You don’t go to your god with your certainty. That’s nothing. That’s not a sacrifice at all.

Spoilers within. Like, for real things, not just for things like me yelling OH YEAH and throwing pillows in the air.

Quick takes:

Knew it was coming, knew it was coming, knew it was coming, but IT WAS STILL SO AWESOME. Ghost perked up all “Maybe now I can get some fucking milkbones up in here” and I started kicking the couch cushions with joy.

I would be 100 percent okay with King Davos, First of His Name, Lord of Whatever Parts of These Bullshit Kingdoms Think They Deserve Him. His best friend and liege lord just died bloody like two days ago, he arrived at Castle Black only to find Wun Wun bogarting all the Doritos and everybody feeling stabby, there are piles of wildling laundry absolutely everywhere, and no sooner does he put Jon Snow’s body down but Thorne is banging on the door like the worst roommate of all time. Boyfriend cannot catch a break, and STILL Davos is using every waking breath to try to do some work. At some point I hope we get an entire episode where he just gets to bathe, sleep, and eat bacon waffles off a servant girl’s chest.

The flashbacks to the Starks’ glory days are going to kill me. Lyanna! The Queen of Love and Beauty! The Tower of Joy! Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, and finally seeing Robert’s warhammer. Not like that, perverts.

Kingsmoot! Euron Greyjoy! Yara, Yara Queen! Generally the Ironborn gross me out but this part is fun.

Tyrion was all, “So Missandei, the dragons like you? Bring you a third of a sheep as a present? Let you scritch them behind their wings? Awesome. Instead of sending you to unchain them, which would make sense given that they’ve smelled you before, I’m going to walk amongst them undefended and shit myself three times just so I can chew some scenery with my Tragic Past again. I was just wondering, intellectually, if they understood the concept of friendship, so thanks for using your one line this week to clear that up!”

There goes my favorite fan theory, that Hodor was Baby Aegon Targaryen.

I don’t know if it’s Lena Headey’s wooden haircut or that everybody else is just so much more interesting but I’m not feeling Cersei this season, even to dislike her. And Jaime’s redemption arc in the books has been blown absolutely to shit. I know he’s the Kingslayer but even he should know you don’t kill a religious fanatic unless you want to fulfill that fanatic’s fondest wish.

You don’t offer a god your certainty.

If your god demands sacrifice, if your god asks you to give something up, it’s not going to be something you really don’t need. That ugly lamp you inherited when your great aunt died? That’s not a gift, putting that on the altar. The box of letters you keep in the back of your closet, written by the only boy who ever loved you? Toss it on the pyre, bitch, and hope the smoke from burning your secret heart reaches the heavens. Gods don’t come for what you don’t value.

The High Sparrow doesn’t fear death. He’s stepping forward, into Jaime’s sword, his followers at his back. He believes, absolutely, in the light of the Seven and the promise of another world where he is storing up riches, with his sackcloth and ashes and shaming of sinners. He petitions the gods with a ringing voice and invites the world to witness him, in his righteousness and his fury.

It’s not that he’s a hypocrite. He can be sincere, through and through, living his faith completely. He’s just not giving the gods anything he can’t spare.

Melisandre was that certain once. She burned the Seven on the shore, shouting to the Lord of Light to defend her and her people. She turned Stannis’s eyes to the flames and showed him victorious, destined to rule, demanded his daughter to further his cause.

All that noise. All that fury. Thousands died.

And the gods were silent.

Broken, defeated, painfully unsure, betrayed by her faith and her mind and her heart, Melisandre laid her shaking hands on Jon Snow’s chest and offered up her fear. She didn’t scream to the nightfires. She whispered it, the only prayer that has ever existed.

Please.

And the gods answered.

A.