Zombies Ruin Everything

Spoilers! You’ve been warned!

Holy crap what a season! It started off slow enough but it definitely picked up toward the end. Part of the reason for not doing reviews on previous seasons aside from the first one, and which I may have mentioned before, is that spoilers are so rampant on the internet for these sort of things I was sick of having season 5-level spoilers due to the books because I’m searching for a picture for a character of season 2.

Anyway, we’re all on the same page now, no pun intended. And my emotions are just….well, I’ll just sum it up with this picture and smash a bunch of keys repeatedly for the remainder of the article.

General Thoughts First thoughts of (maybe) the first half of the season was that, while it wasn’t quite boring, it wasn’t living up to the previous four seasons. But that could have been because watching them altogether makes them go by quicker than waiting a week between each episode. So I don’t want to come off like I’m dumping on it due to a possible bias, that comes to mind.

Tyrion’s character hasn’t fallen into a slump so much as it is he’s done a lot less this season as opposed to previous ones. If you read the review for my favorite characters of season 1, Tyrion was number two and for several reasons. He remained strong throughout the majority of the series be it with his especially clever lines, his way of putting previously untouchable characters in their place, or his general underdog position in life. Though after being on the run and then kidnapped by Jorah, there’s not much for him to do in the wilderness. Kind of sums up the first half of the season or so.

Where I really felt like maybe this was the beginning of the average of Game of Thrones was the Bronn and Jaime fight with the infamous Sand Snakes; vicious bastard daughters of Oberyn Martell. I don’t really need to tell you if you’re reading this. But a fight between some of the most ruthless fighters in the Thrones world and we got some choppy editing and a pretty lazy scrap. I get that Jaime has got one hand but the whole thing felt unexciting and dull. But the really good stuff picked up toward the end.

And I mean, it really picked up. Cersei, Arya, Stannis (Playaaa), Myrcella, Theon (Or Reek, whichever), Brienne, and Jon frikkin’ Snow all have huge moments packed into episode 10. Arya’s moment was freaky, sure, but it also seems to just be another day for her. I’ll get to that in a moment.

Characters

In season 1, I went over favorite characters of those particular episodes. Fast forward to season 5 and I can’t really say. It’s not that I don’t like any characters enough to call them favorites but they’ve all changed so much it’s really more about what they’re doing than who my favorite of that season is. As I mentioned, Tyrion is still good but he’s not had as much to do being a kidnapping victim and all while several amazing characters have already died off by this point.

And since we’re way past the point of introductions, this is the moment of the series where endgames and high points are laid out for the audience rather than character details. We’ve had plenty of those and we need to see what the future of Westeros and co. are.

But for whatever reason, this feels like the season of Stannis. He’s done cooler things in earlier seasons and he certainly hit a low point in this one, as anyone can agree, but he got a lot of face time as well, specifically for a character the writers seem intent on making you hate. Well, you could say they achieved that in a sense but not from people hating him, but not being able to root for him after he, y’know, burned his daughter at the stake to appease gods he doesn’t even seem to have a lot of faith in.

We knew Stannis would do whatever it took to claim the throne but who thought he would feel the need to go that far, especially given the moment he had where he tells his daughter the story of her days of infancy where Stannis fought to keep her alive while doctors claimed her a lost cause. It only makes his sacrifice of her that much more disturbing. But Brienne finally got hers. Or so it seems. I like that when she asks Stannis if he used dark magic to kill Renly, Stannis just admits it openly and plainly rather than lying or breaking down about it. This guy is about to die, he knows what he did was messed up and he’s got nothing to lose aside from the very little life he has left to tell the truth. Farewell to another favorite of mine!

Now, Arya’s scene was weird. Specifically speaking of course, about her final scene in episode 10 because as far as I can tell, that and few moments from a couple episodes earlier were the things that mattered most to the season (Like this guy’s big moment). But Arya’s evident blinding after pulling a mask off of a dead man to reveal her own face was pretty bizarre, wasn’t it? On top of that, said dead man ends up showing up behind her.

A major spoiler for me that was ruined when I was going through the earlier seasons was Cersei’s “Walk of Atonement.” I was shown an image of a bald and beaten Cersei walking through the crowds. It really pissed me off but I made sure to forget about it (You can do that), as I did with other spoilers, but once she was imprisoned I started to remember and knew where it was going. Still, I thought she was going to die and she didn’t so I’m interested to see how things progress for her.

Now the major event, Jon Snow’s “death.” I don’t believe this guy is dead. Or rather, if he is dead, I don’t think he’ll stay that way. Sure, he might not even make an appearance until the end of next season so they can really let it sink in that he’s meant to be gone, but nah, I don’t see Snow just being gone like Ned. Somebody in a band, name a song that- “Gone like Ned.” There are too many things left for him to do, too much history to be accounted for, and there’s a certain red witch that’s been pretty interested in him. And as we all know, red witches/priests have certain powers that can’t exactly be explained if you remember.

Not to mention, without Jon, there’s nobody else to root for. Sure, certain other characters are interesting and we want to know what happens to them. But Jon is fighting the ultimate evil that needs to be stopped, it’s not about power but survival. I’ve got to rewatch the earlier seasons to catch things I didn’t before but as a lot of people are saying, Jon isn’t done. Which is cool because man, this guy shouldn’t be dead yet.

Predictions It would seem that Jon getting stabbed so many times would give a big kick in the nuts to my prior prediction that Jon and Daenerys are going to have the most important roles in the future of Westeros. Sounds like a big “duh” in a way but I was definitely onto something though Daenerys and her role in the series finale feels like it might take a backseat to what Jon Snow is dealing with. So that whole idea on the show, vague as it is, still holds up.

As far as Arya goes, this is what I’m thinking- the reason the Many-Faced god requires death as often as it does is because the more that die, the more faces it adds to its “inventory” of sorts. To acquire the face of  a living person is to kill them, hence Arya’s eyes glazing over similar to a dead person’s once she pulls off a mask to reveal her own face on Jaqen’s lifeless body.

But I guess we’ll see. I’m going to stop because now these are all just thoughts going through my head about the show.

This entry was posted on 06/16/2015 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Reviews! with tags A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, Season 5 review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.