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Game of Thrones 1-7 Rewatch

Mar20

I just finished my full binge rewatch of all seven existing seasons of Game of Thrones — in preparation, of course, for the April debut of the final season. I wanted to offer some thoughts on the show as a whole, instead of the detailed episode by episode analysis I usually do. Bear in mind that I’ve watched many of these episodes 6-8 times (particularly the first 2-3 seasons) and read the books 3 times. However, it’s been 3 or 4 years since I did a big watch on the show, maybe a bit more, so it wasn’t too fresh (a good thing). Seasons 6 and 7 I only watched once previously when they were released (with maybe an episode or two watched twice).

I’ll just make a series of observations based on this watch. It took me about 4 weeks to view all 67 episodes (Feb 13 – Mar 18, 2019). There were a couple big binges in there, particularly season 7 which was all one day.

It’s hard to say if GOT or Buffy the Vampire Slayer is now my favorite television show of all time. Let’s just call them tied. Clearly GOT is far less dated but 7 full watches later Buffy is still a work of art. The slot just below them goes to Madmen.
You can really feel the budget ratchet up, particularly starting with season 4. Big events in season 1 and 2, namely the large scale battles, feel skimpy by the standards we have grown accustomed to. For example, Tyrion’s season 1 battle and the Battle of the Whispering Wood and even the season 2 Battle of Blackwater Bay. Large scale (CG) troop action is avoided for cost reasons. In the first few seasons some FX shots look a bit fake whereas they are seamless from season 4 on. An example would be Dany and her dragons at the end of season 1 or her “destruction” of the House of the Undying in season 2.
GRRM’s general pattern of oscillating the fortunes of each character in a slightly random sinusoidal pattern is more evident (and just as brilliant) when taken in bulk. Take a major character like Tyrion. His fortunes rise, hit setbacks, rise, then fall, then rise, then fall. Each of these individual notes (given the number of characters) combines in an orchestra like effect to form the whole.
He also really knows how to put characters to the test with really tough choices. They are often really really difficult. From Jaime’s simple choice in episode 1 to be caught with Cersei or push Bran out the window to Theon’s torturous decision as to whether to stay at Winterfell and die vs crawl home a coward. Each major character is confronted again and again with these breaking points.
As with the books, Season 1 still has the most dramatic and complex narrative. Really A Game of Thrones is a near perfect novel. GRRM’s ability to introduce such a vast range of characters, detailed world, and tell such a complex story is brilliant. Dany’s narrative in S1 / AGOT mirrors the whole season and is perfect rise and fall and rebirth.
Season 2 and to a slightly lessor extent 3 suffer the most relative to the books. A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords are nearly as good as A Game of Thrones and yet much larger. Compressing these two chunks of the narrative into one season each, when it probably needed 2.5-3 total makes season 2 in particular feel rushed. Watching it as a binge it’s less noticeable, but there is a lot of good stuff touched on, but not fully realized.
If seasons 1-3 are probably slightly inferior to the books, seasons 4-6 generally handle the material from A Feast of Crows and A Dance of Dragons better than the source novels. Both these novels suffer from terrible editing of the different narrative streams and the addition of useless and boring POV characters like Damphair and the forgotten extra heirs (2 sets?) who travel to Dany and get torched. Yes, the show’s Dorne narrative is weak, but at least it’s pretty short and gives Jaime and Bronn some banter.
Season 7 was better on this rewatch and felt a bit less rushed.
- Still there were some stupid decisions like the whole idiot plan to grab a live wight (losing the dragon).
- Also the narrative attempt to “fool” us with regard to Sansa and Arya’s relationship felt forced and an unusual distortion of the usually straightforward (show) POV.
- The season is nearly one continuous set of character reunions / dramatic first meetings (heroes and villains alike). But they nearly all work — even the “band of brothers” north of the wall.
The binge watching helps to smooth over the uneven episode presence of different characters. For example, Dany often disappears for an episode or two, particularly in season 2 or 3. Watched week to week this is very noticeable but all together not a big deal.
GOT has a tremendous number of characters and we can break them into a few tiers: A level (book POV characters like Dany, Jon, Tyrion, Arya, Sansa, Ned, Theon, Cersei, Davos, Jamie etc), B level (extremely important non POV characters like the Hound, Drogo, Littlefinger, Varys, Jorah, Ygritte, Tywin, the Red Lady), C level (memorable minor characters like Ser Roderick, Jaqen H’ghar, Gendry, the Sand Snakes, etc), and D level bit players. The books have vastly more C and D level characters. The show generally merges and minimizes many of the D level characters and promotes nearly everyone in the C and B level upward.
- Even the A characters have their narratives smoothed out. Due to a combination of Martin’s heavy POV style and his terrible breakdown for books 4 and 5 (discussed a bit here) the “pacing” of the individual character narratives is much better in the show. A perfect example would be Theon. He’s more or less always present in the show, even if his role in the first half of season 1 is minor. In the books, after his capture by Ramsay, he just vanishes for several books, then reappears in a narrative trick much later. The reconstruction of the Reek narrative over seasons 3 and 4 bridges this and keeps him relevant.
- B level characters of high importance like the Hound, Littlefinger, Varys, Jorah, Bronn etc get a huge promotion and much more development than in the books where the gap between POV and not POV is tremendous. A role for them is often found in parts of the story where Martin left them out.
- The ability of actors to add depth even during short performances (for example, Syrio Forel — but there are many others) breaths life into some of the C level characters. Others are are merged or given more involved stories like Gendry.
- Some of the irrelevant D level characters like those in the one off POV prologues lose out — but this is a wise choice.
Occasional weird recasting:
- The Mountain (3 actors!) is poorly handled (in season 2). Actors 1 and 3 are more or less interchangeable, but the decision to go with a tall skinny guy for season 2 sucks and would almost certainly make novice viewers not even realize this incarnation of the character is the same person.
- The Dario recasting is odd too, although I like the second Dario better.
Bran ages the most poorly of all the characters. He just looks (and once he’s the raven) acts so different. I know this later is on purpose, but you do feel like you’ve lost him.
It’s amazing how much emotional impact some characters that have very little overall time in the narrative have, for example Ned, Robert, Oberyn, and even Viserys.
Because I watch a TON of British period television, I constantly notice how GOT uses nearly every common BBC actor. Even minor little ones. And of course the batch overlap with certain shows like Rome (Mance, Ellaria Sand, Tobias Menzies), Skins (Gendry, Gilly), Iron Fist (Loras, Nym) and I’m sure more.
There are a couple of oddball castings/performances:
- Mace Tyrell is so broad and comic
- The Sand Snakes are so lame, particularly Obara. And I love Jessica Henwick in the Iron Fist — but she’s lame here. Speaking of, early (more swishy) Loras and Danny Rand are barely recognizable as the same actor.
The “sexposition” ratchets down after the first few seasons, although there is still some tendency to throw in gratuitous nudity even in later seasons. By gratuitous, I’m not talking about the love scenes, but for example, in the Season 6, the theatrical troupe is half naked back stage (and a bit on stage). Not that I mind, but in a mixed gender setting this would never happen in the middle ages — East or West. Perhaps among slaves in the ancient world.
Because Croatia (namely Dubrovnik and Split and environs) feature so prominently as filming locations, all/most of the cities have a seaside that looks a bit Adriatic. Or Irish (like in the case of Pyke). Or Spanish (Dragonstone, Dorne). This leads Kings Landing, Bravos, and Meereen to have some considerable overlap in visual style, particularly with the coastal view, general terrain, and grey stone streets. If they had shot Meereen in the middle east or something this could have been avoided, but the show has a lot of filming locations as it is.
GOT borrows liberally from all across history. A bit of history’s great hits. George R. R. Martin does it in the books and the show does it even more (as it continues the trend on a visual and stylistic level). The series is rife with out of time historical borrows/allusions. Below are a few ancient references repurposed into this largely medieval setting:
- Arya’s presenting Frey with the pie containing his sons’ is reminiscent of Herodotus describing the Persian king Cambyses as serving his enemies their dead children.
- The Titan of Bravos is borrowed from the Colossus of Rhodes.
- The architectural style of Old Town’s Citadel is copied directly from the Lighthouse of Alexandria (a second wonder of the Ancient World).
- As many of the scenes were filmed in the Palace of Diocletian, they have a Roman feel. As does the Dragonpit which is obviously old Roman construction because of the telltale Roman brickwork (looking it up, it’s a Roman amphitheater in Seville).
- Slavers bay feels vaguely Babylonian — the harpies subbing in for winged bulls and the like.
- The Dothraki are of course an amalgamation of steppe people like the Mongols and Huns. There have been steppe cavarly armies sense early antiquity and they posed a constant threat to city people until the invention of small (gunpowder) arms. At least one of the Dothraki “flavor” conversations is borrowed from Gibbon’s description of statements allegedly made by Atilla.

