Oh My Fucking Old Gods: The Game of Thrones Ep That Destroyed Us All

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.

(Warning: The above clip contains graphic violence.)

Show them how it feels to lose what they love.

Well, fuck. Sorry. What I meant was FUUUUUUUUCK. RIP everyone. RIP Grey Wind. RIP honor and decency. RIP television content rating system. The King in the North is dead! Long live our Red Wedding-induced PTSD!

So what to talk about this week, guys? I guess we could start by discussing how last night’s Game of Thrones contained an extremely graphic scene in which a pregnant woman got stabbed several times in the belly and then bled to death on a floor. We could go into it seeing as that’s what the rest of the internet is talking about and we don’t want to feel left out. So, yeah. Let’s talk about it.

…

Sorry, I just started cry-barfing again, but not t0 worry! All cleaned up now!

Anyway…fuck.

Even if you haven’t read the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series (and, except for the first one, I have not), you had to know that the Frey wedding was not going to go well, right? There are no happy endings in the Game of Thrones. They’ve been beating us over the head with this all season so why the Tullys and Starks suddenly thought that they were above having terrible, nightmare shit happen to them — especially given their history — is beyond me. The same goes for the viewers. Was there ever a second when you thought that things might be okay? Oh, well, please excuse me for standing back a few feet as I watch your hope pour out of your body much like the blood recently poured gratuitously out of Catelyn Stark’s neck.

To quickly recap, Robb and his banner men have travelled to the Twins to marry off Catelyn’s brother Edmure Tully to one of Walder Frey’s many daughters. Tensions are obviously high seeing as Robb blew off his own engagement to a Frey girl, but after participating in a salt ceremony (in Westeros, this signifies a suuuuper serious truce), Robb is like “We cool?” and — after sexually harassing Talisa for awhile and commenting on how he can tell what she’s got going on under her dress (hint hint: she’s growing a baby) — Frey is all “Yeah, man. We cool.” Only, guess what? That Filch mother fucker is NOT cool. He is the opposite of cool.

Soon as the ceremony is over, he’s like “Students out of bed! Bar the doors!” and then it’s all blood, swords and Starks dying left and right. If the general carnage of the affair wasn’t enough for you, the show threw in an special bonus that wasn’t even in the books. It’s a close up of Talisa being stabbed several times in the womb. How thoughtful!

It’s this moment that has viewers talking and with good reason — the action was horrible and completely unnecessary. That said, was it all that much worse than the rest of the scene? (Was it all that much worse than the rest of the series?) To be incredibly pessimistic about it, Talisa was given a better death than most people in the Game of Thrones world. In the massacre, she’s attacked from behind, is the first to die and gets to die rather quickly. Compare her death to Robb’s — he watched his true love get murdered, was riddled by arrows and, as a final fuck you, was stabbed in the gut by his supposed ally Roose Bolton. A graphic death is one thing; coupling a graphic death with extreme emotional anguish is a-whole-nother.

Perhaps no one has experienced emotional anguish more than Catelyn. Since being introduced, she’s had her husband and every single one of her children taken from her. Seeing the extent of her suffering begs the question of why anyone in this world would even want kids — all parents seem to get to do in Westeros is watch their children endure pain and die. Maybe — and this is an awful thought — Robb and Talisa’s unborn child is being spared an even worse fate by having never been born.

While Talisa’s death was undoubtedly shocking, Catelynn’s goodbye to Robb was even more painful. In a sick way, this is an unwelcome moment of triumph for Catelyn. She has been the voice of reason for the entire series, is ignored at every turn and once again — having told everyone that Walder Frey’s squib ass is fucking cuckoo for Coco Puffs — is proven right. Not that she gets to enjoy her victory at all.

It’s the cruelest “I told you so” moment of all time as Robb, who has continuously passed on Catelyn’s advice, still can’t seem to grasp what went wrong. “Mother?” he asks and it’s his final word. It’s taken ages for him to appreciate her help — he says this earlier in the episode — and now that he’s finally able to ask for it, there’s nothing she can do for him but watch as he dies. Her own death is quick to follow.

If that’s not worse than a few quick stabs to the gut, I don’t know what is.

It angers me that I have to ask myself a question like “What’s worse: A young pregnant woman being brutally murdered or a mother forced to watch her children die a violent death before dying a violent death of her own?” and I’m starting to feel taken advantage of as a viewer and fan.

Years ago, before the show had even come out, a family member recommended the Song of Ice and Fire series to me and used the fact that George R.R. Martin isn’t afraid to kill off main characters as a selling point. I respect that in a storyteller, but recently it’s gotten to a point where I no longer trust where the story is even going. Is it fair for Martin and the showrunners to ask us to become invested in their characters only to punish us when we inevitably do? I honestly don’t know the answer.

What I do know is that my GoT loyalties have become as flexible as Roose Bolton’s.

As for the fates of the surviving characters (apart from Jaime, Brienne and Arya), I honestly could not give less of a fuck and — yeah — that goes for Dany and Tyrion as well. What can anyone expect? Punish us and call us stupid for caring enough and we’re bound to stop caring entirely.

Look, I’ll strike a deal. Martin and HBO can keep their red weddings and Theon torture scenes (really, I’m not trying to make anyone give anything up) and I will stay invested if — IF — Joffrey gets slapped across the face at least once for every terrible thing that befalls someone undeserving. Also, it’s one thing to stay true to the books, but I would really prefer it if you didn’t add additional fucked up shit like you did last night.

Consider my terms. Meanwhile, weep not for the memories.

P.S. No nudity count this week because there was no nudity. Too bad, HBO — you could have needlessly murdered a pregnant woman and had her naked. What a missed opportunity.