Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 3 is out, and there a heap to talk about so let’s
begin. At the Wall, Jon Snow rises from the dead,
and people think he’s “the prince that was promised”, or “Azor Ahai reborn”,
a messianic figure prophesied to save the world from darkness – basically kind of
a Game of Thrones Jesus – and Jon is pretty Jesus-y, isn’t he? A righteous man betrayed
by his friends, killed before a cross, risen from the dead, great hair, sweet abs. It’s
not super clear what being this saviour means, but it seems to involve fighting the white
walkers and their wights. Also, Melisandre asks Jon where he went and what he saw when
he was dead, and Jon says “nothing”. Mel has a similar exchange with Beric Dondarrion
when he’s resurrected three seasons ago. Maybe part of why Melisandre is so interested
in death is that she herself has been fleeing death for apparently “several centuries”, maybe
she fears death, and that’s why she asks about it so intently. Anyway the similarity
between Beric and Jon suggests that their resurrections work by the same kinda magic.
But when Beric is resurrected, he changes, loses bits of his memories and identity. When
Jon comes back, all it takes is one of Davos’ legendary pep talks, and then he seems about
the same as he ever was. So is Jon truly unchanged by death? Or will we see new sides to his
character this season? Then we’re on a ship sailing south. We see
Gilly being cute, and Sam being not so cute. The plan is for Sam to join the maesters at
the Citadel in Oldtown, which is sort of like a university, where Sam can learn the knowledge
he needs to help the Watch – maybe he’ll find some info on white walkers. But since
the Citadel doesn’t accept women, Sam will be dropping Gilly and the baby off at Horn
Hill, with Sam’s family. He mentions his mother Melessa is “kind”, and his sister
Talla is “lovely”, but his father Randyll is neither. As Sam explained in Season 1,
Randyll was horrible to Sam growing up – cursing, caning, slapping and starving him to try to
toughen him up into the strong, brave son he wanted, instead of the soft, cowardly son
he got. Eventually Randyll threatened to kill Sam unless he gave up his name and inheritance,
which is how Sam ended up joining the Watch. And now Sam is coming home, bringing Gilly,
and her baby, who they’re saying is Sam’s when it’s actually Craster’s – Mance’s
in the books cause there’s a baby-swap plot – but the point is that this is gonna be
an epically awkward Meet the Parents type situation, except that De Niro is a battle-hardened
war veteran, Ben Stiller is a fat Watchman who killed an ice monster, and his girlfriend
is a wildling with an incest-baby, so this is gonna go off. On another note, in the show,
Maester Aemon died last season at the Wall, but in the books Maester Aemon comes along
with Sam and Gilly on this voyage, and he dies on board the ship. There’s this beautiful
moving scene with Aemon crying in the rain, remembering his youth, depicted here by artist
Kay Haung – see the link in the description for more of his art.
Then beyond the Wall, Bran has a vision of the Tower of Joy. This event happened about
twenty years ago, at the time of Robert’s Rebellion, the war where Robert Baratheon
took over Westeros from the Mad King Aerys Targaryen, after the Mad King’s son Prince
Rhaegar ran off with Ned Stark’s sister Lyanna, who we saw as a child last episode.
At this point in the war, both the Mad King, and Prince Rhaegar have been killed, so Ned
Stark and a group of his men, including Meera and Jojen’s father Howland Reed, have come
looking for Lyanna at the Tower of Joy. They find the Tower guarded by three Kingsguard
– two Kingsguard in the show – including the legendary swordsman Arthur Dayne – the
Sword of the Morning. They talk about the war – the dialogue is kinda cooler in the
books – and then they fight, with Dayne pretty much kicking all their asses. He would’ve
killed Ned too if Howland hadn’t stabbed him in the back at the last moment, so that
Ned could finish Dayne off. It’s upsetting for Bran to see his father act in this dishonourable
way – Ned had this seemingly untouchable reputation of honour and honesty , but if
he didn’t tell the whole truth about what happened with Dayne, what else might he have
hidden? It’s also interesting to see Howland wounded – maybe that’s related to why
he hasn’t turned up yet in the series – cause he is alive, at least in the books – he’s
the last living survivor of the Tower of Joy, and people keep saying how great he is, but
we still haven’t seen him. Maybe he was disabled by this wound somehow and has to
stay at home? Either way we’ll hopefully see more of him soon, there are lots of cool
theories about him. Anyway after the fight, we start getting to the important bit – Ned
hears screaming from the Tower, which is presumably Lyanna, because that’s who he came to find
– but we don’t know what’s up – like, is she in pain? is she dying? is she alone
up there? Just as we’re about to find out the “raven” pulls Bran out of the vision.
