Game of Thrones: Hardhome—Analysis

So this is what it looks like when Winter comes.

Tonight was full of great lines one could easily use as a jumping-off point to analyze the episode. There was Dany’s declaration that she plans to break the wheel, Qyburn’s observation that belief is the death of reason, and Ramsay desire to leave a feast for the crows. But my personal favorite was Ja’qen’s acknowledgement that Arya may not be ready, but hey, it’s all the same to the Many-Faced God. Live, die, plot, scheme—the God does not care.

Jon: “We’re not friends. We’ve never been friends. We won’t become friends today. This isn’t about friendship, this is about survival.”

There’s been a lot of discussion this season about how the show hasn’t  felt well-paced, or how it feels like nothing is happening. People have told me they think this is the worst season to date, and bemoan how the show is getting away from the books.

But with last night’s episode, I think the show captured the feeling I had while reading A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons quite well. While all the other characters—from Winterfell to King’s Landing to Dorne to Meereen—are fiddling in plots that are going nowhere, up North the storm burns.

Tyrion: “A ruler who kills those devoted to her is not a ruler who inspires devotion.”

Dany may think that she is going to break the wheel when she flies her dragons across the Narrow Sea, but what she doesn’t understand is that wheels are already being shattered. Night’s Watchmen and free folk fight side by side against an army that only grows with every kill. This is the moment where people from Westeros see the impossible odds they’re up against for the first time. The irony is that Benioff and Weiss, when discussing the Battle of Hardhome in the preseason run up, said the sequence blew their budgets through the roof and took five weeks to film. For all that, it only lasted 30 minutes, taking up the last half of the episode. This is a mere prelude to the Long Dark Night that’s coming.

We learned a lot in this skirmish. Dragonglass daggers are nice, for instance, but only if you don’t accidentally leave them behind in the hut. It’s more useful to have Valyran steel at your side. And though this is another instance of the show passing the book, it was good to have it confirmed why Valyrian blades were so prized, even if over the centuries, generations have forgotten their real value. We also got to see what happened to all those children Craster gave away, in one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the battle as mother Karsi can’t kill them, and dies as a result. But most of all, we learned that when the Army of the Dead comes, it is relentless.

Tormund: We’re fools together now.

Game of Thrones is many things—a political parable, a fantasy genre show with beautiful queens and dragons, one of the most ambitious world-building exercises ever conceived for television, but one must remember that it is also a zombie movie. It’s easy to forget that angle, despite the fact that it was established in the very first scene of the pilot episode, and especially when the sun shines and the days are warm. “Hardhome” was a reminder of the real stakes at play.

And though it was easy to feel Tommen levels of despair when measuring the scale of the defeat at Hardhome against those who live down south, most of whom would not have the mettle to withstand an attack like that, let alone survive, not all hope is lost. Tyrion and Dany have formed the alliance we’ve been waiting five long years to see. Their scenes together were worth the week long wait—and these two will make a formidable pair. I jokingly referred to Tyrion as “The Mouth of the South” this season, since he’s been shooting it off everywhere in order to get where he needs to go, but seeing him go against the Queen of Meereen was something else. “We’re two terrible children of terrible fathers…The question is, are you the right kind of terrible?” For the first time since…maybe ever, Dany has someone who is shooting straight with her, laying down truths she needs to hear. Seriously, Varys did what he had to do to keep his job, but Tyrion suspects correctly that without him pulling things from afar, Dany might never have survived her infancy.

Tyrion: “Someday, if you decide not to execute me, I’ll tell you all about why I killed my father. And on that day, should it ever come, we’ll need more wine than this.”

But more importantly, Tyrion asked her to articulate why she wants to conquer Westeros. After all, even if we charitably assume that its people will love her, we can be certain the rich won’t, and Dany’s already tried that once. And though Tyrion may not realize the depths of Dany’s problems in Meereen (yet), he does have a point that perhaps she doesn’t need Westeros, when she’s conquered Slaver’s Bay already. Not that I think Dany should stay in Slaver’s Bay, but I think it would be good for all involved if she can spell out why taking Westeros is still so important to her at this point, since she’s not really done so. After all, “it’s my home” seems a rather flimsy reason, since she barely spent a day of her life on the continent.

But make no mistake: to just take Westeros the same way she’s taken Meereen would merely keep the wheel turning. Dany can declare all she likes that she wants to break the wheel, but so far we haven’t seen anything in her disaster of a Meerenese reign that suggests she can do that, or how she plans on doing it. “Breaking the Wheel” will take something much bigger than just flying into King’s Landing on the back of a dragon, especially now that the Faith Militant are running the show. That extra something is, however, on the horizon, and it has the dead rising up around it. But even Tyrion doesn’t know yet to look north, where the true enemy lies.

Sam: “Sometimes a man has to make hard choices, choices that might look wrong to others, but you know are right in the long run.”

As for the others—Sansa and her rage, Ramsay and his smarm, Theon (or Reek or whatever he’s called this week)— what happens when they find themselves in the firing line of the zombie hordes? Cersei in her cell, Tommen locked up in his chambers having an epic teenage depression meltdown, Pycelle seizing power, finally, after all these years? Well, Ramsay said it best. They are merely feasts for the crows. Their little battles over who is Warden of the North, or who sits on the Iron Throne won’t be worth a hill of beans when winter comes. Qyburn’s work continues? That’s cute. What happens when that work faces down a blue eyed zombified version of Wun Wun? Actually, scratch that. Perhaps what we really need are more Zombie Mountains.

So play your Game of Thrones, little people. Plot and scheme and plan. It’s all the same to the Many-Faced God. There is only one god, and his name is Death, and his Night’s King is bringing down the storm to cover the world.

• Published on 06/01/2015 at 11:15 AM CDT
• Last updated on 06/01/2015 at 11:24 AM CDT