clarification: functionally, was Pycelle killed because he is probably the only other person in King’s Landing who knows about the wildfire?

They have to take him out, and they had to have it happen while Cersei’s safe in the Red Keep. Thus the use of the little birds?

Cheryl
And Cersei hates Pycelle. As soon as we saw him, I thought HE’S DONE.

Pycelle had such a smug look on his face as he reveled in the trial of Cersei. As he dressed and out on that heavy chain, he too was sealing his fate.

Laura
Lancel being forced to witness the wildfire explosion and unable to stop it was 100% Cersei. That was her specific revenge for his turning her in.

The scene with Pycelle and the prostitute reminds us how much of a liar and posturer he is. It was one of the few times I’ll grant Game of Thrones some nudity.

It could just be Qyburn’s revenge. Pycelle is the maester he can never be, after being kicked out of the Citadel. Just as Cersei orchestrated Lancel’s gruesome death, Qyburn got to take out Pycelle.

Cheryl
Just to bang the point again: their fates were all sealed. How much can you push against fate?

Tommen was trapped, trapped by that crown, strangled by the crown and chain, utterly powerless. The only way he could exercise power over his life was to end it.

Laura
Tommen, who looked crushed and nearly ready to give up as he got ready to attend his mother’s trial, is then made to watch the sept go up in gruesome flames, with his beloved (no doubt there) wife and hundreds more inside or nearby.

Remember how Tommen worried so much about being a good king?

Rosalyn
Tommen bore the crown as a weight, not a prize.

Cheryl
Tommen seemed crushed by his inability to effect change, exercise his will — his only escape was death. He just was not able to act — the Mountain would not even let him leave his room. He had control of nothing. I wondered if he knew that Cersei was not dead.

Laura
I think there’s a load of symbolism in how he carefully removed his crown before stepping out of that window.

From Tywin to the High Sparrow to Cersei: Tommen was trying so hard to be the king everyone wanted him to be.

Cheryl
And be his own man, somehow — which proved impossible. I do think that was part of the reason Cersei took out Pycelle — because he was giving Tommen counsel.

Laura
I wondered that, too. Pycelle was also whispering in Tommen’s ear some anti-Cersei messaging.

Rosalyn
Ostensibly, Cersei does everything she does for her children. That’s what she keeps repeating to herself. She seems to have accepted the fate prophesied for her by that witch in her childhood. She knows Tommen is already gone to her, though she prevents him from going to his death at the sept.

Had she thought about how it would affect him? Is she capable of that? Has she remembered that he is an independent actor?

Cheryl
The love of her kids is the only thing that tethered her to the world. And now…?

Laura
Cersei would blame it all on fate, on the witch’s magic, never on herself.

Rosalyn
Or is this really all about power for her? She’s abandoning the defining trait — being a mother to her children — which she’s clung to for the entire season.

I couldn’t understand how she could face the truth of his death so coldly, unless she’d already given up on the idea of her son surviving and knowing happiness. If not for believing his death to be fated, she’d have to face the fact that she brought it about by her own actions.

Laura
She was obviously never, ever going to go through with a trial.

I think the murders she and Qyburn carried out before the explosion were key, because they were people she didn’t want to risk making it out alive, for one reason or another (maybe personal, maybe practical — Pycelle could be an actual problem for her if he’d survived).

Cersei really isn’t that clever. Her greatest cleverness is just being more evil and ruthless than people assumed she could be, not more calculating. Clever people (apart from Margaery!) couldn’t comprehend anyone would want to do what Cersei did. Her greatest trick.

Cheryl
I felt that she simply wanted to take everyone out — just pure rage.

Did she really want the Iron Throne all along? Or does she just want to exact revenge on the citizens who humiliated her?

Rosalyn
I am certain that she did want the throne all along.

Laura
What is the maxim about not wanting a politician who wants it too badly? Compare that to Jon, the unlikely and seemingly unwilling White Wolf.

And of course, Littlefinger wants it even more than Cersei, I suspect.

Rosalyn
It is oddly a point on which I still feel some sympathy for Cersei. Her entire life she has just wanted recognition as the only Lannister child with the ambition to rule, and instead was married off to a man who mistreated her. Avenues of power have been closed to her because she is a woman.