So it looks like we’ll have to wait a couple more episodes to see what happened in the
tower – but there are some huge old theories about this – check out the R+L=J video for
details. But another thing we learn here is that Bran can affect the past through his
visions – he calls out to Ned, and Ned hears him. This could support the idea that Wylis
became Hodor when Bran somehow messed with his mind in one of these visions, like, maybe
Bran says Hodor to young Wylis, and that’s where the name Hodor originally comes from,
like some kinda timey-wimey Back to the Future circular paradox type shit. And the point
of this for Bran’s character, could be to show him the terrible potential of his power,
to give him guilt, and the restraint, that Bloodraven is trying to teach him. At the
end of the scene Bran asks Bloodraven what the point of all this training is and he vaguely
but dramatically says to learn everything. Daenerys Targaryen arrives at Vaes Dothrak,
the sacred city of the Dothraki, and she’s actually been here before, way back Season
1, when she eats that horse heart. She meets the dosh khaleen, the widows of dead khals,
who strip her and demean her and tell her that that she may or may not be made to join
their happy little retirement village, depending on the results of a big meeting of all the
Dothraki khalasars together. That might sound bad for Dany – but having all the Dothraki
in one place with Dany’s dragon on the way – might actually be an opportunity to take
control of a massive Dothraki army. This will probably involve some Dothraki getting barbequed
– and this this dosh khaleen woman is probably first on Dany’s list.
In Meereen, Varys questions Vala, the woman we saw working with the Sons of the Harpy
last season. Varys seems to play nice, offering silver and passage to Pentos in return for
information on the Harpy. He says he doesn’t torture and wouldn’t hurt a child. But is
this really how Varys operates? We know he lies, manipulates and kills – will he really
keep his promises to Valla, or will he dispose of her once he has what he wants? There’s
a lot of moral complexity to Varys, at least in the books – hopefully the show will reflect
some of that. Anyway so Valla tells Varys that the Sons of the Harpy are funded by three
cities – Astapor, Yunkai and Volantis – which makes sense, because those cities trade slaves,
and Dany banned slavery. When Varys tells this to Tyrion, Missandei and Grey Worm, there’s
talk of war between Meereen and these other cities.
In King’s Landing, we see the creepy Qyburn with Varys’ spies, the children he calls
“little birds”. In the books, these children are mute – Varys has their tongues removed
so they can’t share his secrets, but here, the birds say Varys is nice, and gives him
sweets, like a Santa Claus with no balls, so yeah maybe the show is turning Varys into
more of a one-dimensional good guy, which would be a shame. But the fact the “little
birds” are included at all in the show hints that they’ll play some future role – in
fact that looks like them in the trailer murdering a certain someone – for those who’ve read
the books, that might be the scene at the end of Dance. Then Cersei rolls in with her
entourage of the one-handed Kingslayer and the zombie-Mountain, she talks about wanting
to kill people, and she mentions the plans to demand a trial by combat against the Faith,
and that Robert Strong a.k.a. the Mountain a.k.a. Gregor Clegane will fight for her.
The question, then, is who the champion for the Faith will be, who could possibly stand
against Robert Strong? Well there is a theory that a certain Gravedigger may rise to fight
in what’s probably the most hyped hypothetical fight in the fandom. It’ll be fucking crazy
if it happens, but probably more fun if it’s a surprise, so let’s move on for now. Cersei
and Jaime try to join the small council, but Olenna Tyrell the Queen of Sick Burns talks
smack about Cersei’s incest, Mace Tyrell dithers, Pycelle farts, and Kevan leads the
council out of the room. This is the government of Westeros, and it’s in a sorry bloody
state. At this point Kevan and maybe Olenna are the only people really holding things
together. Then we see Tommen confront the High Sparrow, all like ‘I’m an angry Lannister,
hear me roar, I make violent threats just like my mum’, and the High Sparrow is like
nah mate you’re not a lion, you’re a kitten, now sit down, and let’s have a chat about
Jesus, and Tommen’s like yeah okay let’s do that. Try as he might, Tommen just isn’t
intimidating or cruel like his parents, he’s sensitive – and the Sparrow knows exactly
how to play him. Just like he undermines Cersei by exploiting her pride and her body and sexuality,
and undermines Jaime by showing that his physical power is useless, he controls Tommen by targeting
his insecurities about his relationship with his mother, and his responsibilities as king.
