Game of Thrones - 'Battle of the Bastards'

Another great stride for Westerosi feminism.

So, tonight we have battles.

In Slaver's Bay, the forces of the Masters are besieging Mereen, despite Tyrion's attempts to put a positive spin on his regency. Three representatives come to lord it over Danaerys, but she tells them they are discussing terms for their surrender. They laugh, because they really haven't been paying attention, and she leads a three dragon wedge to burn some Sons of the Harpy and utterly annihilate the Masters' flagship. Tyrion explains that one of the reps will have to die for breaking their word, and when the two 'highborn' try to thrown their lowborn comrade under the dragon bus, Grey Worm kills them instead. Then Yara and Theon turn up, offering their ships, and Danaerys and Yara get flirty about feminism before shaking on their new alliance.

Well, this is going to end well.

Which brings us to the main event, the titular 'Battle of the Bastards', as Jon Snow and his allies move against Bolton-held Winterfell. Outnumbered, Jon offers single combat, which is of course rejected. He ad his advisers plan, and Sansa gets really pissy that he didn't ask her for her opinion. This seems odd, since he doesn't explicitly ask anyone else's opinion either, and she's standing right there all the way through and could have said something at any time. She's also mad that he hasn't waited for more troops, although he has no idea that there might be more coming, because she hasn't told him she asked.

She is spot on that Ramsay is a better manipulator than Jon is, and that there is basically no way they are getting Rickon back alive.

The episode does not skimp on its battle scenes.

Sure enough, the battle begins with Ramsay letting Rickon run towards Jon, before bringing him down with an arrow, thus goading Jon into a foolish charge against his entire army. You can basically see Ser Davos and Tormund beating their heads against the wall as they run in after him.

The two sides' cavalry clash, while Bolton archers pepper the melee with indiscriminate fire. Less willing to hit their allies, Snow's archers and infantry close in, only to be surrounded by Umber footmen with long spears and tall shields, who press in like the walls of a trash compactor. Jon is almost trampled in a final rush to try to fight clear of the Umbers over a literal mountain of corpses, while Tormund is beaten down by Smalljon Umber.

Seriously; no skimping.

And then, at the eleventh hour, the cavalry arrive - again, literally - in the form of the Knights of the Vale. The knights carve through the Umber troops and Tormund turns the tide on the distracted Smalljon, biting his throat out and stabbing him repeatedly in the head.

Ramsay retreats to Winterfell to wait out his enemies, only to discover that giants are a game changer in sieges. Sadly, the terribly injured Wun Wun is at last shot dead by Bolton. Ramsay offers Jon his single combat, bow against sword, but Jon takes the arrows on a shield, runs Ramsay down and beats him bloody. Restraining himself from cold-blooded murder, Jon has Ramsay tied up in the kennels where Sansa looses his own starving dogs on him, teaching Ramsay the ultimate limit of his reign of terror.

And then she walks away. And smiles. Earlier in the episode, Danaerys points out that she, Tyrion, and Yara and Theon are all the children of evil men determined to do better. Sansa's father was the best of men, and she seems to be going the other way. Not that one can entirely blame her, given what she's seen of the world since she was a romantic girl dreaming of marriage to her handsome prince, bounced from one brutal sadist to the next, barely protected by cripples, bastards and broken things, and taught repeatedly that honour, virtue, compassion and goodness are weapons to be used against you.

Oh, and speaking of good men, Ser Davos takes a walk before the battle, discovering two shallow graves, and partly exposed in one of them a burned toy stag. This is likely to end badly for someone, but whether Ser Davos or the Red Woman remains to be seen.