It is a twisted but in some ways entirely consistent and logical motivation.

Laura
Another Cersei detail: her terrifying revenge on Septa Unella. We can’t help but compare it to Sansa at Ramsay’s death scene. She even walks away grinning.

Cheryl
Awful, but unsurprising. Did you notice that Cersei finally did “confess” all to Unella? She finally did it. And she admitted that she liked her “sins.”

Rosalyn
That was a pretty neat inversion of the order to “confess.”

I thought of it plenty when I watched Sansa absorb the idea of leadership and respect as a ruler, later on, especially contrasted with being variously married off (as Cersei was and Margaery was, with each trying to carve out their own fate within that stricture).

Cersei is the Mad Queen in every way, and Jaime is going to renounce her!

Laura
We can oddly feel some sympathy for Cersei, as Arya reminded us as she watched the play in Braavos. Just as we start to pity Cersei, near what seems to be her end, she pulls out actual terrorism.

Jaime’s look as Cersei was coronated was ambiguous, to me. It seemed that Jaime was searching desperately for some glimmer in Cersei’s face that would explain it all, or show regret, or something. But nothing from her on that front.

Cheryl
When Jaime rode in, King’s Landing was completely cloudy — as well as smoky, of course. The city is usually sunny, and red and gold, not grey.

Jaime is now pulled between the Cersei side and the Brienne side — just after he publicly announced (for the first time) his love for her, to Edmure.

Rosalyn
Let us remember that Jaime’s entire life was defined by keeping a ruler from blowing up the city with wildfire.

Laura
But at the same time, he gave Cersei that speech about “fuck the world” and nothing matters but the two of them. (Which is when we started wondering about Tommen, recall?)

Cheryl
He was reminded again by Frey about his role as the kingslayer — he just cannot escape that, no matter what he does.

Rosalyn
Reminded of everything he hates and imagines that he is not, and also reminded of the fact that for all intents and purposes, the world see him the same way.

Laura
Walder Frey comparing his actions to Jaime’s made Jaime look like he was going to throw a punch.

Rosalyn
Frey says “we” to him a lot, and Jaime has to realize that for most people, he’s not much different, just another type of kingslayer.

Cheryl
I wondered if Jaime’s look as he entered the sept said: “I have given all up for … this? A children, wife, title … and now … this… ” Maybe it was a direct parallel to Loras’s public renouncing of his title and ability to have children.

Rosalyn
Remember Frey’s dialogue to Jaime? Basically, victory is victory, if I’m alive and you’re dead. I’m victorious if I have the castle and you don’t. Which is basically Cersei’s perspective. “I choose violence.”

And Jaime appears to find it contemptible. At least, from Frey’s mouth.

Cheryl
Honor does not matter in that view.

Laura
Right, no respect for honor or honest fighting at all. The polar opposite of the Starks’ over-reliance on honor.

Rosalyn
Since we’re talking about Frey, let’s talk about Arya.

Laura
That was by far my favorite twist this show has ever, ever done.

Rosalyn
Yes! Because it delightfully (and I cannot believe I’m using that word, given the subject matter) takes a tidbit from the books and presents it in a new way: Frey pie.

Cheryl
Finally she was able to avenge Robb’s death and desecrated corpse, which she witnessed.

Laura
That’s right, she saw the awful direwolf head on his body!

Cheryl
And was helpless to do anything about it.

Laura
Arya dismembered two people and cooked them. That’s some sick shit.

Rosalyn
It’s incredibly sick shit! But I thought it was funny on a meta level because it resuscitated a book side plot I thought was gone forever.

Cheryl
I think this is the issue: can she control her rage and acts of violence? As Ray said, violence is a disease that spreads.

Back to Winterfell … Finally Davos has the showdown with Melisandre over Shireen.

Melisandre is so different now: so much more humble, less haughty, more human.

Rosalyn
There was a lot packed into this scene. It hurt to watch.

Laura
Davos was so raw. That’s the only word I can come up with.

