EP. 4 Review.The Spoils of Leaks

Hey all,

        Episode 4 "The Spoils of War" is now in the books after a rather dramatic HBO leak. Apparently releasing the 4th episode of GoT three days before it airs is considered a terrorist attack when it comes to a network. I get it, they don't want to lose revenue and viewership, but little do they know that the majority of their fans (myself included) probably watched the leak, took it in, then watched it again on their own accounts or at their friend's place on Sunday night like usual because to us, a leak means an extra viewing, and not a way to see it and then just spoil it for our friends. Do they not understand that their show has entered into the realm of "mindless medieval action series that we all love to gather around and enjoy together"?   So the leak happened, people either watched it or they didn't, and then Sunday came and went like normal.

Let's get into the episode! Spoilers as always, if you couldn't guess.


        We open on Bronn of the Blackwater and Jaime discussing the battle of Highgarden and the conditions of Bronn's loyalty. He's happy to fight for the Lannisters but also griping over not having a castle of his own  because he was told that he'd have one. Jaime has given him a giant bag of gold, which is a nice little theme for the episode, "The Spoils of War." Wars are won with gold. Bronn. The Iron bank knows this too and thus we are given privy to the notion that the bank will only support the Lannisters knowing that they have received payment for their support. But luckily, the Lannister forces have their new cashes of Tyrell gold well protected, and according to Randyll Tarly later in the episode, they've reached the city without any problems. So the wagons of gold apparently also have warping powers.

Kings Landing

        Mycroft is again reiterating that once the Iron Bank receives its due, they will happily support the Iron Throne's cause. They also mention the Golden Company who, if you are a book reader, you'll remember that they are among the most feared sell-sword companies in Essos whom Jorah Mormont once fought with before appearing to Dany in "A Game of Thrones." The company also has some Targeryen ties as well . I'm hoping that the show might introduce us to them and my dreams of Gendry returning will finally come true. This scene's overall purpose, I believe is to just reiterated the importance of the gold reaching KL. It does seem a bit superfluous, since we already kind of know that from last ep, but hopefully it will set up some more interesting alliances in the near future.

Dragonstone

        Then we go to Dragonstone  with Dany and Jon and Davos and Tyrion still making weird sitcom-y banter to make up for the fact that absolutely nothing interesting is happening in this plot yet. Jon, as we know, likes to take girls down into caves and kiss them 'down there', so he invites Dany to come check out the caves. Unfortunately, instead of us getting to see these two eligible sexy people tear at each other like we all know the show is leading up to, we get to suffer through another horribly forced history lesson about people resolving their differences and fighting zombies. How convenient is it that the Children of the Forest were randomly on Dragonstone and apparently have commissioned Sid the Sloth from Ice Age to draw paintings that happen to touch upon the only subject we've been concerning ourselves with on Dragonstone? How about that! It's as if Dragonstone comes with its own instructions, neat! So Jon leads Dany around to show her stuff and they exchange...bedroom eyes? There is nothing subtle about any of this, but again the lack of on-screen chemistry, combined with the hollow writing leaves this scene in the very same stale, nebulous state that every Jon-and-Dany scene has been up until this point.
        Jon wants Dany as an ally, and Dany wants Jon to bend the knee but there is no reason for her to keep pushing the issue other than to force us into thinking that it's dramatic. He clearly wants to remain an ally because they have a common enemy, and the line about "their king can save them," makes it sound like Dany will destroy them if they don't bend the knee. I think really the purpose of these scenes is to be titillating "will they wont they" fan service, but, again, none of the lines have any subtext, and the two actors have very little on-screen chemistry. What do we write for the two most vanilla actors portraying the most important characters in the series? Definitely nothing where they'd have to give us any type of emotion besides angsty head-butting. 
        So after leaving the Dragonglass caves, which are quite beautiful I think maybe, but shot in such poor lighting that it's hard to see all the money they spent on CGI, Dany receives news that she's getting her @ss handed to her on all fronts of that battle field. I still don't understand why Dorne's 20,000 spears are suddenly just out of contention even though the supposed new matriarch pledged herself to Dany before she was captured. Everybody knows where everybody else's army is, was, is going to be, but the Dornish somehow didn't get the message that they were invited to the war? K got it. So Dany gets mad and then decides to abandon her fortress and cross the entire continent to attack presumably King's Landing. She gone.
        Meanwhile on another thrilling episode of "desperately convincing the audience to ship Jon and Dany," Davos  makes a pun about staring at Dany's chest, then continues the legacy of Stannis the grammar Nazi by correcting Jon Snow thinking they have 10,000 men, maybe less. "Fewer," Davos corrects him. I do miss the wise, principled and brutally honest Davos we used to know and love, but quips are funny too I guess!
        Theon then washes up on shore and Jon doesn't like him because presumably he murdered his brothers but also saved Sansa and even though the Jon we know and love would probably have Theon arrested and tried for murder, show Jon just likes to whisper threats into people's ears because he's "tough but fair." Does he not recall the betrayal to Robb, the taking of Winterfell? As far as I can recall, Jon knows Bran is still alive because Sam revealed that to him, but Theon is still a turn cloak and should be treated as such.  Well a stern shirt-grabbing ought to set the betraying Greyjoy boy straight! I am excited to see what Jon will say to Dany about Theon next episode though. Jon won't bend the knee and Theon is a coward turn cloak. Keeping some solid company there Dany.

