Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5 – The Bells

I saw the episode last night and I actually loved it, everything that had been teased, hinted at, came to pass. It was exceptionally well shot and the cinematography was excellent.

Emilia Clarke has progressively gotten better where her acting is concerned and her performance last night was nothing short of spectacular. She conveyed so much just through her expressions, it was amazing.

I’ve seen a lot of people who are deeply unhappy with this episode and that’s cool, you’re entitled to your opinion. Is it rushed, absolutely, but everything about Game of Thrones has been rushed since season 7 began. So now I’m used to it. Did they leave Dany’s devolution too late? Yes they did. Is it rushed? Yes it is. Does it lack in nuances, of course it does and at this point, I don’t expect subtlety and nuance from D&D, I’ve gotten myself to look beyond those faults because that’s the only way I could enjoy it. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s episode, for once D&D didn’t pull any punches.

Dany’s descent into darkness has been foreshadowed over the last 2 seasons, it’s been there all along. I won’t say that she’s gone insane, she hasn’t, she’s just realised that she won’t get the love and adoration that she’s craved and she decided, if not through love, then she’ll rule through fear. Her scene with Jon also highlights this. It also highlights that she’s realised where his loyalties lie. In her mind, he chose his family over her, he chose Sansa over her. She gave him a choice and he made the wrong one.

Add to that, she’s lost a great deal over the last 2/3 episodes, she lost Viserion, Jorah, Rheagal and Missandei over a very short period of time. She’s been nearly stripped of everything that made her special, she’s been stripped of people who genuinely loved her and believed in her and all of that for a war that she needn’t have been so involved in. Because, even after all of that, she still didn’t get what she wanted, the people’s love. She’s experienced nothing but loss ever since she came to Westeros and she’s done playing nice.

I also liked the way the episode was structured, we first see Dany decimate Euron’s fleet and then The Golden Company and up until that point, if you’re a Dany fan, you’re really rooting for her. It follows in the same vein as the previous encounters that we’ve seen with dragons, where she’s clearly fighting someone the audience doesn’t like. She’s taking down Euron and the sell-swords, she’s still the good guy. But then, the perspective shifts, we see what the small folk see and experience when she turns on them after the bells have been rung. She is the dragon, she doesn’t see the difference between a soldier and a civilian, they’re all cannon fodder to her. If she can’t have them through love, she’ll make sure that they’re so terrified of her, no one will ever think of defying her. We see the damage she does with one dragon, I shudder to think what she would have been done with 2.

As far Varys’ end was concerned, we all saw it coming, I just didn’t expect Tyrion to be the one to betray him. Varys saw her tyranny and acted in the interest of the realm and for that, he has my respect.

Tyrion not only betrayed Sansa when he went to Dany, he also condemned Jon. I’ve had a problem with Tyrion since season 7 and this episode just furthered that. He’s been blind and made more errors than anyone can count, he underestimated Cersei, the list goes on. Like Varys, he can see the parts of Dany that are worrisome but unlike him, he chooses to be blind.

If you had any doubts about Pol!Jon, this episode ought to put them at rest. Jon comes to Dragonstone and continues to turn down the throne and refuses to plot against Dany because he’s already involved in a plot except no one knows about it. His problem has been his own arrogance. I know that he thinks he’s playing Dany for the good of the North and his family but she’s not blinded by him any more. His refusal to confide in Sansa and Arya has now come to bite him in the ass. Dany can see that she has been manipulated by him, that when it came to choose, he did not choose her. He’s complicit in the genocide at King’s Landing. As a military man, this is the most dishonourable thing he’s done. Like Tyrion, Jon convinced himself that what he was doing was right and it was the only thing they could do and now he’s well and truly screwed.

I liked that Sandor was able to change Arya’s mind, that she chose to live instead of dying for her vengeance. She’s a child who was forced to grow up too fast but all of that was when she thought that she had lost her family forever. But now she has them back, she has Sansa and Bran (okay, he doesn’t technically count but still) she has her home back, she even has Gendry, should she choose to be with him. She has something to live for now. It was a marked change that while she had gone to KL to kill someone, she ended up trying to save people.

Sandor and Gregor were too closely linked by their hatred for each other for them to have any other conclusion. Sandor had done horrible things but had tried to change and his greatest act wasn’t killing Gregor, it was saving Arya.

Many people were disappointed with Jaime’s decision to ride South to Cersei and, actually, it made sense. The show illustrated to the audience, his capacity to do good but it was underscored by his love for Cersei. He knew she was toxic, but she was also family, he loved her and and she was the mother of his children. He was never going to abandon her. He never regretted his actions, never expressed remorse for them, he went so far as to say that he would do them all again because they were at war.

In the end, Cersei died with her dignity intact and with the audiences sympathising with her in her final moments. The writers humanised her, her terror at her impending death and with no way to stop it. But she didn’t die alone, she was with someone who had loved her through everything and had fought tooth and nail to get to her.

