#wildfire plot

First: what the fuck happened to Alys Karstark? She went to the godswood along with the Ironborn to protect Bran. She was there with them. Theon was the last man standing before the NK showed up. Did Alys die with the Ironborn, or did she escape somewhere before the snow zombies piled in? Can anyone see any sign of her in the Ep4 preview? Because if she died, then is there anyone left in House Karstark?

Maybe she’s in this one?

See the girl sitting next to Lord Royce?

Is that Lady Karstark right there? 

And if that’s her, then how did she escape the godswood alive?

Second: Bran waits until Theon tells him they’ve lit the trench. Then he wargs into the ravens. Which suggests Bran feels safer, knowing the trench is lit. Then he doesn’t come back to his body until the wights have already overrun the godswood and killed all the Ironborn except for Theon, and the NK and his squad are standing right there. We should be wondering what exactly Bran saw through those ravens that kept him occupied for such a long time.

Now the big thing I want to talk about is this: upon a second viewing, I realize Dany contributed a shitload more to the battle than Jon did. Still not nearly as much as she could’ve done? But the problem isn’t really with Dany, it’s with the plan they made in the first place.

The plan was apparently to let the minions on the ground deal with the wights while Jon and Dany fly around on the dragons and focus on chasing the Night King. And then Dany started deviating from the plan once she saw the Dothraki get obliterated by the army of the dead. So now we should ask: why was that the plan? Why did they think it was a good idea to start with the Dothraki, being their entire cavalry, charge into the dark at the army of the dead? Why not start with having the dragons torch as many of the wights as possible before they overrun the castle?

The nearest explanation I can find for the plan is that they underestimated the size of the wight army. The episode reads like the entire alliance simply failed to factor in just...how...fucking. MANY. of those damn things were coming for them. The White Walkers literally had unlimited mindless bodies to burn. That was their advantage. 

The plan was for Jon and Dany to prioritize the Night King, and that would take care of the zombies. The plan presupposed that dragonfire would be an effective weapon against the NK, first. The plan treated the wight army like a distraction around the NK, second. The plan didn’t anticipate the NK using a blizzard as a weapon, third. It failed to take into account that the crypts are full of dead bodies, and their enemy is a guy who reanimates dead bodies, so maybe that wasn’t the smartest place to stash their non-combatants.

Several times throughout the episode, Dany brings Drogon close down and torches a bunch of wights. And I’m like, yes, Dragon Queen! Do more of that! The NK has a magical ice-javelin that he’s already used to kill one dragon, but wights cannot fight back against a dragon in flight. Prioritize the wight army, and that weakens the Night King. 

More on that business later.

Down in the crypts! 

First, did anyone else notice Varys taking the little girl’s hand? That was so sweet. Aww, Teela’s gonna be the new captain of his Little Birds.

Bigger than that, though: the dynamic of Tyrion and Sansa in the crypt is fascinating. They’re both embarrassed to be there. Sansa is ashamed to let Tyrion see her hiding with the women and children, and Tyrion is ashamed to let Sansa see him hiding with the women and children. They both really WANT to be part of the fight, and they hate feeling useless. Their conversation is all about helping each other cope with that feeling of uselessness. 

Then there’s that silent exchange as they’re hiding behind the tomb and getting ready to take action. Sansa’s uncertain, but Tyrion’s smile for her, and his kissing her hand, says: go get ‘em, my lady. Tyrion’s encouragement makes the difference. Sansa still values Tyrion’s intellect. (1)

But thank goodness Arya got there first, and it seems Sansa didn’t get a chance to use the dragonglass dagger. She still has it, though. 

And I’ll say it again: I can’t help but feel like Tyrion’s talking about how he could see something that makes a difference is relevant to more than just the present scene. Speaking of Tyrion, I’d like to point out that in Ep2, Tyrion argued that the six of them in that room together could actually live to tell about the battle. And I’ll be dipped in shit, he was right! All six of them are still in one piece. Since it was established in Ep2 that Dany is giving Tyrion one last chance to use his mind for her benefit before she makes him a dragon-snack, it seems like they’re setting Tyrion up to figure out something that makes the difference for everyone. 

Another thing from battle: after Edd dies, and Sam is getting mobbed yet again, Jorah comes to his aid. Jorah saves Sam’s life using Heartsbane! And now Jorah’s gone, whereas Jon still has Longclaw, so someone else will have to wield Heartsbane. 

