Game of Boners: One Hand, One Heart
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Welcome to Game of Boners, your weekly tally of all the nudity that appears on everyone’s favorite fantasy fuck fest, Game of Thrones. Every Monday, we will recap each boob, buttock and sex act that appears on camera, along with some other fun facts from the episode that may or may not have anything to do with sex whatsoever. Keep a box of tissues on hand because Winter is definitely coming.
Another week of Game of Thrones and another week of very intense gender commentary. While last week’s episode was all about sisterhood and what it means to be a woman in a Game of Thrones world, this week’s took great care to point out that being a man, though slightly better, isn’t all that great either. It wasn’t all a discussion of men, women and how their lives are terrible. The episode was also fraught with another strangely pleasant and optimistic theme — friendship or, to be more specific, that a friend in need is a friend indeed.
Not so friendly — the King’s Council in King’s Landing where new Hand Tywin is testing everyone with awkward seating arrangements. It’s telling to see how everyone reacts. Littlefinger, forever sucking ass, rushes to sit directly at Tywin’s lefthand. Varys rolls his eyes and takes the next seat. Cersei, lone woman and the most courageous of them all (I don’t know what it it is, but I love that wine-soaked psychopath with all my heart) loudly drags a chair all the way around to her father’s other side, making it clear that she’s his right hand and Tyrion, noting his sister’s move, places his chair at the opposite head of the table and is promptly rewarded by being made Master of Coin, the shittiest job in the kingdom.
On the otherside of the war, Catelyn Stark née Tully is mourning the death of her father alongside her son Robb, her incompetent brother Edmure (who no one is happy with after he blew Robb Stark’s defense against the Lannisters all for the sake of a worthless mill) and uncle Brynden Tully (a.k.a Blackfish). Poor Catelyn is naturally out of sorts having lost her father and thinking that she’s lost almost all of her children in such a short period of time, but Blackfish tells her that she needs to toughen up for Robb’s sake — her motherly fortitude will keep him strong in battle. That stoicism is so annoyingly like the Tully-Starks, isn’t it? A girl can’t even cry over her dead family for five minutes without a long lost uncle telling her to suck it up.
Dany, far away in Astapor is also being advised by a pair of wizened old men — in her case, on whether or not she should purchase the Unsullied to build her army. Ser Jorah, raspy as ever, points out that it’s the kindest thing she can do for the war’s innocent bystanders. “Unsullied are not men,” he tells her. “They do not rape. If you buy them, the only men you’ll kill are the ones you want dead.” Ser Selmy feels that an army shouldn’t be made up of people forced to fight for you, but rather people who choose to take up arms because they love you. Dany ends up siding with Jorah, not because she agrees with her reasoning, but because she feels sympathy for the slaves of Astapor and wants to give them a better life. One problem — it’s an expensive deal that she’s attempting to barter and the only way she can afford it is by giving up one of her three dragons.
Jorah and Selmy finally agree on something when they both, in front of the slave trader, voice that a dragon is too high a cost to pay. Dany promptly tells them to shut the fuck up and never disagree with her in public again. It’s awesome seeing this young girl, who also happens to be the MOTHER OF DRAGONS, remind these two old bros that she’s the one with the power here and that they’re job is to help, not to lead. In a further display of One Big Room, Full of Bad Bitches, Dany takes particular interest in one Astapor slave woman and asks whether or not, if free, she would have a family to return to. She doesn’t so instead takes a place as Dany’s personal attendent, a job that might lead her straight to death’s door. “Valar morghulis,” the slave replies when warned of the dangers of her new position. “All men must die,” Dany translates. “But we are not men.”
“All men must die” takes on an even bleaker meaning North of the Wall where the remaining Brothers of the Night’s Watch are back at Craster’s Keep where Craster himself — threatened by having to compete with any other dick on the dance floor — is the only man allowed permanent residence. The consequences of this rule are made horrifyingly clear as Gilly, apple of Sam’s eye, gives birth to a baby boy. Whereas south of the wall, the birth of a male heir is celebrated, here it only means one thing — death. Just as Jon Snow witnessed back in season 2, Gilly’s newborn will be left in the snow as a snack for the White Walkers.
Other men who are not doing so swell — Theon Greyjoy and Stannis Baratheon. Things begin to look up for Theon, son of Lucius Malfoy and true master of the Elder Wand, as Simon from Misfits helps him escape his torture chamber. Of course it doesn’t take long for his captures to catch up to him (the kid is running away on two feet that have had holes drilled into them) and things then take an even more violent and scary turn. “I’m going to fuck you into the ground,” says one man, preparing to sodomize a bruised and beaten Theon. Luckily, his rapist is stopped short by an arrow through the head. Simon from Misfits saves the day once again.
Stannis, meanwhile, is lookin’ rough. His loss at the Battle of Blackwater is clearly weighing on him body and soul and the only way he thinks that he can fix everything is by impregnating Melisandre with another smoke baby. She takes one look at him with his dark under eye circles and and overgrown beard and is like, “Eh, I’d rather ride this canoe into the middle of the ocean” and takes off. Wise to take a hard pass at that one.