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Game of Thrones – Episode 29

Jun02

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 29 – June 2, 2013

Title: The Rains of Castamere

Summary: Darkness descends

ANY CHARACTER HERE

As much as this season is about marriage and The Rains of Castamere centers on the second of three weddings, the episode is more about the breaking of oaths than the keeping of them. The sundering of possibilities than the forming of them. This is a dark dark segment, probably the darkest yet.

Like last week, the writers have narrowed the narrative focus. We have only three major threads here. One is a bit more of Dany in Yunkai, another one of a Storm of Swords more complex segments (the near meeting of Sam, Bran, and Jon) and the last being the Red Wedding. Structurally the writers cut more rapidly back and forth between these segments than usual. This becomes particularly necessary as the threads overlap and cross, something that while rare in the series, gives this segment of the novel tremendous tension.

Dany – Daario’s addition to Dany’s inner circle only makes things even more complex. Jorah, who once had the queen all to himself is pulled in various directions by the men around her. He Daario, and Grey Worm go to open the gates of the city. This segment is by far the weakest. The battle is not only skipped, which we have sadly come to expect, but the little bits we get are unclear at best. The three go in, have a bit of a fight, are ambushed, and then are somehow back at Dany’s camp. I’m just confused. The whole thing felt small and squeezed for time. Dany waiting for Daario felt forced.

Didn’t do it for me this week

Sam & Gilly – approach the wall. Their excellent chemistry continues as he info dumps (letting us know there is way under the wall) and she is so impressed she calls him a “wizard,” which is a delightful reference back to season 1. But where is Cold Hands?

Bran – and crew approach the windmill that Jon saw two episodes ago. A storm is coming and they take shelter.

Jon – along with the wildlings, approaches a horse breeder who works for the Night’s Watch. His loyalty is again put to the test. He warns the man and stops Ygritte from shooting him. But when the wildlings catch up with him outside Bran’s windmill he’s assigned to kill the guy — a task for which he’s a notorious failure. Ygritte cuts short the argument by choosing sides and Jon, but as he fights the wildlings she is neutralized by Tormund. Jon gets the drop on Orel and gives the man what he deserves, but not before his consciousness slips into his Eagle and he attacks Jon with this second body. Despite the Warg explanations offered by Jojen below, I wonder how well non-readers will understand this.

We won’t miss this fellow

But most central to this whole scene, and most thematic to the episode is the play out of loyalties between Jon and Ygritte. Is she siding with him? Where do her loyalties lie? I choose to believe with them as a unit. But Jon doesn’t just chose her, he chooses the Watch too. Her expression as she watches him ride off is sad indeed.

Bran – employs his special Warg powers first to silence Hodor and then to jump into Summer and Shaggy Dog below, helping Jon out with his fight. When he returns to himself he decides to send Rickon away with Osha for his own safety. Here he also saw Jon below, and I can’t remember if that happened exactly in the books. Reading, there was always this intense desire to see the family members reunite, and it is here in ASOS that they come the closest, with heart rending consequences. It should be noted that Jojen isn’t so much a character but a mouth piece to explain what’s going on with Bran (somewhat). Also, after being pretty much entirely lame this season, the moment with Osha as she takes on Rickon is actually fairly touching. Her character this season has bugged me, as she was great last year, and it’s nice to see her slightly redeemed.

Arya – also nearly intertwines here. As she approaches the Twins the back and forth between her and the Hound is great fun. Neither totally has the upper hand. The pig parts (pig knuckles – ick) are an amusing touch as they spar. In many ways they see sides of each other that few do.

Poor Arya, so close, and yet so far

Robb – reconnects with his mother as they plot their assault on Casterly Rock. Then riding out, wolf in the lead, they approach the Twins for the wedding (a second near convergence). Deviating from the books, he brings his wife to the wedding. This initial meeting, and the wedding in general, is handled excellently. They break bread and salt, which viewers might not totally get, but initiating traditional guest rights. Robb apologizes and old Frey is highly amusing as he introduces his daughters and teases Robb. In a bit of foreshadowing, he uses the phrase “the wine will run red.”

A little shot of the Starks camped outside the Frey castles, along with the establishing shot during Arya’s segment, clue us in that Robb is inside with less than his full force. The wedding itself is touching. Edmure gets a decent looking bride and he does a good job wearing his emotions on his face. I like the repeated and reinforced cloaking ceremony and the vows to the seven.

An ill-starred glare

The celebration is fairly nicely handled, feeling decent in scale considering. It’s full of telling little bits like Bolton refusing to drink and the amusing speech by Frey about “every sword needing a sheath.” The writers take one last opportunity for some genuine warmth between Robb and his bride, which makes what is to come all the more tragic.

Why Cat doesn’t figure it out as soon as The Rains of Castamere begin to play, I don’t know, but things go south very very quickly. The tragic action is split in two parts by Arya’s segment, which I felt diminished the emotional impact. Probably they did this to end where they did, but it might have been better cut a different way.

Do you trust this face?

Arya – approaches the castle, her cautious optimism at seeing the Stark men quickly shattered by violence and then the sad sad slaughter of Grey Wind (I feel worse about the wolves than many of the human loses). For a second time, the Hound grabs her and carries her away.

