By Zane Bixby
Overall Grade: A+
Nothing I write here will truly do justice to this episode. But I will try none the less. “Battle of the Bastards” is easily one of the best episodes of Game of Thrones ever put out. For me at least it is tied with “The Red Wedding” as my favorite episode made. From the scale of BOTH battles that we saw, to the amazing cinematography and the score. This episode had a lot of hype to live up to and it delivered in so many more ways than one. This episode only had two story lines going and both of them were excellent, so don’t take the following placements as anything more than how I chose to write the review.
Meeran:
Being the side-plot in an episode featuring the BastardBowl is a daunting task, and with how weak Daenerys’ story has been the last few weeks it was actually a bit concerning that this was the plot they went with. But in truth it was the only one that would make sense thematically speaking. The show NEEDED another battle to bounce and compare the BastardBowl to. So with Meeran under siege by the masters it was easy to conclude that this would be where we spend the other portion of the episode.
I have been rather bored with Daenerys’ story line this season. While she has had some great set pieces and moments it has been this rather weird stalling ground where nothing really advances but the show runners keep giving us speech after speech with her to show how much of a badass she is. It was becoming incredibly boring, and while this episode has more of her cockiness (and a bit of disturbing warmongering too) it works not because of Daenerys, but because of those beautiful dragons. Between those three in their full glory and the giant battle in the North, it’s easy to assume that a lot of money was put into this episode.
Each of Daenerys’ supporting cast got to play here too. From Tyrion’s never ending political game, to Grey Worm’s odd sense of honor and compassion (he truly does care for every other slave, having been there himself.) It’s hard to not like her supporting cast even when all signs point to Daenerys being one of the big villains of the show, but that comes with being a Targaryen, there is a certain level of ruthlessness that comes with the bloodline. Yet all of this comes down to the first scene in Meeran. It again comes down to a certain level of disbelief that ALL of the ships just watch as these dragons burn one of their ships to its keel without ever firing one of their trebuchets at them, I mean you would think at least one of them would try to take a shot. But when an episode and its set pieces are this good it’s easy to ignore these minor choices.
The second half of Meeran’s storyline comes with another reunion, albeit one no one can really remember with how little screen time the two characters had ever shared together. Theon and Tyrion are two very different people, and while this episode doesn’t go into detail with anything past a small set of quips between the two. The real focus of this are the two Queens so to speak, it’s easy to believe that a lot of this story is coming down to empowering and strong women. Between Dany and Yara, Sansa and Lady Mormont, young women have more than enough strong and commanding women in the show, it’s a display that has so many undertones with the world we live in now that it’s rather hard to ignore with what may be the first female president in the United States soon.
Yara did have one of my favorite quotes of the last few episodes though, “I never demand, but I’m up for anything really.” This alone describes Yara’s character in ways far better than most paragraphs could ever explain. She’s a character whose sexuality has been very lightly explored but wants nothing more than the best for her people. I’m actually excited to see how Dany and Yara work together here in the future, which is more than I can say for most of her storyline this season.
Winterfell:
This story line though, I could talk and discuss this location for hours. Before this episode premiered we had probably half a dozen articles about how this was the biggest battle that the show had done so far, and it pays off. Much of this and the last season has been mired in a certain level of the supernatural, and with the exception of Wun Wun the giant, this was as close to a full blown medieval battle as they come. You have two armies set up and going at each other until the other side is dead. While this amount of chaos and battle would be easy to become lost in, the way the entire battle is framed and filmed it actually becomes rather easy (if not a little confusing in terms of extras and who is on whose side.) But I want to break this battle down a bit.
Let’s start with Rickon. Rickon has always been as much of a side character as he could be while still being a small part of the central story. Bearing the surname Stark, Rickon was the one character we never got to know that much about, having been too young in season 1 to relate to on any meaningful level and having been off screen for much of the last few seasons, there was nothing to ground him to us as a character. And unfortunately his death doesn’t supply much pain to the viewer. Unlike Bran or Arya, or any of the other Starks, we never really had an emotional tie to Rickon, so his reappearance earlier this season had many theorizing what it meant, myself included in hoping that him being turned over to Ramsey was some longer game that the Umbers were playing. So when all this theorizing and hopes turn into nothing it became painfully clear what Rickon’s fate would be.
Sansa knew this, she spelt it out for us before the battle ever began. With Robb dead and Bran presumed dead, Rickon was the only trueborn male Stark left, which made him the most dangerous person in the world to Ramsey. If anyone could threaten his claim as Warden of the North it was 100% Rickon, so there was truly no way Rickon wouldn’t fall. It comes as no surprise that Sansa would also deliver to Jon the one piece of advice Jon would end up ignoring, don’t let Ramsey control the game. So when Rickon is running across the field, Jon makes that mistake. He doesn’t want to see his brother die; he doesn’t want to lose another family member. And it’s this desire that forces him out of position in the worst possible way. In his position, after Rickon is shot down by an arrow, the only way he can go is forward. With Ramsey having just ordered the loosing of a load of arrows on that position, Jon HAD to go forward. And as his horse fell, all the arrows luckily missing him, he had resigned himself to death that the music and the cinematography sold. We didn’t know how fast his cavalry would get there, and it left a sinking feeling in my stomach that Jon would not survive here, but as that line of cavalry rushes past him and gives way to a series of beautiful tracking shots my hopes were renewed.
