Game of Thrones 6x4 'Book of the Stranger': Love and the Material

Game of Thrones 6x4 brings reunion and political evil to give a poignant exploration of the physical and emotional bonds of the world.

Reviewed while listening to stuff by or featuring Fiora, returning to my teenage trance/dance days... the good ole' days. Here's a remix of the second song for good measure.

There are words from the Great and Wise Leoban- from Battlestar Galactica, which is AMAZING, by the way- that seem apt here: ‘What is the most basic article of faith? This is not all that we are… We are more than this body, more than this consciousness.’

The High Sparrow would agree absolutely. As Cersei tells her boy king, the Sparrow has no use for anything in the world. It’s all just a steaming ash heap of debauchery, and he would tear it down. All his followers would. They have no names. They are no one. Family, to them, is but a part of the material world, a pathway to sin. If we accept that we are more than this body, then we can accept life’s suffering and that death is not the end. To the Sparrow, that means nothing, no one, in this world matters.

He would likely let Loras kill himself, and preach that it was the knight’s choice to resist the ‘temptation’ of his own family and those of the world.

Does that seem right? Is the doctrine of going beyond the material a just excuse for bringing a person to total suicide ideation? What are Loras’ sins anyway? Being with a man. Accepting love into his heart in truth, and acting on that love with physical passion. Love itself is not physical. Love transcends the material, but acts through our senses. Sansa Stark is so overjoyed about reuniting with Jon that she doesn’t even care for Dolorous Edd’s shitty food, like old (or young) Sansa would. But the sensation of that love is physical, brought on by literally being in the same place as him. Seeing his face. To entirely dismiss this as a thing of the corporeal realm and thus by default without value, to claim that returning to family is returning to ‘money, finery, power,’ is to dismiss the idea of love. The High Sparrow is eloquent, and most likely the most empathetic and reasonable human being on Game of Thrones. But ‘Book of the Stranger’ is a moving and engaging showcase that he is wrong. How can you watch the shots of revived Jon in awe at the sight of his sister before embracing her, after all that’s happened, and want to tear their world down?

The Sparrow of course would point to the works of Olenna of House Tyrell and Cersei of House Lannister. The latter loves her children, but beyond that she will still use them and manipulate them. She plays Tommen like a fiddle and then goes off and tugs at her uncle’s heartstrings by saying Kevan should ‘save’ his son Lancel from serving the Faith of the Seven out of choice. Using Kevan’s love to twist him into allowing people to die, for her own gains. And as much as I ‘love’ Olenna, it’s more the kind of fun comical enjoyment kind of love. Olenna cares for only her power, which is tied to her name, and thus family. She may love Margery, but Cersei’s persuasion is not about her daughter, but about how her walk of sinful shame will mar the Tyrell name. The only thing that can bring Cersei and Olenna together is mutual self-interest. Just like Tyrion playing with the slave masters in Mereen (for a much more noble cause, albeit), Cersei is using Olenna's self-interest to benefit her own. And neither care about the fact that many will die in the violence. When Cersei says that the High Sparrow would tear the things of the world and replace it with ‘fantasies, beggars… nothing,’ what she’s saying, in part, is that the dreams of the poor, and the poor themselves, are in fact nothing. No value. If you are not Lannister, you do not matter and you can be allowed to die.

She wants the Sparrows destroyed, but those Sparrows themselves were beggars orphans and lost, driven to zealotry because the powers of the world gave them nothing else. They were never allowed materials, and in many cases they were stripped of their families and homes in a brutal war for a stupid throne. So naturally they would want to tear it down. Naturally they would see Margery’s sorrow for her brother’s despondency and Sansa’s vindictive fury against the Boltons as only sin. Love has nothing to do with it. ‘Stranger’ makes sure to leave no room for doubt on where the players of King’s Landing stand. Either you’re with the ruling families and ready to kill thousands of innocents and poor to achieve your needs (or spare some libel damage), or you’re with the Sparrows and take no value in anything perceptible, even the embrace of a brother and sister.

