GoT Season 8 Episode 5

Did you notice how I didn’t write about last week’s episode? I honestly didn’t have a lot to say about it, so never felt motivated enough to post anything on it. It should go without saying that this will have spoilers from the most recent episode, so without further ado, let’s chat about it.

Episode 5 was by far my favorite this season. There was action and were a few things that caught us off guard. I didn’t like the blood or fighting because despite being really into this show, I am very squeamish, so I always cover part of my eyes or squint so I can’t see anything too crazy. It looked like The Hound had some chocolate lava cake on his eye! Thinking about it like that is the only way I can make it through.

Anyway, the beginning of the show was kind of nuts. The way Daenerys treated Varys was terrible. I’ve not liked her for a couple of seasons now, because she’s slowly transforming into a wannabe dictator. Her favorite thing to do is torch people who say one bad thing about her, and I don’t agree with the excuse that it’s because she’s been through a lot. When her sun and stars Khal Drogo died, she still had a heart that cared for other people (Or so we thought). I read something interesting that talked about signs Dany has been power hungry and kind of crazy from the start. She foreshadowed her behavior in season two when she stated, “We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground,” when she was talking about taking back what is “rightfully hers.” Thinking back to even some of the first seasons, Dany has always been adamant about taking the Iron Throne since it was once her father’s, no matter what the cost. She occasionally mentioned not being like him, but despite knowing how horrible he was to his people, she still felt like her family deserved to be on the throne again. I want to go rewatch one day to see if I think she showed behavior that indicated her going insane at the end.

Back to this episode, though. The first crazy part was when Dany said that Tyrion needed to ask her permission to talk to anyone about the secret. She wants people to consult her about everything because she needs to always be in control. That is why she decides to kill Varys. She just burned him like it was nothing! He was always one of the wiser characters, and it was kind of sad he called this all happening. Right before he died he said, “I hope I deserve this. Truly I do. I hope I’m wrong.” It’s so sad that his heart was in the right place trying to protect innocent people, but everyone is still listening to the Mad Queen. To make things worse, Jon Snow didn’t tell her to stop when she commanded her dragon to light Varys up, and everyone just stood around quietly and watched. I wish someone had realized what a danger she was to everyone around her. She isn’t very talented with a sword, so Jon could have easily put an end to her terror before it even began. I’m honestly so sick of him whining about how he doesn’t want to be the king and how he’s happy to “bend the knee.” We all get it, Jon, but making Dany the queen was a terrible idea. He barely even knew her and was obsessed with giving her everything he had right off the bat.

Did you all catch what Varys said to the little girl, Martha, who came in to talk to him before he was killed? I went back to rewatch the scene, and wrote it out for you:

Martha enters the room.

Varys: “…And?”

Martha shakes her head.

Varys: “Nothing?”

Martha: “She won’t eat.”

Varys looks visibly disappointed and shakes his head.

Varys: “We’ll try again at supper.”

Martha: “I think they’re watching me.”

Varys: “Who?”

Martha: “Her soldiers.”

Varys: “Of course they are. That’s their job… What have I told you, Martha?”

Martha: “The greater the risk, the greater the reward.”

So I guess Dany was smart in getting rid of Varys, since he clearly had poisoned her food. I can’t say I’m happy he died because I would have liked to see him protect the realm from fire, but it justifies her actions more knowing she really had a reason to prosecute Varys for treason. I just don’t know if it was clear she knew he was trying to kill her that night.

Tyrion is awesome. I love how he has such a tender heart, despite being kind of rough around the edges. All of my friends seem to have different opinions on all the characters, but everyone from every walk of life agrees that Tyrion is great. I still haven’t met a single person who doesn’t like him, so I’m glad to see his character a little more in this episode. He wasn’t as sly and sneaky as he tends to be, though. I am not convinced that he and Varys would have been caught conspiring so easily. Tyrion is usually a few steps ahead of everyone else, and with everything going on I’m not convinced Dany would have had eyes on everyone — especially Tyrion of all people. Yes she is beginning to really go crazy, but Tyrion clearly cares about the greater good of mankind, so it wasn’t super obvious he would be plotting against the woman he went to to offer to fight for. This episode had a lot to it, so I’m going to move on.