Melisandre’s death made perfect sense to me. She knows she’s done as much as she could ever do to avert the greatest catastrophe, and she knows she’s done some atrocious things in the interests of the prophecy. And now she’s done. Time to go.

Back to the battle! 

Yeah, I still think Ep3 was a false conclusion. I think the Long Night has been postponed, not cancelled altogether. I think there’s still work to be done before the War Against the Dead is won. Which is not to diminish Arya’s achievement! The time she bought the alliance is absolutely necessary. I don’t doubt she fuckin’ saved all their lives with her sick moves. Just saying she bought them time, and that time is not infinite. You never say never to the God of Death. Only: not today.

So here’s what I think is happening, following a second viewing:

1. We will find out this Sunday what Bran saw through those ravens. And it will be, basically: there’s more where they came from. There are still other White Walkers beyond the Wall, and more snow zombies with them. (Insert some magical kludge of “the NK and his squad were south of the Wall, so the ones still north of the Wall were unaffected by his destruction.” And now one of those WWs just got promoted to the new NK.) They brought more than enough bodies to burn at Winterfell, and they still have more bodies to burn. 

2. Sam will get a chance to swing Heartsbane at a WW or six.

3. Sansa will get a chance to use that dragonglass dagger from Arya.

4. Tyrion will be the one to figure out how to use the Mad King’s wildfire caches against the rest of the snow zombies. 

5. The dragons will play a bigger part in finishing off the threat, and they probably end up dying in the process.

6. Jon will end up sacrificing himself to cancel the apocalypse, in a way that only a guy who’s been resurrected can do. 

1. Removing the wildfire caches would have been a logistical nightmare. The city would have been put in much more danger by trying to dispose of the caches than by leaving them alone. If the existence of the wildfire had been made public knowledge without first ensuring it was safely destroyed, it would have caused a mass panic.

2. Even if 17-year-old Jaime wasn't aware of (and thus not motivated by) the logistical difficulties, why should he have assumed the wildfire caches wouldn't have been just as devastating a tool of mass destruction in someone else's hands?

2a. First, this boy was Tywin Lannister's son. As in, the guy who drowned Castamere and slaughtered the Tarbecks. That was Jaime's primary role model of a powerful man.

2b. And then he spent two years dealing with King Aerys II, who enjoyed setting people on fire and actually planned to blow up the city.

2c. It stands to reason, Jaime's default expectation was that the wildfire caches would be used for blowing shit up and killing lots of people. Would the new King Robert have decided to blow up Dragonstone and get rid of Queen Rhaella and Prince Viserys? Why should Jaime have assumed he wouldn't?

2d. Therefore, the pool of people he could have reasonably told about the wildfire caches was very, very small.

3. To assume Jaime would have salvaged his reputation by telling someone about the Wildfire Plot presupposes that someone would have believed him.

3a. Even if he'd persuaded someone to come with him and see some of the wildfire stored beneath the city, all that would have proved is that the wildfire was there. They still might not have believed Jaime's account of the king planning to blow up the city.

3b. Which means the consequences of his hypothetical disclosure would be:

3b1. King Robert gets his hands on tons of explosives and does something awful, as Jaime has learned powerful men are likely to do.

3b2. The realm still thinks Jaime killed the king for the most venal reasons and is an untrustworthy piece of shit.

3b3. And on top of that, he's seen as having puked up this self-serving malarkey about having to save the city, rather than just admit he killed the king because his daddy asked him to.

4. Jaime has told someone about the Wildfire Plot, and he didn't have to. He volunteered the story to Brienne.

4a. Why does no one ever ask why Brienne hasn't shared the Wildfire Plot with anyone else? Why does no one ever characterize her as putting King's Landing in danger of nuclear holocaust by keeping Jaime's story to herself?

4b. If Brienne has good reasons for not blabbing about King Aerys having planned to blow up the city, it stands to reason Jaime has equally good reasons for not telling anyone except her.

4c. The better question is why Jaime told Brienne, after he spent 17 years telling no one else. And that brings us to...

5. Both Ned Stark and Stannis Baratheon were advising the new King Robert to send Jaime to join the Night's Watch as punishment for committing regicide. In that environment, Jaime had a good incentive to want King Robert to know his side of the story. That he did not tell the king suggests he had much better reasons for keeping quiet than "pride" or "spite."

