The Bells

The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones served up an hour of chaos and destruction last night... and judging by my social media this morning, most people were just. Not. Having. It. For my part, I think the show made mostly all the appropriate narrative choices, but some felt more satisfying than others, because some felt more earned than others.

Perhaps working my way up in increasing order of "rightness," we finally got Clegane Bowl, the confrontation so widely anticipated by fans everywhere that they gave it a (goofy) name. It was a conflict every bit as brutal and violent as we all expected. The Hound and The Mountain were so fixated on ending one another that the world was literally crumbling around them and they didn't care. Nothing could get between them -- least of all poor, unmourned Qyburn. Both fighters used their signature moves, but no amount of zombie stabbing was going to take down the Mountain. In the end, it came down to the only logical ending: how badly did Sandor want his revenge? Badly enough to die for it.

Another big death in the hour came to Varys, who went out much like Littlefinger before him. The two biggest schemers on the show each attempted one scheme too many. Here, perhaps, the abbreviated number of episodes of this final season damaged the narrative ever-so-slightly. In, say, a 10 episode season, the writers might have had the chance to show us exactly what Varys was risking and attempting (as opposed to having him learn of Jon Snow toward the end of one episode, then dying to put him on the throne in the beginning of the next). But then, we got to watch Littlefinger plot all throughout season seven and no one really believed any of it. Maybe short and sweet like this was better.

Arya's harrowing escape through the crumbling King's Landing was one of the strongest elements of the episode. You had to set aside the matter that she rode all the way down from Winterfell in the company of the Hound, but that he finally found the right thing to say at the last moment to make her turn away from her quest for vengeance. But get over that bump, and you were really in for a wild ride. Arya gave us a guided tour through the destruction of the city, including a futile attempt to save lives, nearly dying several times herself, and generally getting messed up. I'm not sure "the horrors of war" has ever been presented more effectively on the show, and it was incredible. This material had all the import and scope that the big Walker battle of a couple weeks ago sometimes lacked.

Now we start to get into the more controversial moments. The confrontation between Euron Greyjoy and Jaime Lannister wasn't exactly a moment anyone was clamoring for. You can sort of squint and tilt your head and get there: Euron slept with Cersei, Jaime loves Cersei more than anyone in the world, so.... sure? But why sideline Yara entirely from the season and deny the more logical confrontation?

For me, the more surprising moment for Jaime is that he sided with Cersei to the bitter end. Suffice it to say, I believe this to be a moment of major divergence between the show and the books (should George R.R. Martin ever finish them). The book version of the prophecy given to Cersei includes more details than the show version, and one of them seems to telegraph fairly directly than Jaime will turn on Cersei before the end. But no, that detail was never a part of the television show. And so, on those terms, this frankly was a fair ending for the two characters, dying arm in arm, fully committed to one another. "The things we do for love."

The wildly different level of effectiveness of Qyburn's scorpions are the thing that bothered me personally the most this week. Last week, they took down Rheagal in a shocking few seconds, brutally effective and seemingly insurmountable. This week, they were just bundles of kindling for Drogon, with Daenerys essentially not even needing an army to conquer King's Landing. Surprise counts for a lot in medieval warfare, I guess.

I've saved the best for last: the ultimate transformation of Daenerys into bloodthirsty, crazed villain. This is lighting up every corner of the internet this morning, with most people rushing to declare character development dead, this heel turn wholly unearned. And yes, extraordinary claims do require extraordinary proof. But I have to say, this plot development has been telegraphed for a long, long time.

In basically every single season, Dany has at one point or another thrown a temper tantrum at least once, violently lashing out at her enemies. It's been easy not to notice for three reasons. One, she didn't always have much power to wield, so the scope of her wrath has been limited. Two, she has had people near her able to ground her and talk her away from her worst impulses (people who have pointedly been killed off in the last couple of episodes). Three, the people she's lashed out at have generally been positioned to "deserve it" in the eyes of the audience. Daenerys has been a villain-in-training all along, but she's had enough other aspects to her character to round her out.

If the army at King's Landing had surrendered the way it did, and then Dany flew over to the Red Keep and burned it to the ground, killing off Cersei and leaving the rest of the city intact? I think not a single audience member would have complained. So really, the gap comes in explaining just one detail: why burn the whole city? And I do wish the show had done a better job here. In the press for time here, about all we get is that she desperately needs to be loved, and because Jon didn't love her enough, she snapped -- an admittedly unsatisfying answer. But this was always going to be the ending for this character. Maybe if George R.R. Martin ever finishes the tale himself, he'll earn the ending more convincingly. We all may have needed and fervently wished for this to be a "woman ends up in power" story, but that's not what the story has been telegraphing to us all along. (Though for what it's worth, don't count out Sansa yet as, at the very least, the true power behind whatever's left to call a throne.)

Yes, I wish the episode had been able to handle some elements more artfully. But it did present a lot of it very well. Mine seems to be a minority opinion this morning, but I'd give the episode a B+ overall.