A review of “Mother’s Mercy,” the tenth episode of the fifth season of “Game of Thrones”

by Miodrag Zarković

Not that David Benioff and Dan Weiss necessarily realize it, but the decision to include Dorne in Season 5 of “Game of Thrones” was possibly their luckiest one ever. Essentially, the presence of the Dornish subplot presented their apologists with a precious opportunity to appear “objective” when they deal with long overdue criticism. For example: “I don’t think it was illogical of Sansa to agree to marry Ramsay, and I don’t share the notion that Stannis would never burn his daughter like that in the books, and the stabbing of Jon Snow was as powerful as in the novel, if not more so—but, hey, if you think I’m just too big a fanboy to ever acknowledge any flaw of the show, let me tell you, the Dorne material was really shameful this season, it was a disaster, and I can’t even express how disappointed I am in that specific part of the season; so, I’m objective, am I not?”

(In case you’re wondering, this was not a direct quote from any of the reviews, but if it actually resembles some of the “arguments” out there. Well, it was bound to happen.)

So, this review will address literally everything, except Dorne. We’ll go through all the other parts of “Mother’s Mercy,” the last GOT episode of the year, but the southernmost kingdom of Westeros will be left alone this time. It suffered too much already, as Benioff and Weiss’ version of a sacrifice to the Gods of TV Criticism.

Dorne is discussed enough elsewhere anyway. No need to open those wounds just to join the choir. Let show apologists handle Dorne.

And, of course, right at the start, we’re going to break that promise. Because, this is a “Game of Thrones” review, after all. People need to be shocked. And is there a better way to shock people than to manipulate them into thinking something, just so you can do exactly the opposite the first chance you get?

So, Dorne, here we come. Prepare your good wives. And that other group. Good daughters, of course. Who else?

Anyway, to say that Benioff and Weiss hate Stannis would be a huge understatement. By now, it’s evident they abhor the Baratheons as a concept. Not even the long-dead members of that royal family can rest in peace. See, what Myrcella’s “I’m glad you’re my father” little speech to Jaime actually indicates is that she’s euphoric not to be Robert’s daughter. Not just happy but truly overjoyed. Don’t let her relatively calm demeanor in that scene trick you: essentially, she doesn’t mind she’s been lied to all her life, or that she’s a product of incest. Or that neither she nor her brother have any claim to the throne their family occupies at the moment, which theoretically might put their lives in danger. Looks like not being Robert Baratheon’s daughter outweighs all the consequences that stem from the fact.

Also, it makes Robert even stupider in hindsight, because, besides him and possibly the High Septon, is there anyone in Westeros who didn’t figure out Jaime and Cersei’s dirty secret?

(Well, there actually was one more person: Tywin Lannister. But we’ll come back to him in the review of the entire season.)

At least, that’s how the entire angle about the twincest, this scene included, is written in the show. In Benioff and Weiss’ universe, it really isn’t a big deal. Only those backward Baratheons overblow the importance of Jaime and Cersei’s affair, but everybody else is more or less okay with it.

Like incest, kinship is also not a concern. Why would Trystane Martell’s cousins trouble their conscience with him at all? Why would his aunt Ellaria give a flying kiss about his wellbeing? Caring is for pussies! Though not for bad ones, apparently.

And that’s what the perception of family in GOT boils down to. It’s a vague connection between people with common ancestry, the connection that doesn’t actually oblige anyone to follow some strict rules of conduct and behavior. God forbid. Because the idea of family doesn’t translate too well onscreen, right? “The Godfather,” anyone? “The Sopranos”? Do we really need another epic failure of that kind?

Alright, kidding about Dorne is the easiest thing ever, but who are we kidding? Was the rest of the season substantially better than that “you need a bad pussy” brilliance?

