The Small Council: What was the most dramatic moment of Season 5?

Season 5 of Game of Thrones is in the can, and over the next several weeks, WiC’s Small Council is going to pick over it piece by piece—acting, writing, special effects, overall sweep, etc. We have quite a few topics to cover, and we’ll start by asking a pretty simple question: what was the most dramatic moment of Season 5? What moment made your jaw drop, your blood run cold, or inspired you to rise out of your chair with your fists in the air? There were quite a few to choose from in the back half of the season, so let’s get into it.

RAZOR: My first reaction to this prompt was to describe, in great detail, the Night’s King raising an army of the dead at Hardhome. And, even though Tormund’s face and Jon’s hair accurately encapsulated this terrifyingly dramatic moment, I believe there is another scene that trumps it.

In Episode 509, “The Dance of Dragons,” Daenerys and her closest allies, advisers, and friends were herded into the middle of Daznak’s Pit by the malicious Sons of the Harpy, their attempts to escape via the passageways leading into the arena thwarted. Many Unsullied had perished protecting their Queen, and despite his intentions, Hizdar was stabbed to death as well. As the circle of enemies tightened around her, Dany grabbed the hand of Missandei, her most trusted friend, and closed her eyes in resignation of the inevitable. Daenerys “Stormborn” Targaryen, the last of a proud and noble bloodline, Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, and Breaker of Chains, had at that moment decided not to fear death, but to embrace it. Valar Morghulis.

Then, a cry sounded over Daznak’s Pit, and terror filled the hearts of the Sons of the Harpy as Drogon, Dany’s largest child, appeared and brought a fiery, swift, and terrible retribution on those who threatened his mother’s life. This was the defining moment in Dany’s story, as the infant dragons that emerged with her from the ashes of her husband Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre were finally large enough to fulfill the words of House Targaryen: Fire and Blood.

KATIE: My knee-jerk reactions included the season’s big moments, such as the murders of Mance and Shireen, Tyrion and Daenerys’ meeting, Cersei’s walk…you know the drill. I can’t claim any of these particular moments to be the most dramatic for me, only because in one way or another, we all saw them coming. Shireen’s tender moments foreshadowed her demise, Tyrion was making his way to Meereen, and Cersei’s downfall was hinted at since “The Wars to Come.” Little hints paved the road, and so I was prepared.

And yet, despite the foreshadowing, I wasn’t prepared for Meryn Trant’s death, so that’s what takes the cake for me. Was he going to die? Absolutely. Arya is hell-bent on revenge and she’s a reasonably seasoned killer, so Trant’s likelihood of survival plummeted as soon as he stepped foot in Braavos. And even when I knew that the unflinching girl in the brothel was Arya in disguise, she acted so fast that my breath didn’t have time to be bated. We haven’t seen such ferocity from her since the aftermath of the Red Wedding. Even when she killed Polliver, she played it calm and cool. But she wanted Trant to suffer, and vicious stab by vicious stab, she made it count.

The scene is such a direct reference to the events of Seasons 1 and 2 that it really hit me. Syrio Forel came rushing back into my heart in a blaze of glory that only Miltos Yerolemou can inspire (I MISS that guy). All of Arya’s trials and griefs are let loose upon Trant, the man who started it all, and at last her dancing master has been avenged. And although Arya doesn’t realize it, she honors her sister with Trant’s murder, too. Since we’ve seen Trant’s proclivity for sexual release via child beating, it’s natural to conclude that his violence towards Sansa satiated more than his bloodlust. This connection between the Stark sisters gives me hope, and indeed may be why Arya’s revenge was so satisfying to me. In Game of Thrones, I’ll take my silver lining wherever I can get it, even if it does lie somewhere in a pool of blood.

DAN: Katie, you’re right that the signs were there for me to read, but even with all the build-up, the murder of Shireen still caught me off-guard. Lord knows I should have seen it coming. First, the show went out of its way to make Shireen extra adorable, a red flag if there ever was one. Then she actually accompanied Stannis on his journey south, something that doesn’t happen in the books. It was another big flashing warning light. And yet, through it all, I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that Stannis, let alone the production, would go there. I didn’t think they had it in them to kill this sweet little girl.

The show expertly drew out my unease, too. The long series of scenes preceding the actual burning was unbearably tense, as Stannis slowly made preparations for killing his only daughter, first by sending away Davos, then by chatting with Shireen about how she could help his war effort. As Shireen made that long walk toward the pyre, I kept hoping the show would change course. I kept my hopes up as she was tied to the stake, and as Selyse broke and rushed forward. My hopes were promptly dashed, which was devastating. When I think back on Season 5, Shireen’s high-pitched wail as she’s roasted alive may be what I remember most.

