Game of Thrones -- Season 3 Finale "Mhysa" Review
"People learn to love their chains." -- Daenerys Targaryen
Following last week's game-changing turn of events, it's no surprise that the events in the Game of Thrones season finale feel a bit anticlimactic. This is in line with the show's previous track record with its season-closing episodes, which tend to follow a high-intensity ninth episode in which major characters are killed (the first season's "Baelor") or long-promised conflicts are paid off in all their high-budget glory (last year's memorable "Blackwater"). Thus, the Thrones writers prefer to give us a more restrained finales that serve more as a capstone to the drawn-out seasonal arcs, with a little bit of next-season setup thrown in to ensure our return the following spring.
While the first two season finales are generally considered slightly lackluster overall, Sunday's episode "Mhysa" is a thoroughly satisfying hour-long meditation on the surviving characters' struggle to maintain their personal identities in a world that often pushes against their sense of who they really are.
One of this series' most consistent themes has been the conflict between a character's individual desires and their sense of duty to their family, their legacy, and the greater good. Since season two, Robb Stark has had one of the best examples of this conflict, as he struggled to continue his war against the Lannisters even as he allowed himself to become overruled by love or rage at almost every turn. Simply put, Robb put his needs first, and in the world of Westeros there can be no greater crime. And, last week, he paid the price in the most gruesome fashion imaginable.
The effects of the Red Wedding permeate practically every scene in "Mhysa," as characters across the realm gradually learn of the Freys' betrayal and, as such, are forced to rethink their position in their own little parts of the world. The theme of identity is the lynchpin of this episode, as the narrative takes a pause plot-wise to let various players reach the end of their season-long journeys and take stock of their sense of self.
Probably the most obvious, visceral symbol of the close relationship between an individual and their family legacy is the unforgettable image of Robb Stark's corpse being paraded around Walder Frey's courtyard, the head of his direwolf crudely sewed to his neck. It's a tough thing to watch, recalling the equally nasty visual of Ned Stark's head displayed on a pike in the first season finale. It also works as a grisly representation of the symbiosis between the individual and their family affiliation, shown here by one wolf's head on Robb's body and another on a burning Stark banner nearby.
From the aftermath of the Red Wedding, we transition to King's Landing to check in with the Lannisters. In a touching bonding scene between newlyweds Tyrion and Sansa, we hear them painfully acknowledge their public reputations as the "half-man" and "disgraced daughter of the traitor Ned Stark," respectively. These are two characters who seem to have accepted the surrender of their personal identity in the wake of their arranged political marriage, though of course neither is happy about this. Still, it's nice to see them empathetically share in each others' pain, even though the later news of the Red Wedding inevitably drives them apart once more.
The Lannisters' small council meeting is another scene brimming with identity crises and failed assertions of selfhood. One of these, thank the gods, comes from Joffrey, who repeatedly tries to assert his royal status over an insolent Tyrion, only to be cut down by his granddaddy Tywin, who points out that "Any man who must say, 'I am the king!' is no true King." The subsequent confrontation between Tywin and Tyrion totally encapsulates the conflict between personal and communal gain, as Tywin reveals that he set aside his personal desire to kill the Tyrion when he was born a dwarf, "because you are a Lannister." Tywin's nothing if not true to his principles.
Back in the North, Bran and his not-so-merry band have taken shelter in the Nightfort where they soon run into Samwell and Gilly, in a great moment of worlds colliding that I hope to see more of in future seasons. Bran's 'Rat Cook' story was a little dull, but gave us an easy transition to the following Walder Frey scene after Bran ominously says that the gods will always punish those who betray guests in their own home. I doubt Walder has heard that particular nugget of wisdom before.
The Walder/Roose Bolton scene seems a bit superfluous, but it does indirectly reveal the identity (here we go again) of Theon's torturer: Bolton's bastard son Ramsay, who is holding Theon for ransom in the Bolton's castle the Dreadfort (dun dun dun). Theon is, understandably, suffering from far worse than an identity crisis, as he's still recovering from having his penis hacked off by the sadistic Ramsay. I doubt I'm alone in believing that Theon's subplot has been the weakest of the season, since it's basically just torture scene after fucked up torture scene. But this week, at least, his story gets to play into the larger theme of shifting identity, as Ramsay breaks him down enough to reject his former self entirely and adopt the humiliating moniker of Reek.
Yes, that's right: Theon's name is Reek now. Theon's had both his personal and familial identity completely stripped away by now--a point Ramsay cruelly rubs in by taunting, "You don't look like a Greyjoy." Unfortunately for Reek, his long-absent father Balon Greyjoy would agree. After receiving Theon's dismembered member via FedEx, Balon refuses to pay the ransom and disowns his son entirely, arguing that as a eunuch unable to continue the Greyjoy line, Theon has no more utility to the family. Theon's sister Yara, who sees her brother as more than just a proverbial cog in the Greyjoy wheel, decides to take matters into her own hands. The last we see of her is her fully-armed ship of Ironborn soldiers sailing out to rescue the poor Reekmeister.
Like his half-brother Robb Stark, Jon Snow is another great exemplar of a character caught between two different worlds, though in Jon's case, his two-season-long journey in this regard is more literal. Last time we saw him, he had finally revealed that his true allegiance was with the Night's Watch, not the Wildlings he'd been hanging out with all season. The wild-card in that dynamic was his love-interest Ygritte, who catches up to him after he ditched her last episode. Their relationship is pretty much ruined at this point, which is a shame, and they part on less-than-amicable terms as he rides away from her yet again and she puts a few arrows into him as a final fuck-you. At least Jon gets to reunite with Sam again; those guys make a better pair than Jon and Ygritte anyway.
Arya Stark doesn't get much material here, which is surprising given the mountains of mental trauma she received last week just by being in the vicinity of other Starks getting slaughtered yet again. Adding insult to psychic injury, she and the Hound can't get out of the Twins in time to avoid seeing the Robb-wolf. Three seasons of constant torment and newly-awakened preteen hormones have apparently turned her into quite the killer though; in her one major scene this week, she wreaks havoc on a group of stray Frey bannermen bragging about the success of the Red Wedding. Arya, who already went through one major identity transformation (the boy Arry) and then another (Tywin Lannister's serving girl), has now seemingly settled on becoming a budding assassin of sorts. The Hound had better watch out.
I'm at 1,300 words and I still haven't talked about Daenerys Targaryen. Dany only gets one scene this week, but it's the last one of the episode/season and it's a visual doozy. Having just conquered the city of Yunkai with the help of an ever-growing cohort of allies, Dany's position of power has been on the rise all season long, which is a welcome tonal shift from last season’s wheel-spinning Qarth storyline. In this scene, Dany watches as Yunkai's thousands of slaves stream out of the city gates and greet her as their "Mhysa," (or "Mother," for those of you who don't speak the language). Like Arya and Theon, Dany finds herself adopting a whole new persona, as the great emancipator of Essos whose influence and formidability grow every day. Dany's overall character arc has been the most dynamic of the entire series (remember how meek and subservient she was in the first episode?), and I expect that trend to continue before her inevitable arrival in Westeros.
A quiet-but-brilliant conclusion to a stellar third season, "Mhysa" does what past Thrones finales have done--cap off certain character and plot arcs as well as set up future developments--but thematically it accomplishes much more than that. It gives us a great distillation of the series’ overarching themes of identity, duty, and sacrifice, and pushes the boundaries of its characters to intriguing and exciting new levels. So much has happened already, but with the rise of Daenerys and the coming White Walker invasion, I have a feeling the real story is just beginning.
Written by Modern Sin
