There are also two chosen families at the heart of this episode, which spends a lot of time exploring what holds them together, and whether they actually have what it takes to prosper.
The Night's Watch replaces your family when you take your vows, so that all your former titles are allegiances are swept away, as Maester Aemon reminds Samwell Tarly. But does that mean the Night's Watch has no loyalty to anyone who's not a Crow, or does it mean equal loyalty to any and all, since the Crows are sworn to protect everybody?
Samwell wants to be generous with the family aspect of the Night's Watch, extending it like a big cloak to everyone who comes within reach. When he comes across Bran Stark, plus Hodor, Jojen and Meera, he tells them that Jon Snow has saved his life and if Bran is Jon's brother, then he's Sam's brother too. Meaning that Bran is an honorary Crow, or maybe that Sam is an honorary Stark.
Also, Samwell never quite apologizes for bringing Gilly and her baby to Castle Black, where no girls are supposed to be allowed. When Maester Aemon asks Samwell if he remembers his oath — meaning all the stuff about giving up all attachments — he points out that the oath says "realms" of men, meaning that the Night's Watch are protecting everybody against the snow zombies, not just the people South of the Wall. To the extent that the Night's Watch has obligations beyond taking care of its own, they extend to the Wildlings too — which is a radical notion.
Meanwhile, Jon Snow finally lays it all out there to Ygritte: he loves her, she loves him, but he has to "go home" to his real family. She gambled, a few episodes back, that his loyalty to his woman would supercede his ties to the Night's Watch, and he basically throws that back at her, saying that he does love her, but his brothers absolutely come first. He also believes that her love will prevent her from trying to hurt him, which shows once and for all that he really does know nothing — she does what anyone in love would do: she fills him full of arrows, but deliberately doesn't shoot his horse.
And meanwhile, Daenerys watches her family of former slaves and outcasts grow massively, as all the freed slaves of Yunkai swarm out of the gates. She tells them that she did not give them their freedom, but that they have to take it, and then they all start shouting "Mhysa," which means "Mother." (It's unfortunate that it sounds like "meesa," as in "meesa so happy.") Daenerys winds up body-surfing on a crowd of ex-slaves, carried along by their love and gratitude and their willingness not to cry for Argentina.
So the Night's Watch are bound together by a simple vow, and by an ideology of self-abnegation for the protection of the realm(s), which Samwell thinks can be expanded to include certain outsiders, on a case by case basis. (And we'll see if he's right, I guess.) But what holds Daenerys' new family together? Judging from her speech to her people, it's pure individualism — they are joined together in the act of seizing their freedom, which is something that you can only do for yourself, alone.
In other words, yes, Daenerys does basically stand towards the crowd getting them to chant, "We are all individuals." I have a feeling we're going to see how this might backfire for her, and how inspiring such a cult following among people of a very different culture could turn out to be problematic.
The saddest thing in the episode is probably the scene, early on, when Tyrion and Sansa seem to be on the verge of becoming their own family — they're bonding over wanting to get back at Ser Eldrick Sarsfield and Lord Desmond Crakehall, who were laughing at them in public. Tyrion offers Sansa something that the two of them have in common: they're both laughed at and despised, for different reasons. They're almost a matched pair, despite their obvious differences — and it's adorable that Sansa thinks the vulgar word for "dung" is "shift." But it's all ruined, as soon as Sansa finds out about her brother and mother. She can't follow Cersei's advice and just devote herself to some new babies, because she already has a family, and they've been massacred.
Both Tywin and Stannis make basically the same argument — it's better to slaughter a handful of Starks at a wedding feast, or sacrifice one bastard boy, than to condemn tens of thousands to die on the battlefield. Committing an atrocity to guests under your roof, or using blood magic, is practically an act of mercy.
It sounds good on paper, except that we've spent too much time getting to know poor Gendry. And we see too much of the aftermath of the Red Wedding, where the Stark encampment is in flames and the remaining Stark soldiers are being put to the sword. And Robb Stark's body has been defiled, with an animal head crudely sewn onto his shoulders.