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My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Throne, George R. R. Martin, got, HBO, Narrative structure, Television

Game of Thrones – Episode 50

Jun19

MelisandreShow: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 50 – June 14, 2015

Title: Mother’s Mercy

Summary: Grim but great

ANY CHARACTER HERE

NOTE: SERIOUS SPOILER WARNING. This review/discussion contains tons of spoilers about the episode and even ones crossing over from the books. It’s really my free-for-all musing given all the information at my disposal.

Stannis – We start our series of thread wrap ups with Mr. Grim and and Grammar, Stannis. Things are thawing at Camp Snowbound, and Melisandre claims success in her murderous spells, but Stannis isn’t showing her any love. Still, he is a man on a mission and commands they march. But some officer informs him half the men have deserted and taken the horses with them. Another comes and leads him to the forest where they find his wife, the unlikeable Lady Selyse, who has hung herself. Obviously she isn’t as good at compartmentalization. He cuts her down but Melisandre is somehow realizing that she either misread the Lord of Light, or his divine brightness urgently wants her elsewhere, as she hops on a horse and gets out of town fast.

Later, Stannis’ ragtag remainder of an army marches up toward Winterfell. I guess it was right over the ridge as they supposedly had no food or horses. This is intercut rapidly with Brienne and Sansa’s threads, but I’ll leave the Love Luckless Stark’s for a second. But Pod notices the Stannis forces and runs to tell Brienne. They gather weapons.

Stannis orders up a siege, but he gets instead a big cavalry charge from the Boltons (presumably under the command of Ramsay). The horsemen surround and outflank his meager forces in a nice CGI maneuver and we are left with a few quick shots of this horrendous defeat. Oh, and in case we had any doubts that Ramsay was a sadistic scum, we see him torturing a few helpless Baratheon soldiers.

Stannis is fight off a few Bolton troops in the forest. He’s tough, so he kills them, but he takes a bad wound to the leg and slumps against a tree. Out of nowhere Brienne appears. Ready for revenge at last. She accuses him of using blood magic to kill his brother Renly, and Stannis, ever in character, admits it. Really this is just sad sad for Stannis. He’s made the most horrible sacrifice ever for what he wants, and it’s proved to be worse than useless. He’s done. When Brienne sentences him to death he almost welcomes it with another typical droll Stannis one-liner, “Go do you duty.” She swings the sword, but we are left without seeing the death itself. It’s enough to make us wonder.

This is all slightly advanced of the completely unclear bit in ADWD. Consistent though, even though Brienne has no part in the book version of those events. And it’s so grim and dark. Bad choices. And what the hell was the Red Lady’s game? Did she read things wrong? Or is this how she wanted to to play out?

Sansa – meanwhile has used the corkscrew (barrel tap or whatever) she snagged during Ramsay’s walk of horrors to pry open her door while Evil Bastard (literally) is away playing hide the sword in the back with Stannis. She sneaks all over the castle, avoiding looking anyone in the eye, takes note of the Broken Tower and climbs. But she runs afoul of Myranda, Reek, and a bad case of bow-pointed-at-face. Myranda is psyched, to get a little revenge in before taking her back to her room, and somehow this pushes Theon over the edge where watching Sansa get wife-raped does not. He knocks Myranda’s bow aside and tosses her down into the courtyard. She isn’t as lucky as Bran and there is a distinctly satisfying smack as she hits the pavement. He hauls Sansa up onto the battlements and they are confronted with a 50 foot drop to some snow below. The pair is desperate enough to leap for it. We can presume that because Theon and Jeyne Poole made it out in the books, so do they.

Arya – We watch Meryn Trant get ready for another evening of brothel fun. This time he has three young girls and a stick to hit them with. Not only does he hit women. Not only is he a total jerk. Not only does he like little girls, but he wants to hit them too. This is about 3 extra reasons to kill him off. The last girl doesn’t scream when hit, and when we see her face it’s not Arya. Trant punches her in the gut and she changes into Arya Faceless Man style and goes all Hannibal Lector on him. She stabs him in the eyes and jumps all over him. Not only is it pretty crazy but it does make sense as a way for a smallish woman to take down a big warrior like Trant. She torments him for a bit and tells his who she is, calling him no one. This of course isn’t by accident as clearly she isn’t no one herself, but still Arya Stark. Then, unlike with Oberyn and the Mountain, his luck is up and she slits his throat.

Back in the basement of the House of Black & White she slips the girl’s mask back on the rack. Jaqen and the waif are there, however. Uh oh, caught unmasked. Jaqen tells her that she killed the wrong man and that the Faceless God demands a death, threatens her with the poison, then takes it himself and dies. She crouches down and rips off his mask to find a pile of other faces, and finally her own. They the waif changes her face into Jaqen and continues chastising her. Arya’s sight melts away and she is left blind — and more or less where she is at the end of A Feast of Crows. We have reordered slightly but this is all consistent enough with her isolated storyline.

All and all an excellent sequence, and while dark, at least not as bleak as some of the other threads. The magic of the Faceless Men is a little confusing. Did Jaqen put the wait up to playing him for a bit? Is he a spirit that may possess any of them? How did Arya’s face, symbolic as it was, end up on the bottom of the face pile? She after all isn’t dead and didn’t pass through the mask masking process.

Jaime – is getting ready to depart for Kings Landing with Trystane and Princess Myrcella (way too many M girls: Melisandre, Missandei, Myrcella, Myranda, Margaery!). For some reason the whole gang is there, including Doran, Hotah, Ellaria, and the sand snakes. Ellaria gives the Princess a big smooch on the lips and they get on the boat. Then in a cabin below decks Jaime has a nice bonding scene with his daughter where he awkwardly tries to admit she is his daughter, but she already knows. It really is very well played on both sides and you feel for him finally connecting to his children he’s had to ignore… then it all goes bad and her nose starts to bleed and she slumps into his arms.

