We come to tonight’s episode of Game of Thrones—”The Gift”—on the heels of last week’s horrifying rape scene, only to find that some time has passed, and Sansa is in perhaps even more dire straits than we realized. She is locked in her room when Reek brings her food. Bruises cover her arms. She begs the man who was once Theon to help her, makes him promise to light a candle in the tower so that someone will come to save her. But instead he goes to his master, Ramsay. If you happen to be one of the many Game of Thrones viewers who has sworn off the show after last week’s episode—like The Mary Sue and various other confused dissidents—you will have missed all of this. It’s scary stuff, the way the show presents marital abuse and rape as truly awful. It’s scary, too, that so many viewers would decide to not watch or discuss the show over this topic, since it’s a very real, human issue that people face in the modern world as well as Westeros. These viewers will also have missed one of the best episodes of the season, an episode that ups the ante quite a lot, ratcheting up the tension, and setting in motion events that will carry us into what I suspect will be a harrowing final three episodes of Season 5. Oh well. That’s their loss. For those less fair-weather fans, there’s plenty to love about “The Gift.”
In the North, three stories begin to play out. Jon Snow heads off to find the Wildlings so that he can bring them south of the Wall to help fight the army of the dead and repel the White Walkers when (and if?) they actually come. This leaves Sam alone with Gilly and a dying Aemon. On his deathbed, Aemon observes Gilly’s baby, likens him to his own little brother “Egg.”
This is Aegon, who would become king when Aemon refused the Iron Throne. Aegon is one of the titular characters in Martin’s Dunk & Egg stories. He’s the grandfather of Aerys II, the “Mad King” who killed Ned Stark’s older brother and father, and who Jaime Lannister killed (earning him the nickname “Kingslayer.”) This also makes Aegon the great-grandfather of Daenerys Targaryen, and Aemon her great-grand-uncle.
Upon his death, the only known Targaryen left alive is Dany herself, though there are questions of lineage yet to be resolved. Sam is left alone with hostile Crows. At one point two of them attempt to rape, or at least harass, Gilly. Sam stands up for her, tries very unsuccessfully to fight them off. He’s beaten badly, but doesn’t back down (Go Sam!) and almost certainly would have been killed if Ghost hadn’t suddenly showed up. Which reminds me, why haven’t we seen any direwolves lately? Not only Ghost—and why isn’t Ghost with Jon?—but any direwolves at all. I really wish Arya’s wolf, Nymeria wasn’t cut from the show, and that we’d see some of the Brotherhood Without Banners. C’est la vie. Oh, and Gilly takes Sam’s virginity, which is cute. It’s a funny reversal of roles, in a way. She’s on top, asks him if it hurts, and so forth. (Go Sam!) (Also, so much for the vows. Nobody seems to follow them.)
The second story in the North is that of Stannis’s second great assault on one of the bad guy armies. The first time he was defeated by a combination of factors, though mostly it was Tyrion and his wildfire that stopped the Baratheon army. This time it’s the snow. The army is running out of food. Horses are dying. Davos Seaworth urges Stannis to turn back and winter in Castle Black. But this could be a winter that lasts years, Stannis reminds him. By the time it’s over, it will be too late. He makes a good point, though as Ramsay Bolton himself notes, the Northerners are used to fighting in the frost; Stannis and his men are not. The Red Lady, Melisandre, has an idea, though. Stannis needs to sacrifice those with king’s blood in order to use her dark magic and bring victory (though it hasn’t worked out all that swimmingly in the past.) The only person within miles that has any is Stannis’s own daughter, Shireen. Melisandre urges Stannis to sacrifice his own daughter in order to achieve his victory. At least for now, he refuses her, telling her to get out of his sight. After his earlier profession of love to Shireen, I can only hope that he remains as stubborn in his resolve to protect her as he does in his resolve to march—to victory or defeat. Spooky stuff. For being a lady of fire, Melisandre is one stone-cold…sorceress.
The final story in the North, which I began discussing up at the top, is the continuing trials and tribulations of poor Sansa Stark. The lady—Lady Bolton now, I suppose—is in bad shape, but she’s the bravest and most poised we’ve seen her yet. Her suffering isn’t intended merely as impetus for Theon to shake off his mental shackles, as some critics suggested last week. If anything, it will be Sansa’s will, her sheer force of personality and courage, that finally convince Theon to help her—if he does help her at all. So far he’s simply gotten an old Northern woman flayed. And if he does help her? She will be helping him as much, if not more. Theon is a victim, too, we’d do best to recall. But Sansa, in spite of her torment, is hardly broken the way Theon is broken. She reminds Ramsay that he’s still a bastard, that Tommen—who legitimized him—is a bastard, too. He doesn’t seem very pleased about this, and I shudder to think what he will almost certainly do to her later, but she’s obviously not lost her courage. If anything, she’s just now learning how brave and strong she truly is. (So, yeah, weird time for Sansa fans to boycott the show. But I digress…) Speaking of Tommen, things aren’t going so well in King’s Landing. Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner Here the inevitable fallout of all of Cersei’s plotting and conniving comes to a head, with not only Loras and Margaery in chains, but the Queen Dowager as well. Cersei has been playing with fire, foolishly assuming that the High Sparrow was a corrupt ally, when all this time he’s been tricking her into letting her guard down. It’s interesting that Littlefinger is portrayed as the one calling the shots here again. He supplied Loras’s lover to confess against the Knight of Flowers; and now he’s at least informing Lady Olenna that Lancel Lannister will do the same to Cersei. Either way, it’s gratifying to see Cersei get a taste of her own medicine. She’s been as vile as ever all season, meddling and meddling and so smug. But she’s done more to weaken her family and gut the power of House Lannister than any Stark or Baratheon or Martell ever could. Equally gratifying—or nearly so—was the wonderful exchange between the Queen of Thorns and the High Sparrow. This is the first time Lady Olenna has truly been at a loss, though I can’t help but root for her against the seemingly humble, but very dangerous, High Sparrow. The man is a fanatic, no matter his plain demeanor and simple ways. He’d bring all sorts of zealotry and horrors to an already horrible world, and the targets of his “many” would not only be pampered noble deviants, but many other disenfranchised people in the lower class as well, no matter his Marxist leanings. The episode draws to a close with Cersei cursing her captors, locked up in the very same dungeon she concocted for the Tyrells. You know what they say about Karma.