Arya Stark, who already witnessed the beheading of her father Ned Stark, sees a lot of this stuff first hand, and later when she hears a camp of men gloating about it all, she can't help making a pitstop to murder one of them, with Sandor Clegane reluctantly helping her. Sandor notably doesn't tell her not to endanger them with small acts of revenge again — instead he just instructs her to tell him in advance, next time. Because he knows what it's like to have no family and nobody to lean on.
But Arya has one thing Sandor doesn't: a coin from the isles of Braavos, which entitles her to passage to the land of awesome mystical assassins. As she picks it up, she mouths the words that will buy her free passage from any Braavosi: "Valar morghulis," all men must die.
The other person in this episode who doesn't have a family name, of course, is Ramsay Snow, who's revealed as the guy who's been torturing Theon, one way or another, all season. Ramsay is the bastard son of Roose Bolton, lord of the Dreadfort, who stabbed Robb Stark last week. And like Jon Snow and Gendry, Ramsay's bastard status entitles him to absolutely nothing. He doesn't get the family name, or the titles, or any respect.
But unlike those others, Ramsay turned his lack of family name into a source of power — he kept Theon guessing about his identity, and where his loyalties lay, while he was laying the groundwork to take away Theon's own family name. Ramsay was sent to capture Theon and bring him to Robb Stark, but he doesn't give a crap about Robb Stark. He wants Theon for himself, either out of pure sadism or because Theon can help with some power play that also includes his letter to Balon Greyjoy. Given that Ramsay is a cunning manipulator, that letter to Balon probably isn't intended to get Balon to surrender at all — it's intended to goad Balon into taking rash action in the name of protecting his flesh and blood.
That's what makes Ramsay Snow such a uniquely dangerous person — he has no family name of his own, and like his father he seems to have pretty much no loyalty to anyone. But he understands how families and family allegiances work, well enough to manipulate them to his own ends. Because if Tywin believes that the ultimate source of power is loyalty to your own family, Ramsay seems to believe the opposite: you get power by manipulating the family ties of others.
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Absolutely spot-on analysis, IMO.
The Night's Watch replaces your family when you take your vows, so that all your former titles are allegiances are swept away, as Maester Aemon reminds Samwell Tarly. But does that mean the Night's Watch has no loyalty to anyone who's not a Crow, or does it mean equal loyalty to any and all, since the Crows are sworn to protect everybody?
Samwell wants to be generous with the family aspect of the Night's Watch, extending it like a big cloak to everyone who comes within reach. When he comes across Bran Stark, plus Hodor, Jojen and Meera, he tells them that Jon Snow has saved his life and if Bran is Jon's brother, then he's Sam's brother too. Meaning that Bran is an honorary Crow, or maybe that Sam is an honorary Stark.
Also, Samwell never quite apologizes for bringing Gilly and her baby to Castle Black, where no girls are supposed to be allowed. When Maester Aemon asks Samwell if he remembers his oath — meaning all the stuff about giving up all attachments — he points out that the oath says "realms" of men, meaning that the Night's Watch are protecting everybody against the snow zombies, not just the people South of the Wall. To the extent that the Night's Watch has obligations beyond taking care of its own, they extend to the Wildlings too — which is a radical notion.
Meanwhile, Jon Snow finally lays it all out there to Ygritte: he loves her, she loves him, but he has to "go home" to his real family. She gambled, a few episodes back, that his loyalty to his woman would supercede his ties to the Night's Watch, and he basically throws that back at her, saying that he does love her, but his brothers absolutely come first. He also believes that her love will prevent her from trying to hurt him, which shows once and for all that he really does know nothing — she does what anyone in love would do: she fills him full of arrows, but deliberately doesn't shoot his horse.
And meanwhile, Daenerys watches her family of former slaves and outcasts grow massively, as all the freed slaves of Yunkai swarm out of the gates. She tells them that she did not give them their freedom, but that they have to take it, and then they all start shouting "Mhysa," which means "Mother." (It's unfortunate that it sounds like "meesa," as in "meesa so happy.") Daenerys winds up body-surfing on a crowd of ex-slaves, carried along by their love and gratitude and their willingness not to cry for Argentina.
