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Brocket Vola from Biggest Fan Podcast pinch hits for a tenth inning this week on The Citadel Cafe as we wrap up the Winter is Coming segment with the season finale of Game of Thrones. We also talk world travel and Sense 8, a new sci-fi drama series from Netflix and the Wachowskis.
Episode No: 152
Episode Title: For The Watch My Ass
Hosts & Guests
- Joel Duggan
- Brockett Vola
- @BrockettVola
- Biggest Fan Podcast (iTunes)
- Last Friday of every month.
- Biggest Fan Facebook Group
Small Talk
Movies, TV & Video (Games)
Game of Thrones – Winter is Coming Season 5
| Episode 10 – Mother’s Mercy (wiki) Plot Summary: Sam, Gilly and her child leave for Oldtown for Sam to become a maester. Selyse hangs herself, half of Stannis’ forces and Melisandre desert him, and Stannis is defeated by the Boltons and “killed” by Brienne. Sansa escapes her room, but is caught by Myranda. Reek kills Myranda, and leaps with Sansa from the walls to escape Winterfell. Cersei confesses to laying with Lancel and is forced to walk naked to the Red Keep, as the crowd jeers, spits, and flings filth at her. She is received by a new member of the Kingsguard: Ser Robert Strong. Jaime, Myrcella, Bronn and Trystane sail from Dorne. After Myrcella tells Jaime that she knows she is his daughter, her nose starts bleeding, having been poisoned by Ellaria. Arya infiltrates the brothel and kills Ser Meryn. Jaqen (appears to) take his own life to repay the Many-Faced God for the life stolen by Arya, and Arya is blinded. Varys arrives in Meereeen to rule the city with Tyrion, Grey Worm and Missandei, while Daario and Jorah search for Daenerys, who, far away, is found by a Dothraki khalassar. At Castle Black a group of brothers, including Alliser Thorne and Olly, mutiny against Jon, leaving him to die. |
- Joel’s Notes:
- General thoughts
- In some places we are well beyond book five, A Dance With Dragons. I certainly don’t recall half of what I’ve seen in the past two episodes.
- I have half a mind to re-read book five this summer. Maybe book four and five.
- Saw episode 9 and 10 in theatres at a special screening. It was cool and all, but you can tell that it wasn’t mixed for the big screen.
- It was nice to have it loud, but it wasn’t the same experience you get with a film.
- I would do it again though. Being there for the crowds reaction was pretty cool. Some people hadn’t seen episode 9 yet.
- Drogon did look epic on the big screen.
- Stannis
- I found Stannis’s defeat anticlimactic.
- Not that I was rooting for him or anything, but was pretty much a farce.
- The cheap cut-away leads me to believe that Brienne didn’t kill him. That could just be my “network TV” trained brain though.
- If Stannis is dead, a cut-away cheated the audience of any satisfaction in Stannis’ defeat.
- Cersei
- Her walk of shame is one of the most powerful scenes in this series. Probably one of the bravest actors out there. As much as you hate Cersei, you still feel almost bad for her by the time she gets to King’s Landing.
- The Silent sisters really bug me. Actually everything about the Faith Militant rubs me the wrong way.
- We also have a bonafide Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s monster in our midst. (Gregor Clegane)
- You had to really be paying attention to Maester Qyburn this season to pick up on it all.
- Jamie & Myrcella
- Jamie is one of my favorite characters from the book. His arc is so broad and his character has so many facettes. He’s not perfect. He’s not a “good guy” but perhaps a villain that has seen the error of his ways?
- Ellaria doesn’t make herself easy to like. Murdering – or attempting to murder – innocent children isn’t helping her case.
- Arya
- The sequence where Arya kills Ser Meryn Trant was so violent, I thought it was going to be a dream sequence. She didn’t just poison him…
- That’s twice now we’ve watched characters lose their eyes. Makes me shudder.
- Did Jaqen really die? Did Jaqen really exist? There are many twists and turns in the House of Black and White.
- Arya’s blindness was more flushed out in the books – and to be honest I can’t remember how it happened but none of this rings a bell. Arya coping with being blind was a big part of book five, and just like in the show, we have no idea what happens next.
