Game of Thrones 6x1 'The Red Woman': Our Impure World

Game of Thrones 6x1 leaves some questions unanswered *Cough, Stabbings*, and hints at an end in sight. With plenty of bloodshed.

Reviewed while listening to old Blonde Redhead, who inspired this review's title. Also My.head.

**Spoiler alert. This review is long.**

'You believe you are pure, perfect? Wholly without sin,’ the High Sparrow asks.

To which Margery Tyrell replies, ‘None of us are.’

Except Davos. Davos is pure. Or closer to it than anyone else left in Westeros. Maybe Brienne.

You can tell someone’s goodness by how they react to pain, and loss. Especially when that loss is wholly unjust. Season 6 opens up with a tall order of morbid news leftover from last season’s high body count (even by Game of Thrones standards). And everyone reacts in different ways, revealing just where on the purity spectrum they are.

Myrcella’s death is a tragic and unstable bridge for Jaime and Cersei to rebuild a relationship, undoubtedly short-term, after drifting apart for so long. Lena Headey is given another opportunity to cloak one of the most vile book characters in a fragile and tortured veil. She’s despondent against an inevitable fate for her children, because an oracle told her long ago they would all die. Sympathy for her loss can almost make one forget the pain she’s inflicted on others, the circles of violence and chaos she’s spun for her own desires. So it’s left for Jaime to remind her. I almost called his promise of vengeance out of character given his recent development into... not an upright citizen, but one at least propping himself on one knee after being the nadir of assholes. So at first this seemed jarring. But then I thought of the fact that this is not Jaime who fought a bear for the Maiden Fair. This is Jaime the grieving father, the Lannister son who’s felt unjustly condemned by everyone for years, even his own father. Loss of the child who had accepted him is now a way to channel that frustration. He was never pure, because he was bred to be ruthless. Brienne offered a path from that. But all Jamie sees at the moment is Myrcella. And it’s hard to fault him, too easy to understand, for his vindictive vow to kill everyone else.

Then there’s the Sand Snakes. They’re reacting to Myrcella’s death, too. For them, it’s all a stepstone for kinslaying. Ellaria stabs Doran literally in the heart, her daughter/niece/whatever stabbing Doran’s guard in the back (What’s his name? He’s cool in the books). Then the others take out a teenage boy, another kin. They call it righteous strength eliminating ‘weak men.’ But two children and a MAN IN A FUCKING WHEELCHAIR have been murdered because they can’t move on from Oberyn’s death. It should also be noted how clumsy this sequence was. As has virtually everything in Dorne. There's no emotion or investment in Ellaria betraying Doran, except perhaps a sigh of 'Here we go again with the backstabbings.' The show seems so tired from juggling so many plots that they just phone it in with the Martells. It's sad, given they're one of the more intriguing folks in the books.

But the episode's main theme is still prevalent here. The Snakes’ form of grief over Oberyn is part power play and part blind, petulant, primitive rage. Again, the easy way. They’re not rulers, and they can’t fight the White Walkers. The Sand Snakes and Jaime accept their lack of purity. In fact, they bask in it, embrace it, and call it strength in a merciless realm. For them, the only solution to wrongs in the world is equal and opposing wrong. It’s these raw emotions that leave the world ripe for picking for the White Walkers. Death begets death begets death.

And then you have the absolutes. The complete juxtaposition of purity and sickness, in Davos and Ramsay. One of the finest hallmarks of the show is how it has found ways to humanize characters who in the books are utter monsters. For all his talk of wanting characters to be gray, George RR Martin has some pretty black showings in literary Ramsay and Cersei. But the show has proven again it can tap into something more comprehensible in them. Ramsay’s reflection of how he met Miranda actually made him seem like a person with feelings! Gods forbid! Both are still despicable humans, but at least here Ramsay is human. There was never a moment like this in the books, and for that the show should be commended. But they make sure to wrap his pain in frightening malice. He mourns her by vowing not just revenge, but untempered bloodshed. And torture. There will be torture. Ramsay is so corroded that anything even remotely humane, like grief for a loved one, is twisted into something soul-eating. He truly thought Miranda was respectable, and loved her. She was ‘good meat.’ So what does Ramsay do? Bury her? Cremate her? Nope. Feed the good meat to dogs. Unlike Jaime and the Sand Snakes, none of this is an easy solution of vengeance to deal with loss. It’s natural to him. It’s all he knows.

