"Green came from a farm." I love that moment; before the Night's Watch, Grenn didn't come from nobility whose ancestors' lives were as storied as Mag the Mighty's. He was a simple man with more courage than most, who gave his life to stop a fucking giant from destroying the only two defenses left between Mance's army and the Northern kingdom.
Mance: Are you capable of that, Jon Snow? Of killing a man in his own tent when he's just offered you peace? is that what the Night's Watch is?
Mance doesn't say it outright.
Stannis the Mannis roles up at the last second as the Rubrum Deus ex Machina. Not complaining, because this show had plenty Deus ex machina moments, and at least Stannis' plan to protect the Wall/North was already established this season, so at least his army arriving out of the blue wasn't completely unfitting.
Cersei: And now you want to ship me off to Highgarden and steal my boy. My last boy. Margaery will dig her claws in, you will dig your claws in and you'll fight over him like beasts until you rip him apart. I will burn our house to the ground before I let that happen!
Tywin: And how will you do that?
While Tywin has never had much respect for Cersei or took these kind of threats seriously, he was fucking stupid not to see what even Tyrion saw: Cersei really will go to any lengths when she believes she's protecting her children. And she is about to burn Tywin's entire legacy to the ground with what comes next.
Cersei: I'll tell everyone the truth.
Tywin: What truth would that be?
Cersei: You don't know, do you? You never believed it. How is that possible? What am I saying, of course it's possible. How can someone so consumed by the idea of his family have any conception what his actual family was doing? We were right there in front of you and you didn't see us. One look in the past 20 years, one real look at your own children and you would have known.
Tywin: Known what?
Cersei: Everything they say is true. About Jaime and me.
Tywin: No.
Cersei: Your legacy is a lie.
Tywin: I don't believe you.
Cersei: Yes, you do.
God*damn* you talk about dropping a fucking psychological nuclear bomb on a dude. Tywin Lannister, a man so obsessed with his family's legacy -- because of how much he hated his father for what he did to the Lannister name -- being told that his oldest son and daughter weren't only lovers, but two of their products of incest were/are kings. He knows if Cersei follows through on her threat, the Lannister name will forever be tainted and Tommen won't be king for long. Watching her and Jaime together is still gross, but at least it's consensual this time, and not next to their murdered son's corpse.
Dany's getting a much more disheartening real-time lesson of why good intentions pave the road to hell. Here's a former slave explaining how much worse his life has become since being freed; her intentions were pure, but she applied her own experiences of being terrified to be sold off to Drogo like it applies to everyone, while also overlooking how that incredibly terrifying experience turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen in her life. She can't imagine that anyone else sold off like chattel could've also benefited the way she did.
The fucking show is so good at making people sympathize with literal monsters. The cries of protest from the dragons as Dany left them behind in the catacombs makes me think about my old dog who used to sit by my front door and cry for hours when I left for work; I just wanna hug 'em!
I love that shot of Melisandre staring at Jon through the flames.
Bran warg's Hodor Three Stooges eye poke on that skeleton still gets me haha. Goodbye, Jojen. While I can't blame the writers for not going into more details about how important Jojen's "green dreams" were in the books, it's still a shame that both he and his sister's reasoning for leaving Greywater Watch was left out; sure, it's discussed for about two minutes in the show, but him and Meera were at Winterfell before Theon captured it, and all the history between their father and Ned Stark is covered in wonderful detail. Like I said, that was a lot of extra meat that couldn't really be covered in a show that had ten, one hour episodes a season to cover the then-five novels already published before the Reed siblings were introduced. Tinkerbell saves the day. "Silly skeletons, your evil magic cannot harm us. Don't you know who the fuck we are? We're the Children, bitch!"
Oh, shit, Pai Mei is the Three-Eyed-Raven? Guess those poisoned fish heads weren't as deadly as Elle Driver thought.
