Tagged: sand snakes

Lazy Sundays: Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken (Game of Thrones Episode 5.06)

1.  Ah, so we finally saw the room of faces in the House of Black and White.  Finally, Arya’s storyline is getting way more exciting as her training starts in earnest.

2.  Poor Ser Jorah and Tyrion again.  Good thing Tyrion is a fast-talker!  It also explains how he and Jorah make it to Meereen.

3.  Hmm…so now we know all about Littlefinger’s plans.  He wants the Boltons and Stannis to fight each other and with the crown’s approval he’ll swoop in with the army of the Vale to beat the winner, who will be licking his wounds.  Then he can be warden of the north, marry his second choice (Sansa) and muster the north to fight the beaten and bloodied Lannisters and Tyrells for the rest of Westeros.  Well played, Baelish.  Well played.

4.  Margarey and Loras are locked up!  And Lady Olenna is on the scene.  I’m thinking things are going to be interested when Olenna seeks out some of Cersei’s men and accuses her of the very thing she’s accusing Margarey and Loras of: immorality.

5.  Trystane and Myrcella seem like a sweet couple.  Your typical hormonal teenage couple, anyway.

6.  Um, did anyone else find the fight between Jaime, Bronn and the Sand Snakes a little lame?  Normally Game of Thrones has awesome stunt people and the fights are well choreographed but I just felt that scene was lacking.  The actresses for the Sand Snakes are kind of unconvincing as warriors.  It’s…disappointing.  They looked as about convincing as I would in a fight and that’s, to be perfectly frank, pathetic.

7.  Finally, we hear a bit of “The Dornishman’s Wife” from Bronn!  As much as I love “The Rains of Castamere” it’s nice to hear something new.

8.  Okay, the Sansa rape scene.  Twitter is brimming with outrage over it, claiming that it was completely superfluous and unnecessary and an insult to George R. R. Martin’s original story.  People on Twitter clearly have a short memory: do they not know that marital rape was totally a thing back then?  Are people forgetting that even in Canada marital rape was only made illegal in 1983?  And that criminalization of marital rape only started in the United States in the early 1970s?  And most of all, do they not remember that Daenerys was raped on her wedding night too?  This is what brides expect from their husbands in the Game of Thrones world!  That’s why it was such a surprise to Sansa that Tyrion didn’t rape her on their wedding night.  Ugh.  People believe that depicting something is the same as condoning it, which it completely isn’t.  I think it’s not gratuitous and that the rape scene there is setting up some very important character development for Sansa.  Trust me when I say I’m the last person that would advocate for gratuitous rape.

So what did you think of tonight’s episode?

Lazy Sundays: Sons of the Harpy (Game of Thrones Episode 5.04)

So here are my thoughts on the episode:

1.  Since Baelish believes Sansa will be liberated by Stannis’ army (if they ever get there) he obviously trusts her to navigate the snakepit of Winterfell under the Boltons.  So he clearly doesn’t know about Ramsey’s…well, everything.  Most unlike him.  I really do wonder if they’re setting up more of Sansa’s ruthlessness as she’s left alone to take revenge on the Boltons.  Will she kill Ramsey?  Will Theon/Reek kill Ramsey?

2.  Cersei is playing with fire now with the Faith Militant and I think the show’s writers are setting up her downfall just beautifully.  Imprisoning Ser Loras for immorality, sending Lord Tyrell away so he can’t interfere, proabably accusing Margarey of adultery…just wait until Fortune’s wheel spins again, Cersei!  One minute you’re on top, the next you’re being crushed on the bottom.

3.  Poor Ser Loras.

4.  Poor people of King’s Landing for that matter.  No booze, no brothels…whatever are they going to do?

5.  Yay, we finally get to see the Sand Snakes!  They’re just as wonderfully ruthless as I pictured them and I can’t wait to see them in action.  So far I’m really liking Nymeria.

6.  How the heck did Melisandre know about “You know nothing, Jon Snow”?  I think she suspects that R + L = J and that Jon may very well not be Ned Stark’s son at all.  There’s power in king’s blood, after all…

7.  That was a really touching moment between Shireen and Stannis when he explained how she got greyscale.  Unfortunately, I think that and Melisandre’s “the Lord needs her” comments are setting up her death, but it was still sweet.

8.  No, Ser Barristan!  You poor, honourable fool.  I wish they hadn’t cut him out of the show yet because I like his character, but I guess it was not to be.  I wonder how Daenerys is going to take his death after their quite touching scene together.

9.  Well, poor Grey Worm.  I think he’s wounded at this point, not dead because of the scene where Missandei kisses him in the season’s trailer.

10.  Jaime and Bronn are awesome road trip buddies.  I suspect they’re going to run into a lot of trouble down the road.

11.  Poor Ser Jorah, poor Tyrion.  They’re really not getting along at all at the moment.

Well, what did you guys think?  Are you as disappointed as I am at Ser Barristan’s death?  What did you think of the hints at Jon Snow’s real parentage dropped throughout the episode?