Back on the docks Ellaria, nose also bleeding, is swigging some of Tyrene’s antidote. So the whole bit with Bronn and the poison now makes some sense, as it existed only to explain the whole poison/antidote thing. No wonder it felt strange. And all in all a very sad tragic thread in the middle of a sad tragic episode. Myrcella, although we didn’t know her well, was so sunny that it’s all the more depressing.

Tyrion and crew – hang out in the throne room (boy do they love that set). We have to wonder who mopped up the Harpies too. This scene is a bit of a throw-a-way as Grey Worm comes in and they all haggle about who will go after Dany and who will stay. In the end, it’s decided that Jorah & Dario go, and Ty, Grey Worm, and Missandei will stay and “rule.” There is a great line from Dario though, calling Grey Worm the “toughest man with no balls he’s ever known.”

After, Tyrion surveys the city and Varys teleports in behind him. Obviously he offered sexual favors to the guards. They have a typical fun exchange in which it’s agreed that Varys will lend his little birds to the cause of ruling Meereen. Clearly Ty and Varys are taking over for Barristan’s boring chapters in ADWD (while Dany is away).

Dany – speaking of the great Queen, she’s hanging out in North Ireland with Drogon who is doing his best to rest up on a bed of bones on top of a cliff. She tries for awhile to roust him and get back in the saddle but he’s having none of it, so she sets off to find some food. Interestingly, the show decided to keep her clothes on (in the books Drogon roasts them off her back). Anyway, somehow she climbs down the steepest cliffs ever and reaches the valley where she meets, one, three, then about a thousand Dothraki. They swirl about her in a CGI horde better looking than the season 1 horde ever was. She drops a ring as a breadcrumb (presumably Jorah/Dario will find it next year) and is surrounded. Second monarch to be surrounded by cavalry this episode alone!

Cersei – kneels before the High Sparrow/Septon to confess her crimes in the big scene we’ve all been waiting all season for. She actually isn’t very contrite or convincing and only confesses to boinking Lancel’s skinny ass — with excuses all the way. She blames the incest “lie” on Stannis, which the Septon seems not to mind (the maybe late king is after all a Lord of Light worshipping infidel). Perhaps the Septon is a fairly political after all. He tells Cersei they’ll sort it out during her “trial” but she can visit with her son back at home after her “penance.” So here comes the real work for Lena, as she is stripped naked (body double) and has her head shaved. Outside, in front of the Sept, she is made to walk naked through the entire city to the Red Keep. Some Sparrows keep the ugly (literally and figuratively) crowd at bay, the annoying nun chants “shame shame” over again. They trudge through Dubrovnik, particularly spending a lot of time in that stair lined square right inside the uphill gate. It’s a hard walk and the show lingers on it. We have a lot of fake Lena full frontal (and back frontal) and she is pelted with dung and rotten food. Lena nails it. Cersei’s resolve slowly melts and crumbles until she nearly breaks and runs into the keep.

There, she meets the hard faces of uncle Kevan, Pycelle, etc. But Qyburn is there on her side. Not only does he have a blanket for her, but he has another gift: Mecha-Greggor or Franken-Greggor, or Ser Robert the Strong: the enormous silent (I like the vow of silence), rotting eyed, Kingsguard version of Greggor. Cersei gets that old nasty gleam back in her eye.

Given that the show has no access to Cersei’s inner monologue, this scene was extremely well done. As good as I could imagine.

Jon – has a final powwow with Sam, giving us a quick recap of the disaster from 2 weeks ago (Hard Home). He makes sure to point out that Longclaw is Valayrian steel, but that this still probably won’t be enough. Sam asks to be sent with Gilly and her baby to Old Town to study and be a Maester, skipping Bravos clearly, but getting him back on track with the books and setting us up for some Tarly action next season. I know that line about Old Town in the middle of the season meant something. And Sam’s reasons for leaving make sense enough (for him). Their chemistry is great as always, probably mostly because of Sam’s likability and acting chops. Jon knows they “did it” and they make some jokes about it. Like the Davos/Shireen convo this is setup as a sad farewell. Next, Sam and Gilly ride out of the gates because GOT loves to show people come and go — really people do it so much they kinda need too.

Much later, Davos shows up to pleads for help for the now probably dead Stannis. And after him the Red Lady shows too, which is all too convenient and Davos asks after the Queen and Princess. The silence he receives isn’t encouraging. We have to continue to wonder, what is her game? Why is she here? Is she on hand to raise someone who might soon be dead?

Speaking of which, Jon is having a hard time concentrating on his letters when Olly enters with news that Benjen Stark might still be alive. Sneaky, and very sneaky of the show to tease Benjen in the “previously on.” Straightforward guy that he is, Jon charges out Ned Stark style and runs into a crowd and Throne’s knife in his gut. They each say “For the Watch” as they stab him, Julius Caesar style. Olly puts the final blade in his heart. Sigh.

No sign of Ghost at all, not since he saved Sam and Gilly, so I think the Warging is off the table.

The Melisandre does the Dondarian on him option is still very much on the table. The producers and actor have gone to great lengths to declare him dead and gone. But the R+L=J breadcrumbs strewn liberally through this season seem really important. It just wouldn’t be like George (and even more so of D&B) to set that up for no purpose. So I have hope.

All in all, a awesome TV, but so dark. Hands down the darkest hour of GOT yet, even worse in some ways than the Red Wedding. The bodycount was high: Jon (probably), Stannis (maybe), Selyse (2 inches taller), Myrcella (likely), Myranda, Trant (good riddance), and the Waif. Even worse are the unsettled endings:

Jon probably dead, wall has exactly 1 friendly face: Edd
Stannis probably dead
Margaery, not even mentioned
Sansa/Reek in a snow drift
Myrcella poisoned, war with Dorne up in the air
Dany circled by hostile Dothraki
Cersei/Kings Landing balance of power
Bran, playing the tree
Rickon AWOL
Ramsay still alive!

So bleak it left me with that catharsis. But it was so well executed, and it’s rare that TV works this many emotional ups and downs. Sigh, the 9 month wait will be tough.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside the episode videos:

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 50, Game of Throne, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jon Snow, Mother's Mercy, Season 5, Season 5 Episode 10

Game of Thrones – Episode 49

Jun12

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 49 – June 7, 2015

Title: The Dance of Dragons

Summary: Wow: sad and exhilarating

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Jon – crunches southward toward the Black Gate, a ragtag group of Wildlings (and the giant) in tow. When he reaches the wall, he looks on, worried that Thorne won’t even open. And Ser Glower looks down from above and considers it. Not really that large a group considering the masses we saw last week — all of whom are now doing the zombie shuffle. Anyway, Throne relents and orders the gate opened. As the crew marches through into castle black, Olly gives Jon that total stink eye look and privately considers sneaking off to sharpen his dagger. Thorne just issues some dry comment, “You have a good heart Jon Snow, but someday it will get us all killed.” Sam for his part is happy to see Jon, but Jon unloads on him with a weight heavier than his hair: feeling depressed that he failed to save all of them. Sam points out the bright side. Oh, and watching the giant climb out of the tunnel and tower over everyone is awesome.