So the Night's Watch are bound together by a simple vow, and by an ideology of self-abnegation for the protection of the realm(s), which Samwell thinks can be expanded to include certain outsiders, on a case by case basis. (And we'll see if he's right, I guess.) But what holds Daenerys' new family together? Judging from her speech to her people, it's pure individualism — they are joined together in the act of seizing their freedom, which is something that you can only do for yourself, alone.
In other words, yes, Daenerys does basically stand towards the crowd getting them to chant, "We are all individuals." I have a feeling we're going to see how this might backfire for her, and how inspiring such a cult following among people of a very different culture could turn out to be problematic.
The saddest thing in the episode is probably the scene, early on, when Tyrion and Sansa seem to be on the verge of becoming their own family — they're bonding over wanting to get back at Ser Eldrick Sarsfield and Lord Desmond Crakehall, who were laughing at them in public. Tyrion offers Sansa something that the two of them have in common: they're both laughed at and despised, for different reasons. They're almost a matched pair, despite their obvious differences — and it's adorable that Sansa thinks the vulgar word for "dung" is "shift." But it's all ruined, as soon as Sansa finds out about her brother and mother. She can't follow Cersei's advice and just devote herself to some new babies, because she already has a family, and they've been massacred.
Both Tywin and Stannis make basically the same argument — it's better to slaughter a handful of Starks at a wedding feast, or sacrifice one bastard boy, than to condemn tens of thousands to die on the battlefield. Committing an atrocity to guests under your roof, or using blood magic, is practically an act of mercy.
It sounds good on paper, except that we've spent too much time getting to know poor Gendry. And we see too much of the aftermath of the Red Wedding, where the Stark encampment is in flames and the remaining Stark soldiers are being put to the sword. And Robb Stark's body has been defiled, with an animal head crudely sewn onto his shoulders.
Arya Stark, who already witnessed the beheading of her father Ned Stark, sees a lot of this stuff first hand, and later when she hears a camp of men gloating about it all, she can't help making a pitstop to murder one of them, with Sandor Clegane reluctantly helping her. Sandor notably doesn't tell her not to endanger them with small acts of revenge again — instead he just instructs her to tell him in advance, next time. Because he knows what it's like to have no family and nobody to lean on.
But Arya has one thing Sandor doesn't: a coin from the isles of Braavos, which entitles her to passage to the land of awesome mystical assassins. As she picks it up, she mouths the words that will buy her free passage from any Braavosi: "Valar morghulis," all men must die.
The other person in this episode who doesn't have a family name, of course, is Ramsay Snow, who's revealed as the guy who's been torturing Theon, one way or another, all season. Ramsay is the bastard son of Roose Bolton, lord of the Dreadfort, who stabbed Robb Stark last week. And like Jon Snow and Gendry, Ramsay's bastard status entitles him to absolutely nothing. He doesn't get the family name, or the titles, or any respect.
But unlike those others, Ramsay turned his lack of family name into a source of power — he kept Theon guessing about his identity, and where his loyalties lay, while he was laying the groundwork to take away Theon's own family name. Ramsay was sent to capture Theon and bring him to Robb Stark, but he doesn't give a crap about Robb Stark. He wants Theon for himself, either out of pure sadism or because Theon can help with some power play that also includes his letter to Balon Greyjoy. Given that Ramsay is a cunning manipulator, that letter to Balon probably isn't intended to get Balon to surrender at all — it's intended to goad Balon into taking rash action in the name of protecting his flesh and blood.
That's what makes Ramsay Snow such a uniquely dangerous person — he has no family name of his own, and like his father he seems to have pretty much no loyalty to anyone. But he understands how families and family allegiances work, well enough to manipulate them to his own ends. Because if Tywin believes that the ultimate source of power is loyalty to your own family, Ramsay seems to believe the opposite: you get power by manipulating the family ties of others.
Original source link
Absolutely spot-on analysis, IMO.
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