Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5 Power Rankings: Well, That’s A Choice
I feel weird, you feel weird, we’re all little bitches, welcome to little bitch country, LET’S DO THE POWER RANKINGS!!!!!
Welcome to the Game of Thrones Power Rankings, where everyone in Game of Thrones is RANKED.
Well okay, I mean okay! Kind of wish I was the “discuss the duck fat potatoes and the three lip-smacking dandies on MasterChef” kind of recapper and not the “discuss horrible burning bodies and the most profound fantasy slaughter, oh the humanity” recapper but look… !
Have you ever committed eight years — actually nine, it’s nine years, I had more hair back then — to a TV show and just really invested in it (googling names, etc.) only for that show to set you on fire and peel your eyeballs with potato peelers and spit in your peeled eyes and then roll you into a hole in the ground and piss on your corpse?
But like, emotionally?
I feel weird, you feel weird, we’re all little bitches, welcome to little bitch country, LET’S DO THE POWER RANKINGS!!!!!
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Winners
Dany (however many points she wants, please don’t hurt me)
Um… congrats?
Many congratulations and uncomplicated accolades to you Queen, may your reign be prosperous and unambiguously morally correct, comments are now closed on this post :)
Dany had a rough start to the episode!
Her second-tier best friend Tyrion confessed that Varys was plotting against her and Dany quickly guessed exactly how the Jon’s parentage gossip spread, as all of her friends are messy benches who love drama and literally what else is there to talk about.
By the way, Dany has crazy hair now which also means that she has a crazy brain.
“See how my tendrils remain quite unbrushed.”
“I said, do you see how my individual hairs fray, how they stick out like cotton threads from a very poorly made shirt.”
“My god, she is quite mad!”
“NOTE THE LACK OF CONCEALER ON ONE’S ROYAL EYELIDS.”
Later on, Dany is relaxing near a fire that is not fuelled by a burning human body, but is fuelled in the traditional manner (the body of a tree) when Jon enters the room to check that she’s not kissing Grey Worm.
Dany yells at Jon for letting their family secret slip and he yells “I LOVE YOU!!!!” very quickly to stop the conversation, an age old trick that men have employed for centuries, it’s a classic really.
This was the first time it happened.
Jon says “You will be my queen forever” (don’t fall for that, ladies) and Dany is like “Is that all I am to you” and then starts trying to make kissies with Jon. Jon cannot bring himself to return the kissies.
It’s a bad day for aunts, that’s for sure.
Jon’s refusal to makeout with Dany is bad news for everyone else, as Dany seems to confuse the feelings of ‘sexual frustration’ with ‘the desire to slaughter people’.
“Jon, you keep moving your mouth to my upper middle face, is this a new kissing style, Jon.”
“Jon, you are now so far from my mouth that you can look me full in the face, we could fit a third face between our faces.”
“Ohhhh, ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT.”
Dany storms away from this room and goes to another room in which Tyrion is lightly suggesting that Dany should avoid burning children alive when trying to beat Cersei. Dany thinks it’s actually more merciful to burn children alive.
Tyrion is extremely, “Yikes okay, but stop burning people when you hear the bells!”
(Jon listening from the other room: “Bells?”)
Anyway, Dany’s guys caught Jaime slinking back to his sister, so Dany threatens to murder Tyrion for the twentieth time that day. Tyrion is frightened.
“I’m evil now, didn’t you watch the behind the scenes last week.”
At the battle at King’s Landing, Dany flames a bunch of ships, bursts through a wall and then lands on a castle. “This is for you, Cersei,” thinks Dany, probably.
“I am embarrassing you.”
“I must confess that I am embarrassed.”
“Your hair looks super crazy right now.”
Jon immediately looks concerned, but the Lannister men put down their swords.
“Ring the bell!” the men yell to each other while they’re quietly shitting their pants. Then the bell rings, which means SCHOOOOooLLSSS OUT FOR SUMMMERRRRRR!!!!!!!Just kidding, it means that the King’s Landing army is horribly frightened and defeated.
Dany, with soot on her face and madness in her heart (fact check this) decides to burn many soldiers and many civilians. She ignores the ‘we surrender, please stop killing us’ bells and starts demolishing massive buildings and tiny persons, weren’t you planning on living in King’s Landing though, oh well.
