So guys, what the fuck was that? Sorry to feel like a parent
who has to yell at their disappointing child, but I’m pretty frustrated by last’s
night episode of Game of Thrones, and for one reason: Jaime Lannister. Did last
night’s episode, directed by Alex Graves and written by showrunners David
Benioff and D.B. Weiss, veer away from the source material
in that sexual confrontation between Jaime and Cersei next to their dead son
Joffrey’s body? Yes it did, and for no redeeming reason whatsoever. I’ll
continue my ranting later, but ugh. Just … ugh.
Other stuff happened during the hour: we checked in with the
rest of the Lannisters; found out who manufactured Sansa’s escape from King’s
Landing; saw how Margaery is grieving; went up to Castle Black; and observed
how Dany plans to overthrow slave city Meereen. But that scene with
Jaime/Cersei … dammit, let’s just start off my discussion with that, because I
can’t get over it.
And now, the five things you need to know about “Breaker of
Chains” (with some SPOILERS ahead, because you know that’s how I do things around
here):
+ So in the books,
Jaime doesn’t rape Cersei. And the fact that the show makes him do this to her
is pretty fucked up, stupid, and outside of his character. The one thing
about Jaime that is so, so clear in the books and I thought was clear in the
show, too, is that he abhors violence against women. He cannot stand it. It’s why he lies to the Bloody
Mummers/Locke’s group about Brienne and Tarth being the Sapphire Isle so she
doesn’t get raped. When he thinks about King Aerys, who he killed, in the
books, he remembers having to stand guard outside of their bedchamber while
Aerys raped his wife, knowing that this was a sign of Aerys’s growing madness.
And after years of illicitly being with Cersei during her marriage to Robert,
he knows about the nights drunk Robert would force himself on Cersei. HE KNOWS
ALL THESE THINGS. So to make him a full-on rapist in this scene makes him a “more
complicated” character, in TV-land, at the expense of losing all the humanity
he has in the books.
In the books, the scene goes like this: Jaime has just returned
from his travels with Brienne; he was away while Joffrey died and finally joins
Cersei in the Sept, by his body. He’s been away at this point for over a year,
and can’t contain his love and lust for Cersei; at first, she objects to the location of where they’re having sex,
but not the actual act. She is an
active participant, telling him that between her legs, he’s finally “home.”
Immediately after this, she’s disgusted by his stump—a major disappointment for
Jaime, who knows how Cersei only wants perfect things—and tells him to leave
her—another disappointment for Jaime, who for years has been accustomed to
Cersei taking what she wants from him and then dismissing him. In that book
construction of the scene, the power (rightfully) is with Cersei, who has
called all the shots in their relationship for decades now. To reduce her so
much in the TV version, and to make Jaime this character defined only by rage
instead of by desire, is infuriating and limiting for the character development
of both twins.
Director
Alex Graves has said in some interviews that he thinks the sex scene reads
consensual by the end, and if I squint my eyes and cock my head, MAYBE it
seems like that? I’ve rewatched the scene a couple of times and it seems to
play out like this: Jaime regrets that he loves this “hateful woman,” they
start kissing but she’s hitting him, they kneel on the floor, Cersei is then
kissing him back and caressing his face, they lay down and her protests of “stop
it” are more weak, I guess?, but then he’s thrusting on top of her and she’s
holding onto the drapes of the altar where Joffrey’s body is above them. I
understand that in the book, the sex similarly feels like a battle, but this is
one the gripes I have with GoT sometimes: WHY NOT JUST HAVE CERSEI SAY WHAT’S
WRITTEN IN THE BOOK? Why not just have her say, “Yes, brother, you’re home”?
Sure, they’re doing something different in the show because they moved the
timeline of when Jaime returns, and they change it so Cersei has been denying
him sex for months, and I get that the show and books are not the exact same
thing. But in a scene like this, I don’t think the TV version was in any way better.
I think this piece on the AV Club
about the rape scene and how unnecessary it was is good context, and I can’t help but feel
like this underlines what so many critics of the show have said for years now:
it manufactures and manipulates sex, to the detriment of women, to get viewers.
I mean, I hate Cersei, yes, she’s awful. But do I hate her enough to see her
raped by a brother who in the books, up until this point, only loves and adores her? No, fuck that, I’m out.