Robb & Cat – The whole existence of Talisa was a considerable deviation from the books, and it comes to an end here. In season 2, I wasn’t her biggest fan, but some of the recent scenes between her and Robb have built up character not present in the novels and I was deeply saddened to see her go, hoping she, like her doppelgänger Jeyne Westerling, would survive the wedding. Alas, it was not to be, and the manner of her death, and that of her child, felt like a stab to the gut. Sorry, couldn’t resist, but seriously, as a husband and father, her end was pretty awful.

The play out in the end between Robb, Cat, and Frey — and of course Bolton, was well handled. Her desperation is apparent, she will do anything to try to save her son. Michelle puts in some fine acting. But it is not to be.

The writers chose to end with the stabbing and double throat cutting, which has a certain visceral power, but perhaps at the cost of the signature imagery of the “double wolf’s head.” Or perhaps we’ll get that next week.

More than in the book, I’m going to miss them.

Overall, this was a dark and powerful episode, in which the Jon/Bran and Robb/Cat segments were largely successful particularly the Red Wedding. Dany’s was just lame, but you can’t win everything and the sacking of Yunkai was hardly the most important moment of her journey. All this leaves me speculating about what might fit into our one remaining episode.

Certainly NOT the siege of Castle Black. Possibly not even our third wedding (Joff’s). It might feel odd to start season 4 with that, but from the trailer it seems that episode 30 will be concerned mostly with the consequences of episode 29. How far will we get on the Jon/Ygritte storyline? Hard to say. I register my prediction that episode 30 ends with Beric Dondarian finding Cat’s body. It seems in keeping. It’s very clear that season 4 will start to deviate hugely from the chronology laid out by Martin — although this can’t help but be a good thing as he botched the flow pretty bad in books 4 and 5.

Absent this week were Jaime, Theon, all of King’s Landing, and Dragonstone.

Another excellent analysis of this episode.

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]

And below, some inside the episodes from HBO:

By: agavin
Comments (5)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, Dany, episode 29, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Peter Dinklage, Season 3, season 3 episode 29, Tyrion, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 28

May20

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 28 – May 18, 2013

Title: Second Sons

Summary: Really great character work

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Marriage has been a consistent theme this season and as we close in on the end this episode centers around the first of the three pending weddings. The title, Second Sons, adds to this theme. We have at least four featuring in this episode: the Hound, the mercenary band itself, Tyrion, and Stannis.

In a structural sense, this is a very cohesive episode with only three extended “threads” of narrative (Dragonstone, Dany, and Kings Landing) book-ended by two short (but important) ones (Arya at the beginning and Sam at the end). Really each of these three main threads is about a second son. And metaphorically, in each of these threads is the theme of powerlessness, of being treated (in a medieval sense) like a second son.

Arya – has only a small role this week, but her assumptions about our first Second Son, the Hound — initially murderous — are called into question by his words. She learns that he’s taking her to the Frey’s to be “sold” to her brother.

don’t mess with Arya!

Melisandre, Gendry, Stannis, and Davos – arrive back a Dragonstone and he is introduced to Stannis (our second Second Son). The would-be-king looks at him and says unceremoniously, “half Robert, half low born.” This is so Stannis. But he is uncomfortable with Mel’s plan to sacrifice the boy and heads down to the dungeon for a little chat with his conscience (in the form of Davos). In their usual sort of back and forth the come to terms and he lets the Onion Knight out. This is a peculiar relationship. Each man wants the same thing, for Stannis to be the man he wants to be, and are willing to overlook the flaws in both themselves and the other in pursuit of this.

Gendry is so in over his head!

In a new bit not in the books, Mel joins Gendry in is rooms and turns on her peculiar charm, which includes a mixture of guile, honesty, and nudity. Predictably Gendry is helpless before this assault. The show runners have taken her blood magic and turned it into sex/blood magic. It’s not exactly clear why she needs to pump him a little before tying him up and sucking out a little blood into three leeches. Perhaps it’s as she says earlier, that the lamb just never see the knife coming. Perhaps it’s a desire to keep up the sex quotient. Either way it works, and I enjoyed the burning of the bloody leeches and the calling for a curse upon three “usurpers”: Joff, Robb, and Balon Greyjoy. This is an ancient form of magic that goes back to far antiquity. I even use it in my short story, “Harvard Divinity.”

Dany – We continue to get some excellent shots of Yunkai in all its pseudo-Moroccan glory and Dany is cute in her Fremen-style robe. We are introduced to the obstacle-du-jour, a group of mercenaries that defend the city for the “Wise Masters.” This group is known as the “Second Sons” and is led by a trio of warriors including the Titan’s Bastard and Dario.

450x254xgame-of-thrones-promo-second-sons_450x254.jpg.pagespeed.ic.tCvruZY3tO

Dany Sheik

Whom we soon meet as they hold audience with Dany in her tent. They are quite the brash and amusing trio, particularly the Titan’s Bastard who is brazenly forward with Dany. Dario looks like Jared Leto in the disastrous Alexander (sigh, I so wanted to like it). There are some good moments here. When they leave as Dany turns to Barristan and says, “when the fighting comes, kill him first” and the knight replies, “gladly.”

And even more fun are the three mercenaries in there camp arguing about how to proceed. The Bastard, like his creator Martin, is evidently fond of slave girls, and we have one that looks a lot like the handmaiden Dany left in the vault with Xaro. In any case, their plan is to send Dario to assassinate her and avoid a fight at all.

Naughty dogs!