Winterfell

        Why? Why is Littlefinger giving this dagger to Bran? Why isn't Bran curious as to how LF ended up with it? Are we supposed to be intrigued by this plot point that was more or less concluded 6 seasons ago? Is this their Chekov's gun? Is Littlefinger giving this dagger as a gift so that Bran can randomly give it to Arya to kill LF with it? Are they seriously going to do that? I hope not. It also seems that Bran has revealed his omniscience to good ol' Petyr "fight ever battle, everywhere, always, in your mind," Baelish, which, if Bran knows how conniving and backstabbing LF is, why is he revealing that?
        Anyways, Meera Reed interrupts this trying-too-hard-to-be-dramatic scene and just tells Bran that she's f@cking off because her character was apparently only introduced four seasons ago as a plot device. She's going to apparently fast-travel to Greywater Watch way down in the Neck in the dead of winter by herself. She lost her brother and wants to be with her family, okay fine. But Bran doesn't care.
        When your characters show no emotion, your audience has nothing to connect with. It's lazy storytelling and quite honestly disrespectful to such a long journey arc that Bran has endured. He's the Three-Eyed Raven now, but who cares? That's literally the only insight we get to his moodswing is "he's the Three-Eyed Raven now." SOooOo what? At what point did we establish that being omnipotent makes you a dull d!ckhead?  "I don't need you anymore," he says, which is basically meta- commentary by the writers saying "you have no purpose anymore Meera so bye, we got too many plots to tie up."
        I'm so stuck on this new Brandroid character decision. If you want him to be a brooding teen fine, but maybe if Meera decided to leave him at the gates of Winterfell last episode and peaces out because she can't handle her grief, and Bran felt abandoned and betrayed and that's why he's so empty and cold and then he starts feeling the weight of his powers and the guilt of having Summer, Hodor, Leaf, Jojen, and the OG Three-Eyed Raven all die for him begins to set in and his way of dealing with it is to shut down emotionally, sure.  Instead he watches his best friend Meera (who in the books he's in love with, by the way) be written off the show and it's meant to be...who knows? It's cheap and feels almost intentionally anti- climactic. Having an omniscient character is a difficult decision for any show, but if you are only going to use that concept to alienate a character from the audience and expose plot when convenient...how are we supposed to enjoy the character in any way? What are his stakes if he's just some @sshole with powers that the writers seem to not even understand? If they are going for some detached, Dr. Manhattan plot with a struggle to hold on to a shred of himself while dealing with burden of knowing the secrets to all things...man they are falling short.

Writers: Have Bran tell everyone about how much he's changed so people can understand that he's changed and needs to do Three-Eyed Raven stuff.

Me: Show don't tell.

Writers: F@ck you, what do you think this is, a visual medium? Anyway we're only doing seven hours this year so we don't have time for all this "interesting plot" and "character development" and "emotion," so f@ck you again.
     
