EPISODE 412: OUR WATCH IS ENDED

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

Greetings once again from Boston, where I continue to break my fast with some of the little lords and maesters of Boston College.

Have I mentioned that I’ve spent way too much of the last six weeks rewatching Game of Thrones? Don’t judge me: The new and final season debuts a week from Sunday, and it’s been 14 years since the last season ended (more or less).

Also, I’m not as young as I once was (i.e. back then) (which was definitely something like 27 years). And the older I get, the more I relate to Jon Snow.

I’d done the same thing before the new Star Wars trilogy began, and really loved all the little things I learned (which if you’ve been with me a while you have patiently suffered through; remember when I sent you 10000 words on The Last Jedi on Christmas Eve?)

But it turns out watching 68 hours of television is actually more involved than six two-hour movies. Seriously, it’s like I’ve had a daily homework assignment for the last six weeks, complete with time spent after each episode writing notes and thinking about what I’ve seen, because it is me we are still talking about here.

I have learned a ton. Which I am about to force upon your mind space/share. But before I do, here’s a pop culture recap of the week/links for those who have no interest in who will sit on the Iron Throne (it’s Tyrion, by the way, it’s definitely going to be Tyrion).

First of all, to all the little girls who want to be astronauts out there, you can absolutely all do a spacewalk, just not at the same time. (Although you really can all do a spacewalk.) But bad news, do it soon, because NASA is also secretly hiding the fact that the planet Niburu is coming to destroy us.

Meanwhile, I had no idea Sonic the Hedgehog was still a thing, let alone a movie thing, but these very anxious responses to the first trailer are wonderful. Best of the bunch:

And the trailer for the new movie about the Joker just dropped, and it is remarkably good for being a trailer for a movie about a character that Heath Ledger still has the all-time lock on. (Jimmy Durante’s “Smile” has never been better used in a movie trailer, though.) And we all keep talking about Us, and so I finally saw it (first reaction: government agents what now?), and then I read this theory about the sonand not only do I think it’s true but it’s made me kind of love the movie as a kind of ongoing puzzle.

And I guess there’s also another trailer for Avengers: Endgame and also, if I may interrupt, why is there another trailer for Avengers: Endgame, everyone is already going to see Avengers: Endgame, you probably never even needed a single trailer ever for Avengers: Endgame.

And speaking of Avengers: Endgame, this is by far the greatest theory of what happens in Avengers: Endgame, and once you read it you are going to have a totally different appreciation for the title, and also for this picture.

#THANUS

Also, we’re all still talking about how much it should cost to buy your child’s way into college, Aunt Becky, and the New York Times did this great follow-up about “snowplow parenting” (aka constantly removing all obstacles from your children’s way, with the consequence that your kids never learn to fend for themselves):

One came home because there was a rat in the dorm room. Some didn’t like their roommates. Others said it was too much work, and they had never learned independent study skills. One didn’t like to eat food with sauce. Her whole life, her parents had helped her avoid sauce, calling friends before going to their houses for dinner. At college, she didn’t know how to cope with the cafeteria options — covered in sauce.

Meanwhile former SNL-er Julia Sweeney (aka Pat) did this interview on her role as the mom on Shrill, and if you haven’t seen it, don’t worry, it’s also a great conversation on being a mom and life challenges around food and weight.

And finally, did you know there is another way of opening your car door and it is much safer for you and for passersby when you park on the street? (As someone who has almost been slammed into the street by an opening car door biking on the streets of Manhattan, I recommend this with all that is left of my handlebars.) ++

Five Things A Man Learns Rewatching Game of Thrones
1) The Moments that Surprised Me Originally Still Work.
Probably my biggest question rewatching scenes like the Bran Drop, Ned Behead, JoffreVeiny or Red Wed is how much punch they would have when I knew they were coming.

And you know what: They really do. In fact, they really really do. And I think the key is that they’re filmed in a way that is different than the rest of the show. The violence often happens fast, so fast; Lord Bolton is killed by Ramsey before you even have time to realize what’s about to happen; the same with Arya getting stabbed. Even when it’s telegraphed that something bad is coming, such as at the Red Wedding, the actual attacks still happen quickly, in fact so much so I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the film itself is sped up slightly at those moments.