It was never going to be that simple though. Anyone who knows story telling could have predicted how this battle was going to play out. And unlike some of the battles that came before it, where there was no real villain on either side (albeit Hardhome being the exception here), this battle had a clear Hero and Villain. And in any clear Hero story it couldn’t be as simple as Jon’s army simply devastating Ramsey’s. No it had to become as bleak as possible, and with Ramsey’s wall of shields and pikes surrounding the now meager unit that Jon had left it had become bleak. Before we move on to the breaking of this circle though there is one portion that really needs to be highlighted.
The crushing scene was as visually breathtaking and nerve-racking as almost any other scene ever placed on film for the series. With Jon slowing getting stampeded over and slowly being buried in bodies it was easy to feel the claustrophobia and panic setting in. My own anxiety flared up watching this scene even though I was safe on my couch with some popcorn. To me this displays the very best of good cinematography. Being able to invoke feeling in the viewer while they sit comfortable at home is a task some directors just aren’t up to and yet in this 2-minute scene it accomplishes it immensely. As dehumanized as they attempt to make Jon, having just watched him fight and kill his way through easily a dozen or two men before this, you still felt for him. His panic was yours and his drive to kill Ramsey was easy to want as well.
But it was the horn that broke the battle. Ramsey’s entire smug look, watching as Jon’s army was being killed in the circle was broken with that horn, and watching Sansa sitting there, the smugness evident on her face now was nearly the most satisfying thing to watch this episode. And in an episode full of justice and brilliant visuals, that alone says something about how well done this cavalry’s charge was. It was the wide shot of the horses busting through that half circle that really sealed the deal, and watching as Jon, Tormund, and Wun Wun climbed over that now enormous pile of dead bodies excited me to no end. They were going for Ramsey, and they were going to get him. Again this part requires a certain level of disbelief, Ramsey and his men were on horses and were able to get back into the walls of Winterfell much quicker then Jon and his men should have gotten there. And the archers on the walls should have sounded the alarm much earlier than when Wun Wun was already pounding on the door. But a story you are invested in is a story that’s easy to suspend your disbelief to.
So as Ramsey finds himself now on his back foot, and we are so used to Ramsey getting out of anything, it becomes almost a sick pleasure to watch him panic (even if the panic wasn’t outright evident.) Jon could have just ordered his men to fire on Ramsey, it would have been the easy thing to do. But it wasn’t the way Jon was raised, and even that wasn’t the most evident thing here. Jon wanted to beat Ramsey himself, in his mind he had too. Ramsey had done unspeakable things to his sister. Ramsey had shot down his brother right in front of him, no Jon HAD to be the one to bring him down. When Jon knocks Ramsey down and starts beating him, it’s all to apparent that Jon had every intention of beating him to death with his own two hands. Yet, he doesn’t. It’s Sansa in the end that draws him from his bloodlust, because Jon knows that Ramsey isn’t his life to take.
No that honor goes to Sansa, the one who was violated so immensely by Ramsey that she truly deserved the right to pay him back in some way. It’s an interesting parallel to the world we live in, where rape victims often don’t get the justice they are deserved, yet Sansa gets to serve up a level of justice that I’d be willing to bet many victims would love to do to their assailants. Her speech to him also outlines the character growth she has experienced over the last 6 seasons. The last time Sansa was in Winterfell she was a child, spoiled and dreaming of marrying the prince. She was naïve and all around one of the characters many people just didn’t enjoy. Yet with the hardships and experiences we have seen her survive she became a character that everyone wanted to root for. No one should have to live a life that filled with hardship and not have a certain level of justice. Allowing her to feed Ramsey to his own dogs had me snarling with happiness. My own bloodlust cheering her on as the hounds came out and you could see Ramsey almost pleading with these animals for his life. There was no escape for him, and Sansa got a bit of the justice that she had earned.
About Last Week…..
- As awesome as Meeran was this week, and while I can understand why they included the siege scene last week, I still think it was an altogether wasted opportunity. And that compounded with the fact that Dany apparently waited all night to do anything is a bit more unsettling. I think it’s easy to forgive when you look at the big picture of the set piece but how many of the people of Meeran died while she waited for the sun to come up this episode?
- With only two storylines this week we are left up in the air with some characters from the last few weeks. Next week being the finale we will be left to wrap up some of their story arcs in what is already billed to be the longest episode of the series thus far. Hopefully this doesn’t make the episode too crowded but with the penultimate episode being this good I can only hope for great things in the finale.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter @ZaneBixby, I try to tweet during the show but often get to distracted or caught up in what’s happening. I also tweet about gaming news and complain about League of Legends eSports!
