Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 7 is out, let’s have a look.
We meet Brother Ray, a priest who leads a village somewhere in the riverlands.
It seems a pretty nice place they’ve got going – they’re working together to build
a sept, a seven-sided structure that serves as a church of the Faith of the Seven.
Brother Ray is similar to a book character called the Elder Brother.
He leads a group of monks who live on the Quiet Isle, seeking atonement for their sins
by taking vows of silence . Brienne visits this island in the books, and there she sees
a certain monk digging graves.
He’s unusually tall, and he limps as though his leg was hurt , and he’s subtly associated
with dogs – so fans have speculated for years that this gravedigger is the Hound.
Remember, at the end of Season 4, Sandor is beaten by Brienne, and left for dead by Arya
– but we never actually see him die, so the theory is that he’s rescued by the Elder
Brother , and now lives on the Quiet Isle.
And that’s basically what happens in the show – Sandor’s saved by Ray, and now
lives among his people.
In the books, it seems as though Sandor finds peace in his new life , that he lets go of
hatred and violence – he actually becomes one of the monks , atoning for his sins, though
in the show, Sandor says hate keeps him going , he chops wood like he’s trying to murder
it, he seems pretty much unchanged from the violent dude he was before.
So maybe we’ll see change in his character later – Ray says the gods have plans for
Sandor Clegane . In King’s Landing, we see a very different
sort of priest.
The High Sparrow visits Margaery, who’s still acting all faithful and pious – she’s
also got a funny little crownlet cause Tyrells do love their headwear.
But they quote some scripture at each other, and the Sparrow makes a comment that you don’t
have to know all the texts to be a good pious person – which reflects on Ray, right?
He plays it pretty fast and loose with his theology, says he doesn’t know much about
the gods, but nonetheless, he uses religious ideas to help build a happy community.
Game of Thrones shows that there are lots of different ways to be religious, some good,
some bad, and most a bit of both.
Anyway the Sparrow sits Marge down, gives her a creepy priestly touch on the thigh,
and tells her she should be having more sex with Tommen.
It seems the Sparrow wants to make sure that Tommen and Marge have a child, which of course
is very politically important, right?
A son of King Tommen would be the heir to the Iron Throne, so maybe the Sparrow’s
making sure that his power through Tommen will survive even if Tommen doesn’t.
The Sparrow then subtly threatens Olenna so Marge goes and visits her – with Septa Unella
watching over.
Marge talks the talk, acts like she’s on the Sparrow’s side, but she secretly passes
a paper to Olenna with a drawing of a rose.
This is refers to the sigil of House Tyrell, what Marge is saying here is that while she
pretends to be all pious she’s truly still on the side of Tyrell – so one of her goals
at this point may be to free her brother Loras.
Somehow.
Up north, Jon Snow tries to recruit the wildlings, for his battle against the Boltons, and the
wildlings are in a terrible spot right now, stuck between the northmen, who wanna kill
them, and the white walkers, who wanna kill them then turn them into zombies.
Jon argues that the wildlings’ best hope is to side with the Starks and retake the
north.
Tormund argues that they owe Jon, cause he saved them by letting them through the Wall.
These are both strong arguments, so Jon gets an endorsement from Wun Wun, and the wildlings
vote Snow.
It is weird that, just a few episodes ago, Tormund said the wildlings think that Jon
Snow’s a god because he rose from the dead, but for people who think he’s a god, they
still need a lot of convincing to follow him.
No one seems to think it’s a big deal anymore that Jon was resurrected.
Melisandre got all excited about it, said Jon might be the prince that was promised,
but we’ve barely seen her since.
Jon himself seems unchanged by his resurrection, his personality’s basically the same.
What’s the point of killing then resurrecting a character if that character doesn’t change
from the experience?
Hopefully we’ll get something more before the season ends.
Back in King’s Landing, Cersei tries to ally with Olenna, but the Queen of Thorns
tears her to shreds, points out that this whole mess with the sparrows started because
Cersei allowed the Faith to arm themselves.
Olenna suggests that Cersei might be “the worst person [she’s] ever met”, and Cersei
has done some terrible things – framing the Tyrells, framing Tyrion, having King Robert
killed.
Beating Ros, killing dwarfs, killing Lady.
And that’s just in the show, she does even worse in the books… not to mention her terrible
political and economic decisions that damage the whole realm… and that she’s just generally
cruel and horrible to the people around her.
So some would call it justice that now, Cersei’s lost everything – her power, her prestige,
her father, her firstborn, her daughter… in the books even her brother – and lover
– is slipping away.
All Cersei has left now is Tommen, and he’s in the hands of a scheming zealot.
Really the only card Cersei’s still got up her sleeve is the Mountain – so you can
be damn sure she’s gonna use him…
Jaime and Bronn arrive at Riverrun, which is held by the “Blackfish”, Brynden Tully.
The castle is under siege by the Freys, but they aren’t doing a good job, so Jaime has
come to sort their shit out and take the castle in the name of King Tommen.
In the books, Jaime has a lot of complicated feelings about this siege.