Shireen has yet to be burned in the books, and for me, this moment kicked off the next phase of Game of Thrones, one where the divide between book-reader and show-watcher is all but meaningless. I imagine that the hopelessness and horror I felt as I watched Shireen burn was similar to what show-watchers must have felt during moments like the Red Wedding, and the prospect of a new season full of such moments is a daunting prospect.

ANI: Watching everyone pick something other than the Massacre at Hardhome is slightly amazing to me. Look, I know. Hardhome is easy. Hardhome is obvious. But sometimes the obvious answer is the right answer. There’s one moment this season that just couldn’t be topped. Not by the dramatic maiden flight of Air Targaryen, not by Stannis’ short-sighted stupidity, and not by Arya going medieval on Meryn Trant’s ass to the point where you expect Samuel L. Jackson to walk in, eyepop, and declare one word (“DAMN!”) before offering her a job with a secret organization he’s putting together over in another franchise.

Because you can’t beat the conglomeration of zombie horror, medieval snow-bound battle and horrific massacre that took up the full back half of Episode 8. After five seasons of having to live with the endless comparisons to The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones walked in, threw down, took AMC’s lunch off the table and dumped it in the trash before it was even halfway through eating it. After five long seasons of repeating the words “Winter Is Coming” to the point where they’d lost all meaning, this was a a cold dead-headed bitch slap across the faces of book readers and show watchers alike. No one expects the Night’s King’s Reanimation! And yet, after not only losing the dragon glass, the battle, and 2/3rd of the remaining wildling population, Jon Snow had to stand in that boat, in the cold and the snow, with the smell of blood and death and defeat around him and watch as EVERY LAST DAMN DEAD MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD STOOD UP, and knew that for every person their side will lose, the enemy will gain another unstoppable zombie soldier.

In that moment, that one dramatic glorious moment, everyone saw the real enemy and the real stakes. The game of thrones? It’s bupkis, a distraction while the cold fires burn high in the North. Dany can talk about breaking the wheel all she likes, but when the real threat behind those Stark words—words that date back all the way to the last Long Night—comes pouring through the Wall after killing all those Night’s Watch idiots who murdered Jon Snow, there will be no wheel. There will be only slaughter and a thin prayer of hope that a prophecy no one understands about a Prince that was Promised will somehow, despite the best efforts of everyone to screw it up, come true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DFojKwVfq4

CAMERON: My choice of moment is also dramatic, but not necessarily for good reasons. It’s no secret that Season 5 went off-book more than any other season so far, but even so, I don’t think anyone was prepared for the death of Ser Barristan Selmy. (Although I continue to believe his death is a foregone conclusion in the books as well, but apparently that distinction matters little to anyone else.) His death is staged as a dramatic one, as he becomes the hero to Grey Worm and the Unsullied, who are having their highly skilled butts handed to them by untrained rebels. He seems to be doing pretty well…until he isn’t.

It’s a hard scene to watch for a couple of reasons. One, as mentioned, the show begins to weaken the Unsullied to allow the Sons of the Harpy to win, making them appear to be a legitimate threat. This is a mirror trick, albeit not a new one—as I wrote in the Review Roundup for the episode, Buffy the Vampire Slayer did something similar in its series finale, playing with the strength levels of the proto-vampires in order to emphasize the relative strength boost given to the new Slayers. The key difference is that that was just one sequence in one episode. (It’s a mighty powerful one too, a bold statement of the show’s thesis contained in one massive fight sequence.) But this mess of a fight in the streets of Meereen is just the beginning of a slow degradation of the Unsullied’s allegedly militant training. With each passing episode, they look less and less like a viable army for Daenerys’ eventual invasion of Westeros. And that’s a shame, because that’s something the people really, really want to see at this point.

Two, the show decided to go the cliffhanger route and leave us wondering about the fates of both Grey Worm and Ser Barristan. While this works for those of us who watched the show week-to-week, it’s rendered moot in an age of streaming and binge-watching (and extratextual confirmation, like actors giving exit interviews). So while the scene is played for drama to maximum effect, it was also done so the episode would end on a dramatic note, rather than so it would provide a legitimately dramatic moment for viewers.

The really awkward thing is that I don’t think there’s any other way this scene could have played out in order to portray Barristan’s death. And yet, it’s something that most people would agree didn’t really need to happen in order to progress Dany’s storyline. It certainly did not satisfy many book readers, and I’m sure the show-watchers wish more of the good characters could keep living instead of, say, Ramsay Bolton. Sometimes, the show just disappoints.

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• Published on 06/26/2015 at 3:15 PM CDT
• Last updated on 06/30/2015 at 1:02 PM CDT