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Not pointless - it let her take out the Freys.
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Could be. We don’t know. For that matter, how do we know the sexes of the dragons? It’s not like they have external genitalia. Readers of Terry Pratchett know where I’m going with this.
The face-stealing is also there to maintain continuity with the other Grateful Dead references - the dire wolves, the “fire and ice”, the “eyes of the world” (Bran), there are probably a lot of others in the books (which I haven’t read) but George R.R. Martin is well-known as a 'Head.
This is very helpful, thank you. A couple things I don’t understand:
–Why do the Stormlands, Riverlands, and Vale have multiple lords?
–Royce is head of his own house, but he’s the bannerman for the Arryns?
Bannermen were subservient lords of a regional lord, e.g. Lord Jon Umber (RIP) was a bannerman of house Stark, wardens (later King) of the North.
There are no other Arryns, Robin is the only one, so I think Royce is kind of like his guardian or co-ruler.
It’s feudal. Lesser lords swear fealty to greater lords. The Royces rule land in the Vale and pledge loyalty and military forces to the Arryns. There are probably smaller lords under them, like Petyr Baelish’s father, who was lord of a tiny, rocky beach in the fingers, a region in the Vale. And then a bunch of smallfolk/peasants. Similar stuff in other regions. Reeds, Umbers and Bolton’s swear fealty to the Starks, Tarlys to the Tyrells, Cleganes to the Lannisters, etc.
I guess only the upper tier made it to the council, but they weren’t all “Lords Paramount”, the ones that rule one of the seven kingdoms. There were some Royces and Tarlys and a couple second stringers also came along.
You know what they say: decisions are made by those who show up. Well, those were the lords who showed up, so they made the decision.
I didn’t think that was stupid. It’s not like Bran is going to go to war against Sansa and he doesn’t care about power the way Cercei did. But if the North can declare independence, I would have expected Yara Greyjoy to jump in and ask for independence for the Iron Islands, just like she did under Dany.
Yeah, and I think there were enough great houses there that it’s not like one anyone who wasn’t there is going to feel that strongly about starting a war for independence.
She had a fleet there, didn’t she? So she had the power to do so.
On the other hand, the Ironborn aren’t above a little treachery. I wouldn’t be surprised if she just made independence happen, by virtue of a little bit of surprise piracy over the next couple of years. Declarations are superfluous.
Tyrion et al were basically recreating the Holy Roman Empire, with each of the high lords serving as Prince-Elector. And indeed, the end result there was decentralization and de facto independence.
Agreed to an extent, except that Arya’s wound and miraculous recovery struck me as a significant cheat. I chalk that up to the same “tv show cliffhanger” stupidity as we saw in the battle for Winterfell, with all those shots of our heroes being overwhelmed only to be fine the next time we see them.
Jaime’s wound, by contrast, didn’t bother me at all. It takes a while to die from a gutshot; I could totally believe he could manage to walk a few hundred yards and hug Cersei before dying.
Did she?
The lion’s share of the Iron Island’s fleet had been under Euron (the rightful ruler); the Yara/Theon insurrection had only a handful of ships. And Euron’s fleet was emphatically destroyed just a few weeks ago. Like most people, Yara’s powerbase is pretty weakened right now.
On the other hand, we shortly learn that no-one else has much of a navy either. So on the basis that the Unsullied/Dothraki don’t give a shit about Westeros any more; the Northmen would fight to avenge Jon but not for the integrity of the 6 Kingdoms; the tiny army remaining to Bran is still too big for his even tinier navy; and she’s been gunning for independence herself, it’s a bit odd that we didn’t even see Yara at least consider a UDI.
True, but it would have been worth something to see the thought flicker over her face. Or some outrage at Sansa’s maneouvre. Or something.
Also on the second part above, it’s interesting that kind of an underlying point of the show is that the beginning and end of stories are arbitrary - we could have stopped at Ned’s death, or Robb’s, or the Night King’s. After all, we began in the middle of an ongoing saga of rebellions and treachery and had to get filled in on the details of major epoch-defining events like the Battle of the Trident as we went on. The crowning of Bran doesn’t bring a stop to the history of Westeros, and it’s good to think that for some people this is just the beginning of a story.
It was an oddly structured episode, I felt.
Going in, I was absolutely expecting the story would be Dany laying out her claim to the 7K and Jon wrestling with his conscience over what to do about it. But that was over relatively quickly, or at least straightforwardly:
- Jon sees Grey Worm executing the defeated Lannisters, and is troubled.
- Dany gives a hell of a speech about the need to keep liberating Westeros good and hard (this was the best bit, by a mile)
- Tyrion resigns and is arrested
- Tyrion shows Jon what has to be done
- Jon goes and does it.
Narratively, it’s admirably simple. That’s not a criticism, although I went in expecting more complexity. Jon is, after all, a simple man. Varys tried to recruit people to the cause and suffered for it. Jon does the job himself. Great.
But Dany’s murder immediately opened up some huge questions, all of which were answered depressingly swiftly:
Q1) What will the dragon do now it’s off the leash? How will the enormous threat it offers be dealt with? Answer - it’ll carry out one last act of purely symbolic destruction and then conveniently disappear.