        Do you remember when Asha took Rickon and Shaggy-dog went to live with the Umbers and Rickon wanted to stay with Bran because he wanted to protect him? I cry like a sniveling child every time I see that scene. Not because it's overly sappy or drawn out, it's because these characters we care about are having an honest moment when they know that it is time to separate. But there is a conflict of interest and a lesson being learned: eventually, we all have to say goodbye. I wont even mention (as I mention it) the fact that when Sansa met Bran last episode, there was no mention of Rickon's death, who Bran traveled with, taught so many things to, and loved with all his heart. So this misguided writing thread continues with the departure of Meera, unable to communicate to the audience how we are supposed to feel other than confused and slighted.
        Then Arya comes back to Winterfell. This shot of her on horseback with Winterfell in the near distance is very beautiful. It's almost as if this character has an emotional tie to this place. But it is immediately upstaged by two random, bumbling Stark guards who stumbled straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Arya, a single, seemingly non-threatening young girl is begging entrance to the castle. Wouldn't there be like tons of small folk and journey-men and journey-women pouring into Winterfell on a daily basis with winter here and the Starks having taken back Winterfell? wouldn't that be an interesting political problem for the Lady Sansa to have to deal with instead of her just roaming around and telling trained blacksmiths to put leather on breastplates? Why? Why the f@ck? Put nipples on them too while you're at it.
        So Arya is denied entrance to her own home from some random guards reminiscent to when she's denied entryway in King's Landing back to her father's quarters way back in Season 1. I read a lot of reviews calling these types of scenes "callbacks," but I see them more as recycled material from hacks that have no connection to the story they are trying to breeze through. These two bumbling Northmen, for instance, while admittedly very funny and having excellent on-screen chemistry, have zero relevance to the story and have completely robbed us out of a moment that we waited six seasons for. Arya has decided to go home. The show has made this a plot point. If she were the cold-hearted, gratuitous killer that they sometimes try to direct her as, she would have forgone the reunion and just gone to KL. But she's chosen to go home. So why are we as an audience given such an empty, meaningless establishment shot? Where is the slow pan from her point of view sweeping over the Winterfell courtyard? She WANTED TO GO HOME, remember? Why why is she here if not to reconnect with her old self and be with her family. Where is the silent but vulnerably expressive stare from the lovely Maisie Williams that we have come to know and love? She honestly looked board. If D&D want us to believe that after these long years and exciting adventures, the only "change" in the Stark children is that they are lifeless, uninteresting automatons with nothing but "vengeance and bad@ss sword skills" to offer, then I think they may as well have avoided these reunions in the first place. If our characters don't seem to give a sh!t about anything or anyone, then why should we?
        So after the guards from Pirates of the Caribbean tell Sansa about a girl claiming to be Arya coming in and then disappearing, Sansa immediately knows where she must be for some reason. She doesn't chastise her idiot guards, she just goes down into the crypts, because that was obviously Arya's favorite spot as a little girl. So Arya's come home to see the memorial of her dead father and then her sister shows up.  From the "Inside the Episode" D&D were apparently inspired by Odysseus' return to Ithica, which, okay, but it's not about whether Arya is recognized, it's about whether Arya recognizes her home, and if she recognizes herself in her home. This could have been revealed in the scene of Sansa and her reuniting by their father's memorial. Despite our differences, despite our failings, shortcomings, despite the tragic things we've endured, we are home now and we are family.  But no, you see D&D always insist on shying away from sentiment in order to deliberately leave the audience without a narrative payoff. This directing choice makes no logical sense, because the characters go from having strangely tepid reactions to seeing one another alive, to then revealing way too much information about their respective lives.
         Arya reveals within the first 30 seconds of reuniting with her sister the fact that she has a list of people she is going to murder, yet their sibling embrace feels like they are estranged cousins at a family reunion. Sansa then talks about how she "wished she, like, totally had killed Jeoffery lol," and they have a lovely chuckle. No. Sansa the sweet girl who dreams of knights and songs and princesses, Sana the trauma and rape victim, Sansa the survivor wouldn't  be casually glib about the day that she became the most wanted girl in all of Westeros. These characters have endured and grown so much an you'd think that their reunion arcs would be to put petty sibling rivalries aside because they realize that all they have, at the end of it all, is family? Wouldn't that be the point of growing up? No, D&D want you to know, per their inside the ep, that "Arya's really good at killing people, and that's a bit worrisome." Why? why is that worrisome to have your long lost sister return and be good at killing? Do you really expect us to think that Arya and Sansa have endured what they have endured and still hold on to petty sibling jealousy? F@ck you guys, you clearly haven't read the source material that you purchased the rights to.
        They again exhibit this narrative cluelessness when Arya, for some reason, decides to reveal to all the world that she's a bad@ss water dancer by fighting Brienne, arguably the best fighter in Westeros. That's the first thing an assassin should do after all, reveal her skill in the middle of a courtyard. And while I enjoyed the choreography and thought it was fun to see two of my favorite characters spar, the fight felt a bit unrealistic. The sheer size and strength of Brienne would enable her to wallop little Arya in seconds. But, apparently all that stick battling with the waif made her able to dance around with one of the best swords in the kingdom. I suspended my disbelief by telling myself that Brienne was just going easy on Arya, even though she totally wasn't because you don't kick a little girl in the chest just to win a yard brawl. This is most clearly just fan service, but fine. Arya's a bad@ss, which we already knew, but now Sana and Littlefinger both know. OoOooooOOOoo I wonder what will happen next. Oh! I know! It's pretty clear Arya is being lined up to kill Little Finger with his own blade. This sounds obvious and a bit writ, so that's what I'm assuming D&D will be doing. I'm sure it will happen in the books too, but it might involve some "complexity, poetic irony..." those types of things that good story-tellers like to add.
         Overall I'd say my general criticism of the Winterfell plot can be summed up with the following writer's rubric: Tell more story and less plot. There is so much to cover with these interesting and complex characters all coming together, and, in Winterfell especially, D&D continue to treat each character like a walking plot point. So much, it feels, is happening but the audience is so removed from all of it. Sansa's only lines have been either generic commanding things, because apparently her being in charge means that all her lords have no f@cking clue how to function anymore, and if she isn't commanding, she's being used as a backboard for her siblings to showcase how much they've drastically changed from one moment to the next when it's convenient. Stop pretending to give the characters something worth while to do and let us in on why they've all decided to come home and how being home is affecting them.          

