The episode "Spoils of War" started with Lannister army making their way back after ransacking the High Garden and Jaime paying a brazen-faced Bronn for his services to Lannister army. Despite being hailed as the Ser Bronn of Blackwater Bay, he still preferred to get paid first handed like a sellsword. The dapper Tarlys, father, and son informed Jaime about collecting harvest from all over the reach, as a tax to the Iron Throne.
Mark Gatiss, the Mycroft Holmes of Sherlock, reprised his role of an employee of Iron Bank of Braavos, Tycho Nestoris.
He discussed with Cersei, her plan of expanding and rehabilitating Westeros after the war. Unlike his meetings with Stannis and Mace Tyrell in previous seasons, Tycho held Cersei in high esteem and drew parallels between her leadership style and her father’s. Cersei mentioned Qyburn getting in talks with the Golden Company, a sellsword company in Essos, to recover "something" she had.
Little Finger spoke to Bran for the first time in "Game of Thrones" history and offered him the infamous dagger as a gift which was used to take the child’s life in the beginning. When Littlefinger mentioned Winterfell fallen into chaos, Bran promptly responded it with, “Chaos is a ladder,” a line Little Finger said in King’s Landing sometime ago where Bran Stark had never set his foot.
It was enough to disturb Littlefinger visibly. We might see him in next episodes feeling threatened enough to back down to his quirks of wreaking havoc everywhere.
An unsuspecting Meera Reed, interrupted them when she came to bid adieu to Bran. Contrary to her expectation, it was not the same Bran she had met a long time ago.
On bidding farewell, Bran was not on the same emotional wavelength as Meera, which was also visible in his reunion with Sansa an episode earlier. A stoic Bran mentioned remembering his older self, but he remembered so much else now.
One wonders what, and whether we would ever get a glimpse of it or not, as only ten episodes are left in the show.
One more reunion this season; the only one left. Arya finally made her way back to Winterfell after 53 episodes of staying away from her family. Both Stark sisters had a memorable reunion in the crypts of Winterfell in front of the statue of their father, but Sansa didn’t believe immediately when Arya told her about the list of people she wanted to kill. Her initial disbelief shattered when she saw her badass sword fighting with Brienne in the courtyard.
The episode agreeably summarized the striking dissimilarity between tomboy Arya and damsel-in-distress Sansa. Is it possible that Littlefinger would use this personality difference for his advantage in future? The evidence says so. He had misinformed Catelyn Stark about the owner of the dagger back in the first season which enraged her to arrest an innocent Tyrion and started the War of the Five Kings.
Littlefinger has proved time and again that he loved to create mayhem to take advantage of the situation.
'Game of Thrones' taking inspiration from Batman
Talking about Littlefinger, didn’t he remind you of a famous villain of movies?
“Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos, I’m an agent of chaos, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”
Heath Ledger’s Joker said these line in the best comic book movie, The Dark Knight, but unlike The Joker, Littlefinger exactly knows what he wants out of chaos, and he always uses it to his advantage.
The screenwriters of "Game of Thrones" look impressed by the writing prowess of the Nolan brothers. They also took inspiration from a conversation between Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth and used it for the conversation between Jaime and Olenna in the third episode.
"The Dark Knight"
Bruce: It makes me learn from my mistakes.
Alfred: You ought to be pretty knowledgeable by now, then.
"Game of Thrones" episode 3
Jaime: There are always lessons in failures.
Olenna: You must be very wise by now.
We might see something more taken from "The Dark Knight" in future episodes.
Dragon has three heads
Cut to Dragonstone, Daenerys visited the caves full of dragon glass with Jon. Strangely, Stannis Baratheon, who was the Lord of Dragonstone for some seventeen years after Robert’s rebellion, did not take notice of the caves. Not even Melisandre was able to make the connection that dragon glass was going to be more important than a fake sword. Regardless, the two Targaryens, one soon-to-be, discovered the paintings sketched by the Children of the Forests.
The paintings depicted Children, White Walkers, and men in the sketches.
Now when we count, there were three people in the picture. A dragon has three heads. A subtle foreshadowing that three people are required to beat the army of Night King.
One is definitely Dany, the other is Jon; who is the third? As no other Targaryens left, it would be either a Stark or a Lannister.
Dany and Jon also had a bonding moment in caves which looks like Jon’s style of hitching ladies. Varys and Tyrion gave the news of losing the Reach to Dany on her return, and unsullied getting trapped in Casterly Rock which made Dany furious enough to plan an impromptu dragon attack on the unsuspecting Lannister army which led us to the title of the episode “The Spoils of War”.
The Iconic Battle Scene
The battle was graphically more appealing and terrifying than the other action episodes on the show like “The Battle of Bastards” and “Hardhome.”
A screaming and fire-breathing army of Dany attacked the Lannisters somewhere outside Kings’ Landing near the Blackwater Bay and turned their victory into defeat and joy into ashes. This was the first time when there were fan-favorites on both sides of the battle in the history of the show. There was also a glimpse of Tyrion Lannister sadly watching his own people burning around. It can bring a change of heart to Tyrion at some point later when he would realize that Dany may prove to be the Mad King’s daughter truly.
As the most experienced military leader left alive, Jaime knew that they were going to face a dragon at some point, and Lannister army had a scorpion with them.
Neat foresight. Although one Scorpion was not enough to kill a dragon, it did what it promised. The shot triggered by Bronn was strong enough to penetrate the thick skin of Drogon and bring him down to the ground.
By that point, the battle was mostly over for the Cersei’s army, but not for Jaime fooking Lannister. The injured lion still wanted to roar. He saw Dany on the ground trying to pull the arrow out of Drogon and tried to steal the moment. He attacked ferociously, he attacked voraciously, but he forgot that an injured dragon could still breathe fire. If Bronn had not jumped upon him to pull him under water, the last of the Lannisters would turn into a barbeque.
The last we saw of Ser Jaime Lannister, he was sinking in the depth of water under the weight of his heavy armor.
The theory of the three-headed dragon emphasized the point that there might be another secret Targaryen hiding in the plain sight. The most obvious candidates for that are the three Lannisters as Mad King Aerys had a fascination towards their mother, Joanna Lannister. Cersei is also showing some of his traits by burning her enemies like the Mad King used to do, which brings us back to the theory that can Jaime be the possible third head of the dragon?
Some fans theorized that it is not possible as Drogon attacked him and if he were a Targaryen, the dragon would recognize him. The showrunners might be going in this direction, but it is not true about the books. Dance of dragons, a civil war fought between two Targaryen heirs long ago, was ended by one dragon eating the other dragon rider.
It takes dragons some time to familiarize with their riders, and for the same reason, dragon riders do not change the ride in their life.
So, Jaime being the third head of the dragon still holds water, no pun intended.