“I love this song, this very bell-heavy track, good soundtrack for burning.”
”Dragons are good at rebuilding cities, right.”
Dany is all, “I’m so sorry, I thought the bells meant ‘continue to kill’ sorry about that”. There doesn’t seem to be a huge reason for it. It’s a mad world!
“All around me are familiar faces, just kidding, I can’t see the people I’m killing.”
Jaime (9 points)
Um, he got what he always dreamed of? Dying in his twin sister’s arms?
“I wish my dream had been to eat my weight in red velvet cupcakes or record a reggae song, oh well.”
Jamie is imprisoned and is very unhappy about it.
“Please, I need to get back to my glorious and most heinous sister, she is the love of my dumb idiot life” he says to anyone who listens. Luckily, Tyrion listens! He lets Jaime go with one idiotic condition.
Tyrion: “Can you convince Cersei, who can be convinced this time, I know it, to not do a war.”
Jaime: “No, I don’t think I can convince her.”
Tyrion: “But can you.”
Jaime: “Yes.”
Jaime is free to travel into King’s Landing, but unfortunately gets there after the gates close and has to waggle his golden hand around like a VIP pass.
“I’m friends with the support act!!!!!”
Unfortunately when he tries to go in the back way, Euron emerges out of the ocean like an inconsequential, leather-clad Venus.
“THAT’S RIGHT, I’M STILL ON THE SHOW!!!”
For no reason other than he is bored, Euron is like “let’s fight!!!” They roll around in the sand while Geri Hailliwell’s cover of ‘It’s Raining Men’ plays in the background and Euron stabs Jaime in the side.
Euron is like, “Hey you fought well, no hard feelings” but Jaime, who has nothing but hard feelings, stabs Euron in the middle guts which apparently makes you more dead than being stabbed in the side guts.
RIP Euron, no-one can say that you weren’t on this show.
Gone and also forgotten :)
Cersei is just quietly walking out of her open-air palace and Jaime turns up to hug her and Cersei pretends she is not disgusted by the blood gushing out of Jaime’s side wounds.
“Oh my god, gross.”
“I hope Qyburn has a stain stick.”
Cersei, shocked that she has lost a war against a dragon, starts freaking out, but Jaime says their catchphrase “nothing else matters, only us” so she chills out until they die horribly.
“Oh no rocks, our one weakness.”
So, Jamie and Cersei are dead are we going to keep watching next week, or…?
Just kidding, we will never stop watching, even when it ends we will continue to watch and watch and watch until our eye strings snap and our eyes shoot out of our heads and we walk around like eyeless zombies and march upon Benioff and Weiss’ mansion (they live together, none of your business) and throw coconuts at the door until they apologise to us.
The Hound (7 points)
He also got what he wanted?
I’m so… happy for you.
The Hound and Arya very casually walk into King’s Landing, when they are stopped by a young soldier. He’s like, “Hark! Who goes there!” and Arya says, “Me, Arya Stark, I have come to murder the queen.”
“I may need to escalate this,” says the soldier.
“Can you wait until I can check my boss’ iCal to see if he has time to conference in, please.”
The Hound is very sweet to Arya before he dies and is like, “Don’t worry about Cersei, let a dragon eat her” and she says “Sandor, thank you” and it’s all very touching, then The Hound gets one of his eyeballs squished by his brother’s thumb.
Here is what this scene — the Cleganebowl all you sickos have been waiting for — taught me about life:
- If you want to say no and are too bashful to say no, pick a man up and throw him away from you until brain oozes out of the man’s ears. People will know what you mean.
- If your bodyguard and your bodyguard’s brother are about to have a physical altercation and you have just witnessed your bodyguard throw a man until brains oozed out of his ears, just keep your head down and walk out of there like you’re playing a game where you have to squint at your knees, don’t do this in a threatening way though.
- Stabbing a man in the head doesn’t always kill them, your best chance is throwing him off a burning building, even then whomst is to say.
Losers
Humanity (5 points)
There are about four people left in King’s Landing, say la vee I guess.
“A dragon simply cannot get past shutters, it is known.”
Harry “Who” Strickland (4 points)
Look, it’s Harry Strickland on a white pony! What do you mean you don’t care about him!!!!!
What!!!!!!