Everyone loves you Jon, you are totally misreading Olly’s stinkeye

Jaime – visits with Prince Doran in some Moorish palace. As dull as the Dorne thread is, it does have good sets. The whole noble crew is there: Ellariah Sand, Trystane, and Myrcella. Hotah looms over them. Doran, ever reasonable, asks why he “invaded” and didn’t just come and visit. He explains about the threatening message and Doran gives Ellariah a dark-eyed look. But he doesn’t want war so he drinks to Tommen, but Ellariah pours hers on the floor. Doran ignores it and suggests that Trystane and Myrcella go back to King’s Landing, but that young Trystane take Oberyn’s spot on the Small Council — essentially backing out of Dorne fast. Ellariah trades insults and Doran warns her that she walks on thin ice. Jaime is very thankful and asks about Bronn. Trystane says the sellsword can go free, but with one condition.

So speaking of our amusing mercenary, he’s watching the Sand Snakes play some kind of ridiculous slapping version of patty cake that devolves into a cat fight. Then Hotah comes to drag him upstairs and he gets one final chance to tell Tyrene she is the hottest babe in the world. Upstairs in the throne room he is set free, but discovers that “the condition” is that Hotah elbows him across the jaw hard (paying back Trystane). Well, Bronn’s probably had worse.

Later, Doran tells Ellariah that her rebellion is over and that she must swear allegiance or die. She wrestles with it, then kneels and swears. You have to wonder if she is sincere, and so perhaps does Doran because he tells her that he believes in second chances, but not thirds. Next, she goes and visits Jaime in a rather odd scene in which she is quiet cordial, although there is a line of hardness under it. She tells him she knows all about the incest, but emphasizes that “we don’t chose whom we love” thread that resonates with Jaime. He of course neither confirms nor denies the charges. Ellariah goes on to say that Myrcella, and perhaps he, had nothing to do with Oberyn’s death. I’m not thinking she’s let that one go entirely.

One big happy family

Arya – The most deadly Stark cruises the harbor with her oyster cart gunning for the thin man. As luck would have it, he orders up some oysters, but before Arya can slip him the special vinegar he gaze is distracted by a Lannister sail in the harbor and by Mac Tyrell and more importantly, Meryn Trant disembarking. Mace continues his brand of broad comedy as he is met by a representative of the Iron Bank. Which leads me to wonder why they do meet him instead of treating him to a few hours in the lobby like Stannis. Anyway, Arya totally ignores the thin man and sucks after Meryn (and Mace). They go visit the bank. She watches and waits. When they come out, Mace continues his comedy routine with a silly song. Arya follows Meryn into the evening as he seeks out a brothel. She follows him inside, hawking her wares. GOT sure loves a brothel scene, although this one has no nudity. Meryn is set up not only as the Sansa-beating thug from earlier seasons, but as a pedophile and all around ass. he bags on the Tyrells, he won’t treat his men. He keeps demanding younger and younger girls until the nervous madame drags one in from the kitchen or wherever. He even asks for a new one for the next night, setting up Arya with both motive and means to take him out. Alas, that waits for next week as she retreats to the House of Black & White where she lies to Jaqen about the status of her thin man assignment. He presumably sees through this, as he is the guy who always knows when a girl is lying, but we’ll have to wait to see what happens.

Why is no one surrounded by Arya Stark’s things?

Stannis – The Red Lady Melisandre looks over the snowy camp as tents burst into flame. Burning men and horses run from the conflagration. Ramsay of course, which is confirmed in the morning as Davos reports the damage. 20 men (sound familiar) have snuck in, torched the food and horses. Now they are in a really serious pickle.

Later, Stannis examines his game board. The king orders Davos back to castle black to secure more supplies. Total setup to leave him alone with his “difficult decision” visa via Shireen. Davos might know something is up, but it’s hard to tell. he protests (as usual) but is overruled. He walks past the men (in bad shape) to visit Shireen, in what is a touching little scene. They discuss the book she is reading, A Dance of Dragons! He gives her a carved wooden stag (the one he was working on an episode or two ago) and promises her to make it a pair. They have nice chemistry as usual.

Yeah, yeah, get all sappy before you throw the match on the pyre

Next Stannis visits her too. She is reading the same book and they have an oblique exchange (at least for her). Essentially, he is seeking her permission for serving her up to his destiny and she provides it, without knowing what it is she is supporting. Kind of sad really. He even apologizes, of course she has no idea what for until guards grab her outside and drag her to the handy dandy stake and Melisandre’s not so tender mercies. She screams and swerves. Wisely the camera leaves her at this point focusing on Stannis and his wife. At first lady Stannis is all gung ho burn the girl, but once the screaming starts she breaks and runs for Shireen only to be stopped in the snow. The screams amplify and it’s really tough to watch as they go on and on and the camera focuses on Stannis’ grim and determined face. Yeah, we had almost started to like him, but alas, there is no coming back from this bit of nastiness.

GRRM seems to have confirmed that Shireen’s terrible death happens (or will happen) in the books too, but there as there is only Davos’ point of view, and I can’t even remember if he was there, it likely doesn’t hold the same emotional impact, particularly given how much the show has invested in making her a likely character.

Not the face you want to see as your last

Not the face you want to see when getting dragged to a stake

Dany – Straight into the giant fighting pit, which is a serious upgrade from the “baby pit” of two weeks ago. In fact, it looks pretty much like a giant bull fighting ring in Seville. I wonder why. Oh, and crossed with the Colosseum in Rome as it has the big awnings (seen in Gladiator). But for TV this looks great. Arguably better than the aforementioned Russel Crowe movie. Lots of CGI and real crowds. Dany has a big box with Tyrion, Dario, and Missandei. Hizdahr (her annoying betrothed) is late, which is suspicious. Hiss for Hizdahr.

Best CGI on TV

The MC comes out, announces the first pair, a big man and a quick man, and Dany is forced to clap them into action after the traditional salute. She clearly isn’t a fan and neither is Tyrion. Anyway, this first fight is background color to the conversation. Dario and Hizdahr take the pro side of the argument, but they use it to measure up their manhoods. But like every line of dialog in this show (which is carefully written and edited) they all have their purposes. In this case putting Tyrion and Dany on the side that moderns identify as “good” and showing that Hizdahr is an old fashioned ass. But the truth is there is also a complex and morally ambiguous point here in historical context. When is violence necessary? Do means justify the ends?

Good thing this marriage will never be consumated

Someone die. 5-6 more gladiators come out and swear. One is Jorah.

We knew this was coming, but it’s a morally complex issue for Dany, personal this time and not so abstract. She could stop the fight. And she cares for Jorah, but she has exiled him twice and he keeps coming back. Anyway, he takes a beating but keeps winning. Then at the end, he chucks a spear apparently right at Dany, but no, it’s a Son of the Harpy. And there are more, dozens, maybe hundreds all over the arena. They start slaughtering the populace (not sure why) and gunning for Dany. Dario tries to protect her, and grey worm, and Jorah climbs up and helps save her, winning a hand grasp and redemption (is he contagious?). Tyrion is nearly killed. Mis and Dany escape with the men and he follows. Hizdahr takes a knife in the gut. They set him up as maybe a Harpy. They set him up as a jerk. No wonder he gets stabbed (and maybe killed).

