Winter is Blogging 6.9: Battle of the Bastards [Contains Spoilers]

Writers: David Benioff, D. B. Weiss.

Directors: Miguel Sapochnik.

Cast: Emilia Clarke, Kit Harrington, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, Sophie Turner, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gwendoline Christie, et al.

Synopsis: Terms of surrender are rejected and accepted. As the Starks prepare to fight, Davos loses something dear. Ramsay plays a game. Daenerys faces a choice.

Every season of Game of Thrones has one of those episodes. The ones that make you wonder if you’ve gone too far, if you’ve invested too much… ‘Battle of the Bastards’ is such an episode. Even now, I sit here writing this, in part – speechless. I don’t know where to start, or where to end, and I don’t even know if I’m still the humane being that I once considered myself to be after watching it. That’s the power of Game of Thrones. This is of course, in part due to Miguel Sapochnik’s excellent directing, but an equal portion of credit should justly go to Fabien Wagner for their combined efforts in shot composition and execution. Wagner is this episode’s (and thankfully – the season finale’s) cinematographer, who also worked on ‘Hardhome’ last season; an equally amazing visual spectacle of an episode, and the BBC series, Sherlock. For fans of his work, it’s worth noting that he is also attached to Zack Snyder‘s Justice League in 2017. Right! I’m sorry, I’ll stop ranting – now, it’s time for Winter is Blogging!

We open to an incredibly stylish shot-to-shot staging of one of the Slaver’s Bay ship’s catapults as it’s armed and fired, it’s target: Meereen, hope, a life without masters. It’s reminiscent of the show’s opening credits, certainly, but the quick cuts artfully build tension as we start to fear for the fate of Meereen. The show-runners’ ability to just as quickly defuse this tension with what follows is instrumental in foreshadowing what is in store for us later in the episode. Yet, despite the siege of Meereen, we can’t help but laugh at the awkwardness of Tyrion attempting to justify how these events came to pass, to the newly returned Daenerys. Everything about her stance basically says ‘you had one job, man. How did you screw up so badly?’ and it’s completely fantastic.

Quickly, it turns to a discussion of tactics. Daenerys represents raw, unrefined power in every way; her ruthless desire to liberate, the crippling strength and value of her dragons; it’s evident when we see her response to the attack. Tyrion is one of the masters of strategy and diplomacy, it’s easy to fault his decisions based on the falling city, but the subsequent events may have necessitated it, and even facilitated a feared, international presence for the Khaleesi. It’s in these discussions that we are so very subtly reminded of The Mad King and his obsession with wildfire, who apparently stored huge caches of it deep within key locations within King’s Landing. As discussed last week, this must be the rumour that Cersei had Qyburn look into, and from his response, there’s much more of it than they anticipated. I sense next week, within ‘The Winds of Winter,’ we’ll see an explosive finale for the High Sparrow. Interesting are the parallels that may be drawn then between Cersei, Daenerys and the Mad King, whom seem to be willing to destroy entire cities should it come to it. Perhaps this is the start of Daenerys’ transformation into her father, or perhaps by bringing their similarities to light, she’ll know to be better.

Courtesy of HBO.

When meeting with the masters of Slaver’s Bay to call for surrender, Daenerys’ arrogance has apparently brought destruction to the city of Meereen, when clearly it is the arrogance of the masters themselves that have done so. Thinking they could simply take what they – wrongfully – thought to be theirs has brought two of them (at the very least) a great deal of death, albeit not before one of the most exhilarating scenes of the season takes place. Truly encapsulating the heroic momentum of the scene is the epic score that backs Drogon’s arrival and the escape of Rhaegal and Viserion as they take to the skies together for the first time. Without giving two of Davos’ shits, Daenerys rocks on up aboard Drogon and goes to town on one of ships that are sieging the city. It’s a pleasant compromise of values for the Khaleesi and her advisor; she gets to boil the seas with dragonfire and assert her authority as a leader, whilst he gets to establish his reputation as her loyal – and merciful – diplomat, a real good cop, bad cop dynamic.

As predicted, the Sons of the Harpy turned up once again; though only to be thoroughly mauled by Daario and the Khaleesi’s new Khalasar (which may now arguably consist of every Dothraki ever). However, crushing the mewling Masters of Slaver’s Bay and their forces was just one victory for Daenerys, another walked straight to her. That’s right, from the ashes of her now partially-broken city, or rather from its port – came Theon and Yara, ready and willing to support her claim to the Iron Throne, whilst politely asking whether they might, y’know – get their home back, oh and to kill a murderous uncle or two. I was incredibly satisfied with the forging of a relationship between two future queens, fuelled by sass and surprisingly, some kind of flirtatious back and forth. I can hear the fans now… ‘This is how you build a ship.‘ Pun intended. It was a very humbling scene, with the two characters bonding over the terror their fathers inflicted, and striving to create a better one than they ever could. Wonderfully, Theon’s interactions with the three of them started to show reclamation of his loyalty and character – demanding it be known that he never killed the Stark boys – whilst still stepping to the side, as he agreed he would. We’ll just have to see whether or not the season finale gives us some resolution as to whether we’ll see the Khaleesi and her forces start to cross the narrow sea on those ‘wooden horses.’