Cheryl
A fine performance. “I loved her like a daughter,” he says.

But her parents were on board with her murder. How do you make sense of that? And who really is your parent? Davos, it was suggesting, was her “real” parent.

Rosalyn
What Melisandre said about Shireen’s parents was true, but it also felt like a fruitless attempt to deflect blame. Grasping.

Cheryl
Justifying. But how does Jon make sense of that? Melisandre raised him from the dead, saying it was by the power from her god … a god that asked her to burn a little girl to death. How do you process that?

Laura
This scene drew upon so many of the big themes we’ve been chasing all season.

The first is religion and the way it’s sold to us mere mortals, and the second is family.

Rosalyn
I felt satisfied that he made an instantaneous decision that what she did was not okay, even if he didn’t decide to execute her. When she brought up the idea of her helping in the “great war to come” against the Night’s King, I thought it might be the only thing that could sway him. But he still dispensed justice. I thought it kept Jon worthy of respect in Davos’s eyes, too. Davos is a more important advisor.

Laura
Jon led in the best way here: by making a choice that satisfied no one.

Cheryl
I thought the decision was a good balance of everything, but it’s interesting that Jon is assumed to be the justice dispenser here, though he really has no claim to this house.

In the last episode, Jon picks up a shield with the Stark sigil and uses it to fight Ramsay — a very clear reminder that he is fighting for this house that is not his and for a name that is not his.

Laura
Davos goes to Jon and demands Melisandre tell JON what she did to Shireen — not tell him, Davos, but Jon.

Cheryl
Right, he’s the boss, by default.

Rosalyn
Davos needs a man to respect and follow, and he’s decided it’s Jon.

Cheryl
So off Melisandre goes, south. Then Sansa “confesses” to him that she should have told him about the Knights of the Vale and she apologizes.

And he was thankful and grateful to her for her help, giving Sansa credit for winning the battle.

Her apology did seem truthful, but who knows. I still don’t really understand why she did not tell him, and it may have been simply to allow the Vale to come in at the last minute for plot purposes. But she could not explain her silence to Jon to Brienne either, I remember.

Laura
Jon was eerily chill about it all.

Rosalyn
But they are still two lost people in a cruel world who found one another again. Maybe gratitude and care outweighs the rest.

Cheryl
But he fucked up too. I really think he is so ambivalent.

Rosalyn
Jon is the one who throws out a comment that shows he might understand a bit: “Didn’t Littlefinger sell you to the Boltons?”

Laura
And he knows he also fucked up by not listening to her advice to not fall into Ramsay’s traps. He knew he shouldn’t have charged after Rickon’s death.

Cheryl
He almost killed himself — and his army — for the sake of Rickon. Who’s not even his brother.

So who your family is, how they define you, how they are part of your identity: once again, reminders of that theme.

Rosalyn
Then we have the news: a white raven has arrived from the Citadel. Winter has come!

And it makes them both laugh a little, just like it makes us laugh a little. Winter — the start of a long, hard slog through darkness — and yet, as Jon says, Ned did keep going on about it.

Cheryl
Again, the mention of “father”: Jon kept invoking Ned in this episode. The irony not exactly subtle.

Rosalyn
Also, if winter is here, who is most prepared for that? The effin’ Starks, who can talk about nothing else. It’s like, “yeah, we got this.” Starks ascendant.

Cheryl
Those people in King’s Landing or Dorne are clueless about the implications.

Let’s quickly hit Sam.

Laura
All those white ravens flowing out of the citadel to herald winter’s arrival just as Sam and Gilly arrived were perfect.

Rosalyn
The shot of Oldtown was beautiful. And Gilly looked both beautiful and comfortable!

Laura
Not only was it beautiful and poignant, it let us know the relative timelines we were dealing with. On a practical note, I felt the show tried very hard to keep us paced in a relative manner.

Cheryl
Gilly was in a different dress (a simple grey dress) — and in a place of autumn, neither north nor south, it seems to me.

Rosalyn
Somewhere between Mole’s Town Chic and Overstuffed Tarly Look du Jour.

Why do maesters all kind of suck so much if they come from such a cool place? Bo-ring.