Sansa, sadly, did not appear in this episode but she was referred to so many times that she may as well have been present. Sansa was right all along, all of her fears and concerns were realised in this episode. Dany is a tyrant, Queen of the Ashes. They exchanged one tyrant for a more dangerous one, one with a dragon. It is possible that in the next episode, she goes after Sansa since she’s the only one who’s still defiant and the North still has to be dealt with. She makes the threat crystal clear when she’s executing Varys, “let those who betray her know what will happen to them.”

The promo for next episode only shows us a few seconds from the first few minutes of the show, it would not surprise me if Dany decides to go to Winterfell to deal with Sansa and the North. Alternatively, it is also possible that Dany has her brought to KL (against her will). She already suspected Jon when Tyrion came to her at the beginning of episode 5, it is possible that she took measures to deal with the threat Sansa presented by being proactive and having her brought South without Jon’s knowledge. It would not surprise me if Bronn still has a role to play considering that he was still in the North when Jon and his men left Winterfell to join Dany.

Sansa Stark in the Final Season

I think we can collectively agree that D&D have taken it upon themselves to ruin Game of Thrones. The writing is shoddy, the passage of time makes no sense, pace is all over the place and characters are behaving as if they have split personalities, entire POVs are excluded in favour of some twist that plenty can see coming except the showrunners.

However, one character’s arc continues to fascinate and baffle me in equal measure, Sansa Stark. The show has been pushing 3 potential rulers at us since season 7: Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, the showrunners have placed them as competitors for throne except none of them are actually good at ruling. 


We know that Cersei doesn’t care about anyone save for herself, her children and her family (limited to Jaime) she doesn’t give 2 fucks about the smallfolk, the people of King’s Landing. If she could burn the entire city, she would happily do so.

Daenerys Targaryen is a conqueror not a queen, the show has told us this and also illustrated this very effectively. In the more recent seasons, we’ve seen her start to devolve, her Targaryen side is rising to the surface, her ambition for the throne is blinding her to everything she once fought for. She is autocratic and impulsive, both traits are very worrying. Add to that, now her own advisors are afraid of contradicting her. She’s started believing her own publicity and that is never a good thing.

Jon Snow is a good man, an honourable man
, he’s someone who inspires loyalty in others. He’s come a long way from his days as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, he’s trying to be smarter. Having said that, he still would not make a good king because he, genuinely has no interest in ruling. He’s a military man, he’s a man used to action, that’s who he is. He is the general you want on your side. He doesn’t have patience for diplomacy and politics, both of which are important aspects of ruling.

For all his talk at the end of Season 6 where he said that he and Sansa need to trust each other, I don’t see him extending that trust. He’s refusing to communicate with Sansa and Arya, two incredibly smart women who could help him figure out how to best handle Dany without him having to turn into a zombie. In his defense, he is acting in the interest of the North, but he’s making decisions for the entire North without taking into account what the Northern Lords think about those decisions.

Now we come to Sansa. The show has illustrated that Sansa has come a long way from the naive little girl she used to be. She’s finally got her home back and has power and agency in the North. She has allies who are loyal to her specifically. Of all the characters so far, she is perhaps the only one who has spent the most time actively working to help the smallfolk. She’s the one who’s making sure that they have enough food, that the armour is insulated against cold, advocating that their armies are rested before being sent to fight another battle. She is actively anticipating obstacles are preparing for them.

In the last episode, during the war council scene, the camera and editing position Sansa and Dany as adversaries, as two points of authority. Technically, Dany could have dismissed Sansa’s concerns and announced that their armies would leave immediately but she didn’t. Jon had to step in, both to protect Sansa and also validate Dany’s authority.

The showrunners are constantly showing the audience just how good Sansa is at ruling. Technically, all of the scenes where Sansa is managing the affairs at Winterfell don’t really affect the broader plot. So, if this aspect of Sansa wasn’t important, it would have been easy to leave some of these scenes on the editing room floor, but they chose to keep them in. They made sure that we got scenes where Cersei, Dany and Sansa are shown to be parallels.

The show goes to such great lengths, even now, every time Sansa questions Dany, her questions are relevant, her concerns are valid. So what is the point of all of these scenes in the broader plot? What do these scene mean for where her character is headed?

The way I see it; she is being set-up as a potential queen in her own right. If not then I don’t know what the point of all those scenes was. I know she will not be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. a) because the Iron Throne needs to be destroyed and the seven kingdoms need to be independent and b) there will be a committee that governs the matter of the kingdoms, for instance, the kings and queens of the various kingdoms would meet and discuss trade agreements and so on.

Also, let’s keep in mind, Sansa commands the loyalty of the Northern lords and the Vale, it would be fair to assume that she also commands loyalty from the Riverlands, thanks to Edmure Tully. That’s 3 kingdoms, roughly the same amount of kingdoms that are loyal to Cersie. Dany has Dorne and the Iron Islands. How is Sansa not a contender when she’s clearly been set up as one?

It would be sad if she learnt so much from Cersei and Littlefinger only to be pushed to the sidelines at the end, to become the wife who holds some authority instead of being in a position where she has authority on her own, not dependent on who she’s married to.