Before long, we’re met with the bitter landscape of Winterfell, the stone of which is as cold and – for many fans – hopefully as dead, as Ramsey Bolton’s heart. Though, this battle starts just as all respectable battles do, with a face to face with your opponent, one last chance to surrender, to disassemble that futile last stand. Perhaps those men that never really wanted to fight can be spared, or at least, that’s what Jon tries to tell Ramsay. In his war council, Jon points out how was always trying to anger him to force his hand into making a fatal mistake, but before long, and very much like the dogs he abuses, Ramsay has Jon eating out of the palm of his hand. Sansa is rightly worried, and she shares that worry with us all… Is it enough?

Perhaps one of the least discussed moments in ‘Battle of the Bastards,’ is that of the best vegetable knight around – Ser Davos. Sharing a humbling, touching moment with Tormund over the loss of their respective former leaders, they deliberate on the night and what is yet to come. It’s so oddly charming to see the differences in these characters, how Tormund prefers soured goat’s milk to the grape piss that Davos prefers (his words, not mine!), similarly the concept of metaphors and figurative language stunting Tormund, that just gets me. Subtle differences like this really provoke unique reactions and overall, do an impressive job in terms of furthering efficient and effective character development. It’s not just enough to say a character is different, Game of Thrones really shows us that, and has done from day one. Although the most sorrowful moment of the episode is just after Tormund bids Davos a ‘happy shitting,’ where the Onion Knight stumbles across the snow-covered pyre of Princess Shireen. Finding the carved stag was one thing, and it’s typically a shot to end the scene on, as many past episodes have done with similar shots. Yet, the additional scene, as the sun starts to rise in the distance and Davos hangs his head in sadness, that’s something special; sombre and poignant, if not just simply for the fact the sunrise pulls forth the image of the pyre one last time from the viewer’s mind. We really feel what he feels.

There is just so much to say about the sheer scale and skill involved in pulling off the battle that follows. I won’t recount the battle, as it takes up three-quarters of the episode – and as such, the blog may be somewhat smaller than usual this week – but there was something so wonderfully macabre about the entire sequence of events. As tensions begin to rise, and men start to charge, sweat starts to line our brows. Our hearts beat faster, in anticipation, and our brains are flooded with few endorphins, and even more questions. We start to wonder if what Melisandre said earlier was true, perhaps the Lord of Light brought Jon back simply so that he could die again. We hope, and we watch on.

Perhaps what is truly staggering is the sense of immersion provoked within the audience, with sequences that are actually layered throughout – something the show-runners have been doing for a little while this season. We saw an example in Meereen, we saw the faces of the masters as they spoke, and behind them, their army, and behind them in the distance, Drogon, taking flight. Here, we see it with Jon as he fights one of Bolton’s men, in the distance behind him, a rider is heading straight for him with an axe – out of nowhere, and out of shot, another rider collides full force into the prospective killer. The technique lets you visually frame the most important, or most relevant parts of a scene in order of significance, and as these objects move from one frame (background) into another (foreground) it’s significant of how much more important they become, or in these instances, how dangerous.

The entire battle was so palpably tense, the co-ordination involved both physically and visually is so vastly impressive that it surpasses the storming of Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. It’s everything we wanted, and it’s everything we expected it to be, and yet, it’s far, far more impressive. None of us could have anticipated the extremely stunning cinematography, nor the excruciatingly suffocating instance of when Jon was very nearly trampled to death. Oh, and for those wondering whether that shot of Jon Snow in front of the charging cavalry is CGI, it isn’t.

Courtesy of HBO.

As the bodies begin to pile up, and Bolton’s army ensnares the forces of the side we really want to win, things… get to a point where they should really start praying to the Old Gods, and the New. Perhaps that’s been happening all along though, because it’s quite impressive that Jon didn’t get hit by a single arrow. Regardless, by this point, with the Wildling army’s choice being between suffocation, or polearm skewering, I was practically jumping out of my seat with worry screaming ‘LITTLEFINGER, IF YOU’RE GOING TO SHOW UP, DO IT NOW!’ and lo and behold, the Knights of the Vale show up. If any war-themed real-time strategy game has taught me anything, it’s that those shield-bearers are going to get absolutely slaughtered from the cavalrymen. Watching it unfold, however, was far more satisfying than I could’ve predicted, something that was only surpassed by their eventual victory and the absolutely royal beat-down that Jon royally gifts to Ramsay, the now ex-lord of Winterfell. To be clear, the tension was thick and rife throughout the entire Battle of Winterfell, up until the moment Sansa demanded ‘where is he?’ I was suspect, at all points, every time Jon turned his head or his back to Ramsay that a knife was going into him, and for that show-runners, I cannot forgive you. You’ve trained us to become paranoid at the prospect of sadistic, horrible things, darn you all!

Ultimately, ‘Battle of the Bastards’ is without a doubt one of, if not the greatest episode of Game of Thrones we’ve ever seen. It’s intensely visceral, immersive, and beautifully shot, capturing the brutal nature of its world in a standoff unlike any other; if it is indeed the best of what we’ve received, it is undoubtedly a masterpiece. We want to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to discuss with us, and enjoy the seven sleeps between this episode and the next but remember, the night is dark and full of terrors. Until next time.

Game Of Thrones airs on HBO in North America, and Sky Atlantic in the UK and Ireland.