Of course, it wasn’t. How can TV Sansa’s “If I’m going to die, let it happen while there’s still some of me left” line be taken more seriously than Tyene’s mindless vulgarity? Who talks like that? What does it even mean? “While there’s still some of me left”. . . Did an adult person really think such a line would add some gravity to TV Sansa’s supposedly tragic arc? You know, in order to be tragic, an arc has to exist in the first place. And if it lacks any basic logic whatsoever, it can never exist. And if that’s the case, no line, no matter how overloaded with words desperately covering for the lack of depth, can save it. Did an adult person honestly think such a line would help the audience forget the stupidity of the path that led Sansa to the current situation?

Is that kind of audience theoretically possible?

Looks like it’s not only possible, but very real, because the reports say that “Mother’s Mercy” was the most watched GOT episode ever. So, if numbers are anything to judge by, TV Shireen didn’t burn for nothing a week earlier. Her death at least attracted strong ratings, with people presumably expecting to see how the sacrifice was going to pay out for TV Stannis.

Was the audience satisfied with the result? Much more than Stannis himself, definitely. He was doomed, because at last he faced an opponent he couldn’t overcome with magic: logic.

Benioff and Weiss finally decided, and in the most awkward moment, to treat Stannis’ story logically, which meant that half of his forces deserted the lunatic who burns his own daughter for no reason. It wasn’t realistic, because the desertion happened with a ridiculous secrecy, but at least it was logical. And that’s precisely why the outcome was even more absurd.

In a way, that is exactly what Benioff and Weiss did with Sansa this season, too. Both her and Stannis’ arcs were destined by highly unreasonable, unexplainable, unacceptable choices they made: she agreed to marry into the family that betrayed and murdered her family, and he agreed to burn his only child as a sacrifice to a deity. And once they made their respective decisions, both Stannis and Sansa couldn’t help but suffer dearly, because from then on their arcs developed somewhat more logically: his campaign ended in a devastating defeat, and she was exposed to constant physical torture and humiliation by her husband.

And that’s the main problem with their arcs. Stannis’ TV fate proves why no person with any sanity left would even think about doing what he did to Shireen under those circumstances. Sansa’s TV ordeal proves why no person with any sanity left would ever agree to marry into a family of known traitors and usurpers. Ultimately, Sansa and Stannis prove why no writer with any talent should ever so much as consider writing something so stupid as their respective decisions this season.

There are some who disagree, naturally. On his “The Nerdstream Era” blog, Stefan Sasse took issue with my review of the infamous “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” episode. Specifically, my notion that Ramsay not raping Sansa would be an illogical outcome once they’re married, Stefan found to be an example of logical fallacy, and he “took up the challenge” of providing a satisfying alternative that could make Sansa’s marriage to Ramsay work. He then describes what he calls several propositions, which, honestly, to me look like they all come to essentially the same thing: Roose forbids Ramsay to molest Sansa, and Ramsay has no choice but to obey.

But of course, just because an alternative can be described, it doesn’t mean it’s logical in any way. The very demand on Roose’s part would ring untrue, not the least because in the show there are no Northern lords, the reaction of which might trouble the Boltons. And besides, what PR problems would Roose worry about, when someone as informed as Littlefinger wasn’t able to find out anything about Ramsay? But even that aside, a villain who’s so obedient to his father isn’t exactly a villain anymore. Just compare Stefan’s proposal with the situation from the book, where Ramsay threatens Reek just because Roose is about to briefly take him away. And, no, Ramsay just can’t be compared to Joffrey, nor to the rest of Margaery’s husbands, which is something any reader—or show watcher—would have to agree.

But the biggest fallacy of Stefan’s argument is the very idea that two wrongs make something right. Like, if Sansa’s ridiculous acceptance to marry Ramsay is followed by the equally ridiculous PR concerns and Ramsay’s obedience, everything’s going to be fine. In other words, let’s put Sansa into some nonsensical arc, but we mustn’t infuriate Sansa’s fans so we’ll perform some additional acrobatics to elude the most logical outcome of the said nonsensical arc.

Well, if you don’t want to infuriate Sansa’s fans, how about not putting Sansa in an arc without any sense whatsoever? Keeping her away from Ramsay would be a good start, most probably, because that way she wouldn’t have to make a decision no reasonable being ever would.