The Hound and Arya are such a cute little duo. I expected things to go down a little differently with them, but it wouldn’t be Thrones if everything I anticipated would happen did. As I mentioned above, the fight between The Hound and The Mountain was pretty gross, and I thought Arya might come back to save her good friend. I’m kind of glad she didn’t, because it was great seeing her help all of the defenseless people down in the city. I am 99% sure she’s going to kill Dany in the finale. Right?! She has to. It’ll be a check off the “green eyes,” especially since it appears Cersei might be dead. She may have gone to King’s Landing to kill Queen Cersei, but I think she’ll change her course and decide to kill The Mad Queen instead.

I’m split on thinking that Cersei is actually dead. It’s dangerous to assume in this show that someone died just because something seemingly tragic happens to them. Heck, Jon Snow came back from the dead, so I guess anything can happen. I don’t think there will be another moment like that, but I do think there’s a possibility they survived somehow and Jaimie might redeem himself once again. Otherwise what was all of that with Brienne about and why was it even written into the story?! I keep seeing a meme talking about how the writers completely crushed 7 seasons of character building for Jaimie, and I happen to agree. After all of this, he goes back to Cersei and is bad again? At the same time, though, she is the mother of his children, and Jaimie has become a very loyal character. I just don’t like that he had to get innocent Brienne involved in his complicated life. I’ve seen a really interesting point be made about Cersei’s anticlimactic death, though. If she is, in fact, dead, it was her own city walls that killed her in the least theatrical way possible. She got absolutely no recognition or thought put into her death, and there are going to be no stories told about the way she was killed. At least if Daenerys had a face-off with her, there would be tales told for decades to come about how the Mad Queen took the Iron Throne from Cersei Lannister. This makes it so she’s not even really written into history, and all of the fear and emotions we saw in her final moments were for nothing.

This was my favorite episode of season 8, but I honestly don’t know how they’re going to wrap up so many storylines in just 80 minutes. I have a million unanswered questions, and really want a decent amount of time with some of my favorite characters. Is there any chance there is going to be a surprise final episode?! I know, I know, there’s not, but there absolutely should be! I need more time and don’t feel any sense of closure. I’m afraid I won’t next week either.

I’ll end this with a few of my predictions, then we can count up at the end of the season how many I got right in these posts.

First, I obviously think Arya will kill Daenerys. If she doesn’t, Jon Snow will, but I’m pretty certain it’ll be Arya. There’s a chance people will see how tough and great Arya is and create a democracy to nominate her to be on the throne, but I’m still rooting for Sansa Stark to take that role with Arya close to her side. I’ve heard things floating around about Tyrion (Or even Tyrion with Sansa), but I think he’s going to give up his life to save innocent people. I loved how heroic he was in offering to give up his life for the people in King’s Landing, and think he’s going out as one of the best characters of the series.

Second, I think people are going to start over in Winterfell. I wish we had seen a little bit about what’s going on there right now, but I understand how it couldn’t have fit into a shorter episode. We should have cut out the fight between Jaimie and Euron to put something better in, though. That seemed like a kind of silly fight, and to be honest I couldn’t care less about Euron Grayjoy at this point. Anyway, King’s Landing is going to be an absolute mess by the time Daenerys is done with it, so let’s just move the capital elsewhere.

Finally, I think the series is going to end on an ominous note, insinuating that the fighting for the Iron Throne will never truly end. I think the point of this series is to show how human greed is one of the most dangerous things in the world, and how destructive it is when people are always fighting for their own pride. The Stark family is a good example of people doing what’s right for others, but power does crazy things to people, so it will be interesting to see whether we like all of them by the end of the show. I think they’ll be the one group of people who always fight for what’s right, but I think they will have a lot of adversaries who try to overthrow their reign. We shall see, though, and I can’t wait to see everything wrapped up at the end! Hopefully they’ll tie all the loose ends… I don’t know how it’ll be possible, but I’m trusting the show won’t completely break our hearts.

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What do you think? Please comment any and all GoT-related thoughts. This is our last week to talk before the series finale! How sad is that?