YMMV / Game of Thrones S7E5: "Eastwatch"

• Anvilicious: Varys preaching about Just Following Orders and invoking it to Tyrion feels like this, especially to those who don't see Dany's actions as extreme in any way, and who also feel that Varys is the last person who should be making this Aesop (someone like Davos who legitimately did go against his king time and time again would have been a worthier choice) given what Dany told him in "Stormborn" about his plan to subvert Robert's regime by backing the unworthy and undeserving Viserys and the bizarre false equivalency between a man who loyally served Aerys II to the bitter end (as both Pycelle and Jaime confirm) and never moved an inch to help the Mad King's victims and Tyrion who genuinely did do all he could humanly do to help the Tarlys (such as offer to send Randyll to the Watch and ask Dany to imprison Dickon) and also given that Varys lied to Daenerys about King Robert rescinding the order of her assassination on her deathbed and Robert's Hand Eddard Stark resigning his post in protest.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Randyll Tarly refuses to take the black not merely because he doesn't see Dany's authority as legitimate for doing so, which in any case, shouldn't be a barrier for the Wall's enrollment anyway, but because he couldn't bear the thought of joining the same organization he sent his disowned eldest son to, and potentially face him again after his humiliation. His insulting of Dany is more or less invoking Suicide by Cop to make himself a martyr out of Pride.
  • Bronn's insistence that he is only in it for the money is him joking under stress. Having been knighted for his services and having been so prominent in Lannister military operations (Blackwater, Dorne, Riverrun, the Reach), he knows that he no longer is a real Sellsword, he is now so identified with the Lannisters, it's unlikely that any other party in the War would consider him anything but a Lannister Bannerman, he has no choice but to stick with them and hope for the best.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • It didn't take long for fans to compare the scene in which Jon pets Drogon to Hiccup and Toothless. It helps that Kit Harington was a cast member in How to Train Your Dragon 2.
  • Or for the Magnificent Seven Samurai at episode's end to be compared to the Suicide Squad or the Justice League.
  • The "Hammer Time" bit from MC Hammer's (get it?) "U Cant Touch This" being added to the scene where Gendry kills the two corrupt Gold Cloaks with his war hammer.
  • The scene where Jon and his Badass Crew going north beyond the wall being inserted with either rock or Boy Band music.
• Narm Charm: Jon leading a team of the series's best warriors, complete with a V-formation shot, seems a bit emblematic of the show's growing direction toward a more traditional fantasy story, but it looks so cool.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Randyll Tarly dies without Sam being able to truly confront him or show him that he's stronger than he'd thought. Indeed, Randyll's death feels far too dignified for the Hate Sink he is often seen as. The fact that his family's heirloom sword Heartsbane that Sam took with him last season doesn't even get addressed is a bummer.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Brienne is one of the few characters to have a Valyrian steel sword, and really knows how to use it. With her past with Sandor and her dynamic with Tormund, she'd have been a nice fit for Jon's wight hunt, with only a raven from Dragonstone to Winterfell being what is required to facilitate her arrival at Eastwatch. In fact, Brienne was part of the hunt in earlier scripts.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The showrunners clearly want Randyll Tarly's death to be tragic and a potential Moral Event Horizon for Daenerys. The problem is that Randyll's one of the most despicable human beings on the show, who had betrayed the Tyrells (as Tyrion points out to him) and seems more affronted by Dany's "foreign" upbringing and "army of savages" than anything else. So, while one can feel sorry for his son Dickon, one can also see him as being a victim of Randyll's poor parenting and phony values, and ends up dying as a result of his father's choices for a war he didn't agree on, rather than Dany's choices, who after all gave both Tarlys multiple opportunities to save themselves that they refused. Furthermore, Randyll's disgust at Tyrion's killing of his father is extremely hypocritical considering that he himself threatened to murder his eldest son Samwell in a Hunting "Accident" if Sam didn't go to the Wall. The idea that the Tarlys become the hill to die on for Daenerys's morality feels unearned and tin-eared, especially when Jon Snow's execution of young Olly and the Night's Watch traitors (who had the same motivations as Randyll did, i.e. xenophobia) was treated as dispensing justice, and the only moral argument seems to be about burning them alive rather than hanging them. The Tarlys had already confessed to the charges against them, and thus would not have been given a trial in any event because that's not how Westerosi law works when there's no question of guilt or innocence; only the matter of their sentencing remained. And the fact is, dragonfire canonically incinerates its target near-instantly, whereas hanging is a prolonged way to die.
  • While Randyll is xenophobic, as shown by his earlier treatment of Gilly after he found out she was a wildling, even though she was the mother of what he thought was his grandson, and he is supporting Cersei despite her having already proven herself to be a cruel and short-sighted ruler, one could argue that he did have a valid political point in his final scene. Dany has spent the entire series preparing to rule Westeros, but she hasn't actually been there for 20 years, doesn't truly know anything about it or its people, and her army likewise is made up of people who have never been to Westeros and are unlikely to feel any particular loyalty to it above their loyalty to her and enforcing her will. To people who haven't seen her story arc, i.e. most of Westeros, Randyll's concerns are not unreasonable, as she could have her armies loyal only to her and not the peace and stability of the Seven Kingdoms.
  • Arya criticizing Sansa for having Ned and Cat's room, which Jon insisted she take when they won Winterfell back from the Boltons and commenting, "You always did like nice things. It made you feel better than everyone else," which seems really uncalled for and unfair, as she does not ask Sansa why she has the room and is unfamiliar with Sansa and Jon's sibling relationship now. Not to mention she is angry with Sansa for letting the Northern lords speak their mind about Jon's decision to go south and seems to want to just kill them all without considering the consequences. When Sansa argues this is not how you get everyone to work together, Arya twists it around to make it about Sansa wanting to run Winterfell instead of Jon. Frankly, it's only practical for Sansa to be thinking about what will happen if Jon dies given the dangerous situations he's put himself in. Arya, for all her training in espionage, has Littlefinger lead her around by the nose and fall for a letter he planted in his room to sow distrust between the sisters. You'd think by now she'd have learnt to appreciate her family after spending so long separated from them.
• The Woobie: As if Elia Martell weren't already enough of one, it now turns out that at the time of her death, Rhaegar unilaterally and secretly dissolved their marriage via annulment, legally taking away her title as future Queen and passing it on to his mistress Lyanna.

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