+ OK, I’m not really
out, because I watched the rest of the episode. So let’s discuss all the
Lannisters. Before the maybe-rape scene, Cersei has to suffer through Tywin
coaching Tommen about what it takes to be a good king OVER JOFFREY’S BODY,
basically telling Tommen (who is aged up here from the books, where he’s about
8; he seems 13 or so now) that his older brother was a shitty ruler and he
needs to be better. “Wisdom is what makes a good king,” Tywin tells Tommen, but
that’s code for, “I am wise as the Hand and I will continue ruling while you’re
a ceremonial figurehead because you’re only a child and I am your grandfather
and remember how Joffrey died?” So that’s good! After that very
you-sucked-at-raising-Joffrey-side-eye that Tywin gives Cersei, she’s still out
for revenge, telling Jaime that she’s convinced Tyrion did this and that he
should kill their little brother for her. “I don’t want a trial … I want him
dead!” Yeah, that sounds like Cersei.
And finally, we check in on Tyrion himself, now confined to
a dungeon cell and with barely any visitors. With the trial in a fortnight, his
squire Podrick Payne comes to inform him that he’s allowed to call on his own
witnesses, but Varys has already been called by Cersei, and Pod has been banned
from bringing Bronn to see Tyrion. And with Sansa now gone, Tyrion realizes how
rapidly he’s running out of options. But when Pod admits to him that he was
approached to lie about Tyrion in exchange for a knightship and that he denied
the request, Tyrion immediately knows his squire is now in danger: “If I have
to take a long walk to the executioner’s block, I don’t want to see your head
already mounted,” he says. “Get yourself out of King’s Landing before it’s too
late!” And since I think Podrick Payne is the GoT version of Neville
Longbottom—grew up to be weirdly hot, extremely loyal, useful with a sword in a
pinch—I JUST WANT HIM TO LIVE.
+ Check-in with the Starks
time! So speaking of Sansa, she’s safely squirreled out of King’s Landing
by Ser Dontos—who is then promptly killed by Petyr Baelish, a.k.a.
Littlefinger, who was (partially) behind the plot to kill Joffrey and (fully)
behind the plot to save Sansa. Littlefinger is not a man to leave loose ends,
and he certainly wasn’t going to leave any with Dontos: “He was a drunk and a
fool and I don’t trust drunk fools.” But you’ve got to love how Littlefinger
can downplay a situation: sure, the poison used to kill Joffrey was in Sansa’s
necklace the whole time, but he’s really underselling it when he tells her, “I
know you’ve had a difficult day.” He’s supposedly bringing her home, but this
is Petyr motherfucking Baelish. I
think you can guess that his intentions aren’t pure.
And that’s a hard lesson Arya is continuing to learn with the
Hound, who after being taken in by a perfectly nice farmer loyal to the Tullys,
attacks the man and steals his silver, no doubt leaving him and his daughter to
starve or die as winter approaches. This scene dragged on a bit, even with the
great visual gag of the Hound and Arya slurping soup together, but we all knew
the Hound was never going to settle for “fair wages for fair work.” Arya should
have known, too, even though the Hound’s ways of telling her about reality are
pretty harsh: “How many Starks they got to behead before you figure it out?”
And please, repeat after me: the Hound is not totally a good guy! He does not
actually care about Arya! He is only in this for the gold he thinks Aunt Lysa
will give him for Arya’s safe return! Never forget.
Oh, and at the Wall, Jon Snow finally convinces everyone
else that the wildlings are coming. After we see the Thenns, Tormund, and
Ygritte attack a peaceful village, kill a bunch of innocent people, and then
start carving them up for food, the Night’s Watch is faced with the tough
question of whether they should interfere or not. Maester Aemon says no—“We
must remember our first responsibility. We are the watchers on the Wall”—but
when the men from Craster’s Keep return and inform them of his murder, Jon
knows those Night’s Watch deserters have to be killed to keep the wildlings
from knowing there’s dissent within the ranks. This is kind of a convoluted
storyline, I’m not going to lie, but I guess it was constructed to keep Burn
Gorman around as Karl? I like Burn Gorman very much, but I’m still shrugging at
this.
