Game of Thrones S02 E06 – Tumblr Speeches

Previously: Arya gets super close to getting found out by Tywin, but A-Man made with the killing and prevented that. Also, Robb fell for a random nurse girl who saws legs off, Margaery wants to be THE queen, and err’body in Qarththegreatescity is lusting after the Mother of Dragons. Mostly the dragons.
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The Old Gods and the New

Sweeney: First, that episode title seems designed for us to give out more than one You Said The Title Gold Star. We’ll see. Just in case, I felt like I had to make one:

Lorraine: I think to be fair we would have to award it retroactively to Brienne and Lady Cat for last episode. Not only did they get the gold star (which LOVE. SO MUCH.) but they did it in a predict-the-future way. Nice job, ladies.

Sweeney: Agreed. Well done.

Anyway, let’s get started. The title sequence takes us to King’s Landing, Harrenhal, Pyke, Winterfell, The Wall, and Qarth. The episode begins with Winterfell under siege because the sea has come. By which I mean megadouche Theon Greyjoy. (L: Giving a bad name to the sea.) Maester Luwin is scribbling a note and manages to tie it to a raven and send it off just before soldiers bust down the door to the room he’s in and his terror gives me the sads. He’s not a character I care a lot about one way or another, but it’s just a sad old man face and I don’t like it.

Theon Megadouche Greyjoy storms into the bedroom of the crippled child Lord, Bran, to inform him that he has taken his castle. I fucking hate this guy. Bran is all, “WTF?” do to being woken up by this bullshit, when the last he heard was that Theon was off fighting with Robb.

Theon then tells Bran that he needs to get up and get dressed (CRIPPLED CHILD, YO!) so they can go down and have Bran tell everyone that he yielded Winterfell to Theon. Bran is having none of that, but Theon says a good lord would do that because it’s the way to keep his people safe, and Bran can’t really argue with that because he is a good lord and also not presently capable of defending Winterfell. As Theon leaves, Bran asks if Theon hated the Starks the whole time, to which Theon can say nothing, because he is a douche.

Outside, Bran has to sit on a box to give up his castle. Theon makes him repeat himself, louder, and be sure to call him PRINCE Theon. TABLE OF UGH! TEN SHOTS! Theon puffs out his chest and bellows about them all knowing him and someone thankfully calls him a sack of shit. As Theon gives his dickface speech, Bran senses both the discontent and the jackass factor and urges everyone to just do as Theon says because he wants everyone to live. The truth teller gets beaten for his honesty.

Lor: I love that Theon is walking around, chest puffed out, squawking about how he took Winterfell from a child whose legs don’t work while all of the soldiers are gone. Take it down a notch there, Theon.

Sweeney: Theon orders Maester Luwin to send a raven asking his sister to send troops, which causes a bit of a standoff, but Maester Luwin yields. Osha, our favorite captive, kneels and asks Theon to let her serve him. She wants out of the kitchens and asks him to put a spear in her hand again, but Theon’s not having that. Ser Rodrik Cassel, man of the braided beard, is then dragged in, because he apparently did a fair bit of killing before being disarmed. Theon tries to make nice but Rodrik says he has no more honor than a back-alley whore. All the Theon insults are hilarious. Well done, people of Winterfell.

 

They argue about whose family Theon belongs to, and the Greyjoys can have this little shit. Theon’s feels about his dead brothers and time as a “hostage” aren’t really sympathetic, particularly when Theon’s all, “WHATEVA, NED STARK IS DEAD.” Then Rodrik makes the classic Westeros blunder and HE SPITS. He spits in Theon’s face.

Lor: OH NO. THE MARK OF DEATH.

Sweeney: Theon’s just going to put him in a cell, but his guide to iron-islanderness is all, “Nope. Earn your respect, son.” So he sentences him to death.

Bran freaks out, because Theon promised that nobody would be hurt if he yielded. OOPS. Maester Luwin tries to appeal to him, and then this fucker threatens his life too. Rodrik rightly points out Theon’s cowardice for not doing it himself, as Ned would have. So, he does concede that, which turns out to be super shitty for Rodrik, because it takes Theon a lot of chops to get the job done. Bran is sobbing the whole time, which is just the saddest. FUCK YOU THEON.

