Game of Thrones: “Oathbreaker”—Thematic Analysis

In an episode entitled “Oathbreaker,” one might have expected more open breaking of oaths. But other than Jon Snow’s all-to-obviously coming choice to walk out of the Night’s Watch and finally live a life where he can crack some jokes, get a new costume, and try out his new, shorter hairstyle, nothing this week was quite that in your face. Instead, our sliver of ongoing storylines presented this week (there were at least as many characters left offscreen as there were on) focused on those who were faced with certain expectations of what they would do, and either chose to fulfill those expectations, or looked for a different path.

The High Sparrow: “It’s not what I want. It’s what the gods want. They make their will known to us, and it’s up to us to accept or reject it.”

The High Sparrow may have told Tommen this in an effort to manipulate the young king. After all, with perhaps the exception of R’hollr, we have no proof of what these gods want. We have only the human interpretation of their expectations, and those expectations become the fabric that holds society together. In Vaes Dothrak, society expects a woman who once married a khals to give up her hopes and dreams and take an early retirement plan away from the world, essentially insisting that when her husband dies, her life is over. Dany has defied that expectation, until now. (The look on her face when told her actions would be judged suggests she has no plans to acquiesce to these expectation anytime soon.) In King’s Landing, it is expected that Cersei will quietly sit in her chambers and allow the wiser heads to clean up the mess she made while she was running things. This week, she and Jaime show no sign of accepting that, even as the Small Council openly refuses to work with them. Up North, the Umbers may refuse to conform to their new Warden’s demand that they kneel, but they also expect to be paid handsomely for their delivery of an unexpected gift: Rickon Stark, who just replaced Sansa both as key to the north and Ramsay’s latest plaything. At the Wall, Jon Snow defied the expectation of societies everywhere: that those who die stay dead.

It was the complaint heard all day up at the Wall: this shouldn’t be. Jon Snow said it himself after coming back. Othell Yarwyck echoed it in the final scene. The dead stay dead, dammit. We burn their bodies. They don’t come back. This isn’t right. Jon Snow, for the record, seems to agree. What happened to him wasn’t right. Melisandre and Davos broke many social mores to do what they did. But as Davos points out in yet another fantastic pep talk, “You were dead and now you’re not. That’s completely f****** mad, seems to me. I can only imagine what it means to you.” But that doesn’t mean it’s something to be thrown away. Jon Snow has been given the ultimate second chance here–a new life, literally. To hell with society’s expectations. (By the way, after all these amazing pep talks, I’ve decided Davos needs to be given his own daytime show on Westerosi TV where he brings on troubled people and gives them therapy, a la Dr. Phil. Call it “Fook It, With Davos Seaworth.”)

Tyrion: “A wise man once said a true history of the world is a history of great conversations in elegant rooms.”

Even the minor scenes this week dealt with people fighting expectations. Missandei and Grey Worm have been trained by their society not to express opinions or play games, which runs up against Tyrion’s expectations that those who he is working with—even those who are not really his equals—will acquiesce to his demands to drink with him and play whatever games he thinks up. Varys expects that his oh-so-reasonable sounding threats will get a more rational person to talk. (Between implied threats on life of a child in order to get his mother to talk, and the first look at his “Little Bird” network, who he bribes with sweets, we were reminded this week that, in his own way, Varys is no better than Littlefinger. The cause he’s working for is just different.) Gilly expected Sam to keep his promise to take her to Oldtown, while he expects her to obey his will, because he means well by it. (Proof, perhaps, that Sam is more of his father’s son than he realizes.) Either way, I think we can all be pretty confident that Sam attempting to take his wildling lover home to Horn Hill, and then to leave her there, is the worst idea we’ve heard all year.

As for the long awaited Tower of Joy scene, which for many book-readers ended rudely with an interruption by the Three-Eyed Raven, Bran’s expectations were foundered. He expected that his father was an honorable man, even in battle, and that he killed Ser Arthur Dayne after beating him in a fair fight. But to his horror, Bran learns something else: his father in not the hero he envisioned. The stories he was told were only true from a certain point of view. And that discovery was hard for him to take, to the point where he cried out for his father, who at this age and moment in life wouldn’t have recognized him anyway. As frustrating as it was for us, the Three Eyed Raven was right: this was enough for today. Bran was not ready to handle the truth of what was inside that tower. Not yet. First he has to let go of those expectations of what his father’s life was (honorable always) and his own (that he will be forced to spend his life becoming one with a tree.)

Jon Snow: “Hold off on burning my body for now.”

But if Bran was letting go of expectations, everyone else is coming up against them, and Jon was defied them in a big way by declaring his watch ended.

Meanwhile, Arya, for the first time, was rising to meet expectations after a lifetime spent rebelling against them. From the first moment we met her in the pilot, she was ignoring her sewing for the chance to fight with her brothers. Over the course of five seasons, Arya has lied, begged, borrowed, and stolen to stay alive in an increasingly traumatic and hostile situation. Now, for the first time, she has found a place that will accept her. But in order for her to join, she must be broken like a wild horse. She must let go of who she was, and follow the House of Black and White’s expectations in order to survive there. In what was one of the highlights of the evening in a strong episode, we watched Arya’s training with the Waif build her up, even as her talk therapy sessions broke down all the lies she’s been telling about her life all these years. For the first time, she admits the emotional truths of her life—as confusing as it may be in places—and by doing so, she accepts what the gods and world want of her. By the end, there’s no question if she is still holding on to that “funny little list” that Arya Stark once recited like a zen koan to keep herself alive. Such a funny little list. And so short. A girl knows these things are bygone playthings to be discarded. If she didn’t know, the water from the Pool of Death that the Faceless Men give to those who seek it would have killed her. Instead, it restores her vision. A Girl is Ready to be No One. At least one person this week has accepted her fate completely.