6. The question of why Jaime didn't tell anyone about the wildfire has already been posed on-page, and we have already seen Jaime's response to that question. "Do you think the noble Lord of Winterfell wanted to hear my feeble explanations? Such an honorable man. He had only to look at me to judge me guilty."

6a. We could spill metric tons of ink speculating on why Jaime is so focused on Ned in particular, but we do have this much: he imagines his story would have come across as "feeble explanations" if he'd tried to tell Ned what happened.

6b. Ergo: 17-year-old Jaime would have liked to tell someone, like Ned Stark, about the Wildfire Plot, but he was already being treated like a filthy fucking liar based on his having killed the king.

7. Rather than asking "Why didn't Jaime tell anyone?" (as if Brienne doesn't exist), we could instead ask: "Why didn't any of these powerful men ever try asking Jaime why he did what he did?" Barristan Selmy, as the new Lord Commander, could have asked his youngest Sworn Brother why he'd wiped his golden ass with his oaths, and he did not. King Robert could have asked; he didn't. Jon Arryn could have asked, and I think Jaime would have actually told him, but the new Hand of the King did not have that meeting with the boy he'd convinced the king to pardon. Stannis Baratheon could have asked, and I don't think Jaime would have told Stannis, but the interaction might have shown Jaime there were some trustworthy people who would give him a chance.

7a. All of those men knew Jaime was the last Kingsguard knight left at the Red Keep with Aerys at the end of the rebellion.

7a1. Why the fuck did none of them ever consider Jaime could be the most generous, primary source for Aerys's last acts? Surely they could have gotten something for the history books by asking for his side of the story?

7a2. If the answer is "they assumed he'd lie his golden ass off," then why the fuck do we need any further explanation for why Jaime never went out of his way to volunteer the information?

8. "He didn't tell anyone because he had every reason to think no one would believe him" is a perfectly sufficient answer to the question of why he didn't tell anyone, given his sudden faint-in-the-tub display of emotion in sharing his story with Brienne.

9. I have seen plenty of commentators simply presuppose that Jaime's keeping quiet about the Wildfire Plot was an act of perverse narcissism, but so far I haven't seen anyone present an actual argument for why "he chose to keep quiet because he likes being despised for his finest act" is a better explanation than "because he had every reason to think no one would believe him."

9a. To go from Jaime's railing against Ned Stark's self-righteous ghost, to insisting he's just the kind of asshole who likes to let everyone think the worst of him, is a substantial claim which requires substantial evidence. I haven’t seen anyone attempt to offer any evidence to that effect, probably because it doesn’t exist. 

10. At the time of becoming the Kingslayer, Jaime was a 17-year-old boy who’d spent the past two years combining the roles of bodyguard and hostage to a king whose preferred hobbies included setting people on fire and abusing his sister/wife. The guy who seldom flung children from towers to improve their health did not yet exist. (Another note: there may be a very few characters in ASOIAF who can travel through time. Jaime is not one of them.) Jaime’s attitude as a sister-fucking, child-tossing 33-year-old does not explain his decisions as a traumatized, isolated, vilified teenager. The fact that he was traumatized, isolated and being treated like a filthy fucking liar for saving the city, at such a tender age, is more than sufficient to explain why he didn't share his story at that time. 

10a. If you read the Bathtime at Harrenhal scene and what you got out of it was, “Oh, now I get it! Jaime let everyone treat him like a shithead because he’s just that type of asshole!” Then you’re missing out on a lot of Jaime’s arc.

10b. There is literally no stage of Jaime’s arc, including backstory, in which his behavior supports the theory that he willfully kept the wildfire a secret because he loves to play the cynical anti-hero. Jaime has never enjoyed being called Kingslayer.

11. Jaime is absolutely right to say he is despised for his finest act. At the time of his act of regicide, there was no other reason for people to dislike or mistrust him. He’d fucked his sister at least once by that point, but that wasn’t public knowledge. The line of succession was not front-loaded with three blond children named Baratheon. No Stark child had been tossed out of a window. He had not served in his father’s invasion of the Riverlands. Tyrion had not been told his first marriage was a sham. Jory and Wyl had not been killed in the street behind a brothel. All of those things happened well after Jaime was established in his reputation as a filthy oathbreaker. There was no reason why Jaime, fresh off killing the king, would need to lie to himself about why everyone hated him.