Review 447: Game of Thrones: A Dance with Dragons

Game of Thrones returns in full force with its sixth season: A Dance with Dragons with plenty of epic battles, power plays and emotionally satisfying plot developments.

Adapting original content from the unpublished The Winds of Winter as well as some later elements of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin.
After shocking developments at the end of Season 5 - including Jon Snow's (Kit Harrington) bloody fate at the hands of Castle Black mutineers, Deanerys' (Emilia Clarke) near-demise at the fighting pits of Meereen and Cersei's (Lena Heady) public humiliation in the streets of Kings Landing - survivors from all parts of Westeros and Essos regroup to press forward, inexorably, towards their uncertain individual fates.
Familiar faces will forge new alliances to bolster their strategic chances at survival, whilst new characters will emerge to challenge the balance of power in the East, West, South & North.

This season picks up right where Season 5 ended. By then the state of Westeros is at an all time low. There seems to be no hope

By this point in the series, it’s clear that Game of Thrones has practically, for all intents and purposes,  completely parted from the books and seems more confident in forging its own path like it should.

A prominent theme this season is Rebirth: Jon took a very big risk when letting the Wildlings south of the Wall and was punished for it and now he feels that of his fighting was for nothing he becomes disillusioned with the ways of The Night’s Watch, suffers from PTSD as a result of what happened to him at the end of Season 5 and just wants out.

Once again the themes of honour and duty come into play in Season 6: During the latter half of the season Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is sent to the Riverlands to help The Freys reclaim it from the Tully's. During the siege he encounters the very last person he expected to see: Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) who wants to recruit the Tully's to help Sansa in her campaign to retake Winterfell from the Boltons which puts Jaime in a very difficult situation

A highlight of this season is the Northern storyline, the conflicting voices are very powerful and Kit Harrington, Sophie Turner, Liam Cunningham, Carice van Houten and Gwendoline Christie all bring their A-Game to their characters.
Whilst Jon and Sansa make decisions that, more often than not, are ruled by emotion, Davos is the voice of logic, thereby cementing himself as the Mr. Spock of the show. He gives them invaluable advice about who to ask to fight alongside them against the Boltons. Without Davos' intuition, Jon and Sansa would crumble. Davos would also give his life for Jon as he would for Stannis.

Thankfully, Dorne is practically sidelined for this season and Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) and the Sand Snakes are pretty much demoted to extras so I can't complain - though some of the questionable storytelling techniques make it feel disconnected from the rest of the show.
To put it simply, in this season, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes stage a coup in Dorne with no repercussions or consequences - but if that's an excuse to stay out of Dorne this season that's fine by me.
I can only assume that Hubris has clouded Ellaria's judgement.
On the other hand, I was absolutely appalled by the waste of Alexander Siddig and DeObia Oparei as Prince Doran and Hotah respectively this season. They're in this episode for what amount to mearly cameos with Oparei notably not receiving a single line of dialogue. I read in an interview with Siddig that, originally, he was contracted to appear in at least 4 episodes as Doran Martell, that clearly and obviously didn’t work or pan out as it was supposed to. 

The season finale is explosive - literally explosive. Words cannot describe

Directors Jeremy Podeswa, Daniel Sackheim, Jack Bender, Mark Mylod & Miguel Sapochnik’s direction is consistently excellent throughout the season, the cinematography is beautiful, the production design is outstanding, the costumes are fabulous, the scenery is breathtaking, the score by Ramin Djawadi is spectacular

Sapochnik, notably, once again begins his to the Battle of Winterfell as depicted in Ep. 9: The Battle of the Bastards. What sets the Battle of Winterfell apart from other battles previously done on this show is that it really does show what it’s like to be in a pitch battle. It’s practically all (very intense, brutal) action with virtually not dialogue and it’s as exciting to watch as it is emotionally draining.

Emilia Clarke is, once again, amazing as Deanerys Targaryen At the beginning of the season we find Deanerys at a loss. She's been captured by the Dothraki, has been traveling for a huge amount of time, there's only so much energy she has left and has no idea what's waiting for her; They could decide to just kill her at any point and she's trying desperately to muster up a plan. She's trying to get her barrings and keep quiet.