In Dorne, Jaime confronts Myrcella. He wants to take her home, but she won’t hear of it. She’s fallen in love with young Trystane, the Dornish princeling. She’s happier in Dorne where, other than a few crazy Sand Snakes, things are relatively peaceful and incidents of intrigue, murder, and war are all fairly nonexistent compared to King’s Landing. Meanwhile, Bronn sings to his prison-mates, the Sand Snakes, and engages in playful banter. Viewers who thought he’d been “killed” by the Sand Snakes’ poison last week can eat their hats. While the sell-sword was indeed poisoned, the girls give him an antidote before it kills him (thank goodness—Bronn is too great to kill off that way.) It’s a funny scene, with gratuitous levels of HBO nudity/strip-tease. But the entire Dornish story feels a bit anemic still at this point. We cannot languish too long wondering why we’re supposed to care.
The other big moment—one that’s danced around in the books but never actually happens—is Dany and Tyrion meeting at a small fighting pit in Meereen. Dany has reopened the pits, has agreed to marry the charming Hizdahr zo Loraq, and is thus far refusing Daario’s entreaties to just kill all the great masters and put an end to the Sons of the Harpy terrorism once and for all. Be bloody, bold, and resolute, he tells her (in so many words.) But she says she’d rather be a ruler, not a butcher. “All rulers are butchers or meat,” he replies. Ten points to Daario. In any case, Dany watches one of the matches where a bunch of slaves who aren’t supposed to be slaves fight each other to the death in order to qualify for the actual fighting pits. This strikes me as a hugely stupid and inefficient way to run gladiators. Why kill off your own slaves before they even have a chance to fight and make you any money? It doesn’t make sense. The slave owner is just burning money, basically, not even able to bet on the winner, or fight his men against the men of another slave owner. It’s absurd. Dany thinks so also (okay, no, she’s just disgusted by the senseless violence and not particularly swayed by Hizdahr’s mewlings about tradition) but then a new champion takes the field. It’s Jorah Mormont, though she doesn’t know it yet. He beats everyone quickly, as a trained knight surely ought to, and without actually killing them, and then reveals himself to Dany. Who just happened to be there at this very fighting pit, just like Tyrion just happened to be at the tavern where Jorah was, and this series of very contrived moments just keep coming over here in the east, away from Westeros. “Of all the fighting pits in all the world, she walks into mine,” Jorah quips to himself, we imagine, before he takes the field.
But Dany is less happy to see Jorah, and almost has him taken away before Tyrion shows up. “Wait!” Jorah begs his queen. “I brought you a gift.” Tyrion is fairly bold in announcing his presence as said gift. I’m really excited to see where the show takes their meet-up since it was one thing I so desperately wanted to happen in A Dance with Dragons and never got. The Targaryens and the Lannisters have a somewhat…troubled past. Tywin, Tyrion’s father, ordered the execution of basically Dany’s entire family. There’s no love lost between the two Houses. But Tyrion, as we all know, is a Lannister of a different color. I think that this just might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. All told, this was a terrific, exciting, tense episode. After what’s felt in many ways like an entire season of set-ups, we finally get some pay-offs, too. There are many “gifts” here to justify the episode’s name: Jorah’s gift of Tyrion to Dany, obviously. But also Littlefinger’s “handsome young man.” Also Cersei’s bowl of venison for Margaery. Gilly’s gift of sex and love to Sam. The land in the North, where the wildlings would theoretically stay, is also called The Gift. So many double and triple meanings, just in this simple title. It’s grand to see Cersei brought low (though poor Tommen is now truly alone) even though we book-readers know what’s coming, or at least think we do. Lots of great moments throughout the hour, and lots of questions. How will Sansa escape? Brienne needs to come rescue her, but to do that I think Sansa will need to find a way to get through to Theon, past all that Reek. I have no clue what’s going to happen in Dorne. And I’m curious as hell to find out what happens between Dany and Tyrion. Next week can’t come soon enough, though I once again dread the end of the season, which is now just three measly episodes away.
