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'Game of Thrones' Season 6 Episode 6, "Blood of My Blood"

In-depth Analysis, Predictions, and Opinions

By Jesse BPublished 6 years ago 12 min read
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Review:

After the heartbreaking “hold the door” situation, in a last ditch effort, Meera is dragging Bran through the snow while the wights fiendishly pursue them. As it looks more and more like a one legged man trying to win an ass kicking contest, alas, someone does eventually come to their rescue, riding horseback and wielding a strange fiery whip of chain, no less. Ghost Rider, is that you? The whole time Bran is still warged out of his mind, doing his third eye routine. The Horseman makes short work of the skelly-looking wights, and begins with the pleasantries. The show makes no bones about keeping his identity a mystery and reveals the man as Benjen Stark, a.k.a. Bran’s long lost uncle of sorts. Well, he hasn’t been lost too too long. At least, not as long lost Uncle Gerion.

In the producer's commentary scene they refer to him as “ColdhandsBenjen"; of course, readers have been speculating a long time on whether the show would include Coldhands, and the nature of his character (does he serve the others or the children?).

So now we have the writers once again openly contradicting Martin’s original character by doing a mashup of Benjen-Coldhands; Martin has gone on record as stating that Benjen is not Coldhands. Leave it to D&D to totally just do whatever the hell they feel like with the material. But, perhaps the show writers are not to blame. By giving the fans what they want: an explanation of Benjen’s disappearance, and an origin for Coldhands, they have taken two similar unfinished plot threads and tether them to each other in a way that makes sense and saves time and confusion. It’s rather satisfying. However, this was not Martin’s intention. I can’t imagine that D&D never received an answer from Martin regarding the future details of Benjen & Coldhands, so it seems like they just decided to composite these characters. It remains to be seen how readers will take to this. Will they be wishing that Coldhands really was Benjen? I digress.

I have to say, such an odd choice for Benjen to be using the fireball flail, despite its effectiveness. It even lights up automatically, leading me to believe that this has to be a weapon imbued with the magic of the Children of the Forest.

The reveal of BJ’s identity wasn’t too bad, including the close up on his face and graveness in his voice. Nice to see him FINALLY make his way back to the story.

I guess we now have the answer to “Where do Benjens go?” (They go on hiatus until their agent calls them back to the studio.)

So Benjen is in this convenient halfway state of human-wight due to some reversible effect dragonglass has on the transformation. I’m trying not to think about it too hard or it will surely not make sense at all. So technically he’s a hybrid species now, and so is Bran, apparently, with the news that the Three Eyed Raven was not quite human.

Am I wrong in thinking that at least a part of the Three Eyed guy went into Bran?

So Bran is getting a flash flood of visions past, present, & future. He sees the death of Robb, his mother, and his father. Don’t think HBO is trying to be sneaky by splicing a bunch of secret half second scenes into a vision. The scenes are just stock footage from previous episodes, the only really new bit being the brief scene with the Mad King Aerys saying his most infamous line, “burn them all,” and Jaime drawing his sword for the kill. So, a bunch of cryptic scenes of a dragon flying over King’s Landing, Wildfyre, Children of the forest, the WW army, etc. Hmm, what could Wildfyre have to do with the war to come?

From this scene, we also learn that Benjen was not only sent by the Three Eyed Raven, but he has met the man personally and knows his purpose and thus Bran’s purpose. So why take so long in sending for Benjen / Coldjen? Perhaps the 3ER thought BJ might distract Branny boy too much from his meditation. This is all rather vague and interpretational. Something something, then Bran will be able to do that thing to stop the Night’s King at the place and time…yeah. Weird. Writer’s padding.