But when he does barge in, she’s in the middle of her bath (after a fun moment with her translator) the two face off: the brazen mercenary and the naked girl. Her confident use of her physical presence here was very effective. Interestingly, for the first time since the end of season 1 she bares herself. I had begun to wonder of she had negotiated that out of her contract. It was even odd when the show apparently deliberately left a sex scene on the table in skipping her little shipboard tussle with her handmaidens.

Tyiron comes to visit Sansa – This continues to be a very awkward situation for our favorite second son, not in the least part because his lover is the girl’s handmaiden. So again when he comes to talk to her right before their wedding, he has to resort to virtually ordering Pod to haul Shae out of the room. And Peter Dinklage does a magnificent job (as always) with the subtly of emotions, combining attitude, self depreciating humor, awkwardness, and genuine like-ability to really sell Tyrion trying to do his best.

would you mind giving us a moment?

The wedding itself is pretty sumptuous, far grander than the quick affair in the books. The High Sept looks cavernous, like some grand reinterpretation of the Pantheon. Everyone in Kings Landing is there (except Littlefinger who is away). Sadly Varys doesn’t have any lines, but there is good stuff from Marg, Cersei, Joff, and Tywin. Cersei and her younger doppleganger (Marg) duel and the queen shows her claws.

But it’s Joff who steal the show by continuing to be the asshat that he is. When he removes the stool from the altar and forces Tyrion to ask Sansa to kneel it’s pure asshatery. Good stuff. The situation is tense, touching, and a bit comic. All great stuff. At the reception a bitter Cersei, frustrated by her lack of control (including over her son), snubs hapless Loras. Tyrion gets royally drunk and Tywin orders him to consummate his marriage no matter what. Joff tries to start some more trouble by bringing up the “bedding ceremony” which non-reader viewers will not understand. This is where all the women attending strip the groom and carry him naked to the bridal chamber while the men do the same for the bride.

Yes father, I am the god of drink and lust.

In his cups, Tyrion lays (verbally) into Joffrey and they nearly come to blows before Tywin puts a stop to it. Remember this, dear viewer.

The “consummation” (or lack thereof) is well done always. Sansa it seems, now finally understands her duty, but Tyrion, despite his flaws, is a character we can love and he isn’t willing to force himself on her. In continued defiance of his father, for love of Shae, and because he isn’t “that sort” he shows her continued kindness. The sentiments are deft and right out of the book, but the show has softened the scene, as in the book both strip down before coming to this moment. There is something about the rawness of the original literary scene, with both at their most vulnerable, that I really enjoyed. I had suspected, rightly, that they wouldn’t have the stomach for this.

Several other things are extremely well done: Tyrion’s impressive level of drunkenness, his comment about Sansa’s long neck (which we have all noticed), and in the morning, Shae’s little smile at the lack of blood on the sheets.

Sam – Sam and Gilly come across a ruined little hut in the forest next to an “Old God” (one of those red trees with the creepy faces). Ravens, ever purposed as harbingers in Northern myth, seem unusually drawn to the tree. As the duo sets up the fire and discusses the naming of Gilly’s baby their hesitant chemistry continues. It’s really well done with a shy tension and attraction on the part of both.

Eventually (and the episode ends on this), the calling of the Ravens draws Sam outside. They cover the tree, which although a slightly trite image still gave me goosebumps. A white walker approaches, the very same CGI model we met in the last episode of season 2. Sam, belying the coward he feels he is attacks, and is swiftly rebuffed. Walkers it seems have a taste for baby. But Sam draws his Dragonglass (aka obsidian) dagger and to use Buffy parlance, dusts the walker.

It should be noted that while this is the only segment not to include a second son (Sam is technically his father’s heir), his position in Randal Tarly’s eyes (explained in his own words some time ago, and alluded to here), is that of one.

Above the official “inside the episode.”

And above, a great discussion of the marriage thread this season.

Overall, Second Sons is a tremendous episode. It has a lot of “action,” perhaps not so much physical fighting (except at the end), but a lot going on, and with it’s concentration on fewer narratives a great deal of focus on the character’s we’ve come to love.

Absent this week were Bran, Robb, Jon, Jaime/Brienne, and Theon.

Another good analysis of this episode.

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]

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Arya, Episode 28, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jon, Northern Ireland, Season 3, Season 3 Episode 28, World of A Song of Ice and Fire, Ygritte

Game of Thrones – Episode 27

May12

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 27 – May 12, 2013

Title: The Bear and the Maiden Fair

Summary: Not 1, not 2, but 3 dragons, a bear, and lots of queenly tush!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

This week we have the annual George R. Martin episode, written by Georgi son of Gimli himself.

Jon – Evidently getting down the wall is a lot easier than getting up, because Jon, Ygritte and crew start off this episode on the green side. Also, one has to wonder, where did all the extra wildlings come from? Seemed last week like just four got to the top, and the rest of the red shirts tumbled to their doom, but now we have a whole party. Anyway, as they march along toward Castle Black, Jon and Ygritte get some welcome time together. Their chemistry is great — or more properly Ygritte is great as Jon acts a tad lumpish while she steals the show. We get to see her even more of her character: fierce and worldly in her own sphere, and a bit clueless about anything else.

Stollen moments

Tormund is good fun too. Orel makes my skin crawl, but he’s supposed to.

