Knee-jerk Reaction to “Dragonstone:” Five Best and Worst Moments
The long, long, long winter between seasons 6 and 7 of Game of Thrones is over! Thank you, “Dragonstone,” for bringing us out of it.
Here are my highly subjective, personal thoughts and feelings, delivered lightning-quick, after viewing tonight’s episode. First thought: hello to the slow, smoldering burn. HBO elected to warm us up to all of the storylines by including tactical discussions and moody montages. They lit the fuse and let us watch. The powder kegs lies ahead.
How did it all work? Here are my five Valyrian Steel (Best) Flea Bottom Brown (Worst) moments.
VALYRIAN STEEL (BEST) MOMENTS
VALYRIAN STEEL FIVE: Daenerys arrives triumphant at Dragonstone
In an episode running high on story and emotion, the sight of Daenerys returning to her family stronghold really pulled at the heartstrings. We’d seen bits of it in the trailers, but experiencing the drama from beginning to end, from her digging her fingers into the sand to running them across the ancient dusty table used by her forebears to plan their invasion of Westeros — that was about as good as this kind of thing gets.
VALYRIAN STEEL FOUR: Lyanna Mormont shames the older lords again
Leave it to the little Amazon in black leather and bear fur to put the old fogies in their place. She may have the fewest soldiers in the assembly, but she has the stoutest heart. The other bannermen can’t stop whining soon enough, as far as she is concerned. If the King in the North asks the women to fight, the women are going to fight.
VALYRIAN STEEL THREE: The Night King has Giant wights
We only needed to see the White Walkers and their wight horde once — in that long, slow, misty shot of them advancing and bringing the depths of winter with them. And it looks like they have a couple of giants with them. Although monstrous, we can’t help but wonder that’s just only a sampling of the terrible creatures in the army of the dead.
VALYRIAN STEEL TWO: The Hound buries the dead and sees into the fire
What a sequence for the Hound! First, he must come to terms to what happened to the father and daughter he robbed back in season 4, now that his outlook on the world has changed since his time with Septon Ray. The scene where he buried their skeletal remains in the blizzard with Thoros of Myr at his side was thick with atmosphere and pathos.
When the Hound looks into the fire and has his vision of the White Walker army, it seems somewhat random. But when one considers the Hound’s intimate relationship with the agonies of fire, it also makes a weird kind of sense that the Lord of Light would reveal himself to the Hound through the thing he fears most.
VALYRIAN STEEL ONE: Arya Stark poisons every Frey in sight
We had all figured that Arya had sliced up old Walder Frey and slipped away into the wilderness, so at first it seemed to me like the first scene of the episode was some kind of flashback. But as the poison flowed, we realized who was running the show. The mask came off and Arya smiled as she strolled past the piles of dead bodies. One might have thought that killing Walder would have been revenge enough, but no, Arya had to kill every single Frey associated with the Red Wedding. That girl is no assassin. That girl is Armageddon.