#I’m glad we got to get back at Meera this episode tho with calling her out for one small portion & Pie to the face!

[cloveroctobers]

Finn: MC is marriage material, deserves better, Johnny can go suck an egg, and I’m gonna tell you lot why we should be together! —or whatever he said—

Me:

[gotgifsandmusings]

GoT 7x03 Musings

My initial reaction to “The Queen’s Justice”

^I dub thee “Casterly Castle”

I guess the title refers to Cheryl finally delivering that poetic justice for Madison’s death via Poison Ivy lipstick (which I’ve been told was only a thing Ivy did in Batman and Robin; she’s usually just more a dramatic biochemist nerd with pheromones. I’m so sorry, Ivy.). I guess it could also be Deadpan not randomly giving Jon her help for nothing in exchange, because that’s actually a decent sense of justice. It was pretty obvious D&D were writing this one again, with the nonversations featuring strongly. Let’s dive in.

Dragonstone

A lot happened here, and yet nothing did at all.

Jon is a fucking idiot for arriving with just Davos, and it’s beyond clear that he should have listened to Sansa and everyone else cautioning him from going, because he was immediately in a position where he had no capacity to defend himself, and nothing to offer Deadpan at all.

Really glad Tyrion reminded us HOW NICE he is about not raping Sansa when they were married. More points for him being THE BEST. Sorry. If you know me, you know this one is a specific bugaboo.

Some say the dragon CGI didn’t look good, but frankly it didn’t bother me that much. I was much more distracted by Tyrion’s alcoholism jokes and Jon’s mouth breathing

The Mel & Davos scene felt like it worked last night, but after reading over Jess’s review today, I have no idea why I thought that. Mel was literally just saying she was peacing out, and then creepily said she and Varys would both die in Weisseroff, so I guess they will. It was…fine? But also “the plot needs me over here now!”

I felt like Deadpan and Jonny were asserting different things every few minutes. I’m also assuming we’re supposed to view Deadpan as the spoiled entitled shittier leader, while Jonny is a man of the people who drops his g’s at the ends of his sentences.

this would have been somewhat possible to be sold if Jonny hadn’t been given a kingship for being the world’s biggest fucking idiot

Also, Tyrion’s point about “you should just kneel if this war to the North is all that matters to you” is really, really salient. Like…what did Jonny expect in this? He *said* Deadpan needs him, but actually how? What she needs his 4 surviving Wildlings? The Manderly forces?

Oh wait, that’s right, the whole theme of this season has been “how can we illogically deplete Deadpan’s massive and unbeatable army?” She learns about Yara’s fleet and decides not to keep Jonny as a prisoner, but a guest, before storming off.

I’m probably remembering this out of order, but we get some kind of war council scene where she suggests riding her dragon to like…BURN Euron’s wormhole-navigating fleet?

But no. Apparently she could get shot with an arrow so it’s never going to happen. Let’s ignore her biggest military advantage.

We also get Jonny & Tyrion 2.0: who broods best? Aka D&D write shitty lines for cheap fandom jokes.

It is kind of amusing to watch Jonny have his own idiocy pointed out to him

Then Tyrion runs to Deadpan and tells her to play nice, because she’s been a very naughty little school girl lately. Also they need allies because things are going tits up with his masterplan of incompetence. I just can’t take the fucking infantilizing tone, though I did legit laugh when Deadpan called him on “a wise ma n once said.”

Uhhh finally Deadpan & Jonny’s 2.0 scene? She decides to let him mine dragon glass because Tyrion asked nicely. I can’t think anything positively about either of their leadership capabilities, nor do I think D&D have much interest in showing them. Can we just get on to boat sex already?

Cheryl’s Landing

The biggest issue I have is how the smallfolk of Cheryl’s Landing are even more mercurial than the Northern Lords. Now they’re CHEERING Euron despite knowing Cheryl burned everything down? Why don’t they give any shits?

I don’t know who Euron is playing this week. Moriarity? Julia says a bad magician. Are we supposed to find him intimidating?

Legit found Cheryl’s approach to governance compelling this week. She secured an ally with a promise of marriage *after* the war is won (why the fuck is Euron so interested in this?), and was a savvy negotiator with the “we love the slave trade” Iron Bank of Braavos.