        Okay at this point you're probably wondering why I'm even bothering to review this show of which I possess such harsh, in-depth, and sometimes pedantic criticisms, and again I'll remind you that I owe this show everything when it comes to being exposed to the Song of Ice and Fire world of which this fan-fiction adaptation is based off. It's fallen into a bit of a decline, but it does have its moments. Which brings me to my favorite segment so far in the entire season:            

The Field of Fire/ Attack on the Loot Train

        Dany. would you like to fast travel half way across the world to a place you haven't discovered to cut off an army of which you'd have no way of knowing their exact location? Yes!

        So Bronn and Jaime are chatting with Dickon about the battle of HG, and Dickon, the son of a Highborn Lord has apparently never squired or seen combat or anything. He knew many of the soldiers that they killed in Highgarden and it was a difficult thing to happen. Jaime had to explain to him the ways of war while Dickon's father runs around suggesting that they need to hall @ss and flog stragglers. Clearly Father Tarly has a habit of neglecting his sons, even the one he favors. As Bronn and Jaime and Dickon talk war and call back to Robert Baratheon's drunken observations of how they don't tell you how men shit themselves after they die, they don't put that in the songs, Bronn puts a halt to the conversation because he hears the rumbling of hooves...
        The Dothraki have come to Westeros! This is the first time we get a real glimpse of what they can do in an open field other than last season when they laid waste to the Sons of the Harpies. Then, out of the sky, accompanied with that same awesome rumbling musical sound cue, flies the Dragon Queen on the back of Drogon. The Lannisters are f@cked.
         In the "after the episode" segment, D&D say that "This battle is the moment Dany has been waiting for." This leads me to believe that they have no concept as to what Dany wants or has wanted. Dany is not a general. Dany is not a warrior. Dany is a queen figuring out that ruling sometimes means making terrible sacrifices and difficult decisions. We already have a conquering Targ in the books--his name is Aegon and he's a naive, brash, bold, fool hearty conqueror who takes Dragonstone from the remaining forces of Stannis with help of the aforementioned Golden Company. Daenerys dreams of the house with the red door in Braavos with the trees in the garden, not of setting armies on fire. But I guess since they omitted Young Griff, the secret Targaryen from the show, they now have to assassinate Daenerys's character so she seems all bad@ss before she succumbs to her ruthless Targaryen side.
        Putting aside my issues with what they've done to Daenerys, we get to enjoy one of the finest, on-screen battles that the show has ever done. "Attack on the Loot Train" they call it, but I'd like to reference an old Ice and Fire battle back when Aegon the Conqueror first landed and call it: The Field of Fire. The amount of exciting pyrotechnics, awesome stunts, and cool dragon shots was astounding. Whenever they write battle segments, D&D do what I wish so badly they could do with the rest of their scripts. There is build up and fear and clear story-telling. They focus so well on the main characters and you know exactly what the motivation is. There is danger and balance for both sides of the fight, and all characters involved have everything to lose, so much that you almost don't know who to root for. I was on the edge of my seat. What CGI they used was well rendered, the choreography exciting and realistic, and the practical effects gave you a real feel for the firepower that a full-grown Drogon can do to the armies of Westeros.
        Watching the Dothraki battle was something I had been looking forward to for quite a long time, and I was not actually disappointed at all. They moved like Dothraki, they were brutal and graceful and fearless, but they were not unstoppable, being on foreign soil and against commanders like Jaime and Randyll Tarly. With the help of Drogon however, the Lannister forces were simply no match for Dany and her Khalasar. Tyrion looked on with the same look that Wormtongue had when he saw the awesome force of Sarumon.