Uh, oh!

The Dany group tries to run one way, but more Harpies pour in, then are encircled in the center of the arena. This part looks great and is well done. The Harpies are a bit timid, and while they outnumber the royalists they are poorly armed. Dario, Jorah, Grey Worm, and various Unsullied killed lots of them as they press in, and it’s a slow thing, but the outcome is clear, certainly to Dnay and Tyrion. She takes Missandei’s hand and closes her eyes. Then with a reptilian screen and a burst of flame Drogon appears out of nowhere (summoned by her stress?). He looks awesome as he circles the arena and lands. He then bites, shreds, and fireballs Harpies. Drogon himself looks great, but his flaming is a little staid and he only hits a few at once. This scene, like last week’s zombie attack, is as good as any ever shot for TV, but it still doesn’t have the budget per minute of a big feature film. It would have been cooler if Drogon circled again and fricasseed hige swathes of Harpies. Bit it’s still great. They start pelting him with spears and piss him off. Dany yanks one out and he howls at her, but then recognizes her and turns soft. She climbs up his back (which looks a little) fake and yells “fly” in Valayrian. He builds up speed and the two of them take to the air, leaving slack jawed Tyrion, Jorah, Dario, etc starring.

A face only a mother could love!

A few effects flaws aside this scene brought geeky tears to my eyes, even on the second watch. It was both epic and had the proper emotional effect. Check it out yourself if you haven’t:

All in all, a solidly awesome episode. We have Arya. We have emotional awfulness in the north. The Dorne bit was as good as the Dorne bits have been (which isn’t so great). And most importantly we had pure combat and dragon awesomeness at the end.

Hard to say if this was even better than Hard Home!

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or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside the episode videos:

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Throne, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones (TV series), George R. R. Martin, HBO, List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters

Game of Thrones – Episode 44

May01

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 44 – May 3, 2015

Title: The Sons of the Harpy

Summary: Solid transitional episode

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Last week was a great episode and so this one has big footsteps to follow in.

Tyrion – Jorah steals a boat by clobbering a fisherman and tossing the half man in like a sack of potatoes. Later, they are sailing along, and a gagged Tyrion makes annoying noises until Jorah the rags out of his mouth. Even gagged Tyrion is funny. And amusing as always, ungagged Tyrion complains that he “can’t sleep without wine.” Tyrion is at first under the impression that Jorah is taking her back to Cersei, but realizing they are going the wrong way, clues in that by “queen” she meant Dany. Tyrion then shows off his wit by observing nuances of Jorah’s outfit, figuring out who he is and his motivations to a tee. He’s so delightfully annoying that Jorah knocks him into unconsciousness.

Not too tight!

Jaime and Bronn – are also sailing, but on a much larger ship. They pass a green island which a sailor identifies as the Sapphire Isle, a nod to his use of said location in season 3 to help Brienne avoid a rape. Bronn quizzes Jaime on why they are taking a merchant vessel. On his “niece” (Bronn being quite suspicious about the royal parentage). There is some character development as they discuss how they’d like to die, with Bronn opting to die old and rich and surrounded by kids and Jaime in the “arms of the woman he loves.” Well, that isn’t going so well.

As they row ashore Bronn is also concerned that the captain knew who they are, and as it turns out after a slithering breakfast the next morning a foursome of Dornish soldiers show up. They try to talk their way past but they need to do what they do best — or at least Bronn does best, as Jaime barely managed to handle one of the raiders, and that one with a clever move involving his golden hand. It’s a solid fight livened up by some trademark dialog.

One, if he’s slow

Sand Snakes – Episode 4 of the season, and finally we meet the infamous “sand snakes” (Oberyn’s daughters). Ellaria Sand is visiting the trio of snake-clad brunettes. I loved her last season, but this is the second time this season she’s all venom (haha). I don’t love the casting for the Sand Snakes. They come off as goofy and trying to hard to be woman warriors (unlike many of the others on the show, like Brienne or Yara). They do have that previously mentioned ship captain buried in the sand up to his neck, head covered in scorpions (ick!). They know all about Jaime’s arrival and have plenty of reason to speculate on why. Ellaria, continuing as the hawk wants to start a war by killing Princess Marcella — and certainly doesn’t want her erstwhile father/uncle interfering. The snakes are up for some violence.

Girly girls playing at being warriors

Cersei – is meeting with the smaller council. Mace announces that the iron bank has placed a margin call on a tenth of their debt. Cersei wants to send him to Bravos with (uh oh) Ser Meryn Trant. Probably mostly to get him out of the way and weaken Margaery’s power base. Although maybe he’ll have a run in with “nobody” — or they just want to use their cool Iron Bank set again. Pycelle then even jokes about the smaller council.

Next, the dowager queen entertains the High Sparrow, who apparently got mysteriously promoted to High Septon, something which was clear in the books but unclear here. At least the old one seems to have survived — in the black cells. His birdiness doesn’t drink wine. In a crazy bid presumably to control him through favors (although this is very unclear in the show) she offers to revive the Knights Militant, the special Templar-like military order of the church. And she refers to someone living in particularly gross sin…

Next, Sparrows smash beer kegs and break wine bottles. They storm around town busting up all the fun stuff. I’ve never been a big fan of these type “mob” scenes without a main actor on screen. These are intercut with Lancel getting a new “wheel of the seven” sigil carved in his forehead with a knife. I can still hardly recognize him. Then the Sparrows are raiding Littlefinger’s ever popular brothel — which gets pretty boy Olyvar beaten up. Some gay guy is pulled out and killed. Then Lancel storms in on Loras Tyrell (not in the brothel) and arrests him.

Uh, Marg dear, can I at least get a little...

Uh, Marg, can I at least get a little…

Margaery storms into Tommen furious about her brother and demands the king get him free. A confused Tommen goes to Cersei who is all plausible deniability, but she does send him to the High Sparrow. Alas, our wimpy kid king is stymied by the guards on the steps to the Sept. Seems the High Sparrow is praying and he doesn’t want to use violence to bust in. He slinks away. I know he’s just a boy, but he could have offered to join the Sparrow in prayer, or to wait. Instead, momma’s boy that he is, he creeps back to Marg. She scolds him and gives him the cold shoulder, saying she needs to be with her family. Poor boy, he’s going to get blue balls.

Sansa – Our time in the (non wall) north is much reduced this week with just a single scene with Sansa in the Winterfell Crypt. She stands in the very spot used for Episode 1 lighting candles to her late aunt. Littlefinger joins her for some manipulations. He talks of Lyanna and the tourney at Harrenhal where Rhaegar Targareyn chose her over his wife — leading of course to Ned and Robert’s rebellion and the whole (previous) civil war. We are reminded that he kidnapped and raped her after, which leads me to wondering if they are doing longterm setup for Jon Snow’s parentage (NOTE: highly speculative spoiler thought). As much reminding the viewer as Sansa, Littlefinger tells her that he is off to Kingslanding to play Cersei’s lapdog but that Stannis is on his way with an army — and that he will likely name her Wardeness of the North if he gets the chance. Sansa is concerned what she does if that doesn’t happen, and ever pragmatic, warns her she must win over Ramsay. That could be more difficult than either of them realize (woof woof!). This leads me to wondering how much Littlefinger really knows about Ramsay — and I’m inclined to believe this is one of the rare cases where he is under-informed (as he himself said last episode). Dark Sansa herself seems resigned and ready for the task. Oh, and Peter can’t leave without giving her another wee kiss. I do suspect that he actually has some feelings for her — or what passes for feelings where Littlefinger is concerned.