For one thing, back in Book and Season 3 when Cat releases him from captivity, she makes
him swear, on his honour and his family and his gods, to “never again take up arms against
Stark nor Tully”.
But unless Jaime can convince the Blackfish to give up Riverrun peacefully, he’ll “need
to storm the castle” and break his oath.
This affects how Jaime sees himself – he’s known as the Kingslayer, “A man with shit
for honor” , but he’s now trying to be a better man, to keep his oaths.
Another complication is the Blackfish himself.
Brynden was a war hero back in the day, and as a kid, Jaime idolised him, wanted to hear
all the stories of his exploits , but now, Jaime is set against the man he once admired.
Jaime’s been forced into a war against a hero he looked up to, and against family he
swore never to attack.
On top of that, he’s still reeling from the loss of his hand, and the loss of his
father, which he feels he caused cause he freed Tyrion, in the books he has a falling
out with Tyrion, and in the books Jaime starts to break up with Cersei – basically Jaime’s
life has fallen apart, and this siege is the stage where he starts to rebuild himself,
not as the douchey Prince Charming he was before, but as a better nobler man.
That’s what’s up in the books, anyway.
Jon, Sansa and Davos arrive at Bear Island, home of House Mormont.
The Mormonts are a really cool family, their leader was Jeor, until he went off to join
the Night’s Watch.
Jeor left his son Jorah to rule, until he got caught selling slaves and ran off to Essos,
where he ends up serving Daenerys.
So Jeor’s sister Maege took charge, and she’s this tough warrior woman type, who
fought alongside Robb Stark in his war.
Maege has a bunch of daughters, warriors themselves, and interestingly, it’s not clear who the
father of her children is, cause a husband is never mentioned.
But there is a theory – the wildling Tormund seems to have a thing for warrior-women, right?
And he does claim to have fucked a she-bear.
Maege’s nickname is “the She-Bear” , so some fans believe Tormund and Maege may have
had a secret romance, Tormund mighta taken boats to Bear Island for booty calls.
In show, though, Maege is now dead, as are her elder daughters apparently, cause the
head of House Mormont is now ten-year-old Lyanna.
And she’s awesome – this tiny little kid talking all big and stern.
At first she’s reluctant to support the Starks, because as she points out, Sansa and
Jon’s allegiance is questionable.
Jon’s technically a Snow, not a Stark – at least until we get news of his true parentage.
And Sansa has been married to a Lannister and a Bolton.
In the end, what convinces Lyanna is Davos’ argument that they need to unite against the
white walkers.
Which is a little puzzling – what does Lyanna Stark know of white walkers?
Regardless, she gives Jon and Sansa the support of her soldiers – all sixty-two of them.
Just remember that if Lyanna meets Tormund, she may unknowingly meet her father…
Back at Riverrun, Jaime goes and chats with the Blackfish, and this goes down a lot like
it does in the books – Jaime tries to get him to surrender, Blackfish talks a bunch
of smack – so it looks like Jaime will have to attack Riverrun – and break his oath
to Catelyn.
However, things might change when Brienne arrives – maybe some peaceful resolution
might be possible.
The Starks go to speak to Lord Glover at Deepwood Motte, and he flat-out refuses to support
them.
He doesn’t want to fight alongside wildlings, he doesn’t want to anger the Boltons, and
he feels he was failed by the Starks under Robb – remember Robb’s marriage to Talisa
screwed up the alliance with the Freys, which led to Red Wedding, which led to the defeat
of north.
Glover talks about the suffering of his family during the war, and we’re reminded that
these struggles between Starks and Lannisters and Tullys and Boltons don’t just affect
the lords and ladies at the top – they affect the people who serve them, and those people
do have a right to be mad when they’re failed by their overlords.
Yara and Theon take a pit stop in Volantis.
While Yara and her ironborn party it up, Theon suffers.
This episode is called “The Broken Man”, but it could be called “The Broken Men”,
look how many there are – Theon, Edmure, Sandor and Gregor.
Arguably Jaime, Jon, and Davos.
One of the great things about Game of Thrones is that shows war has consequences, that people
get hurt in ways that don’t get better.
Anyway Yara tells Theon to man up or die, which is the ironborn approach to therapy,
and Yara outlines her plan – to sail to Meereen and ally with Daenerys so she can
take back the Iron Islands.
The question, of course, is whether Euron can get there first.
Back in the north, Davos and the Starks discuss their situation.
They’ve got 2000 wildlings, 200 Hornwoods, 143 Mazins, 42 Mormonts, and one Wun Wun which…
isn’t enough to beat some 5000 Boltons , plus however many Umbers and Karstarks they’ve
got.
So Sansa writes a letter to Littlefinger asking him to bring his knights of the Vale , which
will probably make all the difference.
It’s also possible that the Blackfish and the Tullys might arrive to help, and there
are also the Manderlys – one of the largest northern houses, that as far as we know, still
hasn’t taken a side…
However it turns out, this Battle of the Bastards is gonna be huge.