Tommen is a kid in need of guidance, in need of a good father figure – the High Sparrow
sees this and provides – carefully drawing Tommen in to his own ideology and control.
The High Sparrow is not just a holy man – he’s a master manipulator – so what’s his endgoal?
In Braavos, Arya gets a training montage – “Montage!” She uses her senses to overcome her blindness,
she detects poisons by smell, she plays the lying game and ultimately becomes a stronger
person. She subtly threatens the waif, and gives her a good smack in the face, so they’re
really setting the groundwork here for conflict between the two. Eventually a Man with Jaqen’s
face turns up and for the first time this season we see this Jaqen and the waif together
in the same room, showing that there are at least two Faceless Men around, not just one
swapping faces. In the books there seem to be at least nine of them in total – maybe
that’s true in the show as well. Anyway, in the end, Arya gets her sight back. The
blind part of training is over and she’s ready to go kick arse. Whose arse, we don’t
yet know. Then Lord Smalljon Umber turns up at Winterfell.
He’s there to join up with Ramsay, but he doesn’t kneel, doesn’t swear oaths, he
calls Ramsay’s dad a coont and sees right through his lies, so right away Ramsay’s
rightly suspicious of this guy – why should he trust him? Umber gives Ramsay a gift – Rickon,
the youngest Stark brother, who everyone forgot about, and Osha, the wildling who protected
him after they split from Bran. Since everyone thinks Bran is dead, Rickon is the last known
surviving male Stark, making him the rightful Lord of Winterfell – and a very valuable
captive for Ramasy – especially after losing Sansa. To show that the kid really is Rickon,
Umber presents the head of Shaggydog, Rickon’s direwolf, which… is really sad. Shaggy was
there for Rickon when no one else was, he represents Rickon’s anger and wildness,
and he showed so much promise – in the books there’s a vision of Shaggy fighting a unicorn
on Skagos, people hoped to see Rickon ride Shaggydog into battle at Winterfell – this
wolf was just really metal and cool so it’s sad to see him go. But it is funny that, in
storytelling, a shaggy dog story is a long story that ends up being pointless or anticlimactic,
so arguably Shaggydog himself is a sort of a shaggydog story. Unless it’s not really
Shaggy – some people have pointed out that the head looks kinda small for a direwolf,
so maybe it’s just a normal wolf’s head, and the Umbers are secretly still loyal to
the Starks – but this might just be wishful thinking, cause in the second trailer, that
is an Umber banner flying with the Bolton army. So if anyone’s up to any Northern
conspiracy shenanigans it’ll probably be the Manderleys, who Ramsay mentioned in the
last episode. Those guys have some of the best lines in the series, so get keen for
that. But in the meantime, things don’t look good for Rickon and Osha.
Back at the Wall, Jon Snow kills the people who killed him – a kind of revenge that
not many people get to have. It’s actually kinda cool that Jon hangs them, because if
Jon Snow is Jesus, these guys are like Judas, and in the Bible, Judas hangs himself , depending
on which passage you read , it’s probably a coincidence, but still a cool connection.
Anyway it’s hard not to respect Alliser for standing up for what he believed until
the very end. He just wanted to protect the Watch. And Olly – lotta people wanted to
see Olly dead – jokingly mostly, but still – it’s hard to be happy about a dead kid
isn’t it? The tragedy of all this drama on the Wall is while these good men squabble
amongst themselves, much greater threats lie just to the south and north. These are the
real enemies, and right now the Watch isn’t anywhere near ready. Anyway after killing
his killers, Jon hands command to Edd, and says his watch is over. Mic drop. The vows
of the Night’s Watch say “it shall not end until my death”, and since Jon died,
he’s now seen as freed from his vows, which is kind of a bullshit technicality, maybe
this could be seen as breaking his oath hashtag episode title, but either way, it looks like
we’re finally getting what’s been wanted for a long while – Jon’s gonna ride south
to Winterfell. So this episode wasn’t as massive as the
last two – no resurrections, great revelations, dead kings or destroyed houses – but there’s
a lot of set-up here for future conflict. There’s talk of war in Slaver’s Bay, Dany’s
threatening the dosh khaleen with a dragon’s on the way, a trial by combat is coming in
King’s Landing, and most terrifying of all, Sam’s bringing his girlfriend home to his
parents. Bran’s getting stroppy with his teacher, Arya’s getting stroppy with her
teacher, the Boltons have Rickon, and Jon Snow’s watch is ended.
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