Loving Dark Sansa

Jon/Stannis the wall – King and Queen stick-in-the-mud are watching Jon Snow in the fighting yard. The queen continues to bash her own daughter but the Red Lady approaches and praises the girl. Melisandre and Stannis remind us that they’re heading to Wintefell soon — and the Lady asks if she’s going this time (which she is). Lady might be creepy, but she is a good luck charm.

In his office, Jon is signing papers with Sam. Requests for more men to local lords — including Roose Bolton. Jon pauses, but eventually signs it, as he is resigned to his path as a man of the Night’s Watch. Then Sam and the Red Lady swap places and she wastes no time telling him she wants him to come south with her and popping her breasts out of her dress. She’s obviously sniffing out his kingly blood (another hint like above with the Rhaegar stories) and horning in on his powerful seed. This isn’t the first time (remember Stannis and Gendry?). Clearly she’d love to work some mojo. Jon resists heroically, although he does cop a feel. He admits he still loves Ygritte. And even more on the way out she says “you know nothing Jon Snow.” Sigh. Where’s the alternate reality porn episode with Jon and Ygritte stuck in the cave?

Than we have a peculiar little scene where Shireen pops in on her father (people are forever entering the room in this show) and asks if he is ashamed of her. He tells a little story which proves clearly otherwise, which is a rare warm and touchy moment for someone described as having all the personality of a lobster.

Surprisingly, Shireen brings out the best in King Lobster

Dany – finishes out the episode. This is at least the second time the title has nothing to do with the internal balance. The queen and Barristan hang out on the balcony of her pyramid. The view is great but he’s grown kinda tedious. He tells her about Rhaegar (second Rhaegar story of the episode, and we have to wonder why). In this story we learn that the late prince liked to sing for change in the streets of king’s landing. Meanwhile, Dario comes to get her, as the Meerenish nobles are downstairs in the throne room. That noble son, Hisgar or whoever is pleading again to let the fighting pits be opened.

Cut to a bunch of masked Sons of the Harpy killing what are probably Second Sons. Then Unsullied trotting through halls (in Split Croatia). These Unsullied sure do a lot of jogging. They are ambushed and one is revealed to be Grey Worm. He fights well but is outnumbered. Barristan, who happened to be on a convenient walk (setup before), runs into the fray at the sound of trouble. In the end, he and Gray Worm take out a huge mass of Harpies, but are badly wounded in the process.

I’m just not feeling it with these Dany scenes this season — but they had the same effect when I was reading ADWD, so not so surprising.

The view was the best part

All in all, a very solid episode. Not as exciting as last week, and with less threads, but it had some good stuff. Too little Tyrion, but what we got was good. Too many crowd scenes (Sparrows, Harpies, Unsullied) but we did get some great Jaime/Bronn banter and fighting. I was a little disappointed in the Sand Snakes — too cheesy, but Sansa’s “dark territory” story line continues to be highly intriguing.

The show is really upping the visual ante too. Nearly every locale, window, and hill shot gets some giant combined real and CGI view and they look totally gorgeous.

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Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside videos for the episode:

By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 40

Jun15

Game of Thrones

Genre: The Children

Watched: Episode 40 – June 15, 2014

Title: The Watchers on the Wall

Summary: Great ep, sad to be done for the year

ANY CHARACTER HERE

This episode has a lot to wrap up. Pretty much every story line is in flux and it would make sense to visit them all and close out (or at least position) their position. I’ll break them down thread by thread for convenience.

Jon and the wall – picking up where last week ended, Jon wanders out through the field of corpses (including the giant being picked apart by crows). He wanders into the woods and surrenders in front of Mance’s tent without even being searched. They have a fairly civil discussion about his loyalty and Ygritte, and even toast to her and other dead companions. Mance wants to pass through the wall. Also, in variation from the books we never see Mance’s wife or child. Jon is contemplating making a suicidal bid at Mance when–

Stannis’ army appears out of nowhere, a giant sweep of cavalry. Where he actually got all these troops we may never know, but he pretty much lays waste. Stannis and Davos show and take Mance captive.

Later, Maester Aemon says the prayers for the dead Black Brothers and they burn the bodies. Stannis and family watch on, and so does Melisandre, peering at Jon through the flames. After, Jon goes and talks to Tormund. He doesn’t threaten him but asks if he wants to say anything over his bodies. They talk of Ygritte which leads to Jon taking her body north of the wall and burning it.

His name was Mak the Mighty

Bran – and crew trudge through a Blizzard. Jojen isn’t doing well but then Bran sees the tree. It is an impressive sight sunlit, red leaves the only growth in the forbidding Icelandic landscape. They approach and animated skeletons burst through the snow and attack them. That’s new! (at least by my reckoning). This results in a tense but slightly Sinbad battle in which Bran possesses Hodor again for some half-giant on skelly pummeling and Meera tries to defend Jojen. But the poor boy is stabbed by a wayward skeletal hand and the gang is saved by a fireball tossing little girl (apparently a Child of the Forest). They rush into the cave minus Jojen. I appreciate throwing in a little more action, but I have slightly mixed feelings about the scene (and particularly the fireballs). Inside, it’s covered with roots and bones, and is almost as creepy as that other HBO 2014 finale that included a rooty lair (True Detective). There, hidden in the roots is the three-eyed crow / root guy. Certainly he is related to The Green Man (a celtic mythological rendering). I’m not sure I felt he was “grown into the tree” enough, but the final exchange was good: “You’ll never walk again, but you will fly.”

Watch out for hidden skeletons!

Dany – Concluding her season of doing very little, Dany is in her throne room holding audiences. One old slave tutor wants to go back to being a slave, then a peasant comes in with a charred little corpse and claims Drogon lit up his kid like a torch. Dany discusses with her advisors and then lures the two smaller dragons (Drogon being missing, off on a joy flight) into the catacombs and chains up her wayward reptilian children. The catacombs, by the way, for those of us well versed in ancient buildings, are easily recognizable as the basement of Diocletian’s Palace in Split Croatia. Normally, this is full of tourist vendors, but they clearly emptied it out for the shoot. This is a cool place, and one of the better preserved structures from (late) antiquity.

Poor babies

King’s Landing – The Mountain lays dying, victim of not only a good stab or two by Oberyn but of “Manticore blood,” a horrible poisoning. Grand Maester Pycell pronounces him a goner, but Qyburn is all too happy to “experiment” with “cures” on Cersei’s behalf. I think Cersei allowed this in the books, but I can’t remember if it came to fruition (and Qyburn has some kind of Gregor Frankenstein monster).