Back at the riverlands, three men come and threaten Ray’s village, demanding horses
and food.
They seem to be from the brotherhood without banners, that outlaw group Arya meets in Season
3.
The brotherhood is founded to protect the common folk , and they do do some dodgy stuff,
like stealing supplies from people, on a promise to eventually pay them back . But these three
guys are acting like straight-up bandits, and we soon see them do much worse…
In Braavos, Arya books a ship to take her back to Westeros, then she goes for a walk,
and gets attacked by “the waif”.
She escapes, but with a gut full of stab wounds.
If this was any other character, you’d think she’s gonna die, right?
But this is Arya – she’s been off on her own storyline for ages, training for like
two seasons, there’s no way they’re gonna suddenly kill her off now, and make her whole
arc lead to nothing.
So how’s she gonna survive?
It looks like she needs help, and right now, Lady Crane is the closest thing Arya’s got
to a friend in this city, so maybe Crane will find her, somehow heal her, and send her on
her way to Westeros.
It might be that simple.
But there are a lot of crazy theories bout more complicated ways this could go down.
Like, some people think the waif is actually a kinda split personality of Arya, like a
Fight Club Tyler Durden type deal, or that Arya used some acting tricks to fake her wounds
with pig blood.
They’re both cool ideas, but probably the most likely crazy theory is the idea that
that person who was stabbed isn’t Arya.
Cause remember, we’re dealing with Faceless assassins here, people who can magically take
on the appearance of other people – so maybe the person who was stabbed isn’t Arya, but
Jaqen.
Cause we have seen Jaqen wear Arya’s face before, and we’ve seen Jaqen die for Arya
before – he drinks poison so that Arya doesn’t have to.
The reason Jaqen’s still around is that he’s not really a person, he’s no one,
he’s just a face that can be worn by any Faceless Man – it is confusing but the point
is that we know Jaqen can look like Arya, and that Jaqen will die for Arya – so maybe
he’s doing it again – dying in Arya’s place so that the real Arya can escape.
This would explain a lot because the Arya of this episode acts really different to the
Arya of last episode.
Last episode, Arya hides out, with her sword drawn.
It looks like she knows she’s being hunted by assassins, and she’s taking it seriously.
But this episode, Arya wanders about in the open, not paying attention to her surroundings.
She seems to have found the time for a haircut and a new outfit, and she doesn’t even have
her sword at her belt.
She walks different.
She talks different.
She uses her right hand when Arya is left-handed.
Everything about her is off – so maybe she’s not Arya, but Jaqen, pretending to be Arya.
The really difficult question is – why would Jaqen do this?
Why die in Arya’s place?
Maybe what’s going on here is that this is all a test of the waif – cause she’s
been a pretty rubbish Faceless Man lately – she’s meant to be “no one”, with
no desires, no personality, just pure obedience – but she clearly enjoys tormenting Arya,
she clearly wants to kill her.
Jaqen tells her not to let Arya suffer, and yet the waif stabs Arya – or who she thinks
is Arya – in the gut so she dies slowly and painfully.
The waif is failing her training, so maybe Jaqen arranged all this to fuck with her somehow.
It’s hard to guess at the specifics – maybe we’ll just have to wait and see.
Either way, it seems all but certain that Arya will survive this.
Back in the riverlands, the Hound finds that Ray and his people have been slaughtered,
presumably by these guys from the brotherhood.
And this is a pretty crazy thing, we’ve never seen the brotherhood do anything this
bad before, and from the looks of the food on the ground, they don’t even do it for
supplies.
So, why?
The fact that Ray is hanged might be a hint.
Cause in the books, the brotherhood really starts to go downhill when their original
leader Beric dies, and is replaced by a new leader, called Lady Stoneheart . We won’t
spoil who Stoneheart is, cause she might still appear in the show eventually, but she is
called the Hangwoman for her habit of hanging her enemies.
Stoneheart leads the brotherhood down a dark, violent path so maybe she’s involved here?
But as far as we’ve seen even she will only kill the guilty, we’ve never seen her massacre
whole villages…
So basically we don’t know why the brotherhood would do this.
What we do know is that Sandor’s coming for them – he takes up his axe and goes
after the brotherhood, which probably won’t go well for them.
It’s gonna be awesome to see how Sandor’s involved in the story ahead.
He might meet Brienne again round Riverrun.
He might reunite with Arya when she returns to Westeros.
He might meet Sansa again.
And maybe Sandor will meet his brother.
Sandor and Gregor Clegane have the angriest, bloodiest sibling rivalry in all of Game of
Thrones, Gregor was the one who burned Sandor’s face, back in the day.
They’ve both come a long way since – Sandor almost dies and rises as a changed man, and
Gregor dies and is resurrected as a silent giant zombie.
There is a theory – that if Gregor represents Cersei in her trial by combat, the Faith will
be represented by Sandor – so the brothers Clegane, two of the most powerful warriors
in Westeros, will fight before all King’s Landing, in the biggest most spectacular clash
in the series.
This theory is called Cleganebowl.
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