Bran – Bran’s scenes here, like their literary counterparts, aren’t the most exciting. Osha continues to be anxious and take the anti-magic stance, but her rational for not wanting to go back north of the wall is touching enough. The scenery (Northern Ireland) is similar enough to Jon’s, so we assume they must be near.

Oh and Osha does a nice refrain on the wildling sentiment “he was mine and I was his” that Ygritte expresses in the previous scene.

Robb – and his court stall before heading out to Edmure’s wedding. Not much here but Cat’s wary stance. However, In the next scene we’re treated to some good King and Queen of the North action. His bride isn’t shy, and it’s relatively rare in this show, and even rarer in the books, to see genuine affection. She admits to being pregnant, which as always in royal matters, is of great dynastic significance.

On a technical note, I like the little writing tray she uses in bed. This was actually a typical thing even in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Melisandre and Gendry – sail past King’s Landing and the wreckage of Blackwater Bay. They might not be my favorite characters but this is a gorgeous overhead shot like a medieval Life of Pi. Meanwhile she reveals to him that he’s King Robert’s bastard.

Arya – We don’t get much Arya this week, but she’s still hanging out in that cave — for now. They show it in the above video clip, but I have to admit to getting goosebumps when she admits her god is “death.” For me (and Martin) this isn’t just a cynical and bleak admission, but the beginnings of a liberalized relationship with Jaqen H’ghar’s faceless god of death. When the men even fail in their mission to take her rapidly to Riverrun she takes off, only to meet someone in the woods she thought long gone.

Theon – We might almost feel sorry for Theon, as it just keeps getting worse for everyone’s favorite Greyjoy. A couple of hottie girls pull him off his cross and start to show him a good time, but before we can wonder why they don’t mind the stink, the crazy bastard (hehe) holding him busts right in and spoils the fun. Although the nasty action is off screen, we’ll have to assume Theon ends up losing his two closest friends. Poor guy — even if he did murder Rodrick.

Dany – Pulls up to Junkai (the slaver city next to Astapor). We are treated to a great CGI shot of it in the distance, but her meeting with its emissaries takes place in the barrens outside. Notice how much they resemble A New Hope’s Tatooine! Anyway, the show has a consistent difficulty making these big army shots feel properly grand and gritty. The try, they really do, but it’s just hard to simulate tens of thousands of men on any reasonable budget. We do however, get some really good dragon action shots in the tent, particularly involving feisty Drogon. Dany is growing further and further into her own, taking on not just the cause of reclaiming Westeros but her almost religious mission to free any slave she encounters.

The real thing looked basically like this production mockup, but somehow “smaller”

Sansa and Marg – Unlike last week, this isn’t a Kings Landing heavy episode, but we do revisit those lovely Gardens below. The dueling attitudes of both girls are a study in opposites. Sansa bemoans her situation and Marg sure knows how to look on the bright side. Despite all the plot’s the lovely Highgarden girl is involved in, you can’t help but like her. Her flexibility seems genuine. And she doesn’t seem bothered by the idea of dwarf love!

Look familiar? They jazzed it up with some more plantings, and probably CGed out the cross, but these are the Gardens of Trestino.

Tyrion – chats with Bronn about his situation: i.e. what to do about Sansa and Shae. Too bad Bronn’s simple view on such matters isn’t helpful when he really gets down to talking with his working girl love. Show-Shae is far more complex and interesting than book-Shae. She has genuine feelings and motives here — and I can see where they are going. What happens with her at the end of A Storm of Swords always bothered me, but they seem to be laying better groundwork here.

Tywin and Joff – chat in the throne room. I’m not sure how I feel about this scene even though it feels true to both characters. They don’t exactly clash, but their perspectives are so far apart that there is almost no communication. I’m interested to see where this goes, because like Shae, Joff, and Tywin are both far more developed in the show than in the novels (not being POV characters).

Jaime and Brienne – Jaime comes to see Brienne off before heading out from Harrenhall. He’s feeling the shit, but she lets him off easy in her own way. She makes him swear again to uphold his part of her oath in rescuing Sansa and Arya (moot as it might be). This is a touching moment because being the Kingslayer, the oathbreaker, her very willingness to trust in his owner is complement enough, and Nikolaj Coster Waldau is deft in making you believe he means it.

Outside, Bolton bids him off, as does Locke, who’s clearly taken the consolidated place of the nasty Brave Companions and their creepy leader. Qyburn accompanies Jaime and works on his ugly-ass stump. Time is taken to build this sordid character, as he’s got his role to play, but it’s Jaime who does the serious soul searching here, deciding to force the group back to Harrenhall after Brienne.

The anticipated live action Bear and the Maiden Fair looked good, and sounded good (the refrain of the song is great), but felt somehow unrealistic. This was a phenomenal moment in the books and it just didn’t sit exactly right with me tonight. Maybe it wast he relative ease with which Locke gives up. This is a man that chopped off Jaime’s freaking hand to make a point! True, the other guys that have sworn to take Jaime to Kings Landing aren’t going to have any of it, but you don’t exactly feel the lines of power pulling taught.

Bart the Bear!

I’ll have to see how I feel on my second watch, particularly since my note taking on the first viewing always reduces the immediacy.

In any case, despite this, still a great episode. In casting forward the arc for the season this isn’t exactly half of A Storm of Swords, but more like 80%. I’ll register my opinion that the season is likely to end with the two weddings — and unlikely to include the parts that follow until next season. George is a fine scriptwriter, but he needs to get back to his books or HBO will catch up to him!