Lor: It’s a compelling mirror scene. We first met Ned, Lord of Winterfell, chopping the head off of a deserter. He did it because honor demanded it, he did it cleanly and in one swoop. Here we have Theon, claiming the post Ned once held, chopping the head off of a loyal man, because others demanded it, and he does it in several dirty chops.

tl;dr: FUCK YOU THEON.

Sweeney: Up at The Wall, the Rangers are discussing Jon’s “pet” and how you can’t tame or know wild things and then it’s clear that they’re totally also talking about Wildlings, you see. Their current leader guy whose name I can’t recall, (Lor: Halfhand!)  tells them what they’re looking for and also dispenses lots of sage wisdom. Mostly, everything Jon Snow says is wrong in this exchange. Fairly, though, because the subtext of all the wisdom is, “You don’t know shit yet, and I do, so STFU and listen.” More specifically: “Thinking you know the land north of the wall is a sure way to die. Dying is totes inevitable but you should fight it to the end. Nobody will know or give any shits that your death earned their lives.” Cheery lessons.

Back at Harrenhal, Tywin is yelling at some random guy in a war council-type meeting. He’s insulting the guy’s ability to read and know the intended recipient of a letter detailing troop movements. He asks Arya to bring over a book — he says the title and she grabs it before he can say which one it is, which was probs not the greatest choice for her staying hidden — and we learn that this guy delivered this letter to a house that swears allegiance to the Starks. OOPS. He is dismissed and Arya is told to return the book and maybe plan their troop movements while she’s at it, what with her reading skillz being all bomb dot com. She’s got a proud little smirk, which is stupid. I love you girl, but stupid.

AND THEN. A guard comes in to announce the arrival of Lord Petyr Baelish. Smirk gone. Terror face on. She has to clear the table and OMG the tension, guys. This scene is terrifying.

Lor: And nicely blocked, so that Arya is moving in and out of shadows and such. Very well done.

Sweeney: Littlefinger says that he came to Tywin from the Now Dead Renly’s camp. He’s there because this moment of crisis is also a potential moment of opportunity. Arya’s got so many cup-bearing duties right now! So scary. Littlefinger says that Margaery wants to be queen and even though the House Tyrell treason should be punished one day, they should maybe wait until after they kill some enemies to do the punishing bit. Plus, neither one of them seems to realize that marrying Joffrey would be it’s own special kind of punishment.

Arya is finally dismissed, just as Littlefinger is saying that he met with Cat about an interesting proposal concerning her daughters.

Back north of The Wall (isn’t the title sequence a bit misleading for these episodes? We really aren’t AT The Wall at all here.) (Lor: And we certainly never go to Pyke this episode. But like with all weather reports, there is a margin of error. There is a 70% chance we will be near or around The Wall.) Jon is climbing around a rock with a sword, trying to be all stealthy. Their whole band of rangers have circled a small group of Wildlings. They attack. The Rangers slaughter everyone. Except Jon. Jon captures a ginger girl, and he can’t finish the job because of his brooding and feels. He suggests capturing and questioning her.

She says that they should burn the men they kill and the leader guy whose name I really should look up, (Lor: I’ll just follow you around and shout it: Halfhand!) says that sounds like a sure way to attract attention. She reiterates the burning thing but he’s not having it. GUYS. DON’T YOU REMEMBER THE ZOMBIES? Whatever.

Point of this scene is that Wildlings are maybe possibly going to march on The Wall, though the girl neither confirms nor denies this, and also that if Wildlings took any prisoners, said prisoners would be killed, so it’s probably time to get with the killing. Jon insists that he can do it and so everyone leaves him to it. There is so much stupid happening here. Obviously he couldn’t do it, so what makes you think leaving is going to change that? You’re killing me, guy whose name I no longer feel bad about not looking up. (Lor: True. I won’t shout it this time.)

She tries to tell him that he doesn’t have to and that she could take him back as a Wildling, but that’s not going to work. She then rolls over so that he can strike the back of her neck. She’s trying to go out strong. After a ridiculous amount of delay, in which she never stops being a bit of a badass, he finally swings aaaand strikes rock. After a moment of hesitation, she attacks him and runs off, because duh. Jon chases her and eventually tackles her and puts his knife to her throat. She says that he can’t do it and they both know it. Also, the sun is going down and his friends are who-the-fuck-knows-where.

