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Bang of Thrones: I Will Go Down With This Ship!

I have this thing where I can’t watch heavy kissing or sex scenes without being overcome by embarrassment/emotion, covering my eyes, and leaving my body.

So in hindsight, I’m maybe a weird choice to write a series literally called Bang of Thrones.

But I’m dedicated and I’m here to tell you about what kind of romance and sex happened in season eight, episode two of Game of Thrones.

SPOILERS START HERE

via GIPHY

I take notes while watching the episode, and about a third of them are just “JAIME AND BRIENNE” over and over, starting from the moment she stood up for him against Daenerys.

I somehow didn’t mention this ship in the last post – possibly I was too distracted by Bran ominously staring at Jaime, and the general lack of Brienne in the episode – but it’s one of my favorites!

I’ve never really believed it would happen, given Jaime’s undying attachment to Cersei, but with him leaving against her wishes and her hiring someone to kill him and all of the long looks Jaime and Brienne shared this episode…

…well, I can hope we’ll get something.

(My boyfriend actually sent me a Reddit theory involving Jaime and Brienne that is both amazing and makes me cry worried tears.) [here’s that link]

More importantly: When Jaime said “it would be an honor to serve under your command” and I assume we all shouted in unison “I’M SURE IT WOULD BE”.

More more importantly: Jaime knighting Brienne and my whole heart exploding and I am deceased now because Brienne deserves the whole world.

Also Tormund is still trying to make Tormund/Brienne happen, and while I can’t blame him, I’m afraid the Jaime/Brienne/Tormund love triangle isn’t as existent as he wants it to be.

via GIPHY

Okay, okay. Obviously we have to talk about Arya and Gendry.

Possibly you, like me, initially squealed about your ship sailing when they kissed, and then thought,

“Wait, isn’t Arya like 15? Not that 15-year-olds can’t have sex, just, you know, do I want to see it? Not really. How much time has passed in-world anyway?”

(If you’re like me you also had plenty of time to think this because you were covering your eyes and maybe your boyfriend was laughing at you about it.)

Don’t worry! HBO predicted that we’d wonder.

By age 18 in Westeros you should have:

- Had a pet.
- Moved out on your own.
- Travelled extensively.
- Had a kill list.
- Pretended to be the opposite sex to evade capture.
- Been blind for a while.
- Ticked at least three people off of your kill list.
— HBO (@HBO_UK) April 21, 2019

Listen when they were getting flirty in the armory – their version of flirty being “Gendry slamming axes around, which turns Arya on, and Arya throwing daggers, which turns Gendry on” – I had my hopes. The ship that I thought was just a dream started looking like a reality.

Still didn’t expect Arya to ask Gendry to sleep with her just in case she dies during the battle. Did not really see that coming. Hard to see Arya as a sexual being because in my mind she’s still, like, 10.

I mean, I’m in full support of her pursuing her sexuality with another consenting adult, and I adore this ship so I’m VERY HAPPY, I just also still can’t think about it too closely because she’s my tiniest daughter.

Missandei and Grey Worm also had a couple of good scenes. That both warms my heart because I want them always, and also makes me nervous. In a show like Game of Thrones, being reminded of a relationship and having them make plans for the future – especially really beautiful plans, like Grey Worm taking Missandei home to the land she was stolen from – right before a big battle doesn’t bode well for everyone’s survival.

(Boyfriend: What if Grey Worm lives and Missandei dies and he goes to the beaches in her memory –

Me: PLEASE SHUT UP.)

(But also really! Grey Worm is going to be in the battle, so he’s the obvious choice to die, but the show also called the crypts “the safest place to be” about ten million times. I somehow suspect they will not actually be the safest place to be.)

via GIPHY

Jon and Dany didn’t have a lot going on until the end of the episode. I’m assuming Jon was kind of avoiding her, trying to figure out how to tell her that incestuous, throne-stealing truth he’d learned.

Still technically being a Stark, though, Jon has the worst timing in the world! So he tells her while she’s trying to have a sweet moment with him on what could be their last night alive.

I don’t think Dany has fully processed the incest part yet. Or maybe she has, and being Targaryen, didn’t really care. She jumped right to “So you want my throne?”

This is all sure to end fine.

We also got our first season glimpse of Sam and Gilly together, mostly of them laying in bed together during the last-night montage. It reminded me way too much of that old couple that chose to die together in Titanic, and I’m trying not to think about it. Sam and Gilly live. There’s no other option. There is no other option

Next week is the Battle of Winterfell, and I’m a little worried that all I’ll have for you in that post is a video of me crying over all the couples (or halves of couples) that fell in battle.

But surely they can’t kill all our ships.

Right?

Header Image: HBO

Sarah Hollowell

Sarah Hollowell is a fat Hoosier writer working to up the magic quotient of Indiana. She's been published on Huffington Post, Fireside Fiction, and Apex, among others. She spends most of her time binging podcasts and needle felting characters from Animal Crossing.