Game of Thrones Season Seven Premieres with Dragonstone
Season Seven is finally here. But was it worth the wait? Let’s take a look at Dragonstone.
Game of Thrones season six was full of shocks and surprises. Cersei, much to Jamie’s dismay, went ballistic ending the reign of Little Sparrow’s cult. Arya ticked off more names from her list. A freshly minted from the dead Jon Snow settled scores with Ramsay Bolton and became King of the North. Bran became the Raven. Littlefinger kept moving pieces on the chessboard. Daenerys finally (Finally!) set sail towards her destiny And winter arrived. Sort of.
Game of Thrones has a history of less than stellar season premiers. The episode spends way too much setting up the pieces for what may or may not happen over the course of the season. “Dragonstone” doesn’t break the streak. By season seven, a shorter season at that and a shorter season eight to follow, the pieces should have been in place.
Jon Snow and the North are readying for total war against the White Walkers. He’s ready to commit every man, woman, and child against the White Walkers. As he said, you can’t win with only half your population in the fight. Meanwhile, Sansa reminds him of the looming threat in the South- the Lannisters. Jon may not believe they’re a viable threat we’ve seen some questionable writing in the past.
Down in King’s Landing Cersei seems to have gone more or less off the deep end. She’s never been what one would be call “stable,” but in “Dragonstone” she’s taken bad decision making to a new level. We know she’s skilled at court intrigued, deception, and lying. However, military strategy and tactics are much different. As mentioned before, we’ve seen some questionable writing in the past. It would be no surprise if Cersei becomes a general or a battlefield commander. It shouldn’t be this way, but it probably will happen.
And what of Jamie Lannister? Again, in “Dragonstone” Jamie’s proves to be the better of the two Lannisters. While Cersei, as a character hasn’t changed, Jamie hasn’t been the same since he returned to King’s Landing. While Cersei is hard and doesn’t want to talk about her dead children, Jamie feels the pain. There’s also hints that he known Tyrion didn’t kill Joffrey. There’s also hints in his character that Jamie may, at some point, rebel against Cersei. He knows the right thing to do. In real life, people don’t do the right thing. Perhaps we will see Jamie do the right thing against Cersei, but this is the Game of Thrones.
Daenerys and company didn’t get a lot of time in the premiere. We saw them sailing, we saw them land on the beach (With cliched kneeling and touching the sand), and we saw Daenerys and Tyrion in the castle’s war room. Again, this little scene should have happened at least a season ago. We can assume from here Daenerys’s army will move north and possibly block a Lannister retreat from Snow’s armies in the north.
“Dragonstone” wasn’t a complete waste of time. We got to see Sam empty a lot of bedpans (Close up of long turds included). The Hound, as usual had the best lines, and Arya killed a lot of Freys in a “Red Wedding Revenge.” It was the second best scene in the entire episode.
I’ve never understood these comic-bookey shape shifting powesr. For example, the X-Men’s Mystique can even mimic the clothes people are wearing. Clothes? Half the time she’s naked. So are the clothes part of her skin? We know Arya can mask her face, we’ve seen it before with the Faceless Men. When was she able to gain mass? Or is Frey the same size and build as Arya? It’s worth mentioning because once the door is open that she can mimic anyone than there really isn’t anything she can’t do. It’s a writers built in escape.
Season seven got off to a slow start. There’s a lot loose ends that need to be tied up before the season can move on. However, there isn’t much time left in the series. Will there be enough time, even with extended episodes, to wrap up a series that has many, many moving parts? Or is HBO going to finish things in the rumored movie?
