The Small Council: A look back at “Mother’s Mercy”

Season 5 has come and gone. In this edition of the Small Council, the writers at Winter is Coming look back at “Mother’s Mercy,” the season finale. What did we like? What didn’t we? What played out just as we imagined it, and what went in a different direction? Where do the producers deserve praise, and where do they deserve to be scolded and put in timeout? The Small Council is in session.

RAZOR: I’ve got loads of conflicting thoughts and emotions concerning the Game of Thrones Season 5 finale. Perhaps it’s the fact that “Mother’s Mercy” ended on such a low note with the death of Jon Snow, regardless of whether it’s a permanent death or not. To leave this season in such a state was both frustrating and predictable.

Allow me to expound: starting with Episode 1 of this season, the heavy-handed foreshadowing regarding Olly’s betrayal of Jon felt like the writers were using a hammer to bludgeon their point home, rather than employing the near-surgical precision they used for other huge game-changing twists like the Red Wedding in Season 3. I felt this was rather insulting to fans of the show, and it bothered me all season long, like an annoying pebble in my shoe. Then, to have it all culminate by tricking fans into believing that Uncle Benjen was returning and to use this ruse to lure Jon to his death was a lazy and heavy-handed attempt at writing a shocking end to the season.

Dorne was also a huge problem this season that I was hoping would somehow magically be fixed in the finale. However, the combined chunkiness of Tyene’s awful “Bad poooosy” line and Ellaria’s ridiculously telegraphed mouth kiss with Myrcella made the scene feel forced, hurried, and treated as if it were an afterthought, just like pretty much every other scene Dorne this year.

There’s also the rushed conclusion(?) of Stannis’ arc. We had the great displeasure of watching the greatest military mind in Westeros (Littlefinger’s words to Sansa in the Winterfell crypts) ignore every instinct that made him who he was. The writers gave us a tender moment between Stannis and Shireen earlier in the season, only to have him turn around and give her to the fires of Melisandre’s Red God. That moment was the catalyst for the implosion of Season 5, in my opinion.

I forgave (for lack of a better word), the events of Sansa’s terrifying wedding night because, had the producers adapted the Jeyne Poole story as it was written in the books, things could have been much worse. I was able to swallow the bitter pill of Jaime and Bronn in Dorne, fully understanding that the show exists in its own separate universe from the books, because I felt it streamlined the story. And, surprisingly, I was able to move past Ser Barristan’s poorly written death and the horrid portrayal of the Unsullied, since I thought that it would move Dany on to her invasion of Westeros that much sooner. But to claim that Stannis would ignore his honor, his duty as a father, and his love of his daughter to just burn her at the first sign of trouble pushed me to a point that I’ve never been with Game of Thrones. I admitted that the show had become a parody of itself.

Will I quit watching Game of Thrones over all these perceived slights to George R.R. Martin’s work? No, of course not, because I feel the show has earned enough credit with me to forgive one lousy season. While I have earned my reputation as a book purist, I still love the show, and will anxiously await Season 6 to see how the show will begin marching toward the end…that and the hope that Jon Snow will be back. I know, I know—I’m hopeless.

DAN: Yeah, David, it’s time to give up the ghost (pun very much intended) regarding Jon Snow’s survival. He’s dead. Like OMG dead.

But I agree with you regarding Olly—if the producers wanted the moment where he stabs Jon Snow to be emotionally impactful, they needed to give him more depth than “gives Jon a lot of side-eye.” I’m not sure why you took issue with the Uncle Benjen fakeout, though—that’s a lie Jon would buy, as evidenced by the fact that he bought it.

Furthermore, while I agree that Stannis’ finale appearance was rushed, I disagree that the build-up rang false. That Stannis would ignore “his honor, his duty as a father, and his love for his daughter” was a reversal, but it was also what made his fate so tragic. He’d convinced himself that fulfilling his political ambitions was more important than anything else, and once he realized that not only were his priorities misplaced, but that the horrible thing he did to achieve his ambitions wasn’t any help, it was too late.

Still, once Stannis sets his mind to something, he follows through no matter what, so it didn’t surprise me that he pushed on to Winterfell despite everything that had happened. At that point, there may have been a death wish involved as well. The problem was that the show didn’t take the time to thoroughly explore these dimensions.

It’s a problem that has dogged the show all year—the producers have focused on nailing the “big moments” at the expense of the connective tissue. Take Cersei’s walk of atonement. The scene itself was incredibly well-done—director David Nutter gave it the room and remove it needed for the horror to land, and Lena Headey turned in a terrific performance. At the same time, the impact was blunted a bit because the Sparrows are still poorly defined antagonists, something the show should have addressed toward the beginning of the season.

The producers built this episode out of “big moments,” most of them very bleak. It was an exhausting hour of television, and I hope they pay more attention to balance next year. A fan can’t survive on tragedy alone, even fans of a famously bleak show like Game of Thrones.

ANI: The hits just kept coming, didn’t they? Every time I turned around, someone else was dead or blind or shamed or had thrown themselves off a tower.

And yet, we knew this was coming, didn’t we? Well, some of it. We knew, for instance, that Jon was going to die. We could hope for a resurrection, but that was the best we had. We knew Cersei would be shamed. We knew Arya would go blind. We knew that Dany would be stranded. And after last week, we knew that Stannis had made a very bad choice. The only question was in what order the deaths would play out. Sadly for us, the first character that needed to go—Ramsay Bolton—survived.

