You can’t say Daenerys didn’t warn us that she was going to break the wheel.
We
were never going to be happy with the way this show ended. The very
nature of narrative doesn’t allow it. A series like this one — and its
universe — can only expand for so long, can only broaden its scope and
dig new tunnels under its characters’ psyches until it inevitably needs
to contract, especially if the ending the show is hurtling toward is to
declare one new monarch, one ruler over an entire continent. It has to
go small, whittle things down. Because Game of Thrones
threw some of our ideas about narrative out the highest window of the
Red Keep, we hoped it would somehow be able to bypass the laws of
storytelling physics, to resolve all the loose ends without it feeling
spick and span, to blow up our idea of what television means without
taking too much with it, to let our favorites die but Wait, no, not that one!
With
that said, “The Bells” stands out as massively uneven, brilliant in
moments (Lena Headey takes all the cake), but often abysmally fan
service-y. (See Euron appearing out of the water onto the exact same
slot of beach Jaime is on just so the two can duel over a woman only one
of them loves.) It dragged down not one but two queens, with my
personal GOT lord and savior Cersei dying under
the weight of what she thought might protect her, and Daenerys using
the weight of what protects her to send other people to their deaths.
In
the days to come the battle among viewers will revolve around one big
idea: Daenerys the Mad Queen giving in to her worst impulses and
torching an entire city and its people to the ground. How can they drag a good woman down?
the Twitterverse will wail. Crowds of angry viewers are going to revolt
against the fact that this single woman isn’t keeping their feminist
fantasies alive, that the showrunners would dare do something so complex
as have a woman with rather questionable DNA, a devout belief in her
divine rights, a propensity for crucifixion, a long storied history of
being talked out of vicious acts by her advisers, and a savior complex
the size of Wun Wun actually do the logical thing and go HAM. If you’re
wondering how long this has been building, go back and rewatch Daenerys
burn Mirri Maz Dur in season one, watch her burn Pyat Pree in season
two, watch her burn Astapor in season three, watch her crucify the
Masters in season four, watch her burn the slave owners of Meereen in
season five, Vaes Dothrak in season six, the loot train and the Tarlys
in season seven.
And
after this episode, rewatch how easily she burns Varys alive without a
trial, without a conversation, without remorse. What once looked like
strength has been a trail of bread crumbs leading to narcissism and
madness, instead.
What
matters isn’t whether Daenerys lives up to some 21st-century ideal of a
female conqueress who slays the patriarchy in a feel-good one-two
dragon-claw punch. And good God, who would really want that? It’s just
as flat and uninspired an idea as the emo boy who’s a secret prince.
(Also, repeat after me: This does not mean that Jon Snow becomes king.)
What matters is that Daenerys’s snarly hell-raising is in keeping with
the character we’ve known since she ate a horse heart to satisfy her
warlord husband. Her propensity for blood was always tempered by the
advisers who pleaded with her for mercy, who reminded her of what she
might become if she gave in to the desire for fire and blood. Now
they’re all dead, and King’s Landing, we can safely assume, is no longer
strictly habitable
What’s
unclear is whether Daenerys sees her dragon joyride as a step too far
in the “let it be fear” direction, even though it was also a tactical
blunder the likes of which we haven’t seen (and boy oh boy have we seen
some commanders fuck up on this show cough cough Stannis cough).
The people won’t exactly be lining the streets with celebratory
confetti now. They threw feces at Cersei, dear Dragon Queen — anyone
would have been better liked than the woman who casually blew up the
Sept and the entire religious community just so she didn’t have to
appear in court.
Some of the episode’s best moments capitalized on the helplessness of even Game of Thrones’
toughest commanders, like Jon killing his own soldier to stop a war
crime, screaming uselessly into the wind that his men should stand down.
In between ludicrous, death-defying moments (Arya eluding fire and
ten-ton crumbling parapets at every turn, the Hound taking 17 Mountain
blows to the head and popping back up like a dog-in-a-box), the sense
that we’d wandered into a moral morass kept rearing its head as grandly
as that magical piece of equine machinery on which Arya rides off at
episode’s end. Some of that is due to the attention paid to the screams
and charred skin of the blacksmiths and tavern owners and baker’s boys
of King’s Landing (although these new views of the city were incredibly
disorienting and absolutely no streets looked familiar, which was
jarring). The little girl holding a carved wooden animal — just like
Shireen — was this show’s equivalent of Schindler’s List’s
little girl in the red coat. A complete innocent wrapped up in the
violent ends that follow lords’ and ladies’ violent delights.