And Now the B Plot…

Arya’s arc for this season comes to a climax. We had a pretty good idea Arya was going to intentionally drop the ball and run the other way. So, is it safe to say her training has been an utter disaster? Is she not the worst ever character build of Assassin’s Creed? I mean, killers can’t exactly have morals, can they? Can they? So, Arya ultimately decided to not betray her inner self, which is admirable as she was basically fear-driven into turning her back on her conscious. Maybe that was the true test all along? So now she knows the waif is coming for her and damned if she doesn’t pull out all the stops to beat her this time and once and for all. Arya is going to have to truly prove herself against a worthy adversary. Imagine all that pent up frustration Arya must have towards the waif from taking beating after beating, both physical and verbal. Arya's true skill is fencing, and after all, in the world of sword slayers, there can be only one. My anticipation for this encounter is at its peak. I’m just wondering what the aftermath with Jaqen will be.

Sam & Gilly reach Horn Hill, somewhat close to where Margaery and Loras hail from in the reach. Sam brings his new lady friend to the family dinner. Now, right away anyone can tell this is a very bad idea. Shame on Samm as smart as he is, thinking he could get away with this folly. Maybe it's not that he isn’t smart but rather wishful and hopeful.

It’s hard to watch as his plans quickly shatter, and his stern, old fashioned, father, Lord Randyl Tarly, scolds him worse than an unwanted dog. Poor Sam; he dreams of a quiet home life in some quaint little cottage with happy-go-lucky children and a sweet loving wife, but the world around him does not permit such fantasy. The real dilemma is not only that, but also his father fails to see that not everyone is born to suit their father or mother, not every child born to a warrior is meant to be a warrior. Some people are given vastly different skillsets and personalities for good reason. You never know how important those skills will be to society someday. So Sam goes from seeking his father’s approval to spiting him by stealing the family heirloom: a Valyrian steel sword.

Now what use could he possibly have for that? Sam changes plans and flees with Gilly the babe to Oldtown, and I’m betting with some of his father’s banner men hot on their trail.

It was great to see Horn Hill, the Tarly family and the great sword Heartsbane. I don’t want to nitpick the casting so I’ll just say good job. I really like the idea of Sam possibly gathering up all the VS swords left in the kingdom.

Across the narrow sea Daenaerys & her Khalasaar ride for Mereen. Dany puts two and two together and realizes that her army is too big for her britches; in that sea transportation is just not gonna work. Boats, boats, who’s got the boats? No one near, perhaps someone far? Little does she know that boats are coming to her. Is this like the Field of Dreams effect? (If you build it they will come.) She needs at least a thousand boats, which just so happens to be the exact same number of ships newly elected King Euron just so happens to be building. (Hey, it’s almost as if somebody were writing this…poorly.)

She decides her horsemen need a rousing speech, so she gets on the back of her dragon and shouts some words of bravado about “they shall rue the day” and “vengeance is ours.” Hip, hip, hooray!

Sorry if this is coming off a bit sarcastic, but Dany has really become a little too one-dimensional this season.

It’s very straightforward and a bit arrogant, even for her. I mean, granted she has her confidence up and she’s focused on her goal, which is great but I can’t help but feel the speech was a little short sighted, maybe even selfish. That is just not the speech I imagined would win over the Dothraki horde. Still, it’s passable, as the Dothraki are a very war-mongering people; they just want to ride and conqueror, so it doesn’t take much to stir up their interest. They want to be the strongest and Daenerys makes a clear display of power.

Maybe this is all intentional and they want to portray Dany as eventually letting her emotions get the best of her? I hope not, as I seriously want to cheer for her and see her win after all the hell she’s been through. However, I can’t help think that Dany’s story will be one of sacrifice. Her dilemma remains: can you be both a conqueror and a mother at the same time, and if not, how do you choose?

Anyway, Drogon looked great, even bigger and badder than ever before; bet that scene cost a pretty penny.

