GoT; The Finale- Mhysa.

I cannot believe it skipped my mind to post this…I cannot believe I thought I posted this. I cannot believe my absent mindedness. There are so many things I cannot believe about myself right now that I don’t even think I am me. Apologies. I know, I know, its loooooong overdue but there are valid reasons for the quietness around here its not because I couldn’t be arsed because I can and I am, but my sister had a baby and quickly on the heels of that we had a pop-up shop to host for a week, and the logistics of setting up shop took up most of my life before and after, so much so, by the end of it I suffered a burn out and my insomnia did not make matters easier for me. Throw in a new born whose most sociable hours are between midnight and 5am…babies. Man, there should be a law that prohibits them crying until at least 10am non? Anyways I adore the little guy but I’m back and blogging and my to-blog list runneth over!

So the finale…which I finally got round to watching some two weeks later, four times. I’ll be honest; I liked it A LOT but I didn’t love it like I wanted to. However, after the trauma meted upon us at The Red Wedding this was a decent follow up but I would have liked a bit more of something much more…ya know. Then again maybe not.

“The house the puts family first will always defeat the house that puts the whims and wishes of its sons and daughters first” Tywin Lannister.

Mhysa, the episode where Family comes first. Several themes often pepper the Game of Thrones- patience, vengeance, love, lust, but none more so than the duty to family and loyalty. When that loyalty is tested the repercussions will be dire. Hello! Rob Stark x Walder Frey. So its no surprise that the overarching theme in this finale was family and in that way, Loyalty. No other family or person should I say, has tested this loyalty than the Lannisters. Tywin Lannister to be precise. He lets Tyrion in on a little secret of how he “let (him) live”, saved his life the day he was born for no other reason other than being a Lannister. Tywin is a man who believes in the ways of old, that duty to family comes before duty to self and that sacrifices must be made to uphold one’s house because a “good man” will use all in his power to defend his family. He expects such high regard for the Lannister name from his children who have disappointed him at every turn with their pitiful “whims and wishes”. This same Loyalty is why Walder Frey has gone against the ways of the gods and murdered the Starks under his roof as a show of allegiance to the Lannisters. This same loyalty is why the bastard son of Ser Bolton, Ramsey, tortures Theon so and this same loyalty makes Yara go against the wishes of her father in search of her brother; because an iron born should not die far away from home. Loyalty. Even Lord Varys tells Shae in Kings Landing, only the family matters and no place for a nameless whore, so to speak.

Arya has crossed over to the dark side after killing Lord Frey’s banner man for killing and mocking her mother. Man! the Starks have the worst luck of all fictional characters ever written about and who knows what evil lies ahead for them. I’ve just started to read the books so we’ll find out soon enough and if you do know please feel free to spill on twitter. Her family is with Clegane now, an unlikely duo but there you have it.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Whoever coined that phrase must have been thinking about Ygritte because girlfriend was out to cut the hell out of Jon Snow for breaking his promise to her. Jon Snow was the family Ygritte chose, away from her Wildling family and she fought her own people because she thought he would fight for her. He didn’t. So she came here to get hers back, against the family that betrayed her. Here’s the thing about these two; they bore me. No offence to Kit Harrington, who does what he can with the character, but besides the Love making skinny dipping scene and the tense mountain climbing, I don’t know that I check for these two. They are easily forgettable; if we don’t see them, we don’t miss them. They have little impact on us and we are not as emotionally invested in them like we are in other characters.

In Dragonstone Davos assumes something of a father figure to Gendry who is Stannis and Melisandre’s captive. He tells Gendry about his son, the sacrifices he made for him. It all seems pointless now his son is dead in the service of Stannis at Blackwater. The pain is obvious in Davos’ expression. In defiance to Melisandre and Stannis he eventually frees Gendry knowing this may cost him his life. However, as it turns out, the Lord of Light has bigger plans for Davos who will help win the battle that will see Stannis on the throne. According to what they “red lady” sees in the fire of course.

In Yun’kai Dani questions her actions in “freeing” the slaves when they take their time showing up to her party…so to speak. “Perhaps they didn’t want to be conquered” she says with a worried look “you didn’t conquer them, you liberated them.” Ser Jorah replies but Khaleesi knows full well the difference in the two…of course she gave them their freedom and in so doing freedom to choose her side to fight on or walk away; no slave will walk away from someone to whom they feel beholden. They show up and after her typical rouding freedom speech, they chant “Mhysa” “Mhysa” “Mhysa”, lifting her up whilst the dragons babies circle above. And there she is, a silver frame in a sea of slaves.

Oh and Jaime returned to Cersei who did not look particularly happy to see him…or maybe she was but her ability to express joy has been stifled by her bitchery.

So there you have it. Something of a tying up of the season, there were no cliffhangers and the Starks did not get the revenge we all so wanted them to have but it felt like a conclusion.

For the most part this season has been awesome, superb. Even the crazy Red Wedding, as shocking as that was, was just as riveting. Was this the epic finale I wanted? Nope. But following the bloodiness and the shock of Rains of Castamere, this was probably the best way to go. There have been ramblings on the issue of race, especially in this final episode. Look, a good story is just a good story and George R.R. Martin is a brilliant story teller and that’s what the Game of Thrones is; A DAMN GOOD STORY WRITTEN BY A BRILLIANT STORY TELLER. No more, certainly no less. So let’s not look for drama where there is none and let’s not start something that shouldn’t be started. The Game of Thrones is about a lot of things but race isn’t one of them so far. Class? Yes. Religion? Sure. Lust? Of course. Loyalty? Certainly, too many themes float around but none have to do with race. Let’s stick to watching a good story. K?

Cannot wait for next season though.