Absent this week were Stannis, Davos, Cersei, and Olena.

Another good analysis of this episode.

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]

Drogon kicks ass!

By: agavin
Comments (9)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 27, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jon, Season 3, Season 3 Episode 27, World of A Song of Ice and Fire, Ygritte

Game of Thrones – Episode 26

May05

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 26 – May 5, 2013

Title: The Climb

Summary: More transitional, but tense

ANY CHARACTER HERE

There is perhaps less action this week, but plenty of thumb screws being turned (haha). The show writers take the opportunity to mine the novel for thematic refrains within an episode in a way that probably isn’t deliberately reflected in the source text. This week we have several, notably: couples, marriage, and duality.

Sam – We open with Sam sharing a fire with Gilly. He pulls out his obsidian dagger, which even if I didn’t know, is TV code for “this will be relevant soon”. This first couple enjoys a pleasant and hesitant chemistry. Awkward, but in a warm way.

Bran – Bran’s two female protectors, Meera and Osha, squabble and fight. And I must say, the rabbit bit reminded me of that scene from Roger and Me. This is mostly a throwaway scene, designed to remind us that Bran’s still on his way. But it fits into the whole couples/duality thing in that Meera and Osha are birds of a feather. Anyway, Jojen dreams of…

Jon – Since this episode is titled The Climb, a rather big slice (in several parts). At the base of the wall, continuing the couple theme, he and Ygritte have a moment. The way she sees right through him is telling and I love the “the two of them against the world” angle that she works. It’s quite touching actually, even if it doesn’t get as much screen time as it should — they having had only their token night together. Still I liked it, even if Kitt isn’t as sensitive an actor as the part requires. Tormund is funny too with his “if you fall, don’t scream. You wouldn’t want that to be the last thing she remembers.”

The climb looks tough. I certainly couldn’t do it. Hell, I can hardly climb the rubber rock wall. Jon’s at the butt end of things and collects some spare snowballs. Ygritte watches closely. And so do we because it looks GOOD (even if a bit CGI). Then in the next segment, things go bad on the wall and everyone but Tormund, Orel, Jon and Ygritte, with the latter too dangling from their ropes. The cracks and avalanche looks great. The layout of loyalties that was (fairly obviously) in previous episodes is made crystal clear. Tormund does his best for all, and Orel cuts Jon and Ygritte loose. Fortunately Jon’s a stud, even if he doesn’t act it.

The episode ends with this thread and the four of them atop the wall. And with some more seriously nice CGI views of both sides of the massive and chilly structure.

Tormund Icecubebane

Arya – Things begin light enough with the spunkiest Stark. Echoing the first episode, she’s practicing her archery. In the background Thryos is drinking. She notices riders approaching and it’s Melisandre the red lady. This is a total deviation rom the books and a move to keep Mel in play, but it works. She recognizes the Lord of Light’s handiwork in Dondarian and this draws out a rather interesting exchange with Thryos which I totally enjoyed, faith and it’s relationship to magic being close to my heart (see my novel The Darkening Dream). I love how Thyros is the skeptic priest late come to his faith. This two breeds of priest, Mel and Thyros, clearly fit in the duality theme this week.

Scene two is a study in reversals. Gendry is helping the archer guy, but then at Mel’s orders he’s bundled off into her care for (presumably) nefarious purposes. Us readers have a clue as to what these might be even if this is a departure — given that he stays with the brotherhood and later runs into Brienne in the books. But the notable part is the continued stripping of Arya’s connections to other other people. Gendry and what roots she’s putting down with the brotherhood are both torn up. Mel, fey as ever, senses this “darkness” and makes some cryptic comments about pairs of eyes. Does she mean the direwolves? Or the faces of the faceless god?

Summer camp without borders!

Theon – And speaking of departures from the book, Theon is still suffering from his mysterious assailant (probably the Bastard of Bolton) in his mysterious location (probably the Dreadfort). This continuing new material is, I have to assume, stretching out his transformation into Reek. And it looks pretty painful, for both us and him. The bastard, though, does a pretty damn good job of playing a dude with his screws loose. He keeps us guessing for a while, but I suspect his final statements echo of truth. Also, flaying, ick! Maybe they threw the rabbits in earlier so we’d know what was going on!

Robb – has one scene this week, but it’s a good one. The row of Tully’s (plus Robb, who is of Tully blood) face off across the table from a Frey embassy. The truth is that the terms of this new alliance are pretty easy (too easy?): an apology, Harenhall (which is the Spinal Tap drummer of Westeros castles) and Edmure marrying a Frey. The custom/law that marriage may not be coerced enters the picture. How this exactly jives with Tywin and last week is left to the audience to consider. The way in which Edmund resists, and is then brought around by Robb is very well handled. I particularly liked Robb’s open acknowledgment of the debt this puts him in.

Pass the beef, dear

Jaime – As funny as the Kingslayer continues to be, Brienne in a dress is even funnier. Another couple of sorts, it’s kind of touching (and certainly amusing) how she helps him with his meat. Bolton is a cold one and boy is he leaving Jaime with a moral quandary. Will we finally see what kind of man he is? Or has become? The fact that Jaime offers to seal Bolton’s offer with a drink and the Flayed Lord refuses should be noted, if for symmetry with the next scene alone.

