With the fourth episode of the seventh season of Game of Thrones, “The Spoils of War”, we are officially over half way through the season. This halfway point was definitely the best of the four episodes of this season for me, but for a season that’s struggling to even hold my attention and is so poorly written, that’s not exactly the hardest of accomplishments to achieve. It was definitely the quickest paced, and the battle sequence that the world won’t stop talking about went by quite fast, but in terms of actual character moments, complexity, depth, or just plain comprehensiveness, it was up there with the rest of the season in its lack thereof.
Check out this weeks recap/review where I had to bust out the book quotes for some of that Winterfell mess and break down why the best episode of the season (which isn’t saying much) once again chooses spectacle over substance.
“Sansa is forced to give another one sided emotional hug as Arya fails to fully reciprocate, and the two reminisce as if they were old work colleagues. Arya asks if Sansa really killed Joffrey but Sansa sets her straight, saying she simply wishes she had. This is one of those things that just makes me so angry. I know we are so far off from book Sansa, they have shit on her since season one, and we’re never going to get anything close to a truthful representation of this girl because she represents the opposite of the nihilistic hopelessness of the television show. However, when they do something that is so blatantly a huge “fuck you” to her character and the two sisters bond over this shared wish to have personally killed Joffrey, I can’t help but get ticked off. This is not the “If I am queen I will make them love me” Sansa. This is not the girl whose reaction to the Purple wedding was to cry and feel pity for the boy who abused her.
I know we’re never going to get that girl but this just kind of felt like a massive middle finger, a la Jaime pushing the White Book off the table to fuck Cersei in the tower of the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”
This sums up my feelings so perfectly that I just have to leave it here. This. This is how I feel about that reunion scene…
Also with Sophie and Maisie being such good friends in real life, why did their reunion feel so stilted and impersonal? It wasn’t just cutely awkward like, omg I haven’t been around a family member in so long!, it was as if they didn’t really know each other very well and weren’t particularly bothered about seeing the other again, especially on Arya’s side. Almost as if they were distant cousins and were kinda like “Oh, hey… Nice to see you again… it’s been ages…” but really, just really didn’t care if I ever saw you again tbh… I don’t know you like that.
Just because Arya and Sansa used to fight as kids, it doesn’t mean they’re not going to react to seeing each other again as siblings would! They have good memories of each other too people! The writers are just not invested in positive family relationships. Drama!
In fairness, Arya and Sansa are missing years of each other’s lives. As someone who has grown apart from my own sister for the last two years, their reaction was actually pretty spot on. There’s the obligation of sibling/familial love that will always be there, but the friendship was years ago and there are a ton of unshared experiences left hanging between them. I didn’t read a sense of reluctance in Maisie’s acting, more a feeling of an awkward disconnect. No one is fully sure of how to respond to each other.
It’s true, Sanaa’s reunion with Jon felt warmer, but she hadn’t been in true safety for years. And her reaction to Bran mostly had to do with the fact that she believed Theon killed him. However, I do agree that their energies clash, and I think that weighs heavily on how weird the reunion feels.
Penhales 