Back in King’s Landing, Myrcella is being sent off (crying) in a boat, to her future husband in Dorne. Cersei tells Tyrion that she hopes he loves someone one day, loves her so much that when he closes his eyes he sees her face. She wants him to know what it’s like to truly love someone before Cersei takes her from him. He looks at her, visibly concerned before walking off.

 

Lor: It’s so hard for me to reconcile this woman, with all these feels, with the things she does to Sansa. Also, Cersei is wearing a gown embroidered with little birds. Nice touch.

Sweeney: Indeed. The thing is, she has all these feels for herself and her children, and I think she’s basically just decided that protecting them, and herself, is all she has. Having her daughter taken from her, as her son is pushing her away, is a pretty huge blow.

Douche King Joffrey is giving his baby brother shit for crying and Sansa lets her steely direboss veneer slip and says that she saw him crying. SANSA! I actually exclaimed this out loud because I was so frustrated with her for that. She tries to switch her example to her little brother crying as she left Winterfell, but it’s “not really relevant” since her little brother isn’t a prince. Smarmadouche walks off and tells The Hound to follow him.

Lor: Dude, it must be hard to keep it together all the time. I’m mostly proudly she doesn’t bust out in Tourette-type, “FUCKYOUDOUCHE” at random occasions. Unwise but understandable. Also, hilarious considering that she’s referencing that one time Arya and Nymeria went DIREBOSS on his ass. 

Sweenery: A fair point. It’s more that she has been so good about watching her tongue and the consequences for her are so much worse than, say, Tyrion, that I get so sad and anxious for her in moments like this.

As they walk through the city, “All hail the king” cries quickly degenerate into serious heckling and people throwing shit. Actual shit. SOMEONE THREW ACTUAL SHIT AT JOFFREY’S FACE! AWESOME!

It becomes less awesome when Joffrey’s response is, “Find who did that and kill them! Kill them! Kill them all!” And so lots of killing happens. It really only takes about 20 seconds from shit-flinging to proper riot. Tyrion starts barking orders to get everyone out of there. The Hound pulls Douche King Joffrey from the crowd. A group of people descend on one of the guards and we see that they rip his fucking arm off.

The Hound passes Joffrey off to a couple other guards because he’s more useful on his own. As everyone gets inside, Sansa is not with them and gets cornered, alone, by terrifying looking men.

Inside the walls, Tyrion is calling Joffrey out for being a fucking idiot. Joffrey does his usual, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” routine and Tyrion’s all, “WATCH ME.” Then goes on to spell out how totally Joffrey’s fault the current violence is. It’s basically like the world’s most evil toddler has been put in charge.

It gets even better when Joffrey continues his stupid bitching in which he doesn’t argue with anything Tyrion says, but keeps repeating the you-can’t-do-that mantra and so Tyrion DECKS HIM. Favsies. I love Tyrion most when he is with either Joffrey or Sansa. His interactions with both of them are where he shines.

Lor: I feel it necessary to properly document any and all Joffrey-smacks.

LOL. It just makes me so happy. Just look at Tyrion’s face. He is so into that smack. He is awesome.

Sweeney: SO AWESOME. Thank you for that.

Speaking of his awesome, he now notices that Sansa isn’t there. Joffrey’s all, “PSH, they can have her.” Tyrion points out that she’s essential to getting Jaime back and adds, “You owe him quite a bit, you know.” AWESOME.

Lor: You were his fastest swimmer. Which, wow. That’s saying a lot.

Sweeney: Outside their shmancy walls and in some random room somewhere, Sansa has reached the end of the line in her running from the creepy men. She hits him and he hits her back. More men appear and they all start ripping her clothes off and asking if she’s ever been fucked and I hate hate hate this. They are holding her arms and legs out and the initial creepster is undoing his pants as The Hound appears and makes fast work of killing them one and all.

NEW CROSSOVER PLAN: THE HOUND COMES TO SEATTLE.

Lor: It looked like he ripped one man’s intestines out with his hand. So, clearly, yes.

Sweeney: Then there is an amazing little moment with The Hound, Tyrion, and Sansa that I cannot do justice to, so we’ll turn to a gif set instead:

 

So many things! Tyrion having the sense and heart to notice Sansa’s absence. The Hound saving her entirely for her. Tyrion actually knowing The Hound’s name. In the middle of my heart being utterly shattered for Sansa (as it so often is — her story has a way of decimating it in new, more horrifying ways with each development) it also melts a tad over the rest. There are a lot of feels happening here.