And anyway, what’s this big reward Sansa was taken to Winterfell this season for? What was the big payoff? A jump from the walls? Is that how she avenges her family? Is that how she learns not to be a bystander any more? Is that how she won’t be running away all her life? Also, if TV Sansa is to eventually end in the same place as book Sansa (which is Benioff and Weiss’ self-announced intention for all the major characters at least), now she has to leave Jeyne Poole’s role and go back to Sansa’s book path—which clearly means her arc this season was nothing but a filler.

How contagious was the entire idea of TV Sansa in Winterfell is also evidenced by the utter destruction of Theon’s book arc. What Theon goes through in “A Dance with Dragons” is widely and righteously considered one of the highlights of the entire saga and one of the strongest ASOIAF claims for a place in a literary Pantheon. Atmospheric, suspenseful, highly disturbing and at the same time strangely poetic, armored with both political intrigue and supernatural elements, and commanded by perhaps the hardest personal struggle any character in the series had to overcome, those chapters are not only memorable as a reading experience but also very cinematic for a screen adaptation. Something would inevitably be lost in the transition, like Reek’s famous rhymes, but there’s enough other meat there to make a brilliant TV season’s arc without any alteration. What we witnessed in the past ten weeks, however, is not even a pale shadow of that arc. Partly because Benioff and Weiss were portraying Theon’s agony for two previous seasons (also in a very unsatisfying manner), and partly because this season Theon’s story had to share screen-time with that of Sansa (and, by extension, Littlefinger), they were all shorthanded in the end.

The only thing the Winterfell subplot this season “lacked” in comparison to the infamous Dornish one were some poorly choreographed fight scenes. And also, unlike Dorne, Winterfell was occupied by characters that weren’t just introduced at the beginning of the season. But if we put these differences aside, the story in and around the ancient seat of the Starks was really not a bit better than the Sand Snakes’ shenanigans. That is the “power” of TV Littlefinger’s plan for TV Sansa!

Meanwhile, TV Stannis was almost bearable in the first half of the season, which, given Benioff and Weiss’ well documented mistreatment of the character in the past, was a rather surprising turn of events. But, everything came to “order” in the last two episodes. As said, the logical fallout from Shireen’s sacrifice only made matters worse: of course that half the army (at the very least) is going to desert a monstrous zealot who burns his own daughter, and that is precisely why not even a religious zealot would do something so inhuman, not even if he’s totally emotionless toward his daughter, let alone if he actually does have feelings for her, as the show itself tried to establish early in the season. Even if TV Stannis is someone who’d choose ambition over familial love (and we have no reason to doubt such a description, since it’s Benioff himself who delivered it in the “Inside the episode” video), only an imbecile would confuse the Episode 9 situation with such a choice, just like Episode 10 ultimately proved. Having all that in mind, Stannis’ subplot this season really came close to the infamous Dorne, at least at the very end, which managed to be comically bad even without “bad pussies” in the offering.

So, Stannis and Sansa’s arcs this season make a pattern of incompetence of a sort. But it goes even beyond that. As an unlikely couple of tragic victims of this “adaptation,” Stannis and Sansa present the strongest case against everything “Game of Thrones” managed to destroy from its source material. These two characters are seldom analyzed in sync, but maybe they should’ve been, because together they reveal all the richness of Martin’s unique vision and the astonishing range of his storytelling genius. Between the two of them, you have everything there is to love about “A Song of Ice and Fire,” with Sansa’s being possibly the most intimate POV in the saga, and Stannis probably the least intimate but most epic perspective of the series (and he’s not even a POV character), and last but not least, the situation is changing with both of them, in that Sansa is more and more engaged in the dynastic war (of which she was part of against her will at first, but by now she seems to fully accept her involvement in), while Stannis’ choices are becoming more and more personal (if for nothing else, then because Davos, his father figure and conscience, is not with him at the moment to help him with decisions).