The pen IS mightier than the sword

Tywin and Oleana – lay into each other back in Kings Landing. Now this is a couple we’d pay money to see, and they’re discussing marriage, just not theirs. This harken’s back to the theme of marriage and its supposed lack of coercion. Olena’s a piece of work and hilarious to boot, with several great comments, including my personal favorite: “sword swallower.” It should also be noted that he’s pounding back the wine (wonder where Tyrion gets it?) and she refuses, which certain echoes the Bolton bit. It’s quite a fun duel of words.

Sansa and Tyrion – chats with Loras in the garden and it’s certainly clear this is the most unnatural of all the couples. Can you say awkward? Loras’ attempts to act interested are hilarious too. Poor Sansa and…

Tyrion, who isn’t happy about the state of things. He and Cersei come here to share a sort of shared misery as only a couple of Tywin’s children could. This is more personal and clear than in the books. Ty confronts his evil sister once and for all as to her possible plot to kill him and the blame falls to Joff. This also is a clarity not present in the source material and sets us up for later this episode. I also love Ty’s “Loras might come down with a sudden case of sword through bowels” which I think was in the book too.

Next scene, as Shae and Sansa talk about her supposed wedding to the “sword swallower”, is both funny and touching. Tyrion enters and tries to get Shae to leave, but realizes he’s going to have to tell both his reluctant bride to be and his lover about the situation at the same time. Interestingly, and perhaps effectively, it’s left off screen.

Poor girls

The pair of women retire to the balcony to deal with it in their own ways: Sansa crying and Shae stonefaced. I’d have perhaps set the thing up to surprise Sansa with the event itself (which I think happened in the book). It probably would have been more of a metaphorical rape. Although I do think this action, given what is to come for Shae, continues the work of further thickening her character versus the book and setting up her arc.

Grudge match!

Varys and Littlefinger – Just as we saw both kinds of priests in Mel and Thyros, the two plotters in Kings Landing have come to represent two sides of the same coin. The show is arguably less effective than the books with the POV characters, notably Jon and Cat, and strips some of the minor characters to the bone (like the Mountain). However, it consistently elevates the middling and borderline POV characters like Cersei, Varys, Littlefinger, Shae, Theon, Marg, and Renly, who are given considerable more depth.

Set as usual in the throne room, this scene is classic Varys vs. Littlefinger, but never before have their motives and methods been so exposed. Just as Ygritte argues to Jon that they should put couple before country, Varys speaks for realm first. And, well, everyone knows that Littlefinger is his own greatest love. They’ve really emphasized his villainy in the second and third seasons. He never seemed this clearly evil in the books.

Joff – Finally, as further proof that the secondary characters are better in the show, Joff is just far, far more repulsive. Here he reaches a level I never thought his cowardly nature would allow. Poor Ros. She wasn’t my favorite character, but she deserved better than this.

All in all a tremendous episode. There is less action than in either of the previous two, but we have character aplenty and some really fine thematic work, which resonates nicely.

Absent this week were Stannis, Davos, Dany, and Marg.

Another great analysis of this episode.

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]

I’m pretty sure the show has used this scenic arch from Dubrovnik a couple of time

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 26, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jaime, Jon, Robb, Season 3, Season 3 Episode 26, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 25

Apr28

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 25 – April 28, 2013

Title: Kissed by Fire

Summary: Fire and oaths

ANY CHARACTER HERE

The name betrays the theme of the episode well enough: kissed by fire. Most scenes touch on the primary theme of fire and/or that of oaths and loyalty. This later is big in the books and series in general, as, hey: medieval times!

Arya – This is a great week for our favorite little Stark. As promised last time, the Hound faces off against Dondarian for his life, but not first without a little prayer (by Thyros) to the Lord of Light. As a huge proponent of the relationship between religion and magic, I dug this. Then we have a nice fight, reminiscent in many ways of the season 1 duel between Bronn and that dead knight for Tyrion’s life. Despite the fact that he’s terrified of fire, and Thyros’ sword is burning, the Hound does pretty well. I like the way the spectators have to dive out of the way.

Now this is a big spoiler, but Dondarian doesn’t make it — and he does — as Thyros brings him back just as simple as that. I loved this in the books, but it could have used a little more “magic” here on screen. These are hard moments for the show which doesn’t consistently embrace it’s mystical side. But revived Dondarian is true to his word and lets the Hound go.

Later, Gendry tells Arya he’s staying with the Brotherhood. Her journey is one of isolation, and one by one she loses her companions — bits of her burned away (haha). Gendry’s reasoning feels a little forced, but I like his parting line, even if I’m not sure if it means he “likes” Arya or if he knows he can never overcome their class differences — or both.

Even later (I told you we get a lot of good A), in the wake of Gendry’s withdrawal, Arya recites her list of cursed names. The show periodically include this motif, even if they can’t hammer it home the way Martin does in the books. Thyros plans to sell her to her brother at Riverrun, which while not totally honorable, isn’t exactly bad. We get a bit more detail on Dondarian, and the fact that he’s died and risen six times! Maybe he has lives three left.

Jaime – Jaime and Brienne are dragged into Harrenhall and dumped in the mud, but Martin loves a good reversal and as crappy as Jaime’s life has been, he’s due a little better. Bolton remains an enigma, but he does allow them to clean up and ships Jaime off to Qyburn, Bolton’s creepy would-be Maester. This is a nice example of squeezing a minor character into the show even when it doesn’t have room for the details. We can tell he’s one twisted creep — and the shots of picking at Jaime’s stump are pretty awful. Then (offscreen) it’s cleansed with a bit of fire (I know, I’m reaching).

