Game of Thrones: Good Week for Lovers of the Tyrells, Bad Week for the Tyrells

“Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” is both the title of this episode of Game of Thrones and the words of House Martell. They also apply to Arya Stark, who has managed to endure five seasons’ worth of unfortunate events. They would also have applied to her sister Sansa, but…Well, we’ll get to that later. Jaime and Bronn made it to Sunspear in Dorne and even met the Sand Snakes, and Littlefinger managed to get Cersei to name him Warden of the North, provided he can take Winterfell with the Knights of the Vale and serve up Sansa’s head to Cersei. That’s about as likely to happen as Ser Jorah spontaneously recovering from greyscale; Cersei might have puzzled out Littlefinger’s true angle here, but: wine. Here’s whom the gods smiled upon, and who had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

A Good Week For…

Arya Stark Someone Else

Arya finally got to see what the House of Black and White does with those dead bodies! It’s like that 3D printer from Mission: Impossible 3 somehow landed in Essos—caverns and caverns of faces to use as masks.

Lovers of The Queen of Thorns

Olenna Tyrell—The Queen of Thorns, not that you needed reminding—is back and absolutely bitchin‘. “You can smell the shit from here,” she says on the approach to King’s Landing. It’s the Faith Militant, Lady Olenna. They’re not overfond of bathing.

A Bad Week For…

Ser Jorah Mormont

He was taken as a slave! (With Tyrion, who remains alive until the slavers can find a “cock merchant,” which sounds like a fairly niche occupation.) On top of the greyscale he has to deal with, now he’s being taken to Meereen in shackles to be used as fodder in the reopened fighting pits.

Margaery Tyrell

She was taken by the Faith Militant! (Along with her brother Ser Loras, who got totally screwed in the crappy, metaphorical way by his “squire.”) Oh, this is no good at all. Cersei has been flailing around for a while in an effort to keep hold of her son, but this latest assault on House Tyrell—who, mind you, is essentially keeping the Seven Kingdoms fed and moneyed—cannot possibly end well for her. Remember, the People love Margaery.

“Bad Week” Is Too Flip For Such a Terrible Thing

Sansa Stark

No exclamation point here: Sansa was raped, by Ramsay Bolton. (Yes, it is still rape even if he’s her husband.) The Game of Thrones writers have spent, quite literally, two years showing us exactly how cruel and twisted Ramsay is. We believe them. There’s no real need to subject Sansa (or the viewers) to this kind of horror—it’s almost too in line with what’s expected. Not that Ramsay needed to show her kindness, but maybe we didn’t need to see yet another wedding night rape? Maybe there was some other storytelling avenue we could have gone down?