Mace Tyrell joins his army with Jaime’s—city watch, I presume?—to confront the Faith Militant and the High Sparrow, all in an effort to prevent Margaery from performing the walk of shame, and basically upend the faith. However, just as I predicted a few weeks ago on this very blog, the High Sparrow has converted Tommen, and Margaery, for that matter, as well. Yes, Olenna and Jaime, he’s turned your own children against you. It’s mind boggling just how mind boggling religion really can be. The level of mind boggle is astronomical. So Jaime basically gets fired from his dream job by his own damn son, and sure enough, Jaime goes whining back to Cersei. That’s two of Jamie’s sons that have pretty much ruined his life. Need I remind you that being king’s guard means almost everything to him, only coming a close second to Cersei. So, they once again go back to the idea of, “We are the only two people in the world.” “We are much stronger than them,” blah blah, and start swearing vengeance up and down, yadda yadda, same old song from them.

The show makes Jamie out to be an impulsive, hormonal fool. His thirst for lust towards Cersei and his desire for revenge are his only motivating factors and it’s become quite stale. They even have to have Cersei do all his scheming for him. I have to agree that this part of the show has become irredeemably bad. Still not as bad as Dorne.

Now we have Jaime being tasked with taking Riverrun back for the crown, as we found out from Petyr Baelish that Brynden Tully has re-taken it from the Freys.

This is directly following the book, save for the part about the Brynden, as Jaime does indeed go on this quest which takes him to various locations through out the Riverlands, and begins to notice the rebel uprisings—namely, the Brotherhood Without Banners.

I want to point out how Cersei mentioned not to worry about her and her upcoming trial. This is almost surely a tell that something will go horribly wrong for Cersei and Jaime won’t be there and probably won’t even know about it till it's too late. Cersei is placing all her trust in undead Gregor to win her innocence, but just how often do Cersei’s plans fall apart? 99 percent of the time? Cersei has underestimated the Sparrow almost every step of the way, and now he has her son working against her; don’t you think he took into consideration that she would call upon her monster to defend her honor? Don’t you think the Sparrow, and now Tommen, & more importantly the clever Margaery, will have a counter plan for that? They have already successfully taken Jaime out of the picture.

Meanwhile, at the sight of the Red Wedding, the elder Lord Walder demands his cronies to take back the castle Riverrun by threatening Edmure Tully’s life, whom they still have in captivity. Not a bad plan at all, but will it work? Edmure is the rightful heir to Riverrun and Warden of the Riverlands, but because of Tully’s alignment with house Stark during the War of the 5 Kings, the Riverlands were given to Lord Walder. Now that Brynden has Riverrun, the Freys are at a distinct disadvantage, not to mention the Brotherhood Without Banners has been killing off Freys here and there.

Oh, but don’t worry, the king has sent Jaime and his retinue to jumpstart the siege and deal with the rebellion. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s where Tormund, Davos, Mel Jon, Sansa, Pod, and Jaime’s favorite travel companion, Brienne, are now headed.

This surely puts Jaime and Brienne at odds, which is quite ironic seeing as how Jaime is the one that empowered Brienne to protect Sansa. This is where the books have climaxed Jaime and Brienne’s stories thus far. I am highly motivated to see how this all plays out. The idea of Brienne and Jaime being forced to battle has me on my heels.

I’m almost certain that Jaime will be taking Bronn with him, so this leaves us some very interesting possibilities. Will Bronn be willing to fight Pod? Is Tormund good enough to defeat Bronn in combat? Will Jon snap out of his “tired of fighting” stance and take up arms? How will Davos and his peace-making skills play into this? And then there’s the true wild card: Melisandre. This has all the makings of “the great northern conspiracy” and War of the 5 Kings the sequel (minus the Ironborn).

Opinion:

All in all, a very good episode with the big reveal of Benjen, a whole lot of plot development, the return of a bunch of essential characters and storylines, and some new ones as well: i.e. the Tarly family. We are only on episode six and it already feels like things are set up for a whole new season. Jaime leaving King’s Landing is a major turning point.

I really enjoyed this week’s adventure; the scene at Horn Hill was unique, and catching up with crotchety ol' Walder was good. Nice to see Edmure again. The downside was Jaime and Cersei hemming and hawing, but I really don’t have much to complain about.

Thanks for reading. Please send me your thoughts.

Warm regards,

From your host,

Jesse B.

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