Spoilers for the latest episode of Game of Thrones are ahead, so if you aren’t caught up with “Book of the Stranger,” feel free to take care of that now. I’m fine waiting – I can use the time to hope father’s ghost doesn’t murder me.
Historically, Game of Thrones has used the forth episode of each season to catapult the narrative into the drama and action that will come to define that season, and “Book of the Stranger” is no exception. Carefully built on the theme of forgiveness (or the inability to forgive), “Stranger” emerges as the best, most daring episode of the season to date, which is really saying something when we consider that Jon Snow came back from the dead just a few episodes ago. Showrunners (and writers of “Stranger”) DB Weiss and David Benioff have always been deft with finding ways to work an overarching theme into a given episode without drawing too much attention to itself, but they’ve truly outdone themselves this time around.
Though theme is important when it comes to creating a meaningful connection between show and viewer, the thing that really keeps us coming back every week is story. As I said above, a season’s forth episode is typically the one in which the narrative starts knocking down the pieces it set up in the previous three episodes. But since we’re entering the final turn of the entire series (say it ain’t so!), “Stranger” also works to reintegrate story threads that diverged several seasons ago – particularly in regards to those involving the Stark siblings.
Let’s get to it.
MEEREEN
Since we first met him back in Season 1, Tyrion Lannister has been a character defined by his ability to extricate himself from tenuous situations by using his intellect and charm. Now that he’s in Meereen, however, Tyrion is beginning to see that social and cultural divides can supersede the intentions of even the wisest minds. His ideological conflict with Missandei and Grey Worm regarding slavery (he wants to give the masters seven years to phase the practice out, while the other two want to see it abolished outright) speaks to the larger conflict of pragmatism versus compassion within the world of Game of Thrones.
In this case, Tyrion is willing to forgive the past digressions of the slave masters (up to and including their support of the Sons of the Harpy) in return for agreeing to the seven-year plan, while both Missandei and Grey Worm would like nothing more than to see the institution of slavery – and the masters that hold it up – burned away to ashes. And if Tyrion’s ideological divide with Missandei and Grey Worm wasn’t enough to complicate his position, he’s also raised the ire of Meereen’s former slaves for treating with the slave masters of Yunkai and Astapor. As such, he’s created a rift within the city as well as within Daenerys’s small council, and that’s not even considering the trouble he may cause by having released the two dragons from their bonds. I have faith that Tyrion will find his way out of this one, but it’s fun to see him finally facing a challenge that he alone may not be able to work himself out of.
KING’S LANDING
Can I just say how much I loved seeing Margaery again after all this time? In “Stranger,” Margaery is brought from her cell to kneel before the High Sparrow, in much the same way Cersei was at the end of last season. But where Cersei fell for the High Sparrow’s honeyed words – to the point that she gave the Sparrows the unchecked power that got her thrown in the Black Cells – Margaery saw right through them. Sure, she played along, feigning interest in the High Sparrow’s story of how he came to be the man he is, but she did it so she could see her brother and tell him not to give in or give up. In doing so, Margaery emerges once again as a shrewd pragmatist who can identify the value in playing the long con instead of acting on raw emotion, as Cersei did when she found herself in a similar position.
As much as I’ve been taught to loathe Cersei over the course of the series, I do have to admit that she’s quite grown on me this season. A big reason for this is the simple fact that she’s starting to think her decisions through to a logical conclusion. She knows that she can’t root out the Sparrows on her own, and that a truce with Lady Olenna is the only way to amass the number of soldiers needed to weed out the Sparrows for good and for all. Even though this seems to be the best course of action, Cersei will still have to deal with the Tyrells if the Sparrows are indeed eradicated. Lady Olenna and Margaery have been vying for the throne for some time, and solving the Sparrow problem will give them all the leverage they need to gain more political power. I do have to wonder where Jaime is in all of this; though we’ve seen him in the last two scenes involving the Small Council, he’s done little more than stand at Cersei’s side and agree with everything she says. Also, where the hell is Bronn??