Oh no, the dragon has fired open the gate! Harry Strickland’s hair is mussed! Embarrassing! He’s running away! He is immediately murdered by Grey Worm! Double Embarrassing!
“This really has been a super embarrassing day for me, Harry Strickland.”
Cersei (3 points)
Cersei: “I think I am doing a good job of winning this war, I just have a feeling that I’m really good at this.”
Qyburn: “Don’t worry you’re a genius at this.”
*15 minutes later*
“Your grace, may I tender my resignation.”
Arya (2 points)
Arya may have lived, but she seemed more disturbed by the carnage she witnessed at King’s Landing than anything she has seen previously. It was distressing!
Arya’s mission began with so much promise, as she walked into King’s Landing without a disguise because she loves hype.
“I hope someone recognises me!!!!!”
Then we follow Arya as she witnesses bodies burning and people falling on her and buildings falling on her and asbestos falling on her and she does survive, but it’s still very depressing. Then suddenly, while she is looking at all the ash that used to be buildings and people, a white horse trots up and is like “hello”.
“I have experienced the most grievous trauma.”
“hello Arya I am a pretty horse, let me help you.”
“neigh.”
So Arya gets on her new friend Horse and rides away, who knows what will happen.
Varys (1 point)
RIP Varys, you were done dirty.
You probably should have known that Tyrion was the sort of work colleague who would accidentally-on-purpose BCC your boss into an email like, “LOOK WHAT EVERYONE IS SAYING ABOUT YOU”.
I have never done that, but I heard of a girl who did it once. Don’t worry, you don’t know her.
Anywho, Varys realises he is about to be executed and takes off all of his extremely precious, plastic rings from ASOS.
“Better save these for the archives in case The Met Gala theme next year is ‘Varys’.”
Tyrion is like, “OKAY OKAY IT WAS ME WHO BETRAYED YOU” and Varys is like, duh. Varys is pretty relaxed about it all.
“I hope I’m NOT wrong about her being a Mad Queen you dumb bitches, seeya.”
Dany is like “Drogon, please kill him” and Drogon does.
Despite having heard her entire life’s story and being complicit in every second of this current event, Jon suddenly stares at Dany like, “Wait… you kill people with dragons?”
“Wait.”
“You kill… ?”
“Wait.”
Death Count: I mean, a lot
RIP Varys
RIP Cersei
RIP Jaime
RIP Qyburn
RIP Euron
RIP The Hound
RIP that lady with the Pixie Cut, she seemed daring and unconventional.
WTF, Who Knows
Jon
So weird how you can be ready to take a weekend trip south with your girlfriend and be totally into it on Friday night but then Sunday morning rolls around (she kills a lot of people, ignores bells, etc.) and you’re like, “wow, let’s slow things down a bit!!!”
Well, that’s the ballad of little Jonny Snow.
“If only I was born an ugly man.”
At first Jon tells Varys off for being mean about Dany being a ‘Mad Queen’ but then realises that Varys has never been interested in having a conversation with him before, so must know that he is a Targaryen.
“What I have to tell you is very important and it is this: I like you better than her.”
“She is my queen how dare you, also keep you voice down, she gets so very cross with me.”
At this point Jon would rather gnaw off his own arm than seek a leadership role, but he does enter King’s Landing with the swagger of someone over 25 who has just correctly identified a song on triple j.
“We are the handsome boys, behold us and weep.”
“Yeah.”
Jon is quickly horrified that Dany chooses to burn areas that don’t necessarily need to be burnt and that Grey Worm is stabbing unarmed men and that everyone is stabbing and attacking civilians and wow, that dragon really is just burning many people.
“I must admit, I’m starting to have doubts about my new relationship.”
Will Jon turn on Dany? Will he want to be king? Will he split up Westeros into separate kingdoms? Will he ever seen Sansa and Arya again? Will he decide to ditch it all and hang out at Castle Black with Tormund and Ghost? Will he ever regret shaving off his beard before he hosted Saturday Night Live?
“Oh right, that’s what my chin looks like.”
Um, I don’t know, SEE YOU FOR THE GAME OF THRONES FINALE NEXT WEEK!!!!!
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Sinead Stubbins is a writer from Melbourne who has done stuff for Vulture, The AV Club, Pitchfork, Vice, frankie and Elle. She tweets about Drake, Gilmore Girls and cheeseburgers at @sineadstubbins.