It is quite an “accomplishment” to mishandle both of them. It takes some kind of effort. My impression is that Benioff and Weiss hate Stannis, while they are completely disinterested in Sansa. But it could just as easily be the other way around: they hate Sansa, and it’s Stannis who interests them in no way. Or any combination in-between, really. But what is absolutely certain is that Benioff and Weiss understand and/or love neither Stannis nor Sansa.

But, is there anything they do love and understand about ASOIAF? It doesn’t appear so. They’re possibly in love with their twisted take on some of the characters, like Tyrion or Cersei or Margaery or Olenna, but not even their TV fates offer some extraordinary rewards to dedicated viewers. Like, in the season finale Tyrion was just handed a city to rule! How can that be even remotely engaging or intriguing for any true ASOIAF admirer? Book Tyrion fights for both his survival and basic dignity in almost every scene in ADWD, while his TV namesake receives Meereen on a plate only days after he reached the damn city! He even gets Varys once again. It is not a bit less ridiculous than Dorne, truth be told. And, by the way, Meereen also suffered from some abysmal choreography this season on several occasions, which is, again, completely comparable to the Sand Snakes and their action scenes.

Add to that Daenerys, and her character that was all over the place this season, and especially that last scene when Dothraki riders circle around her for some reason, and I honestly fail to see why was Meereen better than Dorne this season.

Was Brienne’s arc better than Dorne? Hardly. She was also cursed with nonsensical dialogue, involved in a ridiculous fight, and left aimlessly to wander between two other people’s plots: Sansa’s and Stannis’. Needless to say, none of her scenes resembled anything from her book chapters, which even if often underappreciated by some readers provide a pretty solid and eventful arc that could’ve made a strong TV season. Again, the viewers knew Brienne from before, and she wasn’t handling poisons but candles, but in reality, that’s all that separated her “arc” from that Dornish rubbish this season.

The least bad storylines were those in King’s Landing and Braavos, but that’s not to say they didn’t suffer from grave problems. Speaking of Arya, her final scene, in which she goes blind even though she didn’t consume any potion that might be responsible for the condition, but not before No One Who Looked Very Much Like Jaqen died for some reason, only to be instantly reborn in another same-looking body, was one more exercise in forced stupidity, created out of a wish to change the source material at any cost.

Meanwhile, in Westeros’ capital, the things ended much better than they started, because of the powerful Walk of Shame scene, that was—surprise, surprise—the most faithful one to the source material. In the name of that, let’s leave the rest of it to the review of the season as a whole.

And finally, the Wall. Where it all started. And where, as media reports suggest, TV Jon’s life actually ended. His arc was not ruined beyond recognition, like Sansa’s or Stannis’ or Jaime’s or Brienne’s (or Sam’s, for that matter). But it was one missed opportunity after another. Brilliant points from his ADWD storyline were either completely cut (his dealings with Bowen Marsh and other direct subordinates, for example, and also his gradual involvement in the Northern politics), or thoroughly underwhelming (the Wildings entering the realm), in order to give space to the show invention of the Battle at Hardhome, that ultimately ruined the climactic moment of the entire season: the stabbing of Jon. His supposed death in the show was so unearned, not only because his intention to confront Ramsay was omitted but also because the Hardhome experience was rendered meaningless in the show universe. Like, if the dramatic battle against the merciless enemy in full force, wasn’t a reason enough for the mutineers to at least delay their move against the Lord Commander, then it’s really not a surprise his direwolf is now called Olly, same as that annoying kid who managed to undo both Ygritte and Jon.

(Come to think of it, Ramsay does have his match finally. If anyone can stop him, it’s Olly. Better not disappoint this youngster, Mr. Bolton.)

So, how do TV Westeros and Essos look like at the end of Season 5? It’s a place where wars are decided by 20 good men. Where highborn girls willingly marry into families that destroyed their lives. Where children actually prefer to be products of incest. And where an entire city can be delivered to a complete stranger with a dark and mysterious past.