Cheryl
And they are clearly out of touch with what is happening in the world. No, Maester Aemon is no longer in charge. How much time has passed, months?

Rosalyn
Right. Too literal and orderly. Sam, with his awkward half-joke, is actually bringing some truth down on them: the world is full of irregularities.

Cheryl
And this is the period of irregularities: when dragons fly, when women rule, when bastards are kings.

Laura
When marriages are afterthoughts at best. When gods are monsters. When monsters are gods.

Cheryl
And when women might enter the library. I guess no one has heard that Castle Black is practically defunct.

Rosalyn
Women and children might hurt the scrolls. Beware!

Laura
Brief mention here of the visuals in the library: chained up books = very protected knowledge. Not good for civilization, methinks.

Also, the lamps hanging in the library’s center look like the gyroscope in the credits.

Cheryl
So then … Dorne? Olenna?

Rosalyn
Tyrell-Martell-Varys!

Cheryl
Were you as happy as I was that Olenna asked the Sand Snakes to shut up?

Rosalyn
It made me laugh out loud. Although I also think she gives too much credit to show-Ellaria by saying, “Let the grown women talk.” Hardly. But I digress.

Laura
Olenna called Obara “Barbaro”! I died.

Rosalyn
How is she still in fine form? How is she not wrecked from her grief? I guess because of the one thing Ellaria and Varys are promising her.

Cheryl
To destroy Cersei.

Laura
The Tyrell name is basically dead. That was a subtext in Olenna saying she wasn’t here to survive, but for revenge.

Rosalyn
You know, Margaery really saved her life, after all, as it turns out.

Cheryl
Varys promises fire and blood … cue the dragons!

Rosalyn
Personally, I’m wondering why exactly all the various Sands were so ready to receive Varys. I guess he’s promising that King’s Landing will go up in dragon fire, soooooo …

But what did we learn about vengeance, everyone?

Cheryl
And what does Dorne want? The same thing? To kill Cersei?

Laura
I don’t think the show has gone to near enough detail on the Dorne-Targaryen alliance, but I’m guessing their willingness to welcome Varys has a lot to do with that — namely, Elia’s marriage to Rhaegar.

Rosalyn
Good point, Laura. Historically they’re connected.

Laura
But also a long, long history of Martell-Targaryen friendliness, which isn’t show-canon really.

Ellaria is also a Sand.

Rosalyn
Sand being the Dornish name for people without family names (illegitimate), just like “Snow.”

Laura
So yet another bastard gaining power.

Cheryl
So Elaria is seeking revenge for her lover — Oberyn — but not for her own children or family members.

Laura
She was also frustrated by Doran’s lack of action, in general.

Cheryl
Varys seems to be promising revenge. But what will all those people from Essos do when they cross the sea and winter comes?

What about Sansa and Littlefinger?

Laura
First, we see Sansa waiting until the weirwood tree, regretting her naiveté.

Cheryl
Then he comes upon her, asking if she is praying, and she says she’s done with all that.

Rosalyn
Side note, these scenes with the weirwoods and the forests and the snow falling were lovely to look at.

Sansa has been visiting the godswood since she was a child, so there she is again. (Also side note: she was married to Ramsay here.)

Cheryl
Littlefinger finally “confesses” what he wants: the Iron Throne — and her. Finally.

Rosalyn
I have to admit, I had not guessed that the throne was Baelish’s endgame.

Laura
Chaos is a ladder, and Sansa is his penultimate rung. The throne is the last.

Cheryl
We had just seen Dany mention to Daario that she could use marriage — and the promise of marriage — to make alliances. And here Sansa gives a perfect example of doing so: as Littlefinger tries to kiss her, she pushes away, and she says of his vision of the throne and her next to him, “It’s a pretty picture.”

She’s playing him, stringing him along. She has to. After he somehow played all sides against each other and pimped her out.

Rosalyn
Sansa has the right of it when she says that he’s sworn many allegiances and yet never failed to do whatever was best for him.

Something in this scene still caught at me and was echoed later when Sansa and Petyr exchange a glance while Jon is being hailed King in the North.