Love at last sight

Later, Brienne is in the bath bathing, and Jaime — surprisingly recovered from a serious bit of surgery — wanders back in. Their chemistry remains fantastic, although it’s the Kingslayer who dominates this scene. First by strolling in the buck, then with his full tale of the death of the mad king. This pretty much puts the detailed spin on his glib comment some episodes before: “So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or another.”

Oh, and let’s not forget this is a story about pyromancers and fire! Burn them all!

Hot or cold?

Jon – There is some serious kissing of fire for Jon. After a little foreplay where the wildlings get him to betray details about the Night’s Watch and he thumps his chest with fellow Warg (the eagle guy), Ygritte drags him off into a cave and strips down to her birthday suit — something I and all the fan boys have clearly been waiting for, as Rose is a serious babe. Jon may be (in Ygritte’s words) a “maid”, but evidently Theon gave him some tips, because he handles himself alright. At one level, a girl that’s been marching through the snow in a fur suit without a bath must be ripe, and Jon dives right in — on the other, she’s hot, naked, and kissed by fire! Their pillow talk revives the fun little banter that’s been missing for a couple episodes while Mance and crew took front stage.

And how fitting is it that Jon confronts the mystery in a cave?

go with hot!

Robb – This is also a big week for Robb, but not all is fine and dandy. Karstark, itching for a little “Northern Justice,” breaks in and murders those two young Lannister boys. Now Robb has some hard choices. This is one of his key bannermen, and he just disobeyed his orders. Cat and his wife urge that he throw him in a cell, and that’s what Karstark expects, but Robb is his father’s son. So on the oath front: a traitor is a traitor and off with his head.

and it was such a fuzzy head!

There is a serious examination here of the nature of severe command. Robb is basically screwed from the outset by Karstark’s actions. On one hand, he needs Karstark and his men, on the other, he can not condone the man’s behavior or be seen as weak or tolerant of such disobedience. Sucks to be the king.

Unfortunately, as predicted, this has drastic consequences, and the Karstark’s leave. Planning with his wife, he does realize that Casterly Rock (the Lannister home) is vulnerable — but also that he needs men from Walder Frey, who he’s already betrayed!

Stannis & Davos – On the thread of boredom, we actually get to see Stannis’ wife up close. She’s a weird one, so obsessed with the Lord of Light that she is all hunky dory with her husband sleeping with the red lady. Not only that, she keeps three stillborn fetuses (her previous efforts at heir generation) in Alien face-hugger style tanks! Creepy!

And it turns out that Stannis actually does have a daughter in this version. Since she was never mentioned season 2, I had assumed not, but he does — and she has grayscale as she should. Cute enough kid otherwise, plus, there is not a word of explanation of what the deal is with grayscale. When she finds out Davos is in the dungeon, she runs down to visit him, bringing him a book on Aegon the conquerer, which brings us to…

Dany – After last week’s fest of Dany goodness we don’t get a lot of time. She and her army are marching through Morocco (Papyrus beds choke the winding river). Jorah and Barristan take this time to continue trading war stories and working on their dislike for each other. Dany, meanwhile, is focused on business at hand, meeting the Unsullied officers and their new leader: the rather young Grey Worm.

Cersei – Always working her angle, sets Littlefinger on the task of ferreting out what the Tyrels are up too.

Sansa – is moving quickly into Marg’s camp. As she watches Loras practice, the girl’s chat about their wedding plans. Alas, the show quickly reminds us that Loras likes his buns a little firmer, as he quickly falls for a new (blond) squire.

But he works for Littlefinger — in what amounts to an abrupt bit of storytelling. The whoremonger quickly runs off to chat with Sansa and probe the waters. Babe in the woods, her attempts to put him off over his offer to steal her away are transparent to all. But this throwaway scene, besides showing great scenery, does have one of the show’s startling (for a fantasy) insights into human nature. Littlefinger comments: “it doesn’t matter what we want, when we get it, we always want something more.”

Be a passive tool, get handed the shaft

Tyrion – meets with lady Olena and finds himself — for pretty much the first time — out maneuvered in matters of the tongue. This scene gives us a few details on the royal finances, and a glimpse of a lovely Dubrovnik courtyard, but seems mostly about getting these two great characters together.

Later, these Kings Landing threads come together in the form of a leonine three way: Papa lion, Ty, and Cersei. Seems the easy solution to this whole “Tyrel plot to steal away Sansa” thing is to just marry her off to Tyrion. To his credit, he protests, but Tywin gets what he wants — and that also includes marrying Cersei off a second time to a guy who couldn’t care less about her: in this case, Loras!

All in all another great episode. We don’t have as many pivots or as much action as last week, but we do have a lot of great scenes. The tlot continues to plinken. Absent this week were Bran, Sam, Theon, Joff, and Varys.

Another interesting review of this episode.

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]

And below is “inside the episode” for this week:

Sansa prayed over there last week, and she and Marg wandered down those stairs. They must have magiced away the motorboat!