CASTLE BLACK
So now we’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth: Jon himself has officially declared that he is free of his Night’s Watch vows. There was a ton of speculation on what he would do after last week’s episode, and I was excited to hear that he wants to head south, even if it’s ostensibly to “get warm.” His reunion with Sansa was a touching thing to behold; it was great to see not one, but two Stark siblings have something work out for them. I mean, let’s face it: we can use all the warm-hearted moments we can get in this show. And while it took a nasty letter from Ramsay to get Jon on board for an assault on Winterfell, Sansa was ready for the fight from the get-go. Gone is the frail, passive Sansa we knew in earlier seasons. I suppose spending an extended amount of time with Petyr Bailish and Ramsay Bolton would make anyone thick-skinned (assuming they survived it at all), but to see Sansa become a strong-willed woman in complete control of her agency and destiny is something I wasn’t sure we’d ever see, and I love it. It may get her killed, but at least it will be on her own terms.
I also enjoyed the brief scene involving Davos, Melisandre, and Brienne in the courtyard. I spoke earlier of the reintegration of diverged story threads, and this meeting is certainly one of them. As crazy as things can get on the show, it’s easy to forget that events from earlier in the series still carry profound weight. Brienne made it clear that she hasn’t forgotten what Melisandre (and Davos, if only by association) did to Renly Baratheon, and I have to wonder how long the walls of Castle Black can contain the ill will before something bad happens. Who wins in a fight: Melisandre, with her baubles and glamours, or Brienne, with her strength and Valyrian steel sword?
VAES DOTHRAK
I’m still not sure how I feel about the Jorah/Daario Road Show; when they set out in search of Daenerys at the end of last season, I was hopeful that their travels would be as enjoyable as those of Arya nd the Hound or Tyrion and Varys. What we’ve gotten instead is a boringly antagonistic relationship in which Daario constantly points out that Dany sleeps with him and not Jorah. The good news is, they’ve found Dany, and now we can get the hell on with the story.
And speaking of Dany, it turns out she really is fire-proof. There’s been plenty of speculation over the years whether Targaryens are impervious to flame, and now we have our answer (at least as far as Dany herself is concerned). The scene of her burning all the khals was a hell-yes moment if there ever was one, even if it was just another iteration of Dany’s ongoing problem of having to prove to men that she is more than a slave or sex object. It seems safe to assume that she is now in control of not just one khalasar, but all of them, which will certainly spell trouble for the masters back in Slaver’s Bay when she shows back up. If nothing else, I feel like Dany’s story is finally getting the traction it so desperately needs, and it leaves me hopeful that she, along with her army, will be heading for Westeros by the end of the season.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
- No Arya this time around, which is just fine by me. I’m hoping that she will be well into her training by the next time we see her, and that the days of seeing her repeatedly proclaim that she is no one are behind us now. I don’t think she’ll ever become a Faceless Man, but rather take their teachings and use them for her own ends (though I’m just as unsure as the next person what those ends are, anymore).
- Theon has made it back to the Iron Islands, and though I have no idea where the show will take this particular storyline, I do feel that his presence there will bring some heart to it. The Ironborn are a cold and cruel people, and seeing how they interact with and accept (or reject) Theon as one of their own will hopefully bring meaning to this potentially superfluous plot line.
- Littlefinger is back, and in just five minutes, he was able to turn a bad situation (the revelation that he bartered Sansa to the Boltons) into a boon (he now essentially has the army of House Royce at his disposal).
- Spoiler alert: Ramsay Bolton is still a son of a bitch. RIP, Osha. Seriously, though – in the last few seasons, has there been any scenes with Ramsay in which he doesn’t kill someone? We all know he needs to die soon, but who do you think most deserves to take him out? I think the good money is on Sansa.
5/5 stars: “Book of the Stranger” gives us some much-needed happy moments, while at the same time driving the story forward to its final conclusion.