Laura
Ramsay was on Littlefinger’s hit list way back when. Littlefinger had promised Cersei he would march with the Knights of the Vale and take the Boltons down. Plus, Littlefinger vastly underestimated Ramsay.

Rosalyn
Petyr is perhaps the only one telling Sansa that yes, she deserves and is capable of and should have leadership in Winterfell.

Cheryl
Of course he is trying to drive a wedge between her and Jon.

Laura
He wants to ignite her ambition and hunger, though, so she’ll help him chase the throne. She refuses.

Rosalyn
But I wondered if that also didn’t strike some sort of chord in her.

Jon wishy-washily says that she’s Lady in Winterfell, and offers her the “lord’s chamber,” but he’s still the one kind of taking charge.

I think she would like power at this point. I think she wants to be heard, to be taken seriously. To have a voice at the war council, etc.

Cheryl
Jon seems reluctant at best. He is not beating his chest, demanding to be in control. It always kind of falls on him. People see him that way, give him power, like at Castle Black.

Laura
Jon seemed very, very reluctant.

Rosalyn
I was watching Sansa closely when the climactic moment came for Jon and all the lords swore fealty. I wondered if she’d feel cheated of her position at all, as the Stark in Winterfell. I didn’t see that cross her face, she looked pleased … until her eyes caught Baelish’s, and you could almost see him reminding her that there’s another throne in Westeros and she could be there with him.

Cheryl
What I found interesting about that final scene was that it was just the two of them, Jon and Sansa, behind that table: a couple.

Rosalyn
I think Sansa needs badly not to be dismissed or taken for granted any longer in her life, but still needs to carve out the position that will mean that, for her. Again, remember what it did to Cersei, never having this? A life of constantly being dismissed as a bride to forge alliances?

I don’t see it so much as her being power-hungry as wanting to have some control and influence over her own life, and to put herself in a position not to be anyone’s toy anymore.

Cheryl
We want her to exercise power, or wish to — but I still don’t see it in her yet, that desire. But this is a new world, a new time, and they are both getting used to a whole new set of rules, including a bastard being declared King of the North.

Laura
I definitely read it differently than Rosalyn did. I saw her tearing up when everyone rallied behind Jon. I don’t think she wants power. She’s seen too much of the awful side, through first Joffrey and Cersei, then Littlefinger, and then the Boltons.

Rosalyn
I think it’s more that she’s wondering what she’s capable of.

Laura
She’s excited to see her house returned to power, and to find safety and security. Not that she doesn’t want any power, but she’d rather have the power to be able to escape it, I think.

Rosalyn
She’s often overlooked and forgotten, but she feels she’s grown beyond what she was. Perception needs to catch up.

Again going back to my thought that Sansa is taking up Catelyn’s mantle in many ways, Sansa is going to grow into having “a woman’s strength,” the strength of a noble lady of a great house. She is not going to claim agency by putting on a face and slitting the throats of her enemies.

Right now, women (even with strength) are merely married off. I think she is wondering if there is a different way forward for her that makes her not just an accessory to other power players.

If she were to ally with Petyr, it would be with eyes wide open for what’s in it for her. I don’t really think she wants to. I think she supports Jon. It was just enough to plant a seed of doubt and wondering: what am I capable of? Could I be even more? With all of that underlined by Cersei’s totally going-off-the-deep-end fate.

Laura
I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Cheryl
Sansa seems to me is in recovery — as they all are.

Rosalyn
Seriously. As Jon says, “We have so many enemies now.”

Cheryl
Let’s talk more about that final scene with them. This scene was very different from the one in which when Robb was declared King of the North.

First, we are reminded early in the episode that Jon could not even eat at that table when he was a kid.

First the music was sad, mournful, subdued — not triumphant. There was that long empty plank table that kept him and Sansa on one side — and disconnected from everyone else. There was no bonding with everyone else. No joy, no glee.

The colors were monochromatic. Jon and Sansa were framed by the black chimney well behind them.

The shots were mostly all straight on (not from above or below) — and no close-ups of Jon as he is proclaimed. It was all measured, unemotional.