How did we exactly get to such a silly place? We’ll talk about that in three days, on Friday, when the review of the entire season, in a refreshing form proposed by the management of the site, will be posted here.

Is there anything we, as a community of ASOIAF admirers disappointed in this “adaptation” that seems back on its feet once again, can do to remedy the situation? You know, there actually might be something. More on that on Friday.

A review of “Hardhome,” the eight episode of the fifth season of “Game of Thrones”

by Miodrag Zarković

(DISCLAIMER: It’d be tempting to blame the ladies who run this site for the fact that the promised second part of “Not a Review” is still not posted. With their track record of torture and abuse of poor, unprotected journalists, who’d have a single reason to doubt it? But the truth is that they are not to blame, it’s all my fault. Job and life got in the way, the piece is still not done, and I’m sorry for that. It will hopefully be finished in a few days and post it here. Meanwhile, back at the Wall…)

Creatively, to a lot of fans and critics alike it made sense to really like “Hardhome,” because they wanted and needed it to be good. Lately, the fifth season of “Game of Thrones” was almost universally received as a letdown, so it was on much-hyped “Hardhome” to save what could be saved. And, by the reaction it was received with—almost universal praise—it looks like the episode performed beyond expectations even.

A pity that it definitely ruined any connection to the source material in the process. There wasn’t much left of it even before the episode, but after “Hardhome” the show is not just a completely separate beast from the books: it’s a completely different universe now.

What this hour (and it was just seconds shy of one full hour, which is very rare for “Game of Thrones”) managed to betray, is possibly the fundamental quality of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series by George R. R. Martin. All the complexity of the novels, the sophisticated political intrigue, the social structures that bite, the layered and vivid characters, all that came from the most important decision an author can bring: to write a story that is not simplistic. And Martin did make that choice in the early `90s, just when he was about to start working on the series.

Without that decision, ASOIAF would’ve been an essentially different narrative. Perhaps it’d be a success even in that case. Simplistic stories can be remarkable, just like complex stories can be utter failures. Nothing is guaranteed, one way or the other. But it wouldn’t even resemble the ASOIAF we know today.

The paramount importance of that decision lies in the simple fact that an author must know what he wants to achieve. Otherwise, it’s all just random. And, once the decision is made, the author has to stick with it. When the process of writing ensues, it’s not just about creativity any more, but also a matter of discipline. Many a Siren will try to lure Odysseus away from the actual Odyssey and into some other arc. It’s on the author alone to resist those challenges and stay true to the initial idea.

As said, Martin made the call. It’s not only evident by the series itself but he also confirmed the choice famously stating, many times and in various occasions, that he wasn’t interested in a rather simple Good vs. Evil narrative. He wanted ASOIAF, although a fantasy epic, to be much more true to the real life than to the genre tropes:

“The battle between Good and Evil is a theme of much of fantasy. But I think the battle between Good and Evil is fought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make. It’s not like evil dresses up in black clothing and you know, they’re really ugly.”

That’s what the man said. His actual words, from an interview he gave back in 2011 when, after the show’s debut season, mainstream media got a hint that fantasy can be so much more than gathering all the good guys on one side and all the bad guys on the opposite corner and pitching them against each other. Such a revelation led quite a few journalists on a task of finding where did all that complexity come from, and, since every single element of the show that fascinated both the audience and the critics was directly taken from the source material (while, on the other hand, all the annoying stuff, like the infamous “sexposition,” was produced by the showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss), the research couldn’t help but end with George R. R. Martin. He was quite a popular person that summer, and in each interview he gave, he was asked how he had managed to create a world as multifaceted as the one ASOIAF is set in. And every time Martin’s answer was the same. Here’s another example, also from that time:

“Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien—he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy—there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, ‘Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys‘.”

Now, just compare that stance of his to the last 20 minutes of “Hardhome,” and you’ll clearly see why that entire sequence, much hailed as a savior of the season or even the best thing the show has ever done, is so different from the source material “Game of Thrones” is supposedly adapting.

