Jonny boy be slayin'. Obviously this episode was badass but it also elucidates my seething hatred of Daenerys which grows with each scene and impacts my enjoyment of the show. What's interesting to see is how IMO Jon and Daenerys stand in contrast to each other. In GoT, the pre-enligtened age, none more exemplify their lack of enlightenment than Cersei. She is terribly miserable because she doesnt even know what she wants. She wants power for the sake of power and in doing so neutered her son King Tommen into a meek lamb, who now cannot save his mother from prison because he doesnt know how to exhibit power. And that is the medieval age in a nutshell, arbitrary rise and falls, while producing cycles of misery in its wake because people do not know any better.
The main characters that are enlightened are Varys, Jon, and Daernerys. Enlightenment for Varys comes from a form of pure exhaustion of the cycles of misery King's landing creates so it makes sense for him to want peace or atleast find another way. For Jon, enlightenment comes in the form of making peace with a century old enemy as a means to survive a far greater and apocalyptic evil which he has witnessed and experienced first hand. For Daenerys, enlightenment comes as a form of magic. Her pathways make absolutely no sense. She wants to end slavery because she knows it is wrong. Unfortunately that doesnt make sense in this kind of world where slavery is a pillar of society and banally accepted as part of the culture, just like rape and conquest. If she was a slave herself and thrusted into a position to free slaves it would make sense. But hey, Daenerys needed a moral pretext inorder to justify her imperialist invasion of Astapor which was painted in an obnoxious messianic light. Ofcourse, Tyrion notes how swimmingly her journey has been and advises her she needs support from the houses of Westeros. She replies she will "Break the wheel." This is the right thing to do but the question remains why does she want to break the wheel especially when she is entering into a marriage to appease the wheel. Is it because she simply wants revenge or because she is the messiah of messiahs. The former makes sense but the portrayal suggest the obnoxious latter. For a show that seems to be a phenomenon and maybe influential what really annoys me about Daenerys is I actually feel her storyline is deeply contradictory and incongruent with the rest of GoT but also a dangerous message to put out into the world. Humanity progresses inch by inch and not in magical leaps and bounds and I fear her storyline will never address this. So obviously, I would love to see Jon ascend to the iron throne as his impetus to unite mankind and make peace is clear as day.
With that rant out of the way, it is clear Jon will die by the end of this season and probably by the hands of that little shit Olly. As soon as Jon is confirmed dead, I'm out of this show so hard. GoT has never really gelled with me and I was only really invested in Jon's story from day one despite trying to watch S1 three times. Though I grew to love Arya because her personality most resembles mine, Jon's my boy and once he's gone I'm gone.