Man, talk about unfortunate timing. Brienne finally finds Arya Stark, the only person loyal to the Starks who now has direct confirmation that she's still alive. And after all the betrayals and deaths of her family, Arya rightfully can't trust anyone who's got the stink of the Lannisters on them. Now here's a proper fight for the Hound; Brienne may not be as strong as he is, but she's a good enough fighter that this is an actual challenge for him. In any other universe where the Hound wasn't a hateful person, the two of them could've been perfect for each other, romantically. Oh fuck, that kick. I don't have those factory parts, but even I know that hard of a kick in that area has to hurt like hell. Hence the desperate last minute Tyson v. Holyfield Bite Fight maneuver.
Arya: You're going to die?
Sandor: Unless there's a maester hiding behind that rock, aye, I'm done.
"Wait a minute. There's a maester behind that maester-shaped rock!"
And so the penny drops. Shae's obviously bullshit testimony was crafted by Tywin, who told Cersei to bring Shae to his tower before Joffrey's wedding. And then she gets choked to death by the very gold necklace Tyrion tried to give her, which she called "chains". Fitting, really. So is Tyrion using the improved crossbow that Joffrey used to kill Ros. "Easier to load in those crucial last moments before committing patricide. Only 100 dragons at Tobho Mott's! "
After about two years since Arya and Jaqen's goodbye, she finally uses the special Braavosi coin to finally start her real training. My favorite part about that moment is how quickly the captain's mood shifts once he sees the coin and hears the words. Even if he had no idea how Arya got it, those coins and words work a lot like Pippin's cloak clasp in Lord of the Rings: "Not idly do the Faceless Men's coins fall". How she got it is immaterial; that she has it and knows the words is all that matters. These were my favorite kinds of season finales for this show; may not have been as shocking or memorable as the episodes that preceded them, but they ended on the perfect note to make you want so much more, and make the year(s)-long wait for the next season almost unbearable.
This was another one of those episodes with a double-meaning title. The Children was fitting because it's the first time one of the Children of the Forest was ever seen, and because all of Tywin's children took drastic measures to defy him, especially Tyrion.
Review by Digital PhreakerBlockedParentSpoilers2024-05-22T22:58:06Z
"Green came from a farm." I love that moment; before the Night's Watch, Grenn didn't come from nobility whose ancestors' lives were as storied as Mag the Mighty's. He was a simple man with more courage than most, who gave his life to stop a fucking giant from destroying the only two defenses left between Mance's army and the Northern kingdom.
Mance: Are you capable of that, Jon Snow? Of killing a man in his own tent when he's just offered you peace? is that what the Night's Watch is?
Mance doesn't say it outright.
Stannis the Mannis roles up at the last second as the Rubrum Deus ex Machina. Not complaining, because this show had plenty Deus ex machina moments, and at least Stannis' plan to protect the Wall/North was already established this season, so at least his army arriving out of the blue wasn't completely unfitting.
Cersei: And now you want to ship me off to Highgarden and steal my boy. My last boy. Margaery will dig her claws in, you will dig your claws in and you'll fight over him like beasts until you rip him apart. I will burn our house to the ground before I let that happen!
Tywin: And how will you do that?
While Tywin has never had much respect for Cersei or took these kind of threats seriously, he was fucking stupid not to see what even Tyrion saw: Cersei really will go to any lengths when she believes she's protecting her children. And she is about to burn Tywin's entire legacy to the ground with what comes next.
Cersei: I'll tell everyone the truth.
Tywin: What truth would that be?
Cersei: You don't know, do you? You never believed it. How is that possible? What am I saying, of course it's possible. How can someone so consumed by the idea of his family have any conception what his actual family was doing? We were right there in front of you and you didn't see us. One look in the past 20 years, one real look at your own children and you would have known.
Tywin: Known what?
Cersei: Everything they say is true. About Jaime and me.
Tywin: No.
Cersei: Your legacy is a lie.
Tywin: I don't believe you.
Cersei: Yes, you do.