+ The Red Viper likes
boys and girls, but he likes revenge for sister Elia first and foremost. We
finally get the orgy-as-character-development scene for Oberyn Martell and his
paramour Ellaria Sand, in which he explains his bisexuality: “Everyone is
missing half the world’s pleasure. The gods made that, and it delights me. The
gods made this, and it delights me. … When it comes to love, I don’t choose
sides.” Oh, and then who shows up in the orgy brothel? TYWIN LANNISTER, who is
there to recruit Oberyn back into the fold.
For the first time, we hear Tywin (who hilariously declines
Oberyn’s offer to sit on the orgy bed) acknowledge that the wildlings marching
on the Wall and Dany and her three dragons are a threat to the kingdom, and
that the Seven Kingdoms need Dorne to be at full strength again. “I never
realized you had such respect for Dorne, Lord Tywin,” Oberyn snarks, but when Tywin
invites Oberyn to be the third judge in Tyrion’s trial and offers a place on the Small
Council as well as revenge for Elia, the Red Viper can’t refuse. But if you think
Oberyn will come to heel at Tywin’s feet, then you don’t know the Red Viper
very well.
+ And finally,
speaking of people who won’t come to heel at Tywin’s feet, let’s visit Dany,
who has finally reached slave city Meereen. The city of pyramids and
harpies sends its champion to theoretically embarrass Dany—which he does by
urinating in her direction—but nu!Daario won’t stand for that! So he volunteers
to be Dany’s champion with the very flirty “Let me kill this man for you,”
winks at her before the duel, and then swiftly kills the guy with one throw of
his dagger and one swipe of his arakh. Oh, and then he urinates in Meereen’s
direction, to really send the “Fuck with us, we’ll fuck with you” message home.
And then we get an excellent speech from Dany, who has
become quite good at this invading-and-overthrowing thing: “Now I have come to Meereen.
I am not your enemy. Your enemy is beside you. Your enemy steals and murders
your children. Your enemy has nothing for you but chains and suffering, and
commands. I do not bring you commands. I bring you a choice. And I bring your
enemies what they deserve.” And with that, she threw barrels full of broken
chains up at the city walls, a very visual “be afraid” to the slave masters. That
may not be enough to inspire the slaves to rebel, but it’s a start—and clearly,
Daario’s wooing of Dany is just starting, too. Get ready for lots of lusty “I’ll
kill for you” offers, guys.
+ And some final odds
and ends:
+ I continue to give zero fucks about Sam and Gilly, but if
you care, he moved her to a brothel in Mole’s Town because she’ll theoretically
be safe from raping Night’s Watch brothers there. Nobody is OK with this plan,
but Sam isn’t very reassuring when he tells her “I promise to come back and
visit whenever I can.” And she named her baby after him, if that means anything to you.
+ Love Tyrion’s reaction to Tywin’s offer to Oberyn: “He
never fails to take advantage of a family tragedy.” Of course not! Tywin wouldn’t
have lived this long if he didn’t do these things.
+ “I must be cursed,” Margaery says of Joffrey’s death, now
that she’s been widowed twice. But Queen of Thorns tells her in a very first-world
way, “The world is overflowing with horrible things,” and she’s not wrong when
she says that Margaery is better off now because “the next one should be
easier.” Yes, that’s because Margery is going to marry …
+ Tommen, who gets a lesson about the birds and the bees
from Grandpa Tywin: “Has anyone explained the detail to you? It’s all
relatively straightforward…” God, I wish Tywin had taught my seventh-grade
health class! Best. Hypothetical. Ever.
+ Remember how I told you to pay attention to the Queen of Thorns mentioning the Iron Bank of Braavos to Tywin during the Purple Wedding last week? We hear about it again from Davos, who is pressured by Stannis to
come up with a way to get the throne now that Joffrey is dead. (Stannis’s exact
whine: “I will not become a page in someone else’s history book.”) Davos gets a
good jab in with “We’re willing to use blood magic to put you on the throne,
but we’re not willing to pay men to fight?” but it’s only when he visits
Stannis’s daughter Shireen for his reading lesson that he’s reminded of the
Iron Bank. He convinces her to forge a note to them on behalf of her father,
and if we follow the books, this move was very smart indeed.
+ And finally, let’s end on these wise words from Oberyn
about growing up: “No one will want you anymore. Make sure you fucked your fill
before that day.” Let’s get that on some motivational posters, coffee mugs, and
mousepads!