There are other completely unexpected elements, too: the sound of Princess Shireen screaming, for instance, as she is burnt to death by her father (which along with Sansa’s rape are the worst things that have ever happened on Game of Thrones) is realistic in a way that no child screaming on television ever has been. Ned’s beheading is preceded by a moment when he looks out on the screaming people in a strange, almost mystical way, like in this moment he’s suddenly realizing something. And what is, we’re never given any hint of (although my bet is on the idea that he is recalling what Varys had told him earlier in the episode that we are all actors merely playing a role given to us, and discovering that in fact his role is to be the social scapegoat here and now). And that’s part of what makes the moment so impossible to shrug off, even on rewatch. The storytelling has created a mystery we cannot solve, and so of course we need to rewatch it a hundred times.

WHOA.

2) The Show Has Such a Huge Problem When it Comes to Women.
The pitch pretty much from day one is that this is a medieval world with medieval rules. Killing is fine if they look cross-eyed at your baby, or even if they don’t. Riding horses at one another while wearing dozens of pounds of metal and brandishing wooden sticks apparently makes sense. And women (and also children) are objects to trade to achieve peace or entertainment. So expect a lot of female nudity, prostitution and arranged weddings.

With its wide-ranging point of view the show gets us to empathize with many women in these positions. But as the season have gone on I’ve begun to wonder if some of that view-shifting is really about trying to provide cover for a desire to continuing to do more and more awful things to women, whether out of some attempt at “realism” (as if a world with dragons and Swedish heavy metal zombie kings is a thing that we might some day meet) or some darker hatred of women.

I know that’s strong talk, but I just finished season 5, in which not only is a very sweet girl burned at the stake shrieking, but another girl is forcibly raped on her wedding night while a man who is himself the product of this same economy of family bartering is forced to watch, and at the end of the season the former Queen of the Kingdom is forced to walk naked down the streets of her city while people scream and throw rotten food and excrement at her. It really is an appalling litany of violence. Honestly I really wondered if I could or should keep watching after the death of Shireen. Much like the brutal murder of Glen on The Walking Dead, it’s a moment that seems completely beyond the bylaws we’ve signed up for as watchers. And again, that happens before we have to then watch Sansa attacked.

3) The Fingerprints of Littlefinger are Everywhere.
Everyone is so obsessed with Jon Snow. And I get it, he’s got the hair, he’s got that pouty little frown. He had the greatest love the show has ever seen. Okay, the second greatest.

But for as much attention as his family history has generated (R+L=J, baby!), on second viewing it’s not like there’s all kinds of thrilling details we missed. I’m halfway through season 6 and only in this season has his origin story gotten any real attention.

Meanwhile, from the very first episode of Game of Thrones, Petyr Baelish AKA Littlefinger AKA Straight Outta Balmore AKA Me Wuv You Cat, has been in the background of every major thing that has happened. He’s the one who got Cat’s crazy sister Lysa to kill her husband Jon Arryn, Hand of the King, and then write a letter to Cat that the Lannisters did it, which will send Ned to King’s Landing, where he will be killed – as a direct result of Littlefinger betraying him -- and lead to the North going to war with the crown.

He also hired the assassin who tried to kill Bran in episode 2, and then immediately frames Tyrion Lannister for the crime, which leads to Catelyn “arresting” Tyrion on the road and ultimately trying him for his crimes, all of which puts the Starks and the Lannisters very firmly at each other’s throats.

Littlefinger is also responsible for negotiating the Tyrell’s help in saving King’s Landing, in exchange for Lady Margaery being wed to Joffrey, which will eventually give Littlefinger charge of the Vale. And Littlefinger and Margaery’s grandmother Oleanna will together arrange to murder Joffrey at his wedding, using the unwitting Sansa Stark to smuggle in the poison and then framing her and once again Tyrion Lannister for the crime – a move that will actually bring Sansa directly under Littlefinger’s care, as he whisks her away from certain death, and then lead her into the arms of the awful Ramsey Bolton, which marriage Littlefinger will then announce to Cersei as part of his plan to be made Warden of the North.