God*damn* you talk about dropping a fucking psychological nuclear bomb on a dude. Tywin Lannister, a man so obsessed with his family's legacy -- because of how much he hated his father for what he did to the Lannister name -- being told that his oldest son and daughter weren't only lovers, but two of their products of incest were/are kings. He knows if Cersei follows through on her threat, the Lannister name will forever be tainted and Tommen won't be king for long. Watching her and Jaime together is still gross, but at least it's consensual this time, and not next to their murdered son's corpse.
Dany's getting a much more disheartening real-time lesson of why good intentions pave the road to hell. Here's a former slave explaining how much worse his life has become since being freed; her intentions were pure, but she applied her own experiences of being terrified to be sold off to Drogo like it applies to everyone, while also overlooking how that incredibly terrifying experience turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen in her life. She can't imagine that anyone else sold off like chattel could've also benefited the way she did.
The fucking show is so good at making people sympathize with literal monsters. The cries of protest from the dragons as Dany left them behind in the catacombs makes me think about my old dog who used to sit by my front door and cry for hours when I left for work; I just wanna hug 'em!
I love that shot of Melisandre staring at Jon through the flames.
Bran warg's Hodor Three Stooges eye poke on that skeleton still gets me haha. Goodbye, Jojen. While I can't blame the writers for not going into more details about how important Jojen's "green dreams" were in the books, it's still a shame that both he and his sister's reasoning for leaving Greywater Watch was left out; sure, it's discussed for about two minutes in the show, but him and Meera were at Winterfell before Theon captured it, and all the history between their father and Ned Stark is covered in wonderful detail. Like I said, that was a lot of extra meat that couldn't really be covered in a show that had ten, one hour episodes a season to cover the then-five novels already published before the Reed siblings were introduced. Tinkerbell saves the day. "Silly skeletons, your evil magic cannot harm us. Don't you know who the fuck we are? We're the Children, bitch!"
Oh, shit, Pai Mei is the Three-Eyed-Raven? Guess those poisoned fish heads weren't as deadly as Elle Driver thought.
Man, talk about unfortunate timing. Brienne finally finds Arya Stark, the only person loyal to the Starks who now has direct confirmation that she's still alive. And after all the betrayals and deaths of her family, Arya rightfully can't trust anyone who's got the stink of the Lannisters on them. Now here's a proper fight for the Hound; Brienne may not be as strong as he is, but she's a good enough fighter that this is an actual challenge for him. In any other universe where the Hound wasn't a hateful person, the two of them could've been perfect for each other, romantically. Oh fuck, that kick. I don't have those factory parts, but even I know that hard of a kick in that area has to hurt like hell. Hence the desperate last minute Tyson v. Holyfield Bite Fight maneuver.
Arya: You're going to die?
Sandor: Unless there's a maester hiding behind that rock, aye, I'm done.
"Wait a minute. There's a maester behind that maester-shaped rock!"
And so the penny drops. Shae's obviously bullshit testimony was crafted by Tywin, who told Cersei to bring Shae to his tower before Joffrey's wedding. And then she gets choked to death by the very gold necklace Tyrion tried to give her, which she called "chains". Fitting, really. So is Tyrion using the improved crossbow that Joffrey used to kill Ros. "Easier to load in those crucial last moments before committing patricide. Only 100 dragons at Tobho Mott's! "
After about two years since Arya and Jaqen's goodbye, she finally uses the special Braavosi coin to finally start her real training. My favorite part about that moment is how quickly the captain's mood shifts once he sees the coin and hears the words. Even if he had no idea how Arya got it, those coins and words work a lot like Pippin's cloak clasp in Lord of the Rings: "Not idly do the Faceless Men's coins fall". How she got it is immaterial; that she has it and knows the words is all that matters. These were my favorite kinds of season finales for this show; may not have been as shocking or memorable as the episodes that preceded them, but they ended on the perfect note to make you want so much more, and make the year(s)-long wait for the next season almost unbearable.
This was another one of those episodes with a double-meaning title. The Children was fitting because it's the first time one of the Children of the Forest was ever seen, and because all of Tywin's children took drastic measures to defy him, especially Tyrion.