‘Stranger’ then gets a little more nuanced about the difference between material possession and ethereal love on the Iron Islands. Gemma Whelan and Alfie Allen were completely on point in their scene together, which continued the upward trend of Theon miraculously being a sympathetic character. The episode makes sure not to make it clear why they’re willing to work together to help Yara gain the Iron Throne. For Theon, is it out of love, or is it because he feels it’s the only way he can be safe again, welcome back among his people? For Yara, Whelan gives hints of genuine care for her brother, anger for his rejection of her when she came to rescue him and he was trapped in the mind games of a mad dog. Or it could be simply that she sees him as a threat to her chance for power, the first woman to rule the Iron Islands. The affection is not clear here, nor is it supposed to be. ‘Stranger’ makes this very effective in conveying the message of how muddled things are between material value and love of family when there’s a war on and both are threatened. It’s perhaps the worst aspect of war: everything becomes to diluted down to basic survival, even if it’s survival of a loved one. There are two sides in war, and your family is your side, which means others have to die, or suffer at best. Love becomes nothing more but a motivation to kill, and humanity is well and truly stripped. In war, the High Sparrow can say whatever he wants in the name of embracing something beyond the physical, because the physical is blood and fire.

That’s why Tyrion is willing to accept slavery for seven more years. Slavery or war? Both are terrible, but one is immediate and devastating. Tyrion uses the slave masters’ interest just to preserve what he can for the people of Mereen, and try to end all slavery in a fixed time. If people’s throats weren't getting slit on the streets, he might not be so easily agreeable to allowing slavery. But here we are. The tension between him and the Missandai/Greyworm tandem was thick, and the episode leaves us not fully sure of how the two former slaves will take to Tyrion in the future. Their exchange also provides a solid method for touching on the main theme: people in power use the physical bodies of the marginalized, or their ‘time’ as the Sparrow puts it, and they do not consider the marginalized, the poor, as humans. The physical value of their very bodies is removed of worth or meaning. Tyrion understands, but what can he do? It’s war.

‘Stranger’ is effective in its message. All that’s happening is ultimately about how we perceive our own mortal experience, and the reasons, and consequences, of conflict that force a separation between love and physical experience. When the episode is really trying to show that both are symbiotic. Sansa and Jon are reunited, but Rickon is now a prisoner of the plague on the human soul that is Ramsay fucking Bolton. Rickon will be stripped of his humanity and suffer without the feeling of love. They are thus pulled by a madman into war. And it’s not for power. It’s for security. It’s because they are adrift, cast by the terrible things that have happened to them, and have nowhere else to go but home. The Freefolk are threatened simply because they were trying to save their children and society by escaping the White Walkers. Family does not lead to sin, it leads to a bond that transcends but still uses the physical. War leads to sin, even sin born out of love. Jon and Sansa will kill, because a war is thrust upon them. In the Faith of the Seven, the Stranger is the God of Death and the Unknown. We are more than this body and consciousness, but we do not yet understand what lies beyond our living experience. Nor do we fully understand love. But we feel it, and it is wonderful. And it should not be denied, in this world or the next. ‘Stranger’ argues that embracing the physical does not ignore the ethereal. So the High Sparrow is wrong.

And of course ‘Stranger’ leaves the wildcard for last. We don’t yet fully understand what drives Daenerys to raise armies and reclaim Westeros. She abhors slavery, hates the wheel of power that crushes the less fortunate, but she has shown little example of love of late. She kills the Khals because they won’t follow her. Her rule is absolute. You are with or against her. War. But does she wage it because she believes she is right, and trying to make a better world? Or is she blind with power? The fate of Westeros, or all who love and feel, depends on the answer. ‘Stranger’ tells us she is coming with fire. Will it be cleansing or scorched?

Grade: A-

When I got sidetracked

-Look at this photo and tell me that Brienne, Podrick, and Sansa aren't the most Badass motherfuckers about to drop the dopest album:

-Just when you thought Ramsay couldn't get worse, he kills Tonks. He kills TONKS!!

-Daario was throwing some super arrogant shade at Jorah this episode. 'Hey, isn't it awesome how you're helping me get laid tonight? With the woman you love? PS You're old and I could kill you.'

-I do seriously think this episode did miss an opportunity for a powerful moment by not having Jon reveal his death experience to Sansa onscreen. It could have been very strong and I'm sad we could not see it.

#TV #Review #GameofThrones