Back in Qarth, Daenerys is throwing a bit of a hissyfit over being kept waiting by the Spice King. I love Daenerys for her fierceness, but I’m finding that Qarth does not do much for making her endearing. There are a number of scenes here we she comes across as more petulant than fierce and I’m not sure if this is Emilia Clarke’s fault of the actual character. Regardless, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing that my Daenerys love is being tempered a teeny tiny bit.

Daxos is with her and repeats his totes romantic proposal about how she’s mega hot and needs to get on him and his monies. Finally, the Spice King appears and he compliments Daenerys before exchanging pleasant insults with Daxos. Daenerys doesn’t have time for the small talk and yeah, OK, this is the girl that I’m slightly obsessed with. She wants her damn kingdoms back, and all she needs are ships. Spice King also gets real with her and points out that she has no army and no allies. He also obnoxiously calls her Little Princess a bazillion times, and corrects her, which is just annoying.

 

Her rebuttal begins with this naive little bit about how the people will rise up in defense of their true ruler, which LOL. But then she goes on to give this totally impassioned speech that felt as much like a response to my calling her petulant as this asshole’s Little Princess nonsense. Basically, she’s not like all those other king shadies, and I know we’ve heard this one before, but not really, because remember that time she had some eggs that were supposedly turned to stone and she walked into a fire and emerged unharmed and with three mega cute CGI dragons? Right, so magic dreams and fireproofness and DRAGONS make her totes different. This scene is weakened a bit for me by her overacting.

Lor: She says, “I‘m no ordinary woman. My dreams come true,” and gives Tumblr a phrase to put on all of their impassioned gif making. Well done, Dany.

Sweeney: Anyway, Spice King tells her that he admires her passion and not her logic and calls her Little Princess again before he walks off. Daenerys is fucking pissed. Mostly because he called her Little Princess again. Or maybe that’s just me.

 

You tell him girl.

Back at Harrenhal, Arya is reading a letter left on the table as she cleans it. She sees Robb’s name. Tywin walks in and asks who taught her to read. Her father, she says. Tywin taught Jaime to read because he was dyslexic and this wasn’t really a diagnosed thing in Westeros and I gather that Tywin basically forced reading into him.

Tywin asks if her father is still alive, which just gives Arya feels. He asks who her father was and her shitty lie is “stonemason.” Girl, you need to get it together. “A stonemason who could read?” asks Tywin, but he taught himself, she says!

Then it gets good: Tywin asks what killed her father. Arya hesitates before responding, “Loyalty,” and looking right at Tywin just as she did during her speech about Robb in the previous episode. These moments make me so fucking nervous for her, but they’re just SO GOOD.

He calls her a sharp little thing and then turns away. She then starts making small talk with him, asking if he knew his father. She uses his reverie about his father to snatch the paper off the table and hide it on her person. Tywin sends her off for more firewood.

Lor: These scenes with Arya and Tywin are fantastic. In addition to making Arya more awesome, Tywin is being fleshed out as this competent, family-focused man. Another complex man to disturb all my feels.

Sweeney: Major feels disturbance all around here.

Outside, she reads the letter. Then she runs off to get the firewood and runs into a guy whose name I only know because it’s on the gif set I’m about to use: Amory Lorch. He’s the dude from earlier, to whom Tywin noted his cupbearer’s superior reading skills. In other words, he sucks and hates Arya already. She hadn’t put the letter away when she ran into him, so he seizes it and goes off to tell Tywin. Arya runs off in another direction to tell A-Man to make with the killing. ASAP.

Lor: A-Man’s smirk at the end is fantastic. 

Sweeney: Back at his battle camp site, Robb is wandering around greeting men and doing his lovable leader thing. Then he sees his beloved amputating nurse. He calls her a lady and she asks how he’s so sure. She tries to lie that she’s totally not, but he calls her on it. She’s bummed to learn that she’s not so good at the lying thing. Better at amputating, Robb says. She asks how long they’ll be saying there, but Robb can’t go sharing secrets with potential spies, even if they are hawt ladies.