Jon and Sansa are feeling their ways forward, trying to figure out what rules apply. The kids control the house now. What do they keep from their parents’ order? What do they adapt? It’s interesting.

Laura
And Lady Mormont relies on the reputation of her house, since without that she wouldn’t be heard — but she’s more than just a last name.

Cheryl
And she is respected!

Laura
Right. How is this generation picking the things they want to carry on and which to leave behind?

Cheryl
And note that all the people who declared for Jon seemed to have done so out of guilt, except her.

It was a group therapy session, with everyone admitting guilt: “confessing.” Jon even says, “No apologies are needed.” Confession and atonement, there’s that theme again.

Rosalyn
Yes! So many characters in this show are both given power from their family names and cursed by a legacy they are constantly trying to escape, or remake.

Laura
Lyanna Mormont here is directly speaking to the older generation in most of these houses. And the older generation is throwing in with the young’uns. Literally and figuratively.

Cheryl
Jon, like Dany, seems dazed by power. His eyes are affectless, emotionless.

Rosalyn
We got a scene where Jon is clearly and unsubtly shown to be a) a Stark and b) hailed as king!

Laura
As the snow swirls outside, and night falls, the scene is basically becoming the Night King surrounding their castle.

Rosalyn
A handful of remnants of the Northern families in the hall.

I am reminded of what you both have said about brother-sister partnerships.

Cheryl
Many of the shots were as if among the crowd. This was a popular expression of the group will, not imposed.

Rosalyn
As Andrew noted in comments: Sansa and Jon are set to co-rule, but not by marriage.

I guess that’s why I wondered so much what Sansa was thinking. She and Jon had bandied about the idea of who is really a Stark, who is really in charge? Yet the men say they follow Jon, not her.

Laura
I must rant for one moment about the fan theory that Jon and Sansa will marry, especially after (if?) they learn who Jon’s parents are.

Suffice to say, I don’t think that theories like this get the larger themes and long game this show is playing with It’s NOT about building one dynasty to rule them all, Lord of the Rings style.

Rosalyn
Right, and isn’t a co-ruling/nonsexual partnership more interesting, anyway?

Laura
If you can’t detect what non-romantic love looks like onscreen, that’s not my fault. That’s on you, dude/dudettes.

Cheryl
Jon and Sansa are growing to respect each other again — they are trying to remind each other why and if they like each other anymore.

Rosalyn
Non-romantic love is very important to show on screen, and Game of Thrones is doing this well.

OK, to Meereen.

First, Dany dismisses Daario. Bye-bye, Daario Naharis and your ladydaggers.

Cheryl
Yeah, “love is not part of my game plan.”

Laura
Tyrion is not Jorah or Daario. He is greater than them. As Dany said, she didn’t even really feel bad to leave him.

Rosalyn
I found that very striking.

Cheryl
I took that as, she did not “feel” at all. Her emotions were gone, replaced by fear.

Rosalyn
To me, that seemed pretty true to life for the obsessive movers and shakers who get things done and destroy most of their personal lives doing it. “I just wanted to get on with the next thing.”

She said she feared that, and honestly, I kind of feared it, too.

I was struck by Daario telling her he loved her. I didn’t know he loved her.

Laura
Cheryl, I think you’re right. She’s got so many bigger things on her mind that there’s no mental room for those sorts of emotional worries.

Cheryl
So now she has all she needs and finally is getting the hell out of Essos.

And Tyrion is Hand of the Queen. And she admits she needs him.

Laura
The scene in which she gives him the Hand of the Queen pin was the only scene that made me tear up in this finale.

Rosalyn
Dany’s shown a lot of cunning and coldness in terms of her marriage/alliance prospects (Hizdahr!), so I thought she would’ve thought of it herself, but it did lead into that scene with Tyrion.

Kind of a big moment for both of them. Dany invests trust in someone and even seems a little hesitant about whether he’ll take it the right way or be receptive. That is: she cares what he thinks, genuinely.

Tyrion is freely given a position based on his merits and not his name or his family duty, for the first time.

Laura
Tyrion is the one person in Dany’s life who doesn’t really aim to make her feel better. He’s brutally honest. It’s such an odd contrast with how he manipulates people, including poor Grey Worm and Missandei. I think we just met another version of Tyrion. This is what, 4.0?

