'Game of Thrones' Finale Recap: No 'Mother's Mercy' to be had here

Cruelty for cruelty’s sake best describes Season 5 of Game of Thrones and its finale, “Mother’s Mercy” only serves to emphatically punctuate that statement. But more importantly, and worrisome, is that “Mother’s Mercy” and Season 5 as a whole seems to have lost the thread of the overall narrative. Instead of climbing to an assumed climax, “Mother’s Mercy” has thrown everything asunder – giving characters things to do they have already done. Perhaps this is the point of A Song of Ice and Fire. Perhaps it is a lesson to not reach past your capabilities. Or perhaps everything is muddled and confused within the storytelling and the rich text that has been the Game of Thrones TV show has become bloated, meandering, and lost.

Jon Snow is dead. His death is not justified by his actions in the show (though in the books it is somewhat, as will be discussed later on). In his Julius Caesar moment he is led out to the courtyard at Castle Black with the hopes of news of his lost Uncle Benjen (way back from Season 1) and is only met with daggers and shivs. Olly gets his et tu Brute moment and Jon’s blood stains the snow beneath him.

Now who is there to root for? Jon was, perhaps, the most sympathetic character on the show. Was just and right in his actions and for this he was rewarded, much like his half-brother before him, with death. You should not be outraged by his death, you should not be outraged by anyone’s death at this point in the series. But you should be confused and, perhaps, apathetic to what is to come in the following seasons.

To the larger point, Jon’s death in the show seemed to make little narrative sense. Yes, his “brothers” were not fans of his saving the wildlings and losing good Night’s Watchmen in the process. And yes, Alliser Thorne has hated Jon from the get go and craves power. So in logical terms, his death makes sense. But narratively it makes no sense.

In the books Jon is killed because he has decided to order the Night’s Watch to attack Winterfell. In the books his death makes more sense as he is punished for acting selfishly and/or it could be argued the Night’s Watch was actually trying to protect their duties (though his death is still only slightly more justified). But in the show, Jon’s death seems random, vindictive, and petty. Again, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone has died because of the whims of a couple of petty men, but it sure seems as though Jon has died this way in the show because of either time constraints or because the show is unnecessarily cruel. His death had little meaning in the books, but has no meaning in the show.

So it goes in the north, as death blows through like a blizzard. Stannis’s attempt to take Winterfell, after stubbornly marching forward after have his men have deserted him, Selyse commits suicide, and Melisandre leaves his side because...she can’t deal with her failure in speaking with the Lord of Light? Whatever the case, Stannis’s men are slaughtered and Stannis presumably meets his end by Brienne’s blade (we don’t see him actually die). The same Brienne who decides to break her oath to Catelyn at the exact time Sansa lights a candle in the tower.

And let’s not forget Sansa who, again, decides not to act when met by Myranda as Sansa is attempting to flee. Finally the we get the moment we’ve all been waiting for as Theon not only tosses Myranda to her death but also his Reek persona to save Sansa. And then they both jump off the walls – from the same height Myranda did not survive – towards a rather pillowy bank of snow. Whether they survive or not is unknown but at least Theon is somewhat redeemed. But where does this leave Brienne? One Stark girl didn’t want her help and the other she neglected to help so she could get revenge on Stannis. Brienne has been sitting on the sidelines all season waiting for that candle and now, it seems, her help is unneeded. Or perhaps she will meet Sansa and Theon in the forest, but whatever happens Season Five certainly felt like a waste for her character.

Don’t be fooled, however, because the south certainly know its fair share of death as well. Where Sansa seemed to have jumped to her death (though this is probably not the case), there is no question in regards to Myrcella’s death. After setting off for King’s Landing, Jaime and Myrcella have a heartwarming chat – that Jaime doesn’t quite know how to have – in which Myrcella tells Jaime she knows he is her dad and that she is fine with it. No worries, though, because this nice moment is quickly ruined as Myrcella begins to bleed from her nose before ultimately dying. Ellaria’s goodbye kiss lingered far too long but we now know it was to get enough of the poison onto Myrcella that Ellaria had put on her own lips. There is a reason why she is the head of the sand snakes. This leaves Prince Trystane in a very awkward position as he, much like Myrcella was feared to be, will almost certainly become a prisoner of the Lannisters in punishment for Myrcella’s death.