Meanwhile Tyrion will request a trial by combat to resolve the accusations against him, which will lead to Prince Oberyn of Dorne being killed, which will totally destabilize that kingdom, to the point that Oberyn’s lover and daughters will end up taking control of Dorne and also kill Cersei and Jamie’s daughter Myrcella for revenge. And Tyrion himself, furious at his conviction, will murder his father Tywin Lannister, who in addition to being the King of Condescension was pretty much the one stable piece left on the board. With him gone, King’s Landing will descend into chaos; religious zealots will take control, humiliating Cersei and leading to a point where son King Tommen kills himself, to which she responds by blowing up the entire Tyrell family.

It really is extraordinary to watch it all play out. “Chaos is a ladder,” Littlefinger tells Varys at one point. And so he lives.

Until he doesn’t.

4) No One Ever Has Any Good Reason to Distrust Tyrion.
From the first episode Tyrion is referred to in diabolical terms and accused of horrible things. He is “the Imp” who killed Jon Arryn and tried to kill Ned Stark. He likewise supposedly murdered his nephew Joffrey.

But none of that is true. In fact if you trace Tyrion through the first four seasons, he is wise, kind and funny, and the worst thing he ever does to anyone is to slap Joffrey and try to get him to fly right (and good luck with that). He actually proves to be a brilliant Hand, who both understands the political game and yet is not power-hungry, and his efforts during the Battle of the Blackwater save King’s Landing.

(Meanwhile Ned Stark does nothing but cause trouble from the moment he gets to King's Landing, despite the fact that Robert asked for him precisely to calm things down, but somehow he's Our Hero.)

Killing Shae and his father at the end of season 4 might change some people’s interpretation of Tyrion. But everybody has bad days. (Also, he also immediately regrets all of it and more or less tries to kill himself drinking.)

None of this is really a surprise, I know. What was a surprise was that on some level I actually believed the criticism, that I thought Tyrion was kind of a bad guy. It’s so absolutely not the case, and says everything about exactly the point that he will eventually make at his trial for the death of Joffrey. “I’m guilty of a far more monstrous crime [than regicide]. I’m guilty of being a dwarf … I’ve been on trial for that for my entire life.”

5) In the End the Real War is not against One Another or the Dead but the Wheel.
This might be the key moment of dialogue in the entire show.

Dany is talking about the battle for the Iron Throne. And yet, the Wheel is The System, the Way Things Are. Sure, we’d like it if women didn’t have to be either prostitutes or prizes, and children weren’t bartered away as hostages for peace and dwarfs and bastards and tall women and fat men and little girls and the sick and handicapped weren’t dismissed out of hand, but That’s Not the Way The World Works, Sad Face Emoji.

And in their own way every character is fighting against that, trying to insist on the value of themselves. One of my favorite moments from the first season is Ned sitting with Arya, telling her what her life is going to look like.

And this is her response:

Almost every character in Game of Thrones comes to a moment where they insist “No, that’s not me.” Sometimes they fight it for a very long time, or try to join a new group within the Wheel where they think they'll feel better. Stepping away from the identity the world is telling you is always a foolish thing to do. It’s always a path to pain and suffering. Sometimes it leads to death.

But though it never comes without an enduring cost, sometimes it is the thing that finally saves them, that makes them into the persons they are meant to be.

I don’t know what Dany meets by destroying the Wheel politically. Is she going to take the throne, or somehow destroy the whole idea of it? Maybe this whole question of Who Will Sit On the Iron Throne is one big con, maybe they each will, Tyrion in Lannisport, Dany and Jon in Dragonstone, Yara on the Iron Islands, Jamie and Brienne in the South. (#TeamBramie) and Sansa, of course, in Winterfell. (There is no way Sansa Stark ends up having to be second fiddle to anybody.) I kind of hope so. I realize the Night's King approaches, and he will need to take his pound of flesh, but even his winter cannot last forever.

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There’s been some really fantastic things related to Game of Thrones this week. Like Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran) describing just how bad it sucks to be the Three-Eyed Raven. Or Maisie Williams (Arya) blowing an incredibly important story point from the last season. Or Leslie Jones (Leslie Jones) making the most of having Kit Harrington on SNL this week. Or this incredible tweet from Thrones itself, which has again some of the best comments ever.

There’s so much more to say, but for now the night is dark, and full of terrors. For now, beware of witches and blood magic; be careful what stories you tell of yourself; the lords of Westeros tend to smite those whose tales are too happy. And as long as you're not Ned Stark, trust your instincts. Who you believe you are is who you are meant to be.

See you next week.