Cheryl
And he bends the knee! Earlier in that scene, he is standing on a step, so they are at the same level. And they are sit side by side. They are equals.

Rosalyn
And he swears that he’ll follow her, even as a cynic. I was a little surprised. Not because of Dinklage’s performance — just that we missed a lot of opportunity to build that rapport and respect this season because Dany and Tyrion were hardly in the same place at the same time.

This was a very heartfelt declaration of loyalty that I’m not 100% positive has been illustrated sufficiently (Tyrion strikes me as rather hard to impress). Perhaps this is why it was read by some as being love-struck.

Laura
This was another way that Tyrion grew, though, as did Dany: when they together hatched a plan to take back Meereen without burning all of Slaver’s Bay or even ruining the fleet she needed.

Cheryl
Tyrion gains respect, finally.

Laura
Again, I think Tyrion is showing a different kind of love. I’ll even call this one “faith.” She resurrected (yes, I’m using that knowingly) a nearly dead feeling in him.

Rosalyn
The camera really lingered on his face, as his gaze lingered on hers, as they talked about the men who loved her and would go on to love her in the future. This seems suspicious. I much prefer that interpretation, Laura.

Cheryl
Remember Tyrion a few seasons ago, when he left King’s Landing? He was drunk all the time and had no will to live.

Laura
Tyrion has been hurt by love and lust too many times. I think he’d be even less likely to fall in love again than find faith in someone like Dany.

Cheryl
As you say Laura: he is reborn.

Rosalyn
Except a Targaryen-Stark-Lannister ruling coalition would be huge and poetic.

Cheryl
And he has not been whoring around at all. That is gone.

Rosalyn
He’s had something purposeful to do.

Laura
Or … like a septon …? He has slowly been finding his faith at Meereen.

Cheryl
And drinking less. Y the way, did you notice Cersei drinking early in the morning — or what I assumed was morning? Bad to drink before noon, Cersei!

Laura
This is actually the best excuse for why we stayed in Meereen all season — that and how awesome it was to end the season with Dany at sea.

Oh, drinking! I meant to mention this weeks ago! Recall when Tyrion was talking about “fermentation” and pouring drinks for Missandei and Grey Worm? He poured himself the smallest glass.

That is not the Tyrion we used to know. Again, a small detail, but telling!

Cheryl
He is “fermenting” — maturing.

Rosalyn
So interestingly, we now have a Lannister as Hand of the Queen, and across the sea, a Lannister as … Queen.

Cheryl
And Jaime in between.

Rosalyn
I can’t understand how Cersei has any legitimate claim to the throne, but who’s left to argue?

Laura
Jaime, Jaime, Jaime. He’s no longer a mighty warrior, but he alone could get close enough to Cersei to kill her, if he deems it the right move.

Rosalyn
In my notes, as she sat the throne, I wrote: 1) Jaime is not cool with this, and 2) Cersei’s greatest desire is this.

Cheryl
I noticed when Jon was being declared as King, and Littlefinger and Sansa exchanged glances (and the music suddenly turned), it was then CUT TO Jaime riding into King’s Landing. I still think an alliance there is afoot.

Rosalyn
And again, it made me wonder how much of ambition to rule is just hunger for legitimization. Jon and Sansa have also both been seeking legitimization, in different ways.

Cersei takes violent shortcuts, and they keep burning down her options. Recall how badly the Mountain’s random Faith Militant murder turned out a few episodes ago.

Rosalyn
Jaime’s reaction to all her doings is perhaps the thing I’m most excited to get back to next season, now.

And his jaunt through the Riverlands has given him room to think about whom he wants to be lumped in with.

Cheryl
On to the Tower of Joy flashback.

Laura
We know Lyanna is Jon’s mother, and his father is probably Rhaegar.

Rosalyn
I’m sure she was saying that Robert would kill the baby.

Cheryl
What a beautiful cut from Baby Jon to grow-up Jon.