And for those who think Cersei may have turned over a new leaf after being publicly shamed by the High Sparrow to walk naked and freshly shorn through the streets of King’s Landing, the appearance of Frankenmountain seems to re-embolden her. Cersei may have been temporarily humbled and still awaits trial (good luck with that) but once she has fairly safely returned to the Red Keep, met by a caring Qyburn and Frankenmountain her eyes quickly dry of the tears they were just weeping and her gaze certainly becomes more steely. She is to blame for empowering the High Sparrow in the first place and she is not afraid to seek revenge against those who have wronged her. It can only help that Frankenmountain cannot die until he fulfills his duties of protecting the queen.

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Punishment in “Mother’s Mercy” just so happens to be intercontinental. Arya was not faceless, nor does it seem she could ever be faceless. She is motivated solely by revenge and gets to exact some brutal revenge on Meryn Trant in the whorehouse by stabbing his eyes out and slitting his throat once she tells him who she is. Meryn was an abhorrent character but it was not her charge to kill him. And since she used a face from the face vaults at the House of White and Black she deserves to be punished. The punishment of Jaqen taking his life to repay the Gods for Arya’s assassination of Meryn seemed justified. But it was merely a feint. Instead, after Jaqen reveals that he has not killed himself, which leads to Arya having a Luke Skywalker in the Dagobah cave moment as she sees her face on the recently deceased person. This just so happens to be the last thing she sees as she goes blind – though it is unclear whether or not this blindness is permanent. The many faced God punishes those who don’t listen, apparently.

Which finally leads us to Meereen and Daenerys. Jorah and Daario leave Grey Worm and Missandei atop the throne of Meereen to find the missing Daenerys, who was last seen flying north, also leaving Tyrion behind. Thus allowing Tyrion to become what he already had been, the main advisor to a puppet king. And despite the nice “the boys are back” moment with Varys making himself known as Tyrion watched Daario and Jorah set off, it seems like old hat for Tyrion. Much like how Daenerys wanders away from Drogon, who is licking his wounds uninterested in flying back to Meereen, only so that a whole horde of Dothraki can find her. Daenerys being thrown back among strange Dothraki puts her back into her Season 1 arc. While we don’t know what exactly will be done to her, or what she will do, it seems almost the most cruel of anything this season. Daenerys finally escapes the Meereenese quagmire only to, seemingly, go back four seasons to the beginning of her journey.

But what happens with Daenerys points to what is a larger issues with the entirety of the series, which still draws much of its material from the books. The main narrative thread seems to have gotten lost or was cut so that new narratives could begin. Maybe Season Six will begin with a five-year time jump or something along those lines, which throws everyone’s stories into whole new trajectories. But if it doesn’t, which I assume it won’t, it leaves the few seasons we have left completely into flux.

The end of Season Five should be the beginning of the climax of the series. Perhaps it’s wrong for us to assume the story was always going to be about Daenerys flying to Westeros and trying to reclaim her throne – despite the fact the show has given us more than enough evidence to point to this storyline. Instead Daenerys has seemingly been thrown back into the situation, where she first began. This is only to mention Daenerys’s arc. Let’s not forget about Sansa’s, Arya’s, and Bran’s – which I assume will resume in Season Six. There is no longer a general thrust to the story, which is especially frustrating when any and all sympathetic characters are being killed off/unjustifiably punished left and right.

There is no storyline that typifies the narrative being lost like the story in Dorne. Dorne comes in roughly around the same time in the series as it does in the books. And while it is admirable to want to flesh out the world even more, what is the point of Dorne? Here we meet a bunch of new characters and a completely new kingdom in Westeros. But all we know about them for three seasons is that they have some good wine. We don’t even meet any Dornish people until Season Four, where one of the two is killed in the same season in which we meet them. That’s fine, and it makes some sense, until we meet all sorts of new characters for the first time in Season Five.

The TV show story of Dorne serves as little else than to meet Doran and, possibly, cause tensions between the Lannisters and the Martells. But in the grand scheme of things why does this matter? It seems like poorly planned fluff to introduce so many characters this late in the story (and yes, the Martells are introduced around the same time in the book). It shows that Martin has lost the main narrative which is supposed to tie these seven books together. I can’t blame Weiss and Benioff too much since they have to somewhat stick to the path Martin has set out for them. But instead of trying to tell a good and logical story Martin seems more concerned with world creation and reversing any and all tropes normally seen in fantasy storytelling and storytelling in general.