And all Davos knows is his duty. Remember, this is a man who loved Shireen Baratheon as a daughter, and loved Stannis as almost messianic. He’s already grieving deep loss before the episode even opens. And then he finds Jon Snow, butchered by his own men. It would be enough to poison anyone with the easy path of revenge. But Davos doesn’t even think on it for a second. Dolorous Edd does, because he’s tainted by the world like virtually everyone else. But Davos was an ambivalent smuggler who fed a castle under siege and was rewarded for it. Davos knows honor, and duty. And he knows there’s no point in revenge. What would going after the Boltons get him? What could Edd do for Jon by trying to assassinate Alliser Throne? Davos, in a world spun in chaos that’s fodder for the Others… Davos is near that purity point. He’s the soldier for light against the dark night Melisandre talks about. When you follow a world as menacing and draped in violence as Game of Thrones, it’s nice when the show tosses a bone for hope. Hope not necessarily in Jon coming back, though there is still hope for that. But hope in Davos not being alone at the gates.

Brienne might be there with him, even if she took a tinge of vengeance for Renly when she executed Stannis. But at the end of the day, she knows herself to be the Oathkeeper. She kills because she must. Her deaths don’t beget other deaths. She comes in riding a horse like an actual white knight and saves Sansa. I mean, you can't describe the complete cathartic glee of watching her cut down Ramsay's dog hunters (Podrick, too! He's a boss, now!). And this is the same person who started Jaime down a path towards being good (which he may have just turned back from judging by this episode). She is now Sansa’s protector. She’s not a killer. She’s not on a quest for revenge. She’s doing her duty to protect life. And hopefully Davos is in the business of reviving life.

As for the Essos plots (Mereen and all), it’s more about defiance and political maneuvers. Tyrion has a city to maintain in its ruler's absence, and Danaerys is once again at square one: a slave to Dothraki. But she’s stronger now, and she has a purpose. The question is, how much of said purpose, to claim the throne of Westeros, is dipped in her sense of duty and justice, and how much is borne of a more nefarious defiance. Which end of the spectrum will the person who’s probably the most important character, bar Jon, end up? When Danaerys returns to Westeros, with whatever army, she will find a torn and scorched land steeped in pointless wars and some of the darkest acts humanity can offer, even for this world. And she’ll find the White Walkers. So how will she react? What will she become? ‘Red Woman’ makes sure to check in on her and Tyrion without going too deeply. 1) Because the plots just aren’t as interesting, and 2) because the focus must be on the setting where the two characters will be later. The place they’ll have to save, as Varys has predicted. It’s a smart move on the writers’ part. We’ll get back to Danaerys and Tyrion soon, I’m sure. But this is about Westeros.

This is what makes ‘Red Woman’ so promising. Besides being mercifully light on sexposition and not dry or lazy on dialogue, this premiere actually strikes a tone of something nearing the end. There’s at least one more season of Game of Thrones. And the rumor mill hints at three or four. But ‘Red Woman,’ much like the first two episodes of Orphan Black this year, zeros in on its characters and their pain. It takes the gruesomeness and impurities of its world and makes them palpable. It provides exhibits on the kinds of people who exist in the long winter. Davos on one side, Ramsay on the other, and everyone else in between. It’s the closest to a dichotomous conflict the show’s narrative has ever had. The writers want us to know that things are becoming just a little bit clearer. The Jaimes and the Sand Snakes of the world will still plot their petty revenge, because it would be unrealistic for the show to do otherwise. But the narrative is showing signs of defining a line, between good and evil, protagonist and antagonistic force. Ramsay now. Others tomorrow. Davos and Brienne are hopefully the show’s way of starting the dialogue on making a better world. But the fate of said world, and how near pure it will be, depends on three very central characters. Two haven’t found their place on the spectrum yet. And one’s dead. We didn’t get much on the latter’s fate here, and there’s still a question of what will happen.

But come on. Jon Snow’s gotta come back. He just has to.

Grade: B+

When I got sidetracked

-I don't really know what to think of Melisandre's reveal, relevance-wise. I feel it'll make more sense thematically in the next episode, so I'm holding off comment for now.

-WHY IN DORNISH FUCK DID TRYSTANE TURN HIS BACK ON THE SNAKE WITH THE SPEAR?! YOU THINK A WHIP'S GONNA KILL YOU FROM BEHIND?! You deserve everything you got, Trystane. You're an idiot. And now you have a spear through your head. Good job!!

-'And some mutton. I'd like some mutton.' Davos' reply to what is likely a ruse from Alliser Thorne promising he'll let him go. Davos is not an idiot. Davos knows what's up.

-'Thank you, Ser Alliser. We'll discuss amongst ourselves, and come back to you with an answer.' Again, Davos to Alliser. So civil. So so so civil.

-Jorah and Daario have to travel together to find Danaerys. Awwwkwarddddd.

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