The
slippery, changing nature of the battle added to that impact. First, it
was set like a typical medieval meeting in the field, as the most
Teutonic human ever to walk the planet (a.k.a. the head of the Golden
Company, a.k.a. shouldn’t that guy play Prince Philip in The Crown
one season?) came out to meet the Northern Army. Then it turned into
wild street combat, with soldiers slashing their way down twisty alleys.
And once Daenerys “I am not here to be Queen of the Ashes” Stormborn
continued to torch the city after its surrender, it became moral mayhem,
a rather fitting place for a show so indebted to the question of
whether one can be both powerful and merciful.
As
the grieving moral compass, Tyrion had some of his best scenes of the
season: his hand clutching at Varys in sorrow and pain, his back turned
just before Drogon sets Varys alight, his utter bewilderment after the
bells begin to ring and Daenerys just keeps grilling. He’s failed at his
duties as the Hand of the Queen so many times this season that it’s
become de rigueur to bust on his skills. But here Tyrion’s plan went
remarkably well. The Northern Army won easily, and the Lannister Army
surrendered. Which is why his bereft face, fixated on Daenerys as she
soars across the sky, left such a deep impact. In springing Jaime free,
he was essentially offering up his own life for “the thousands of
children” that would die in a dragon siege. To see Dany cruelly and
unnecessarily murder said children in the street made it painfully clear
to Tyrion that not only had he wrongly dimed out Varys, but that he — a
man with no chance to be king — was willing to die for a people whose
own queen would put them to death.
After
Arya’s little dance with the Night King, viewers were nominating her
for everything, especially the role of Cersei’s killer — after all, she
was one of the few remaining names on Arya’s kill list (which, by the
way, is now complete). But instead Arya’s role in “The Bells” ended up
mimicking her disorientation in the first season, when she spent days
alone confusedly wandering the streets of King’s Landing after her
father’s arrest. Back in the city for the first time since then, Arya
retraces her steps, fleeing the Red Keep after she’s warned away by
someone who is willing to die so she doesn’t have to, and then turning
through the alleyways with every face around her unfriendly and
terrifying. It was satisfying and unexpected for Arya, who had slowly
devolved into nothing more than a ruthless assassin, to return to a
place of tender humanity with the opposite of her surefootedness in the
Battle of Winterfell.
I
spent the first three-quarters of the episode wondering why Daenerys
didn’t simply fly over to the highest tower in the Red Keep and roast
Cersei alive. Once she took out the scorpions and turned her eye back
toward the city, the moment seemed right. But for a reason Benioff and
Weiss probably can’t explain, Daenerys simply skirts Cersei and sends
other towers falling.
While I wish Cersei — by far the most dynamic and interesting woman on the show — had been given more to do than moodily stare out a very high window all season,
Lena Headey worked magic with what she was given, teaching a master
class in staying completely still, saying nothing, and giving a
marvelous performance. After all, Cersei didn’t just lose the throne,
she capsized the richest and most powerful family in Westeros and let
the entire city burn. Her descent, then, from the highest tower to the
depths of Maegor’s Holdfast, worked as a fitting metaphor for just how
catastrophically she’s fallen, now left among the bones of long-dead
dragons.
And
while I admittedly hoped for a more eye-bulging ending — like Jaime’s
golden hand crushing her windpipe — the collapse of a castle upon her
head worked pretty damn great, too. (Rather potent revenge for a woman
who blows up buildings.) Was Cersei and Jaime’s love disgusting and
wrong? Hell yes, but honestly, it was also pretty true. Jaime’s arc
toward redemption wasn’t cut short by his return to Cersei’s side, it
was magnified by his refusal to let her die alone, his belief in the
inherent value of her person, even if she’d murdered and screwed and
backstabbed her way through life.
Jaime died the way he hoped to, with the woman he loved in his arms. As Lena Headey explained,
“They came into the world together and now they leave together.” And in
the end, Cersei’s breakdown — “Please don’t let me die. I don’t want to
die. Not like this.” — revealed that underneath all of her ugly lay the
same fear she’d preyed on in everyone around her.
We
want fitting conclusions for all our favorite characters — but nothing
too neat. Every moment now should have resonance — but shouldn’t merely
copy what’s come before. Game of Thrones should
end the same way it did its best work — surprising us. Or perhaps
surprising us about the way it’s surprising us. It’s a high standard to
live up to. Impossible, probably, after a series that helped break open
the idea of what you can do on TV. The most we can hope for is that our
characters get the fates they deserve, whether that’s in the hot flames
of an enraged dragon or the cold steel of the Iron Throne.
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