Handing Out Grades for the Spoils of War

D finally brought the battle to the Lannisters this week which was supremely entertaining but I don’t see how HBO didn’t blow through their season 7 dragon budget in this  one single episode. I’m assuming that’s why she only brought one to the fight. But before we dive too far into the actual battle, let’s talk about the North.

Petyr Baelish: C for Creepy

I said it a week ago. I said it two weeks ago. Baelish is bad news. He’s like a yellow caution light on your car dashboard. You see it. You know you should do something about it. But you’re probably just gonna drive it until that ish turns red. Do you know how weird it is to hand the kid who was almost assassinated the knife that almost assassinated him? As a token of goodwill? What was Bran supposed to be like? Baelish is like here is the dagger that someone tried to use to filet you six seasons ago in case you forgot (I mean most of the audience did so that’s fair), welcome home. For everyone who forgot about the dagger I did some research to try to refresh on its history as I know I needed it. We surely remember the assassin who tries to kill Bran with it in the first season. Catelyn Stark takes the dagger with her to King’s Landing and imparts it to Ned Stark who (SPOILER ALERT) bites the dust. That dagger then ends up in the hands of Baelish who tells Catelyn that he knows who it belongs too. It belongs to Tyrion Lannister. Catelyn of course takes Tyrion prisoner when she has the chance and all hell breaks lose. So this dagger was pretty much the reason for the war of the seven kingdoms. Now in the last episode, Baelish states he doesn’t know where the dagger came from which is basically admitting to us the audience that he made up the story about how Tyrion was the owner. But who has the war profited the most aside from Cersei? The one and only, Petyr Baelish. I think there’s quite a few people who speculate that Petyr was actually the one who hired the assassin to kill Bran. At this point that to me is the most likely explanation. Which makes this situation even more dangerous because before, Baelish was trying to manipulate one Stark. Somehow every episode more of them are showing up and that most certainly wasn’t apart of his plan.

Bran Stark: An A and an F for Emo AF

Ever since Bran got back, he’s been moping around Winterfell just telling everyone nothing matters and he’s the three eyed raven. We get it Bran. Life’s been rough on you. You saw incest, got paralyzed from the waist down, fled your home which got taken over by someone you thought was a friend, escaped north of the wall where they have an anti global warming problem, met an old tree man who gave you visions, accidentally killed Hodor and drove him insane. That all sucks. But I need you to get it together here cause things are very likely going to get worse before this is all said and through.

Jaime Lannister: A for Effort

You know what? I respect Jamie for going in at the end for the cheap shot. Is it dirty? Yeah but is it less fair than bringing a massive fire breathing unicorn lizard to a spear fight? Didn’t think so. Jaime’s performance was admirable. And we all know he isn’t dead so don’t pour one down for him just yet. I’m not sure if he will be captured or if somehow he and Bron will manage to escape. But he has to escape because who else is going to tell Cersei Olenna killed Joffrey? How else are we going to get that satisfaction?

Bron of the Blackwater: C for Character Development

When Bron was chilling with Tyrion, all the dude wanted was a pocket full of gold. Damn he’s come a long way cause he gave up way more than that to single handedly try to take down a medieval  A10 Warthog and to then save Jaime Lannister. He will laugh it off and be like “well now you owe me a bigger castle” but deep down, I think he likes fighting for more than just money. It kind of brings a tear to my eye, seeing Bron all grown up and heroic now.

Jon Snow: C for Crushing Hard

We know it’s going to happen. At some point Jon Snow is going to hook up with the woman who I believe is technically his Aunt? I mean make a move, bro. It’s the 21st century so I guess she can make the first move too but it’s the 21st century in audience time. In Game of Thrones time it’s still…well not the 21st century. There’s an entire bay that seems to think slavery is chill.

The Lannister Army: F for Fail

Can you blame them? I think they should at least get a curve here. It’s like they studied all week for their english lit exam and then the teacher handed them a midterm on quantum mechanics. The Lannister Army looked down at it. Flipped through it. Got up. Handed it back to the teacher and accepted their fate. We did finally get to see the Dothraki army in action which, they are pretty savage. They’ve held this mystery as this supreme fighting force and we never have gotten a really accurate glimpse at how large of an army it is. But it appeared that they had the Lannisters covered without a winged T-Rex flamethrower.

Going Forward:

So as far as the next moves, it was obvious Daenerys’s strategy was to target the food rations which leads me to believe that she still doesn’t want to launch a direct assault on King’s Landing. By taking out the supplies, Daenarys is probably setting up the move to starve the city out and force a surrender. Cersei won’t surrender and with naval superiority I assume she can still get supplies to the city somehow which will need to be addressed. As for the next episode it is clear that the focus of the action will turn back to the North, and I sincerely hope we see some walking dead action. They’ve been marching for four straight episodes. At this rate they wouldn’t make it to King’s Landing before winter had already come and gone. The survival strategy is everyone take a beach vacation in Dorne like celebrities hitting St. Barts in December.

Till next week.