What the Hardhome battle is both in substance and on facade, is the one thing Martin didn’t want his saga to be recognized as: good guys (the handful of Black Brothers and thousands of Wildlings) against the bad guys (White Walkers and Wights in seemingly endless quantities). Truth be told, prior to the battle itself there were some tensions between various factions of the “good guys,” but the cataclysmic evil that soon avalanched on them rendered all those tensions, as poorly-built as they were, practically irrelevant. When the battle started, all that mattered was that the attackers, every single one of them, were the menace, while the Black Brothers and the Wildlings, every single one of them, were either fighting the menace or running away from it.

One might say the books are also progressing to the same spot. Ever since the prologue of the first novel, it’s clear that the battle against the Others is what will determine the fate of the whole of mankind. Therefore, it is only logical to expect a grand showdown between Good and Evil in the books, too. Does that make Martin a hypocrite, then?

Not really, because his words aren’t to be taken literally. Avoiding a cliché shouldn’t be the same as avoiding the basic reasons that has been driving the art of storytelling since time immemorial. A story must have a climax. An epic story must have an antagonist. The most reasonable climax of an epic is a battle against the antagonist, and for it to be memorable, the stakes at that point have to be as high as ever. Hence, the battle versus undoubted Evil is a natural conclusion of an epic saga. The journey there, however, is what can make all the difference in the world. The manner, the moment, the atmosphere in which the forces of Good are lined up, can go a long way in renouncing the cliché and staying true to Martin’s intent of avoiding simplicity.

It stands to reason that Martin is doing exactly that: once ASOIAF is completed, the Others will probably be recognized as the prime antagonists, which is how they were built up ever since the beginning, but if the story is completed in style, everything that happened before the climax will only make it more impactful and memorable.

And that’s why discipline is important. The battle of Good versus Evil has to be left only for the climax. It shouldn’t be truncated before that, or else it hurts the narrative logic that drives the entire story. In some other story, created with some other intention, the final battle could be delivered in smaller installments that precede the ultimate one. Here, in ASOIAF, that’s not what the author wanted and he worked very hard to avoid it.

Just recall all the battles Martin wrote in the books so far. There isn’t too many of them. In AGOT, there’s the Battle on the Green Fork, which could definitely be seen as an early showdown versus Evil, because at that stage the Lannisters were as good as antagonists, if not for the most important fact that the entire battle is told through the eyes of the single Lannister who’s by that time already proven not to be an antagonist. Everything Martin did with Tyrion up to that point was meant to portray him as a sympathetic character, which serves, among other things, as a prevention against cliché the author wants to avoid. Two victories of Robb’s army, which was logically recognized by a reader as the forces of Good at the time, therefore it happened off-page, and we’re only told about them later on.

In ACOK, there’s the Battle of the Blackwater, told through three POVs—Davos, Sansa and Tyrion—all with their specific perspectives and neither as an antagonist. A reader is welcome to pick a side, but Martin evidently restrained from doing it and thus once again avoided the dreaded cliché.

In ASOS, there’s the Battle at the Wall, and while Jon Snow is one of the main protagonists, the author went to great lengths to convey both the ambiguous feelings Jon harbors for the enemy and also the perspective of the Wildlings themselves, with whom Jon had spent much time in the recent past.

And that’s it. Three big battles so far in the series, and in each of them the author covered multiple angles in order to rule out the Good vs. Evil context. Of course, it was deliberate and in service of the coming showdown reserved for the climax.

Also, recall that one instance where the early battle against the Others could’ve been written: at the Fist of the First Men, when Jeor Mormont’s ranging expedition is attacked. The battle itself is skipped, which some readers deem a mistake. The mistake, however, would’ve been to depict the battle, for the same reason the depiction of Robb’s victories would have. (And, anyway, opting to deliver the aftermath of the battle through Sam’s first POV chapter was definitely not the easy way out.)