I can’t begin to deal with the Faullaria death scene. Longest fucking thing in the world, and it was just D&D reveling in murdering characters we hated because they put no depth into them. Everything about it was horrible, absolutely everything.

even the stupid “poetic justice” of the kiss. Just stop.

Larry loves Cheryl! Cheryl’s maid loves Cheryl’s style! What in the fuck is happening??

Winterhell

BRITTANY’S BACK

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings:

"a female character is empowered without resorting to violence, sexual manipulation, or dismissal of typically feminine-coded traits or activities" happened tho, with Sansa's ruling scene. It was one of the scenes I really enjoyed this episode (until littlefinger started to talk)

Yeah man, for sure. It was actually nice to watch, even if the larger pattern of their conception of empowerment is totally fucked. I have a feeling this one won’t be staying around

Also my god, that Batfinger speech was one of his worst yet. It makes chaos is a ladder seem like the smartest thing ever uttered. “See all possible outcomes”? Um…you didn’t, you fucking moron. Remember when the Sansa Marriage Strike blew up in literally everyone’s face?

at least Brittany wasn’t into it

Aaaaand then Bran came with a brand new personality! He wasn’t able to emote or give any shits about his sister, and then forced her to relive her trauma by talking about it in really creepy, deadpan, voyeuristic tones. Yay!

this Bran came out of NOWHERE. He became the Three Eyed Sydow last year (or something), so…where was this creepiness then? He seemed to be able to engage with Meera and Benjen and stuff. Was the baby crossfade THAT momentous?

I’m glad Brittany ran away from him. I rather stanned her this episode

Oh btw Theon is alive.

Apparently the Ironboors who survived can intuit exactly what happened on his ship, rather than thinking he got thrown overboard or something.

Hogwarts

I almost forgot this was in the episode

Greyscale is cured! Forever! This plot really mattered so much!

no are we supposed to be affected that Jorah was contemplating suicide? Are we supposed to care that Sam figured this out from what Jess described as a “wiki-how”?

just someone kick Sam out already. This is going nowhere

THE BATTLES

I’ll direct you back to Jess’s review if you haven’t read it already. She does an AMAZING job at explaining how Tyrion’s voice-over removed all dramatic tension.

Fuck traveling logistics, amirite? Of course Larry can sprint around Weisseroff in two weeks. I feel like they threw that timeframe in there just to piss us off.

Again, the importance of Casterly Castle was never in evidence. Larry didn’t care about it enough to abandon it. Tyrion described it as “impenetrable” and even went on to say how once inside, the Unsullied would *still* be outnumbered.

it makes Tyrion seem like an idiot, especially with Larry knowing he’d take it, so was this supposed to be his hubris? But it was never framed as hubris. So…

Oh look, Euron’s fleet warped from somewhere in between Cheryl’s Landing and Porne to Casterly Castle. That works!

Then Larry just warps and takes Highgarden off-screen, because apparently D&D say that the Tyrells are shitty fighters. What. No seriously, what? Where did that even come from? And taking a castle is still kind of a big deal.

^this was a tad disappointing for Highgarden.

Frankly, where did the Tyrell army even go? Tarly’s an important bannerman, but not like ALL of it

The best part was that Diana Rigg seemed as happy to be done with this stupid show as I was for her, so there was a good amount of energy in her scene.

the whole “Cheryl is the worst” thing didn’t land as usual, especially when immediately followed by her confession about murdering Joffrey, but she was just so gosh darn plucky about it!

Aaaand that’s all I’ve got! Boy Deadpan sure is in a pickle that her amazing “divide and fail to conquer” plan was as bad as @turtle-paced described it last week. Add to that Larry’s sudden competence, and she just might yet need Jonny!

Top 3 nitpicks:

Casterly Castle being single-handedly built by Tywin and Tyrion having actually constructed the sewers himself. Not just running them…constructed them.

The Iron Bank investing in the slave trade

The smallfolk LOVE Euron and Cheryl now

Did this land for you? I was seeing tweets about how smart the writing was and just...WHAT. Though Brittany was boss ass, if I may say so myself.