Cersei is feeling the man of the hour, because she takes on Tywin over the issue of her marriage to Loras. When he insists, she threatens to tell the world about her incestuous relationship with Jaime. It’s not even clear if he believes (her or the incest), but he is certainly shaken. Charles Dance is fabulous as always and the hidden shake in his hand is great.

Next, Cersei and Jaime argue of Tyrion and she kisses him, claiming to chose “him.” They sleep together on the table in the Kingsguard meeting hall.

Jaime may have accepted Cersei’s illicit love, but he isn’t buying her judgement of their brother, because he lets Tyrion out of his cell, offering him a way out to Varys and a ship. But after a heartfelt goodbye, Tyrion is drawn away from escape and up the secret passage to the tower of the hand. There he finds Shae in his former (and now his father’s) bed. She goes for a knife and he ends up strangling her. As usual, Peter nails it, and the expression on his face and his postmortem apology is perfect. This scene always bothered me in the books. Here they manage to make Tyrion’s role in it perfectly in character and reasonable. He is caught with something unexpected, and reacts out of passion and in self defense. Now what I don’t and never did understand was Tywin’s role here. Shae maybe, feeling betrayed and out of options would sleep with Tyrion’s father. Maybe. But Tywin? He just doesn’t seem the whore type. And, to sleep with Tyrion’s whore? The idea would just gross him out.

Anyway, Tyrion grabs a crossbow and heads to the privy. There is Tywin apparently having skipped his Konsyl (because he’s in the bathroom a long time). Tywin as usual, tries to talk the situation down, but when he uses the “whore” word a second time, Tyrion puts a crossbow quarrel in him. Then another. Returning to the door, he finds Varys, who seals him into a crate and loads him on a cargo ship. In the background, bells toll out for Tywin’s death.

Brienne and Pod – loose their horses as they near the Eerie then come across Arya practicing with Needle. This is a new development from the books. They ask after the location of the Bloody Gate then when the Hound shows up, and Pod recognizes him, Brienne puts it together and recognizes Arya. Verbal sparring between Brienne and the Hound leads to a real battle. The dialog about “safety” is priceless. I think the Hound is actually trying to do what he thinks is right (protect Arya). This is a tough fight, and well matched. First with swords, then when Brienne gets the better of him, with fists and teeth and rocks. Eventually, the Hound takes a dive off the cliff. But Arya is nowhere to be found, and Breinne and Pod wander off looking for her.

Hound, we shall miss thee

Arya – hiding, goes down to the Hound. He’s funny (in his houdy way) as always. “Killed by a woman.” And to Arya at the idea of her going off alone, “You won’t last a day.” “I’ll last longer than you,” she retorts. Great stuff. He asks her to kill him. Tries to incite her to anger to do it, then begs. In the end, she takes his money and wanders off, leaving him to die.

Arya, having drummed up a horse? Rides up to a costal town where they make salt. She asks the Bravosi accented captain of a ship for passage to the Wall. He isn’t going there, only to Bravos, and has no time for her. Then she pulls out Jaqen H’ghar’s coin and says the magic words “Valar morghulis” (All Men Must Die). This buys her a cabin and passage. She is last seen sailing out to sea.

Valar morghulis

All in all, a great episode, with a lot going on. The writers took their time with the stories they had, and this has relatively few cuts and a lot of extended time in one or another view point. We do miss out on a few, like Sansa, who’s wrap up occurred in Episode 38. Other characters like Theon or Margaery are just left wherever they were last visited. Like in the book we never really get the scoop on how/why Stannis came to the wall. There are also a lot of changes from the books. The whole bit with the skeletons was slightly over the top. The new fight between Briene and the Hound makes sense. His book death is sort of senseless and her journeys seemingly pointless. This draws them together in a structurally more coherent way that is typical of TV (where avoiding new characters is a major concern — paper characters are much cheaper than actors). As usual, the body count was high among regulars: The Hound, Tywin, Jojen.

It’s been a great season. The problem from season 1 of “too small” has been fixed by production efficiencies and bigger budgets. The rushing problem of season 2 by the division of book 3 into two seasons. If I had any complaint, and it’s minor, it would be that structural issues between the threads have led to somewhat uneven emotional pacing. A major example would be the season long wait between Jon and Ygritte’s “breakup” and her death. But these are challenges brought forth by the source material and logistic considerations. Now the question is can the show runners make sense of the incoherence of book 4 and 5 and by reordering and welding them together make season 5 better than A Feast of Crows?

Oh, and what happened to Lady Stoneheart?

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By: agavin
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Medieval Land Fun-Time World

Oct21

Absolutely hilarious faux lip sync Game of Thrones trailer. This must have been a lot of work and I can’t tell if the semi-sensical dialog is just goofy writing or a requirement to match the mouth movements in their clips. But cool.

Plus fart jokes. And vaguely reminiscent of Adventureland too.

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Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

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Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 9

Jul04

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 9 – June 30, 2011

Status: First Season now airing on HBO

Summary: Best episode in the series!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Episode 9, “Baelor.” This is the episode where it all comes together, pretty much summed up by the text I got on first airing from a friend I convinced to watch (he hadn’t read the books — but is now): “OMG! They killed Ned Stark!”

Not only does it take a lot of guts to up and kill your most central character near the end of the first book of an epic series, but George R. R. Martin really grinds the emotions in by making the reasons it happens so damned personal and believable.

This is the episode where the frothing cauldron of the last two boils on over. For everyone. This emotional tone renders it less sensitive than the previous episode to the diminutive effects of TV. We open with Varys visiting Ned again in the dungeon, and this narrative is used to spell out Ned’s last choice: die honorably, or confess and hope for exile and to save his daughters.

Then we have Robb faced with the choice of making a disreputable deal with an even more disreputable lord in order to gain military advantage in his war. He knows he’s got no choice but to win, and so he’s forced to go all in. Frey is just as amusing as in the books, and while he doesn’t have quite so many children as I imagined, the scene is well done. Particularly amusing is when Catelyn tells Robb he has to marry a Frey daughter and he asks, “how did they look?” and she replies “one of them was well…”

At the wall, Jon ponders not only his father’s imprisonment but the fact that his brother is going to war. Mormont tries to bind him further to the brotherhood by giving him his family sword. This is nicely done and there is some tie-back to Jorah. I particularly like the “he dishonored himself, but he had the decency to leave the family sword behind” bit. In another scene he gets a lecture from Maester Aemon about the hard choices between duty and family. Jon finds out exactly who the Maester was and we have another great scene from the books nailed with top performances.

Tyrion learns that he and his violent new tribesmen friends will get the most dangerous position in the upcoming battle. He stomps back to his tent to find Bronn has brought him a whore named Shae. She’s not how I imagined her in the books (they made her foreign), but I like the way Sibel Kekili plays her. I noticed her last year in the heavy German film Head On, and she’s a gifted actress. Although, we do have to wonder where Bronn dug up such a smart and sexy whore on short notice! Later in the show when the three play medeval “truth or dare” is a really good scene. Shae is cocky and sexy, and Tyrion’s rendition of his boyhood innocence and treatment at the hands of his father is perfect.