The show abandoned that path for good, with the battle in “Hardhome” that was like the textbook case of a clash in which the sides were already and clearly picked by the authors. As already stated, that is the betrayal of the narrative logic the source material’s driven by.

In another story, a move like that wouldn’t necessarily be bad in theory. But for the story that was meant to be an adaptation of ASOIAF, that was all kinds of wrong. And that’s why, after “Hardhome,” GOT and ASOIAF don’t even belong to the same universe anymore. It’d be like remaking “Apocalypse Now” but with a skirmish between Kurtz and Willard somewhere around the midpoint: no matter how effective the added scene might be, it’d inevitably change the story in its core. Or, like remaking “The Sopranos” having Dr. Melfi engage in an affair with Tony for a little while.

Not that GOT viewers minded the change. The reaction to the episode points to a conclusion that, perhaps for the first time this season, Benioff and Weiss managed to satisfy their audience. Which, in turn, means exactly what it sounds like: the show’s audience is by now completely different to the books’ audience.

It doesn’t mean the book readers don’t or shouldn’t watch the show, or vice versa. But regardless of how much they do overlap, those are still different audiences, in the sense that an ASOIAF reader can also watch “The Walking Dead” and enjoy it even, but for reasons that have nothing to do with his/her interest in ASOIAF. It was pretty clear from the early days of the show, but now it’s just too damn obvious, that ASOIAF and GOT are consummated for vastly different rationales. Sometimes you want just sex; sometimes you want to spend the entire life with the one you love; the former may lead to a decent marriage, and the latter may end in an emotional disaster, but no person with healthily developed sentiments would ever confuse the two.

Analyzing GOT on its own is, therefore, a completely futile assignment at this point. Why would anyone put a strictly sexual relationship under scrutiny? They meet, they have sex, they part ways until the next time. That’s it. Nothing to talk about. You can film the intercourse and later watch it, share the video with friends even, but any reasonable interest ends there.

Why talk about Dany and Tyrion’s scenes then? Of course they’re offensively stupid if you think about them, but they’re not there to be thought about. They’re there for people who enjoy simply seeing Dany and Tyrion on screen at the same time. Whatever he or she said, it doesn’t matter. They’re interacting and that’s all that is important.

Why discuss TV Sansa and TV Theon? Of course she behaves in a way that creatively makes sense to the showrunners because that’s how they wanted her to behave; whether her behavior is logically sustainable or not, that’s a completely different issue that, honestly, doesn’t matter at all. Same with Theon, who not so long ago bit his true sister, but now breaks before his foster one: it’s not supposed to make any sense, other than that “creative” one Benioff illustrated so vividly.

TV Ramsay will do whatever the showrunners’ famous creativity wants him to do. He’s going to kill Stannis. Or get himself killed. Or neither. But why bother with it? It’s just a casual relationship. You can get in bed with TV Ramsay, or find another sex buddy in some other story, just don’t think about any of it.

One zombie is stopped by an arrow, the next one eats arrows for breakfast; the Thenn leader hates Jon Snow so much he opts to face the White Walkers on his own, but minutes later the same Thenn leader sacrifices himself for Jon Snow; a group of zombie kids patiently wait for that young wildling mother to make up her mind about fighting them, and only after she realizes she can’t they kill her; and zombies are afraid of sea water for some reason . . . But so what? It is not supposed to make any sense at all. Creatively, Benioff and Weiss are absolutely certain this Hardhome business was a great idea, because they wanted it to happen.

And they’re clearly not alone. They found their sex buddies again. The relationship was in a little crisis for the past seven weeks, but now everything’s okay, because, obviously, zombies are the most powerful aphrodisiac the medium of television has to offer at this point. Good for them. All of them: zombies, Benioff and Weiss, their sex buddy of an audience. Honestly.

For the rest of us, if we’re so hell-bent on analyzing things, we can talk about all the ways GOT keeps betraying its source material week after week. But analyzing the episodes on their own? No, thanks. It’s someone else’s sex party. No reason to spoil it.