YMMV / Game of Thrones S2E9: "Blackwater"

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Some fans speculate whether the expression of My God, What Have I Done? that Tyrion makes when he sees the wildfire explosion and the deaths of thousands of people is what motivated his actions in the coming seasons, in which Tyrion desperately tries to avoid bloodshed as much as possible.
  • Sansa tells Tyrion that she prays for his safe return, "just as (she) pray(s) for the king's." One might assume that Sansa means Joffrey, and she wants Tyrion dead as much as the rest of House Lannister. On the other hand, one could interpret it as meaning Robb, the person Sansa sees as her king, which could suggest that she might actually care for Tyrion.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Cersei comes close to poisoning Tommen as a Mercy Kill. Her other two children end up dying via poisoning.
  • The Tyrells are the deciding factor in winning the battle for the Lannister side, complete with Ser Loras pulling Big Damn Heroes. Come Season 7, the Lannister army easily takes Highgarden offscreen and decimates the army after Loras has been killed at the Green Trial.
  • Sansa here attempts to calm the women with prayer and songs. By Season 8, when she'd received lots of criticism for becoming Unintentionally Unsympathetic, the difference is highlighted in the Battle of Winterfell where she does not do the same for any of the frightened women or children.
  • Davos, upon hearing the bells of King's Landing, remarks that "I've never known bells to mean surrender," and orders his men to beat war drums in response while preparing for battle. He's right and the defenders of King's Landing have no intention of surrendering, but in "The Bells", the bells of King's Landing ring as a sign of surrender... but Daenerys burns down the city anyway.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Cersei spends most of the episode drunk, which is oddly prophetic of her role later seasons (particularly the eighth), where she spends a lot of her screen time neutrally watching events unfurl while sipping wine.
  • Tyrion's brutal use of wildfire to decimate Stannis's forces is often held up as a comparison to his Flanderization into the Audience Surrogate later in the series, where he seems against the cost of war.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Loras's Hair Flip after removing his helmet is quite a gifable moment.
  • Davos's line "I've never known the bells to mean surrender" was quickly gif'd and meme'd in relation to the infamous Season 8 episode "The Bells", which hinges on King's Landing ringing the bells of the city as a sign of surrender.
• Nightmare Retardant: The scene where wildfire ingulfs Stannis' men is straight up terrifying through and through. Except for that one part where a troop gets comically hit by a swinging barrel.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The wildfire explosion looks spectacular and horrifying at the same time. It's the page image for the show's Awesome Moments for a reason.
  • The entire battle is expertly crafted, considering they only had about two hundred extras and it was the first proper battle scene the show had done.
• Win Back the Crowd: Season 2 received a lukewarm reaction from critics due to difficulties in adapting the second book in the series. However, "Blackwater" was considered by all viewers as an exceptional episode, both in the script and in the production, which justified the slow pace of the season and works perfectly as a climax, Today, "Blackwater" is unanimously considered by critics and fans as one of the best episodes of the series.

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