        A line that bothered me was when the random Dothrak says to Tyrion "Your people cannot fight." I mean... you took your enemy, who just finished conquering a city, by surprise with a dragon. 'Nuff said kid. And know your history. The Dothraki are fierce warriors, but can they sustain their prowess after months of waiting out wave after wave of Lannister forces, and battling at sea, and winter? We shall see.  
        We also saw, with some dandy heroics from Bronn, that Drogon is indeed able to be killed. Drogon destroys the Scorpion (luckily they brought that with them) but not before Bronn puts a bolt straight into his shoulder. I wasn't sure how Dany would be able to pull out of that tailspin, but as I said earlier I was on the edge of my seat. This is a credit, again, to the showrunners' great ability to tell a dramatic story through battle sequences. So now we know that The Dothraki and the dragons are a force to be feared, but that the Lannisters have weapons that can do some serious damage in the long run. I'd like to see 10 of those scorpions lined up to face the 3 dragons and see what happens.
        As the Lannister forces scatter, we close in on the last few frames of dramatic sequence: Dany dismounts from Drogon to pull the bolt out from his shoulder. Jaime sees this and decides it might be worth his life if he can drive a spear through the Dragon Queen. I'm reminded of another scene with Robert (man he has all the conventional wisdom that nobody seems to heed) Baratheon when he killed some Tarly boy who tried to end the war with a single swing of his sword.  And so just like that Tarly boy, (man, maybe this plot point should have been saved for Dickon Tarly, oh well, that wouldn't have been as dramatic surely) Jaime charges Dany while her back is turned. With Tyrion watching it all unfold, we see a spark of sympathy for his brother. This may not play out well for Tyrion in the long run having feelings and stuff.
        So he watches his brother heroically but foolishly charge at Dany, and just as he is closing in on her, Drogon comes to her aid. The last thing we see is the inside of Drogon's throat as he prepares to turn Jaime to ash. But wait! Jaime is knocked off his horse by a faceless hero ( is it Bronn? Yes. Yes, it's Bronn) and then plunges into the very deep ravine that his horse was just galloping through moments ago. I'm less concerned about the depth of the water unlike all the other criticisms I've read, because I've been in a multitude of lakes and rivers and the like where one minute you are soaking your feet in the sand, and the next minute you are seemingly plunging to the bottom of the ocean. There are way more things to be upset about concerning things like um, rushing plots, canned dialogue and character assassinations...so yeah, how'd that water get so deep! is the least of my concern.

        So the epic battle comes to a close and Jaime is left floating towards the bottom of the (river? Lake-ish?) water in full plate armor. I don't know how he's going to escape this one, but I know that D&D don't give cliff hangers unless they are planning a payoff (Jon's death *cough*). So for now, I guess we have to wait to see what Dany decides to do with the defeated Lannister forces.

As far as the bar set for this season, I suppose this could be considered the best (though even typing that out feels undeserved) episode of the season. My faith has not yet been restored in this former television epic, and hope that we can start to string together a cohesive narrative going forward. I'm confident we will see more of our golden-haired hand and his sellsword companion, I'm confident we will see more brutally forced Dany and Jon scenes void of all purpose and chemistry, I'm confident the showrunners have no idea why they brought the Stark children together and I'm confident that I'll keep watching because despite it all, despite the nonsensical plot setups, the meandering dialogue, the incongruities of characterization, I'm still very excited for next week's episode. How's that for a complex?

-CjM