But unlike those who are wondering whether they’ll be coming back next season, or questioning why they are even still watching, or what the point of this all is, I find myself hopeful for Season 6. Why? Because even though “Mother’s Mercy” killed off the third romantic hero in five seasons, even though House Baratheon is gone, House Lannister is falling, and the only Starks in existence either just disappeared, have been disappeared, or are living inside a tree, that’s the way it works. The darkest hour comes, and those who are left standing pick up the pieces. Tyrion and Varys reassemble Meereen. Kevan Lannister does his best to stabilize King’s Landing. Dany will find herself again in the Dothraki Horde. Arya’s sight (we hope) will return. And though perhaps it’s not Jon who will lead the charge against the dark forces of the Long Night, someone somewhere will lift their family heirloom sword, and stand tall as the dragons swoop forth. After all, when you’re this low, the only place to go is up.

KATIE: I agree that some of Season 5’s writing really left a lot to be desired—namely Dorne and the excessive Olly side-eye. I haven’t even read the books and I knew Olly was going to try to pull one over on Jon—it was so obvious. Whether or not you knew it was coming because of the events in the books, it’s stressed over and over again that the books and the show exist separately, so the showrunners should have been more careful about all that blatant foreshadowing. As for Dorne…Well, I think we’ve beaten that dead horse enough.

Speaking of dead horses, you can’t convince me that most of the people who supposedly died in the finale will stay that way next season. Stannis? Maybe Brienne feels it dishonorable to kill a man who can’t defend himself. Sansa and Theon? They land in the world’s biggest pile of snow—they’re fine. Myrcella? Well, maybe she’s a goner, seeing as how there’s no antidote or maester in sight. And the biggest question of the finale: Is Jon Snow gone for good? Doubt it. Kit Harington & Co. can deny his future involvement in the show all they want. They’re certainly beating us over the head with it enough, but what else would they do? Spoil the cliffhanger right after it airs? Let’s just say it’s going to be a very frustrating year for me until that one’s cleared up and everyone calms down about it. Regardless, Olly is terrible.

The most satisfying moment for me in the finale—indeed, in the series as a whole—was Sansa and Theon’s jump. Sansa’s bravery throughout her ordeal with Ramsay was inspiring, and her devotion to her self-preservation was what spurred Theon to snap back to his old self and protect her. Without her declaration that she would rather die now than later, after she didn’t know herself anymore, Theon may have stayed in his stagnant state. He’s seen what Sansa’s been through, and he sees that she fights to stop it from defining her, and here he realizes that he has the strength to do the same. Their jump is a moment of defiance, and displays their determination to survive. So while Sansa kept that corkscrew out of Ramsay’s eyes against my wishes, I’m good with this symbolic middle finger, too.

Overall, sure, this season had its ups and downs, perhaps more so than in seasons past, but I enjoyed the ride, anyway. I examine and critique what I don’t like, and I’ve done that plenty over the course of Season 5, but for the most part I’ve always found the show to be engaging, entertaining, thought-provoking, and well-executed. That’s not to say it’s without its flaws—nothing is—but I’m not feeling the same discontent I’ve noticed from other fans. I’ll chalk that up to the fact that I won’t be a book reader until after the show’s done, so my expectations aren’t the same. (As a huge Harry Potter fan, though, I do understand that struggle.) I’m looking forward to what Season 6 brings, and getting the answers to the finale’s cliffhangers. Even if I’m wrong and Jon’s watch really has ended, fine, I—like every fan—just want to know. I also want to see the Boltons fall dramatically and painfully from grace, but I guess I can wait.

CAMERON: This was the season where I finally disconnected emotionally from the show. I tried to love what the show was doing both in terms of adaptation and original material, but somewhere between the millionth poor decision in the Dornish storyline and the millionth casual depiction of violence perpetrated on women, I just heaved a sigh of exhaustion and said, “this show just isn’t for me anymore.” If the show had convinced me at any point that these decisions were worth making, that there was some vague endpoint in mind that we needed to start preparing ourselves for, then maybe I could still care. As it is, the kaleidoscope of brutality and bleakness did absolutely nothing for me except make me wish that someone who could write witty banter was on the writing staff. (And no, the “bad pussy” line does not count. Ever. It barely qualifies as dialogue.)

I wish I had more specific things to talk about, but I really don’t. There was some stuff from the books that was mostly fine. (Cersei’s Walk is going to haunt me for a very long time.) There was some stuff not from the books that was mostly sad, confusing, or boring. For Dorne, the show hired Dr. Julian Bashir, the first East Asian actress to play a lead role on a British television series, an an Academy Award-nominated bona fide star, and then had them all play second fiddle to youngest sister Tyene for reasons that were only made clear in “Mother’s Mercy,” and those reasons were not enough to justify making the viewers sit through the Dornish material. And apparently the Unsullied are total wimps now. Okay. Sure. Whatever. (This was also my reaction to Mad Men, but I know I’m in the minority there.)

• Published on 06/19/2015 at 11:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 06/19/2015 at 11:29 AM CDT