‘You have a good heart, Jon Snow. It will get us all killed’
Our spoiler-heavy recap of season 5 episode 9, “The Dance of Dragons.’’
If you’re a Game of Thrones regular, you know that Sunday’s episode was the ninth of the season, which has historically been the “OMG!’’ episode of previous seasons. From “Baelor’’ to “Blackwater’’ to “The Rains of Castamere’’ to “The Watchers on the Wall,’’ episode nine has always been a big, bloody, raucous affair.
Sunday’s installment, “The Dance of Dragons,’’ starts in Stannis Baratheon’s war camp, a collection of tents in the blustery snows somewhere north of Winterfell. Inside one of those tents, the Red Priestess, Melisandre, startles and runs outside, just in time to watch as the camp is set on fire. Tents, men, and horses are set ablaze. We find out it’s the work of the raiders Ramsey Bolton organized last episode.
The fire has set Stannis’s campaign on fire, too. He no longer has the ability to finish the march to Winterfell. Nor does he have the will or supplies to retreat back to The Wall. Ser Davos Seaworth starts to ask his king “If we can’t march forward, and we won’t march back…’’
Davos trails off to follow Stannis’s gaze. The king is staring at his daughter, Shireen. You’ll recall that Melisandre told the king he should sacrifice his little girl in order to gain victory. Things are not looking good for the sweet girl with the greyscale scars.
Up north, at the wall, Jon Snow and the rest of the Hardhome survivors are approaching the gate that leads to Castle Black. After a couple of tense moments, Alliser Thorne, the Watch’s First Ranger and leading Jon-hater, orders the gates opened.
Inside the castle, Jon tells Samwell Tarly that he feels like a failure because so many died at Hardhome. Sam disagrees, pointing out all of the wildings he was able to save from the Whitewalkers and get to resettle in the North.
“I don’t think that fact’s lost on them,’’ says Jon, motioning toward some seriously angry-looking Night’s Watch men.
“You have a good heart, Jon Snow. It will get us all killed,’’ growls Thorne as he walks by. The Wall has become a very dangerous place for Jon.
The action snaps back to Stannis’s camp, where the king orders Davos to return to the Wall and ask the Night’s Watch for food and supplies. This is a job for a messenger boy, not the hand of the king. Davos says as much, but is rebuffed by Stannis. It’s clear he wants Davos and his conscience out of the way for whatever he has planned next. Davos asks to take Shireen away from the war camp’s misery. No dice.
Instead, Davos visits Shireen and offers her a gift. He’s carved her a wooden stag, saying it was to thank her for teaching him to read. She’s reading “The Dance of Dragons’’ and tells Davos about a knight who tried — and failed — to trick a dragon with a mirror. Davos kisses her goodbye.
Far from the snow, in Dorne, Jamie Lannister is called to court, where he meets with Prince Doran. Doran, you’ll remember, is the ruler of Dorne and brother of Oberyn, who lost his head fighting The Mountain last season. Oberyn’s lover Ellaria is also at court, as is Trystane, the heir to Dorne, and Princess Myrcella.
Doran presses Jamie on why he snuck into Dorne without announcing his arrival. It was because of a threat: one of Myrcella’s necklaces in the mouth of a viper. This is the first Doran has heard of the message, and he stares daggers at Ellaria, who pretends not to notice.
She does notice when Doran says Jamie won’t be beheaded, and she pours out her chalice of wine when Doran toasts to the health of King Tommen, Jamie’s son/nephew and ruler of the seven kingdoms. Apparently, Tommen insists that his sister return with Jamie to King’s Landing. Now it’s Myrcella’s turn to look shocked and aggrieved. It’s a wonder no one spits out wine in surprise during the scene.
It’s all too much for Ellaria. “No wonder you can’t stand. You have no spine,’’ she hisses at Doran. He grabs her arm and assures her she’ll never speak to him like that again.
Down in the cells, two of the sand snakes (Oberyn’s daughters, who were locked up after Ellaria’s assassination plan was foiled) are playing the Dornish version of bloody knuckles. The younger Nym shows some serious psych-out ability and a hard right cross when she smacks her sister across the face. She even taunts Bronn one more time before the guards take him before Prince Doran’s court. Nym’s got game.
Bronn’s life is spared, thanks to Trystane. But it comes with one condition; a sharp elbow to the face from the massive royal guard, Areo Hotah. Everyone but Bronn seems to see this as a fair resolution.
Over in Braavos, Ayra is back at the canals, shilling shucked shells of mollusks and bivalves. She’s still observing the thin man from the previous episode, but an old face stops her in her tracks.
