#‘oh lol he was all too willing to let his men die with circe’

[theoakleafpancake]

I would like to say that I will NOT be taking any Eurylochus slander

[theowlsarenotwhattheyremembers]

Episode 6: Beyond the Wall

Well that was depressing. Game of Thrones has been building its lush crenellated plots-and-characters-and-places edifice towards a zenith for so many seasons and books and decades, but, now it’s wandering off the battlements and in the freefall of internet-pleasing fanfic: #stillrunning #dontcallmedany #thinkofthechildren #jonaerys

Anyway I am too moist for analysis so see the LARB’s recaps for all the insight you’ll need, I’m just going to gush right Scene One: looks cold there m’boys, nice glacier, cute wildlings you’ve got there, or are they dothraki in wildling coats?

Doesn’t really matter, they’re just there to leap into frame just in time to catch the enemy’s death blow that for a second there we thought might get a named character. Now this is completely fine because look there’s an explanation all these guys have been saved from death, in five cases by or in circs relating to the Lord of Light, so what you have to understand here is that it’s only unnamed, winter-hat-wearing nobodies who get killed because they don’t have magic backup to save them from death, that’s why all that okay. So that’s fine but why are they up there sshh

Oh the Big Woman + Tormund haha, look we appreciate that unwomanly women can be attractive too, ahaha, #wokeGoT #butch4butch cuuute

ZOMBIE ICE BEAR haha wow holy fuck why did you say you were up here again sshh

Oh yeah before that Scene Two: Arya is a misogynist now. See this is how it works: individual women can break away from the patriarchy by e.g. attending assassin college and becoming face-stealing badass stonecold killers, but, then when they meet up with their sister fresh out of a rape-n-domestic-abuse shaped character arc, busy building relationships and getting grain stores together and socially reproducing the north / the first line of defence against the armies of death, they don’t necessarily have anything invested in the sisterhood any more, because they pursued their dreams by embracing masculinity, which is totally cool if that’s your jam you do you, but, just because you’re not like all the other girls doesn’t mean you get to be a misogynist towards them. “I’m just like a boy and even got dad’s approval for being a boy and got to be a boy by being better at being a boy than all the boys, which was really hard and involved surviving lots of abuse and trauma, but I survived and overcame because I’m a boy, whereas you just sit around looking pretty, you fucking little slut,” explains Arya, and instead of saying, “shut the fuck up you sexist idiot and recognise that I’ve had my own fucking character arc too and it took me from being fanunfave unwoke stupid femme to being #queeninthenorth #sansasnark, and as Sarah in LARB explains, wielding feminine power of the kind both you and the showrunners fail to really understand / deal with, because you think you’re feminists but you can’t any of you imagine what feminine power looks like without recoiling and calling us, me Cersei and Cousin D, mad power-crazed bitches who need Jon, Jaime or Tyrion to wind us back” - instead of saying that, Sansa kind of shrugs and looks scared, while Littlefinger, of whom these zany girlies are his jerking marionettes, looks on.

Scene Three: herooooes zomg bear, &c, also Beric faithsplains Jon’s already existing Protector of The Realms of Men and Their Brimming Knickers values to him/us. D’awww <3

Scene Four: Oh but yeah before the bear Daenerys is like heroes are stupid, let’s not be heroes, let’s be cool and Tyrion is like great perfect well let’s get drafting the new Broken Wheel westerosi democracy constitution and Daenerys is like DON’T WAKE THE DRAGON IN MY BRIMMING KNICKERS BITCH, IT’S NO PHALLUS BUT IT DOES SPIT FIRE, and Tyrion is like sigh is it that time of the month.

Scene Five: ZOMG BEAR

Scene Six: Littlefinger: “Brienne is here to protect you and Arya turn to her for advice sweet Sansa about how to manage this unfortunate turn of events re your violent compassionless shell of a sister you always hated”, Sansa: “hmm yes Brienne Arya’s only friend sworn to protect her yes interesting thanks L my mistrust in you is forgotten”

Scene Seven: lol our drunk heroes #justthedrunkest cool the Lord of Light has arranged for there to be just the right mini group of wights and White Walker for us to learn about the kill-the-one-who-turned-them thing, but he didn’t turn the one for our bag, great great great, #mission #accomplished #bagitandlegit, but wait, there’s more plot to be done! The Lord of Light directs the band of heroes to a rock in an ice lake for them to hide out from a bit of the army of the dead on (the bit sans the giants, mammoths, Thenns, other beastlies from beyond the wall etc) and scowl at the Night King and come up with a cute #forkintheroad of the otherwise ramrod straight and true hurtling plot javelin we’re all riding atop nowadays: what if Beric and Jon, because they’re both immortal but don’t want to be, ran over to the Night King for a heroic Lord of Light sponsored Last Stand and took him (kill him and you kill all of them!!!!!) down with them!!! No but we’ve got one episode and one season left to go. Don’t worry though Gendry, the raven and Daenerys will only be 3 shakes of a lamb’s tail, and heroes don’t die of exposure, cept the least important one.

Scene Eight: Bye Brienne, girls don’t get to have friends ;D. But don’t worry babe you can totally advance Jaime’s choozy the floozy character arc while you’re down there, because what else are we bitches here for lol

Scene Nine: Daenerys seriously you’ll feel better tomorrow when your pmt breaks!! Hormones can make you so emosh that you’re willing to sacrifice potentially your own life and that of all 3 dragons to rescue your crush from the death errand I told you to send him on!! Don’t worry Tyrion, u know we’re v unlikely to die in the penultimate episode of the penultimate season ;D

Also (and this is a legitimate point): Do you think I got this fit-and-flare white power (oops) fur coat made for nothing

Scene Ten:

Well I guess in a way this wasn’t TOTALLY one for the fans because we’ve all been screaming BBQ THE DEAD at our laptops since S01E10, and turns out that is only a limitedly efficacious / actually counterproductive plan bcs of zombie ice dragon possibilities. DON’T WORRY THOUGH GUYS if Jon Snow can survive being actually dead he can totally survive drowning in icy waters while being attacked by zombies and then climbing out of an ice pool in a blizzard!! How likely is it really that the Night King riding over the Wall on an ice dragon is going to freeze the world to death given the good grace of R'Hllor?  

Right this bit with Benjen: what happened was Bran the Three-Eyed raven summoned him, like he also did last season. Everything that happened beyond the wall totally had a plottight explanation, apart from the issue of why any of it happened in the first place, beyond plot advancement, which is only resolvable by our indomitable wills as undying fans #therealarmyofthedead

Did you think that Jon’s jerky zomboid motion when he clambered freezing out from under the ice meant he was a wight now too?? Me either haha

Scene Eleven: Sansa gets an inkling of just how strong Arya’s death magic is, but because both girls are being juggled between the triple hands of trauma, Littlefinger, and internalised misogyny, the Queen in the North receives this only as a bloodchilling threat, which is also is from Arya’s perspective too.

Scene Twelve: Jon, naked, calls Daenerys Dany (blunder) and My Queen (winner), they unite against the Night King and not this time but v soon doubtlessly, with their genitals. All this transpires very aptly aboard a ship.

Scene Thirteen: Teams of wights drag up from beneath the ice the real reason why Jon and Jorah needed to go up beyond the wall in the first place: the Night King’s new dragon. Zoinks!