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Which brings us back to Jon Snow. Just to remind everyone, Jon’s death happens in both the books and clearly the TV show, though Jon is killed in the books because he orders the Night’s Watch to attack Winterfell – a direct violation of the code of the Night’s Watch. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that Martin is obsessed with killing the presumed white knight. First it was Ned Stark, righteous and just and set in his ways. Then it was the handsome Robb who was just trying to avenge his father’s death. And now it is Jon. In the show Jon is killed because he sided with the wildlings. This does not seem to jive with what the series and books had set up prior.

Jon’s willingness to help the wildlings, a direct violation of what the Night’s Watch is meant to do, showed he was capable of thinking for this world and not stuck in the old rules of the past where Ned and Robb both were. But the reason for his death on the show is strictly the result of power hungriness from Alliser and vindictiveness from the others. He does not get punished for a mistake he has made based on the rules of the past but instead gets punished for recognizing the changes needed for the future. Perhaps he is punished for reaching a little too far beyond his grasp. And maybe that’s the entire point of Game of Thrones. When you go beyond your capabilities you are punished. It happened with Ned and Robb. It happened with Joffrey (wanting to be cruel while having a good wife) and Tywin (stealing all of Tyrion’s self-worth). It even happened with Khal Drogo and Daenerys’s brother Viserys – both of whom wanted a kingdom they were incapable of ruling.

But when you kill off all the traditional “heroes”, when you lose narrative focus/change narratives half-way through, and when you are selectively unjustifiably cruel to your characters you are left with a very unsatisfying ending to your epic tale. There is no momentum to the entirely of Game of Thrones by the end of “Mother’s Mercy” and Season Five. It’s fine to not know what is happening at the end of Season Three, where it’s kind of exciting to have the tables reset, but it shouldn’t happen again at the end of Season Five. At this point in the overall story we should be ramping up to where everything has been leading – i.e. the Night’s Watch preparing to defend against the white walkers, Daenerys rounded up almost all the necessities for a trip across the Narrow Sea, and the Lannisters trying to regain their lost power. We shouldn’t be starting seemingly whole new plot threads (Sam going off to the Citadel, maester school can be thrown into this) that only semi-relate to what has happened previously in the series.

With no one to root for (at least for people who are in positions to make change happen), little-to-no momentum in most of the individual characters’ plots as well as the main narrative arc, and adding even more characters into the story who have not yet been seen (supposedly a whole swath of Greyjoys will be explored next season) Game of Thrones feels more tedious than enjoyable. It feels more haphazard than meticulous.

We have accepted the deaths and torture of many of the more sympathetic characters because we think there is some sort of payoff at the end of all of this. We believe that those deserving of comeuppance will receive it, while those who have been forced down the harder road will be rewarded. It is probably naive to believe that at this point because of what has happened throughout the entirety of Game of Thrones. But what will we do if no payoff is ever received? What will have been the point of seven seasons if the actions that transpire are not the ones that the Martin and Weiss and Benioff have seemingly promised to us throughout the show? At this point in time “Mother’s Mercy” forces us to ask these questions as it caps off an unnecessarily cruel and narratively unfocused fifth season of Game of Thrones.

A Smorgasbord of Gamey Morsels

• Stannis had to go along with his attack on Winterfell regardless of the deserters but what is Melisandre doing? Is she having a crisis of faith? It doesn’t seem as though her plan was to lead him into a slaughter. Stannis’s death also means that Daenerys is the last rival for the Lannisters as all the others have been dispatched.

• Likewise, killing Jon seemed to be a very bad idea for the Night’s Watch. They kill Jon for letting through all those wildlings but any tenuous agreement between them clearly no longer stands. And the Night’s Watch doesn’t have enough men to take the wildlings head on, if that is their plan.

• Seeing Myranda go splat was particularly satisfying after seeing Ramsay get far too much enjoyment out of killing any and all injured soldiers outside Winterfell. Theon’s decision to save Sansa in that moment didn’t feel organic as we didn’t really see Theon struggling too much with whether or not he should be on Ramsay’s or Sansa’s side.

• After seeing Meryn’s whorehouse proclivities in more detail was he the most vile person this season?

• After waiting three plus years for Tyrion to finally meet Daenerys in hopes of him leading her to victory, we got a measly episode and a half before they were separated again. Drogon completely uninterested in Daenerys’s orders while licking his wounds seemed pretty spot on.

• Was it just me or did it seem like Pycelle got a little enjoyment out of seeing Cersei dirtied, bloodied, and uglied upon her arrival?

Pages 1 and 2 images courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com

Page 3 image courtesy of Roger Wong/INFphoto.com