Kit Harrington is once again tremendous as Jon Snow. Jon is not the same man following what happened to him at the end of Season 5. Where we find him in Season 6 is in a very dark, very profound, very interesting place. The problem with Jon is that he’s not a cautious man, it’s one of his flaws and one of the reasons we love him as a character. He is a hero but heroes are inherently incautious and that’s what gets him...
He's been to the other side and returned. A little bit of darkness has entered him. He has become more cynical and nihilistic and no longer believes in himself and his ability to face the coming threat beyond the Wall due to being punished for doing what he thought was right. He abandons his duties despite knowing full well how dangerous the threat of the Army of the Dead really is.
He looses his determination about fighting and becomes much more lonely and melancholic.
Since he left Winterfell, it's been on long, neverending battle against everyone possible, he fought as hard as he could and then he was punished for it so he wants out. It's only the arrival of Sansa at the Wall and the additional pull of family that forces his hand and pulls back into the frey he was trying so desperately to get away from.
Part of it is because it's his duty as a Stark and to combat the threat beyond the wall and the other part is he has no choice.

Carice van Houten is, once again, wonderful as Melisandre. At the beginning of the season, we see a Melisandre who’s had her faith shaken following the events at the end of season 5. She was someone who was a true believer who was an absolute devoutee of the Lord of Light and the events at the end of the last season have shaken her faith considerably but she still believes in Jon, she just doesn't know if he believes in her.
We see a more human side to her that we as an audience have never seen before because it's the first time in 400 odd years that she's been proven wrong and her confidence is shattered.

Lena Heady is, once again, fabulous as Cersei. At the beginning of the season we meet a broken Cersei and she has a strange forgiveness for Jaime.
It’s been a rough couple of months for Cersei. She’s still embarrassed and shamed following her walk of atonement at the of last season, she's angry at the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce). She never thought that anything like that could happen to her and that she could always be on top.
What's happened to her over the last season is almost all she can take. Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Jaime are the people keeping her from complete despair.
She needs to believe something in all this even though it's a grasp of them holding onto a bit go sanity for her.

This season also features the return of several characters who were absent for the past Season or two.
After being absent from Season 5, we see the return of Isaac Hempstead Wright, Kristian Nairn, Ellie Kendrick, Gemma Whelan and Rory McCann as Bran Stark, Hodor, Meera Reed, Yara Greyjoy and Sandor “The Hound” Clegane respectively.
Having suffered a near death experience at the end of Season 4, Clegane is a much more thoughtful character than he was when we last saw him and he's more aware of his vulnerabilities. He knows how close he came to dying and he's really thinking about his past in a way that he never had before.
Soon he's forced back to into his old lifestyle.

We also see the return of Clive Russell, Tobias Menzies, Patrick Malahide, Paul Kaye and Richard Dormer as Brynden “Blackfish” Tully, Edmure Tully, Balon Greyjoy, Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion respectively. All of whom we have not seen since Season 3.

For this season, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have kept the new characters down to the minimum. Notable examples include Max Von Sydow as the Three Eyed Raven, Pilou Asbaek as Euron Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy’s uncle, newcomer Bella Ramsey as Lady Lyanna Mormont & Lord Robett Glover (an unrecognisable Tim McInnerny).

Euron Greyjoy has been in exile following Balon Greyjoy's failed rebellion against Robert Baratheon and has developed quite a reputation the most feared pirate in Westeros and he returns to the Iron Islands to claim the Salt Throne. Wildly unpredictable, psychotic but also cunning. Everything he does, however, is carefully planned

Two very notable guest stars who appear in Ep. 6: Blood of My Blood and Ep. 7: The Broken Man are James Faulkner as Samwell Tarly’s father, Randyll Tarly and Ian McShane as Brother Ray, a warrior turned septon who nurses The Hound back to health.
Ray is the leader of a peace cult, someone who was once a warrior but who has now renounced violence. He highlights some change for the Hound, his principle is there's something greater than any of us. Wether it be God, it doesn't matter just as long as you know that you're not at the top of the food chain and have a little humility every now and then.
The unfortunate, ugly reality of the kind of pacifism that Ray is preaching is often suicidal when you're in the middle of the kind of world that all these characters inhabit.