Laura
If Rhaegar were the father, and Robert were waiting for Lyanna to marry HIM, then yes, I’d be scared of Robert for Baby Jon’s sake.

Cheryl
The look on Ned’s face said something important — not sure what.

Laura
Yes, and that shot looks a lot like the aerial view of Jon’s face upon resurrection.

Rosalyn
Well, he had pretty much just agreed to raise the baby as his own son. Which is pretty major.

Cheryl
Jon was reborn after that battle — as a king.

Rosalyn
I want to add this detail that gives weight to Ned’s decision: remember, he had just wed Catelyn Tully in lieu of his older brother Brandon, and had barely been with her before rushing off to war.

And now he’s just agreed to go home to his new bride (whom he wasn’t even supposed to marry!) with a bastard child.

Laura
So if Lyanna is saying that the baby is Rhaegar’s, and potentially also saying that they are actually in love and had gotten married, she’s asking Ned to betray his best friend, his wife, and his nephew-son. At this point, FYI, Rhaegar is already dead.

Rosalyn
And Catelyn was injured by that, as we know, from how she never accepted Jon. It is a huge Starky thing to do, on Ned’s part. Classic, man. Honor first.

Laura
The Starkiest.

But Lyanna, interestingly, doesn’t seem to hew to all that Stark bullshit. She’s oddly joyful in her death throes, perhaps because of the euphoria of birth (or hysteria of death), but also perhaps because of her great passion for life and love and, oddly, Rhaegar.

That was heartbreaking. Also stirring, though, since Lyanna shared that will to live with so many of our beaten-down heroes this season!

Robert always treated Lyanna like his true love denied him, which honestly came off as objectifying. She was “taken” from him, I think he said several times.

Rosalyn
And Ned said, and we’ve seen it in flashback: “You never knew her as I did, Robert.
Ned knew that Robert loved her beauty, or an idea of her.

Cheryl
An idealized version of love. One that had no basis in reality. That kept him from loving his wife — Cersei.

Laura
Exactly. Idealized, pastoral, fantasy.

Rosalyn
I thought that even in her dying scene, Lyanna did look reminiscent of Arya, as was always said.

Cheryl
By the way, Cersei finally admitted to killing Robert. We suspected, but did not know this, right?

Laura
I think we were almost certain — because of the way Lancel was implicated very early on for getting Robert drunk on the hunt at Cersei’s orders. But I think this was the first time Cersei admitted it, yes!

Poor Lancel, seriously.

Rosalyn
Lancel is worthless, bah. Poor LORAS.

Laura
Loras was shit on by fans for having what was essentially mourning sex with Olyvar (Littlefinger’s spy-sex worker) after Renly’s death. That made sense to me, though — Loras was so sexual, and what better way to escape the emptiness of a lost love than a little harmless boy-toy time?

Rosalyn
I’m upset about the Tyrells still. Goofy Mace Tyrell felt real pain on hearing his son renounce his name and title. I felt for him and them. And then … it was all shown to be meaningless anyway, in the face of death.

You can still hear, even in Loras’s “confession,” that he loved Renly. It’s painful.

Cheryl
Yes, so much time shown with Loras’s confession, the mark on his forehead … and then … blammo. Misdirection.

Laura
Of all the great houses (“great” meaning big, not good) we’ve lost along the way, the Tyrells are one of the saddest, oddly.

Cheryl
Are you born a king? Or made one? Are you born a devil? Or made one?

Laura
This episode was frequently beautiful visually and the CGI was impressive throughout. Way to pull out the stops!

Cheryl
What a rollercoaster, for them and us.

SQUAWKS

Laura
It is hard not to see the grand and sad irony in the fraught, tense scene in the Sept of Baelor with confessions and trials, religion and renouncing titles, and these small tussles for power. It is plenty dramatic, with lots of emotions running high — and all literally goes up in flames. None of it mattered whatsoever in the face of Cersei’s power and will to obliterate it all. It made the gasps over the fate of the Tyrell inheritance, for example, seem so silly and beside the point. We thought the game of thrones was being played out in this chamber, but it was so much larger and blunter.

Please join the discussion in comments! And we don’t have to worry about spoilers anymore. Yay!