However I had mixed feelings about the battle — or lack there of. Tyrion is great and there are some funny lines like Bronn’s advice to “stay low.” But, instead of actually managing to fight — albiet badly — he’s just knocked out. The visual effect of him being dragged along is kind of cool, and I know they were trying to save time and money. But… they could have given us a three minute little window on the fight. I can’t help but feel this is more “TV shrinking effect,” the show’s biggest problem (really it’s only significant problem at all). I can’t help but feel the producers could do something creative and get a little more scope of action without too much more money.

And the same goes for the (non) battle of the whispering wood, where we just see Robb race back to his mother and deposite a captive Jaime at her feet. Come on. It was a night battle, they could have shown some horses and soldiers clashing in front of Riverrun and Jaime’s last stand. The books actually also suffer from certain large scale action being off screen (which I always felt was odd), but I’d hoped the show would rectify rather than amplify this. It would be easy enough.

Now as chaotic as the action is in Westeros, Dany’s journey is just as important. Her world is crashing around her. Drogo’s little chest wound from the last episode is now infected and he’s dying. For some slightly mysterious reason she has trusted the witch lady she saved (Mirri Maz Duur) to treat it, and now is willing to do whatever it takes to save his life, even if that means black magic. I love this part of the story, and I think Emilia Clarke handles it extremely well, but I do have a couple problems. The Mirri Maz Duur actress feels a little silly to me, not too bad, but she doesn’t have enough gravitas. And more importantly, the handling of the magic is underplayed. I liked the weird wailing sounds coming from the tent, but they decided to forgo any kind of special effects for the ceremony. I think this is deliberate rather than purely budgetary (although that is surely a factor). They have consistently played down the supernatural. But they needed it here. They didn’t have to go all the way to swirling wisps of light (ala early 80s Conan), but I think they should have done some kind of creepy animated shadow-play. As it is, the whole dark ritual is left mostly up to the imagination, and it may be hard for the new viewer to know what is supposed to be happening. It almost felt psychological. But the horse death was pretty decent.

And the final scene isn’t half assed at all, which is typical with the show, managing big pivotal (big in the sense of important, not scope) scenes nicely. Arya living in the streets is great, and then her viewing of Ned’s tragic “confession.” Joffrey continues in deliciously despicable style and orders the execution anyway. The handling of this for all involved is well done. Arya perching by that statue. The hysterical Sansa. Even Cersei livid. I would have just liked a little nod to the fact that they use Ned’s own sword: Ice. Come on, everyone loves a sword with a name. Jon said it when he gave Arya Needle, “all the best swords have names.”

Still, by the standards of TV, this is a near perfect episode. The human drama is handled flawlessly, they just need to add a little more cinematic feel to the action and magic.

Reviews of previous episodes: [ Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8 ]

Or the next, Episode 10.

Or find out about my own fantasy novel, The Darkening Dream.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: Arts, Baelor, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Emilia Clarke, Episode 9, Game of Throne, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Historical fantasy, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Television, Television program, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 8

Jul02

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 8 – June 30, 2011

Status: First Season now airing on HBO

Summary: Oh boy, it’s coming

ANY CHARACTER HERE

I had to delay watching the last three episodes of the show for a month while suffering on vacation in Italy (travel log here). Even after being up for 36 hours I binged through two of the three after unpacking.

Episode 8, “The Pointy End.” The last third of the season, or even last half, is all about grinding out the consequences of positions and choices made in the first half. Many of these lead to additional hasty decisions that will also have repercussions. Also it is worth noting that this episode is actually penned by George R. R. Martin himself, which is fitting because it’s one where the character arcs are really pivoting.

One of the great things about Martin’s novels are how believable these difficult choices are for the characters. They don’t see the future, aren’t even always aware of all that the reader is, and even more importantly, are filtered through their own biases and priorities.

We open with the play out of the season’s most central pivot, that Ned’s attempt to show the queen and her children mercy leads to disastrous results for his family and for the realm as a whole. His entire household in King’s Landing is slaughtered, and Sansa is captured. But Arya, training with her “Dancing Master” Syrio is not so undefended. Syiro is a favorite character and he is played delightfully by Miltos Yerolemou in the show. I do think that — like many scenes in this episode — that the production felt a little TV. Syiro holds off about five Lanister guards with a wood training sword, which is bad ass, but the choreography could have used just a little more punch. There just wasn’t enough zing to his movements. Still he kicks butt and his final line, “And what do we say to the god of death?” -> “Not today” is awesome. Similarly Arya’s all important stabbing of the stable boy felt a little flabby. Or maybe it was just by mood (very tired).

Ned is briefly visited by Varys in the dungeon, and I do love this portrayal of the spider. Instead of the interior monologue of the novel their conversation is used to expose the central crux of his moral journey: The fact that his mercy (toward Cersei) lead to his downfall, and that he must now chose between family and principles — and they aren’t good choices either way. We also have some wonderful background on Varys.

The news of events in the capital is spreading, linking the separate story-lines together. Jon is forced to cope with his own choices and loyalties between family and duty. We even see a bit of ghost! And then he gets to fight the white walker. This was pretty cool, but again, as I felt with a lot of this episode (but not about Episode 9) lacked a tiny bit of gravitas (not to mention Morment’s raven — boo!). But it’s still important as it really starts to establish his role with the Black Brothers.

In Winterfell Robb must deal with the imprisonment of his father, being forced to become the man he knows he should be. This is well handled, and there is a pretty good sense of him coming into his own. Theon is well set up. In the books he is extremely minor in book 1, but clearly the producers have chosen him as a character to emphasize in seasons 2 and 3. We have a bit of Bran in this part of the arc too. Somehow in the second two thirds of the show Bran feels much more absent than he does in the novels (as there he has all the POV for Winterfell). This brings him back a little, but I would have liked more emphasis on the wolves and the dreams. I’m coming around to Osha a bit though — even if she has crazy hair.

Tyrion and Bronn make their way out of the Vale. Their dialog is first rate as always, and they have their encounter with the mountain men. This too felt a little TV as they just couldn’t show enough men. You see about fifteen, but it really wanted at least 150, a real camp, and more of a sense of ferociousness.

Across the sea Dany is coming down off the high of being promised the world by Drogo to see a bit of the reality of what it really means to be a war leader. The Dothraki are slaughtering the “lamb people” and she tries to put a stop to the rape of some local women. This is a decision that for her will bring momentous change, continuing the theme illustrating the dangers of mercy. We also meet the witch, who looks like some Italian mother from Brooklyn. Like the other big scenes, and many of the Dothraki scenes in the whole show, this little battle felt crimped by the TV budget. Just not large enough or dynamic enough. Drogo’s fight however, defending his manhood and her honor, is pretty awesome. Jason Momoa has some real charisma, and I’m looking forward to the new Conan. He pulls off the very personal manly man-ness (guy-liner and all) to good effect.

The episode concludes softly with the dismissal of Ser Barristan, which is very well handled. You get a real feel for Cersei and this unctuous Joff overextending themselves. Barristan is wonderful too, along with Jaime the only developed member of the Kingsguard.

The plotting and characters of this story are just so good. Everyone is in motion, in conflict all the time, but not just the kind of meaningless Transformers 2 style conflict, but real honest to goodness stuff that tests their fundamental values.

Reviews of previous episodes: [ Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7 ]

Or the next Episode 9.

Or find out about my own fantasy novel, The Darkening Dream.