- The sequence where Arya kills Ser Meryn Trant was so violent, I thought it was going to be a dream sequence. She didn’t just poison him…
- Daenerys & Meereen
- I find it funny that Daenerys talks to Drogon like he understands her. It’s an interesting problem in the story when the beast – the loyal dog protecting it’s mother – doesn’t understand what she needs to survive. Reminds me of King Kong.
- I think it was Drogon’s “lair” in the books. In the show it felt more like a random hilltop. It felt more dangerous for Daenerys in the book.
- Do we think that the Dothraki remember Daenerys or know who she is? I’m not sure the riders were threatening.
- Tyrion & Varys
- I’ll never get tired of these two.
- My sister and I had dinner before the show on Sunday and the lack of follow up with Varys and Tyrion was kidnapped was something she was pointing out. I knew we’d get a touch base with The Spider before the end of the season.
- I find it bizarre that Daario, Jorah, Missendei and Grey Worm trust Tyrion.
- Also, Grey Worm is a really dumb name. Just sayin’.
- Jon
- One of the very few funny moments we’ve had this season was between Sam and Jon when he finds out that Sam has slept with Gilli. “Very carefully.” ← LOL
- The betrayal of Jon at the hands of Ser Alliser Thorne and others is for the most part how A Dance With Dragons ends as well.
- So, us book readers have been waiting years to find out what the hell happens next.
- It’s so hard to say if Jon is dead…
- There is a big deal made about Jon’s lineage.
- Davos – one would hope is a friend – is at Castle Black, though not sure what good he would be against The Watch.
- Melisandre is at Castle Black, and we know she’s got powers.
- If this is the end for Jon, where do we go from here? Who do we root for?
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Thanks for listening!
In the cases of Stannis and Cersei we are manipulated by the creators into hating them, then liking them a bit, then hating them again. We gain sympathy for Cersei, when she does what she does because she loves her children. The first time I recall feeling for Cersei was during the Battle of the Blackwater in A Clash of Kings/Season 2. She felt the battle was lost and was going to poison Tommen, rather than let him fall into the hands of an invading army. Dark stuff, but you could feel her pain.
We meet Stannis as a religious zealot who conspires to murder his own brother, then we gain sympathy for his strong sense of fairness and justice, and his decision to go to the Wall and help the Night’s Watch. Then the rug gets yanked out from under us with the death of Shireen.
Jaime is a slightly different example. When we’re introduced to him, it’s as the Kingslayer and an oathbreaker when he visits Winterfell. This view is almost exclusively through the eyes of Ned, Caitlyn, and Stark allies. Once we get Jaime’s account of WHY he killed the Mad King he begins to become much more sympathetic. He also asserts his faithfulness to Cersei, and he doesn’t fool around on her. He has one of my favorite arcs in the books, because we get the bad view of him, largely from people who hate him, and the viewpoint characters are sometimes unreliable narrators. Once we find out some of his motivations he becomes less of a cartoon villain, and more of an actual person. He actually seems to be trying to become a better person, and live up to the ideals of a true knight through his interactions with Brienne.
One thing I saw someone point out, was that every time a Stark leader beheads an oathbreaker they come to a nasty end. Ned at the beginning of GoT executes the Night’s Watch deserter. In Storm of Swords (I think) Robb executes Rickard Karstark for killing some young Lannister hostages against his orders, and of course this season Jon executes Ser Ilyn Payne and we see how that turns out. Just an interesting repeated pattern.
Hey Bruce,
Thanks for chiming in. Sorry I missed this comment and the opportunity to address it on the show. I completely agree with you about Jamie’s arc. Next to Tyrion, he’s the most interesting character in the book to me. It’s funny how the Starks are the “Stars of the show” but I find myself more interested in two Lannisters. While, we should all be used to it by now, I really hope we don’t have the rug yanked out from under Jamie as well.
Interesting observation. I feel like Brockett or maybe another guest made a similar observation about the Starks being very “by the book” and unwilling to waver into moral grey even once – and it never works out.
Thanks for listening!