It’s Ser Meryn Trant. In a show with hundreds of named characters, you remember his because Arya incessantly chanted it — along with the Hound, the Mountain, and Cersei — as she settled in to sleep every night. The knight of the King’s Guard is in town to escort the buffoonish Mace Tyrell, who’s there to deal with the Iron Bank of Braavos on behalf of King Tommen. Trant also seems to notice Arya. Compound interest has never taken this ominous a turn.
Tyrell is oblivious to the connections being made around him, and to the mood of Tycho Nestoris, the seriously displeased banker he’s chatting with.
Later that night, Trant and a couple of guards make their way to a brothel. Arya heads inside, too, still selling oysters. Through a window, she watches as the detestable Trant asks the madam for an underaged prostitute. He seems to spot Arya again before she’s kicked out of the building.
Back in Dorne, Doran demands Ellaria’s allegiance, which she offers through tears in front of the sand snakes. She then wanders off to mock Jamie, calling out his incestuous relationship with Cersei.
“A hundred years ago, no one would have batted an eye at you. If you were named Targaryen,’’ she says.
Then she backs off, admitting she knows Myrcella had no part in Oberyn’s death. “Perhaps even you are even innocent of that,’’ she says, leaving the room. For two seasons, Ellaria has shown no sign of quit. Is this newfound sense of defeat a ruse?
We head back north to the war cap. Shireen is playing with her new toy stag when Stannis enters her tent. She tells her father about “The Dance of Dragons,’’ the book she mentioned to Davos. It’s an account of a Targaryen civil war.
“Why is that a dance,’’ asks Stannis. “Doesn’t make much sense.’’
“I think it’s poetic,’’ says Shireen, showing the great difference between daughter and father.
Then Stannis dives into hypotheticals and talk about making choices, all of which sounds increasingly ominous for the little princess, given the red priestess’s visions.
“If a man knows who he is, and remains true to himself, then the choice is no choice at all. He must fulfill his destiny and become who he is meant to be, however much he may hate it,’’ he says.
At this, she begs to help her father and hugs him.
“Forgive me,’’ he mutters.
In the next scene, Shireen is led to an unlit pyre and tied to its post. Melisandre prays as Shireen cries for her mother, then shrieks in agony as the fire consumes her.
The entire camp watches as a little girl is sacrificed to the red god.
From the horror in the snow, we’re next sent to Meereen, and the horror in the sand as the great fighting pit is open for business. Daenerys sits in the royal box as a tardy Hizdahr zo Loraq joins her. Husband, wife, sellsword Daario Naharis, and advisor Tyrion Lannister banter through the first match.
The chatter stops when the second match starts and Jorah Mormont salutes his queen. Stunned, Daenerys gives the signal and the fight begins. Things start badly for Jorah, which, in a fighting pit, is a serious problem. But he gets the better of his axe-wielding opponent, stabbing him in the heart with a dagger. Next up in the melee is a Braavosi swordsman, who dances around Jorah’s more traditional fighting style.
It’s not long before Jorah’s on the ground, at the mercy of the Braavosi. Tyrion urges Dany to end the fight, but she does nothing. But just as the killing blow is readied, another pit fighter skewers Jorah’s opponent with a spear. That’s good news for Jorah, except now he has to fight the spearman.
He kills his newest foe, wheels, and flings the spear toward the royal box, impaling a masked intruder standing behind the queen. This was a Son of the Harpy. The real death match in the fighting pit is about to start.
The Sons are actually legion in the stadium, and bedlam ensues as they start killing spectators and guards alike. Hizdahr, whom Daario and maybe even Dany suspected was in league with the Sons, is one of the first stabbed to death.
Now it’s a race to get Dany out of the kill zone, with Jorah and Daario leading the way. But the gates out of the stadium are shut, and more Sons pour into the arena. They’re surrounded. Dany closes her eyes and waits for her guards to fall.
Then she hears it. The screech of a dragon.
It’s Drogon, returning to his mother in a ball of fire and leathery wings. Just like that, Sons are set ablaze and torn apart.
In the midst of all this chaos, Dany crosses the pits to Drogon, stands firm as he rages in front of her, and then climbs on his back. With a word of old Valyrian, she commands him to fly.
He flies, and Dany disappears with her dragon into the skies over Slaver’s Bay.
Stray arrows
∙Did it strike anyone else as weird that Jon Snow arrived back at the gate north of the wall, when he sailed to Hardhome using Stannis’s fleet? Wouldn’t they just sail to the south side of the wall and march from Eastwatch?
∙The episode title and the book Shireen is reading, “The Dance of Dragons,’’ is very similar in name to book five of The Song of Ice and Fire, “A Dance With Dragons.’’ Most of the action in tonight’s episode was based on that book.
∙For anyone who grew up in the 1980’s, it was impossible to watch that final scene of Dany riding her dragon and not think of Atreyu riding Falcor in The Neverending Story.
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