Q2) What happens to Jon when murders the Queen in her palace, her loyal guards all around? We’ve just seen how uncompromisingly bloodthirsty Grey Worm can be with those he regards as having made bad choices vis-a-vis loyalty to Daenerys: surely there must be a fight? Can Jon fight his way out? Bluff? Threaten? Or is this a fitting end for him, giving his life to free Westeros? Answer - Dunno. We don’t see any interaction between Jon and GW. It turns out that he was imprisoned, not captured. Bet that sequence of events was tense and interesting and dramatic and involved not only inter-character conflict but also internal conflict for both Jon and Grey Worm. Can you imagine what that was like? Can you? Just as well.
Q3) The Dothraki were last seen being whipped into a frenzy by their Queen and spiritual leader. What the hell are they going to do now she’s dead? The Unsullied are a disciplined troops, sure, but the Dothraki aren’t. They’re a loose tribal confederation of raiders and pillagers who were only united under one absurdly charismatic leader, and now they’re loose in a land they were sent to raid, pillage and conquer. Answer - they’re going to do fuck all, apparently, and they’re going to do it unanimously. Just feed their horses for weeks on the endless provender available in the immediate environs of KL.
Q4) What happens to the Iron Throne now? Of course, we did get an answer to this, but it seems it was rushed through. The essay linked above about sociological vs psychological story-telling seems apt here - there are huge institutional reasons why the various lords and ladies would have to agree to a compromise King, but they are hardly mentioned. The land is ravaged. Armies march on their stomach, and some soldiers even like being paid for their time*. I would have loved to see some more acknowledgement of the fact that with the exception of Sansa and Grey Worm no lord present could credibly command an army into the field. They would desert en masse.* And Sansa could only do so for the purposes of a) rescuing Jon, b) establishing the independence of the North and maybe c) putting Bran on the throne. (If Grey Worm had said “fine, here’s Jon, be independent if you like and BTW all you other guys just FYI me and my army say I’m king now”, what would anyone have done?). Basically, there was a lot of meaty potential drama in there and it was just raced through.
So yeah, not terrible by any stretch, but they oversimplified the last half (because they only had time to oversimplify at that point).
*I’m reading a history of the 100 Years War just now and the tendency of medieval armies to just fuck off home if they weren’t being paid was a big factor in most campaigns.
I don’t think I saw any representation of The Vale’s calvary in the Battle of Winterfall episode. It seemed they turned up, for Battle of the Bastards and went home again. Was Lord Royce anywhere to be seen since BoTB?
No. The Nightwatch was never tasked with keeping Wildlings out of Westeros.
It was tasked with keeping the Others out of Westeros. Over tens thousand years, as Watchers on the Wall, there wasn’t too many of them to deal with. But that is what they are there for.
The wildlings seemed to be marauders from the same area which caused havoc and raided Westeros. They helped keeping them in check, as a byproduct of their main job.
Also, the dead have been defeated before, and they came back. So there should always be a Nightwatch.
Most of the pre season 6 stuff of the Nightwatch is trying to make this point. That the Wildlings are not the enemy.
When the show started, the commanders of the Night’s Watch didn’t believe that The Others even existed.
Or like the original Seven Kingdoms of England. There were Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Northumbria, Wessex, Sussex and Essex, but they were never really a stable group of seven kingdoms. The idea of the “Heptarchy” was invented retroactively after England was united.
I think Westeros can be up to nine kingdoms, depending on how you count:
- The North
- The Vale
- The Riverlands
- The Iron Islands
- The West/Rock (did this ever get a set name in the series?)
- The Reach
- The Stormlands
- The Crownlands
- Dorne
Now, the Iron Islands and the Riverlands were united when Aegon showed up, and the Crownlands didn’t exist, being divided between the Reach, the Stormlands and the Riverlands/Islands. So I think that’s where the “Seven” number comes from. But it doesn’t sound like it was ever a stable arrangement.
The only thing I don’t like is Tyrion and co. calling it the Six Kingdoms now. Count the Riverlands and Iron Islands separately, and you still have more than seven! No reason to change the name of the place just because Sansa skeedaddled. Especially since the number seven has such religious significance in South Westeros.
Mind telling us the book? Do you recommend it?
Yes, Royce was seen prominently in episodes before and after The Long Night, and soldiers of the Vale were shown in the front lines at the Battle of Winterfell. In the post-battle episode, when they are discussing their losses he says half the Knights of the Vale were lost (like the other forces).
I see Ellis Dee already responded to this part. The Others were just a fairy tale, even to the Night’s Watch, until a couple seasons ago.
They weren’t the enemy when the Army of the Dead was marching. The living had to unite. But now, unless the Wildlings bend the knee and start following Southron laws, they’re the enemy again. Big threats unite people, but when the threats are dealt with, the people often fall into separate warring factions again. And as progressive as King Bran and Queen Sansa may be compared to the previous rulers, they still can’t abide thousands of violent anarchists within their borders.
Royce was also instrumental in the downfall of Littlefinger in the previous season…as a loyal ally of the Starks he refused to allow any further manipulation by Littlefinger after Arya and Sansa call the latter out, and when Littlefinger commanded the Vale soldiers to intervene on his behalf, Royce basically told him to fuck off.