 

This flirtation is interrupted by the return of Mama Stark. Robb introduces them and then the nurse scurries off awkwardly. Cat makes eyes at Robb about the flirting and teases him before reminding Robb that he doesn’t get to follow his heart because he’s promised to another in a debt that must be paid. Then things get even more cheery as a soldier walks up with a bitty scroll that he says contains news from Winterfell.

North of The Wall, Jon finally gives up on searching for the day, since the sun his coming down and he can’t very well take the Ginger Wildling up on her offer to direct them, nor her suggestion to light a fire. He ties her up and does, however begrudgingly, accept her suggestion that they lay close for warmth. She says he is stupid but brave for believing that the other rangers are out their looking for him and will actually find him. She then decides to have a little fun and it’s hilarious:

 

Girl, we’d be doing the same thing.

Lor: Word.

Sweeney: Back at wherever Robb Stark is camped at present, he is all sorts of shocked by Theon’s betrayal. Great timing for Cat, returning just in time for this big I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO moment, though she’s classier than I am, so she doesn’t quite say that. One of the guards calls the Greyjoys traitorous whores, which I appreciate, because I’m including all the Greyjoy insults today. And always.

Cat stays relatively quiet until they learn that Rodrik Cassel is dead and they she can’t resist the I Told You So, as a man is now dead. Fair, you know? Robb wants to go north at once, but he’ll lose the bigger war he’s in if he does that. The guy who brought him the news is volunteering to send his son with a few hundred men to reclaim the castle because if Robb marches back now, he’ll lose all the ground he’s gained. Robb agrees, and adds that he wants Theon brought to him alive, so that he can look him in the eye and ask him why before taking his head himself.

Lor: The man going to go take back Winterfell is this advisor’s bastard. He calls him “my bastard at the Dreadfort.” WTF. WHY TRUST SOMEONE NAMED THE BASTARD AT DREADFORT?

If he turns out to be a lovely guy, I’ll apologize. Not likely.

Sweeney: Speaking of Winterfell and not-lovely-guys, the Wannabe Douche Prince is in Winterfell asking Osha why he should trust her. She says that she KNOWS THINGS winkwinknudgenudge as she takes off her potato sack dress thing. GUYS, TONKS IS NAKED. IT’S WEIRD. (L: VERY.) She gets Theon to agree to a freedom fuck: if she “serves him well” she gets to be free.

Back in King’s Landing, Shae is cleaning up Sansa’s cuts. Little Bird is lamenting how much this man clearly hated her and she doesn’t understand it. The last remnants of the naive girl Sansa used to be. Shae basically explains poverty to her: Sansa is everything that man will never have. Would never have, rather, seeing as he is now dead. Sansa adds that she would have given him bread if she’d had it; she hates King Joffrey more than anybody! Shae reprimands her for saying that and adds that she shouldn’t trust anybody. Wise words in King’s Landing.

In Winterfell, Theon is passed out and Osha gets out of bed and runs off. She seduces and murders a guard who tries to stop her. Then she whistles and Rickon comes out, followed by Hodor with Bran strapped to his back, and the two direwolves. The pack sneak away in the night.

Lor: More Stark children on the run.

Sweeney: Qarth greatest city ever: Danerys is lamenting to Daxos all the totes bullshit reasons that the other rich men in Qarth won’t support her.  One did offer her a single ship in exchange for a night of sexytimes. Daenerys is hot and the mother of dragons — surely he could offer up a few more ships for that deal, right?

Daxos gives her a whole speech about how conquerors like them have to do questionable shit and he has no regrets for doing his thing. As he finishes this speech, they go inside to find all of her people murdered, including our favorite handmaidens. It’s a good thing she sent Ser Jorah off for that boat. More important than all the dead people: her dragons are missing! She’s is screaming, “Where are my dragons!” as we cut to the back of a man we can’t identify carrying what is presumably the dragon cage, covered by a sheet as we hear dragon squawking noises.

Most important of all: I didn’t get to give out that gold star!

Lor: A really apt way to end the post considering that Dany was surrounded by dead people, crying over her dragons. Priorities, yo.

Sweeney: Yep. We have them.

 

Next time on Game of Thrones: Ser Jorah returns and Dany is on her single-minded mission to get some dragons back while Theon goes on the douchiest hunt of ever, searching for two escaped children. Find out what happens on  S02E06 – A Man Without Honor.