So the latest episode of Game Of Thrones has just gone to air and yes, there will be spoilers in this post episode review. Please watch the episode first before reading this review.
After coming out of last week’s big battle heavy episode, this episode starts to look at the aftermath of the battle. Early on in the episode the characters need to dispose of the dead and this includes brave characters like Jorah who passed away during last week’s battle. It’s a sad time and many of the characters are still dealing with the deaths of their friends. But probably, the loss of Jorah has taken the largest impact on Daenerys than anyone else.
In the next section of the episode, we see things change a little during a post funeral party scene. Daenerys makes a point of appointing Gendry to a position of power, which is her right to do as a Queen. This scene shows us that characters are being rewarded for their loyalty and service in battle and Daenerys is the type of leader that does do that. In return, she points out that she keeps loyal people in loyal positions, which helps her to rule better.
But at this party scene, there’s a little more that goes on. Jon is celebrated by his peers and is even called a King at one point. We all know that for much of this season, there’s been tension between Daenerys and Jon about his true claim to the throne, which is stronger than her own. This continues to cause tension for actually this entire episode and we see Daenerys tell Jon not to go around telling people about it. People are already gravitating towards him as a ruler and a secret coming out like this will give them more reason to do so. This is the Game Of Thrones universe afterall and secrets don’t really get kept. We see people already gossiping about it, such as Tyrion and Varus and it’s probably not long now until everyone knows. Question is though, once this secret gets out what’s going to happen to Daenerys and her following?
There’s some sections towards the end of this episode that are very important. Daenerys at one point takes her ships and her two dragons out to sea and gets ambushed by Euron and his fleet. One of the dragons (not sure which while writing this review) gets shot down and killed rather quickly. It’s a complete shock and a massive loss for Daenerys. Her fleet of ships is also destroyed and Missandei gets captured. It’s possible that Daenerys and the rest didn’t think that Cersei and her forces had the ability to kill a dragon, but we know that Jaime did know because he had the weapon when he fought them long ago, as I remember his army getting destroyed by the dragons and him trying to use that weapon during that battle. It’s logical that the Lannister’s would have many of those weapons by now made. Jaime could have warned Jon or Tyrion or anyone, but he didn’t. Then he left in the episode to go back to Cersei. I do wonder, if it was this that he intended for the entire time, or if he just switched sides when he saw things turning.
The final scenes of this episode see Daenerys and Tyrion come face to face with Cersei and Euron. Missandei is at the castle as a prisoner and Daenerys is there with her small force and her last dragon. I thought, watching this episode, that if this is all Daenerys has left of her forces, then she really doesn’t have much. There’s no way they could win that siege like that. In the end, Tyrion just tried to bargain for Cersei to surrender and for Missandei to get returned. But, it was hopeless, Cersei doesn’t listen and Missandei was killed. It didn’t come as a surprise to me, you would be mad to surrender to a force of that size and having just killed a dragon, Cersei and the rest are pretty confident.
For the first time in a long time, after the events of this episode and the deaths of Daenerys’ closest supporters like Jorah, Missandei and another dragon. It seems to me that Daenerys has become significantly weakened lately. The rumour of Jon’s secret getting out is also a substantial threat to her and it will be interesting to see how things go for this character in the coming weeks.
The strength of Cersei and Euron is that they came prepared. They did not underestimate Daenerys at all, they were incredibly well prepared. Next week’s episode will definitely be very interesting.
