Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 3: "the Queen's Justice" Review part 1 of 2
Ice meets Fire
Jon Snow & Davos Seaworth arrived on Dragonstone to negotiate with Daenerys and her loyals. Dany immediately began by being brazen and expecting Jon to bend the knee, however Jon had not come to pay tribute, but rather to seek valuable resources, and possibly even allies in the quintessential war for survival. Dany was too busy acting regal and demanding fealty based on promises that were longer valid. It almost didn’t seem like her to take that sort of approach. She is usually quite receptive to people’s plight, which has earned her much respect and admiration. It is almost as if someone has been whispering in her ear.Cough*Olenna*Cough. Never the less Jon proceeds to explain about the massive threat north of the wall and how urgent it is. Yet Dany doesn’t warm up to this cause, because she is much too focused on fighting, claiming her birthright,& ruling the 7 kingdoms, the largest of which Jon will not give up control of. Perhaps if it were not for Melisandre addressing Jon as “King in the North” & Davos repeating this phrase, that Dany would not be viewing Jon as a threat but rather a strong potential advocate to her reign. As they say, arrogance comes before the fall.
Jon tries to stay on topic & does a great job of deflecting her high and mighty act. He takes the lead in the discussion after Davos gives a commendable performance of appraising Jon and the northerners’ cause. Tyrion also does well at balancing the large amount of tension between these two monarchs. Tyrion makes several good points as to why it would behoove Jon to pacify Dany with a bow or show of subservience, but Jon sees past all the boisterous posturing and presses the issue of the dire threat of the army of the dead. He KNOWS. Jon does know something, he knows more than anybody that there isn’t anymore time to play the child’s game of who gets to sit on what chair. So while Dany is pondering how she can take the throne without killing innocent people, and worrying about who might betray her, or who claims what piece of land, the Night’s King gets closer and closer to destroying everything. Winter is already here, and the time for civil war has long passed. Dany & even Tyrion fail to see this at the moment but will no doubt deeply regret their under sight.
Dany continued to push not only her lineage but also her achievements in Jon’s face, hoping to intimidate him (like a dragon), but when she looks at him and listens to Davos she should see a mirror reflection of herself and her own rise to glory. Jon won the hearts of the people not by shouting commands at them, or demanding loyalty, not by restating his name over & over, not by murdering, not by scheming but by sticking up for them when no one else would, by listening to their pleas and taking a stand to make things better. That’s what Dany did when she ruled Meereen and that’s what Jon does everyday. She desperately needs to see the selflessness in Jon and his honest passion to save humanity. It is only when Dany has time to cool down and listen to the knowledge of Tyrion that she begins to sympathize with Jon. However, it is not enough to sway her from spending all her time and effort defeating Cersei, just as I predicted.
Nevertheless Dany generously allows Jon & crew to extract the invaluable dragonglass, but what good is dragonglass if ya got no dragon fire to meld it? After all we learned from the book Sam stole/ borrowed from the Citadel that dragon flame is the method in which Dragonglass can be processed to make weapons (probably such as Jon’s sword).
Word of Warnings
Let’s not forget that while all this parlay was taking place Varys confronted Melisandre once again (boy he is really up her arse lately). He asks why she stays her distance & she retorts casually that she made her mistakes (burning certain people). He then gives her a scathing warning to leave before someone ends her for such misdeeds, to which she counters by expressing that they will both die in the moons to come. This shows that Mel is used to people like Varys being prejudice towards her & that she is well beyond it. She also might have fore seen his death. I like seeing that despite all her horrible failures, she is satisfied by bringing Fire (Dany) & Ice (Jon) together. The battle of words between characters in this series is always interesting, and I give her the victory in those exchanges with Varys.
Tyrion's Tactical Advantage
Now that things have been settled between Jon & Dany, Tyrion can shift his attention toward Casterly Rock, where they sent the Unsullied to conquer the unconquerable. Using Tyron’s intimate knowledge of the sewer system, they are able to easily infiltrate the otherwise impregnable structure. I love how they made call backs to when Tyrion was bragging about designing the sewers from season 2, and stealing a quote from when Bronn spoke about the Eyrie not being so impregnable all the way back in season 1.
Unexpected Divergence
So the Unsullied succeeded with ease and were left to wonder why the castle defenses were so unpopulated. In a rare moment the show gives us what we call in show biz, “a swerve” as the Lannister army that was expected to be at the castle has gone south to Highgarden to surprise attack Olenna before Dany had a chance to utilize her army.So while the Unsullied scratched their heads, Euron’s fleet swung in and burned their ships.
This would be a well orchestrated moment by the writers, except that in order for the fans to believe it, Cersei or Jaime would have to of had a really keen informant on the southern or western coasts and a super speedy method of communication to the point that 1. They could spot and recognize Dany’s forces off shore. 2. Predict where they were going. 3. Assume that they would not have additional forces at Highgarden. 4. Be willing to give up 1 of the best castles and a couple thousand soldiers.5. Believe that Randyll Tarly would directly murder his liege lords. It’s just a lot to overlook.
Opinion & Analysis
Gotta say, Tyrion’s plan would have trumped them if Yara’s fleet had been successful at delivering the Dornish to King’s Landing. In which case, the Lannister’s would have been too preoccupied with a siege of the royal city to march against Highgarden. So once again we have that damned uncle Euron to thank for this. I look forward to discussing all the events that took place at King’s Landing, Winterfell, and the Citadel,in my 2nd half of this episode’s review.
Thanks for reading, please check back HERE: https://creators.co/@adreamofspring the night after each new episode.
As always feel free to share your thoughts, opinions, questions and more in the comments, or email me personally: ThisisJess@gmail.com