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Kissed by Fire, Season 3, Season 3 Episode 25, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 24

Apr21

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 24 – April 21, 2013

Title: And Now His Watch Is Ended

Summary: The end brought tears to my eyes

ANY CHARACTER HERE

A lot is moving in this episode, so let’s leap right into it:

Jaime – We open with the hand — around his neck. This was a particularly gruesome detail from the books I doubted the show might cling too, but it did. Pretty realistic looking hand too. Jaime isn’t doing too well, no surprise, but he has a ways yet to fall… into the mud. When he grabs a sword and makes a hopeless gambit, Brienne, tough as ever, tries to protect him,. I really like how their suffering has brought them begrudgingly together. It’s a very deftly handled relationship and both the writing and fine acting brings to life Martin’s vision here.

Poor Jaime

In the second segment, they talk and Jaime reminds us that he considers himself to be his sword hand. His ego is invested fully in his fighting skill — and now it’s gone. Martin just loves this kind of thing: killing characters, and killing them without killing them. As Brienne and Jaime continue, and she embarrasses him back from his pity party, the show hits on another Martin signature: deep thoughts. And not by Jack Handy. Brienne reminds him that he’s getting a taste of the real world, where people have important things taken from them.

Sam – Sam and the Black Watch are still lingering at Craster’s — shoveling pig shit. Somewhat out of nowhere, the sullen Rast has suddenly become a master manipulator, brewing discontent with the brothers. Sam visits Gilly, who reminds him that her baby doesn’t have much time — and she has none for him unless he can help her.

In the second segment, Mormont leads the watch in a funeral, and then back in Craster’s hall, several of the men’s discontent boils over into full on mutiny. One kills Craster, and Rast seizes the moment to stab Mormont. The guy is tough, but Valar Morghulis… In the chaos, Sam runs to Gilly and they do what he does best…

I’ll have to assume that the episode title: And Now His Watch Is Ended speaks mostly for the passing of the old bear.

RIP — we’ll miss you, and the raven you should have had

Bran – has a tiny segment, pretty much just a dream. It’s creepy enough as he climbs a tree after the three-eyed crow and gets into a weird shouting match with the ghostly echo of his mother.

Theon – Theon rides with his rescuer to Deepwood Mott (we think?) and the stranger draws out of him a rather pathetic and deep reflection on his predicament, failings, and choices. In the end, it isn’t his sister that waits, but another betrayal and a return to the cross of torture. This segment has me the most perplexed, particularly because it’s so outside of the books. Who is that guy? Why do they have Theon? Why go to such elaborate means to torture him both physically and psychologically? Including killing a bunch of (his own?) men?

Tyrion – For the second week in a row, Tyrion doesn’t have too much to do. He visits Varys, one of my favorite characters, trying to ferret out the truth of his betrayal during Blackwater. He seeks revenge. What he finds from the spider is a creepy little tale about the eunuch’s final days as a man (boy). Varys councils patience, for revenge can be years in the making as he happily illustrates. The contents of the box seem a tad coincidental considering.

Better with her clothes on

Cersei – Looks on nervously as Marg continues to handle Joff with a surprising deftness. She plays into his blood lust and insecurity with equal aplomb and Joff’s taste for the macabre is reminiscent to that of my aged vampire hunter, Constantine in The Darkening Dream. In the foreground, the queen and Lady Olenna chat about life, politics, sons, and woman’s role in medieval noble houses. Marg’s grandmom is such fun to watch and the location chosen for the high Sept is pretty awesome looking too. When the shot pulls outside it looks much better than in season one. Either they’re spending more money now or the cost has come down in just two years — regardless, it really adds to the epic feel.

Later, Cersei visits her father. Seems being Tywin’s child wasn’t easy for anyone. Cersei speaks boldly, perhaps drawing inspiration from Olenna. The relationships in this family are delightfully complex as no one can really please old Ty.

Nice attention to detail too. As a history buff, I happen to know that medieval ink (and the ink Shakespeare wrote in) was made from ox bile. It smelled foul and dried very slowly. People used various drying agents like the (probable) salt Tywin sprinkles on his letter before sealing it. I must admit I own my own custom made seal and a drawer full of sealing wax imported from Florence.

Sexy little minx

Varys – This is a great episode for the spider. Not only to we have his “origin story” but next he has a little chat with Ros. This is my favorite Ros scene yet, and she keeps her clothes on. In a nice bit of long term plotting outside the books, Littlefinger’s coldness is coming back to haunt her, as she clearly took up Varys in his offer to spy. This discuss the odd fact that Pod was supernaturally good in bed, and then Littlefinger’s plans to put his moves on Cat’s sister and the Vale. And this seems to include bringing Sansa with him. Things are ordered and arranged differently here than in the books. Spiritually similar, but not exactly the same. Ser Dontos, briefly introduced in the beginning of season 2, seems to have been whittled out of the Sansa plotline.

What happens when a non-existent bumps against the decrepit?

Grandmother Olenna sits in the garden and launches into a little tirade about her house sigil, the golden rose. This is as revealing about her character as it is the houses of Westeros. So when Varys approaches, and given my fondness for both characters, I was doubly pleased. They wander all around the lovely gardens near Trestino (a town just north of Dubrovnik) plotting the fate of Sansa. So delightful, I love plots and schemes. Or, as Tyrion once remarked, aren’t those the same thing?

Sansa – And the result is another deft manipulation by Marg, who visits Sansa on a lovely cliff side. She even handles Sansa’s Lannister guards expertly, then befriends the poor girl. Even as a viewer, it’s hard not to see her as genuine. Sansa is, as by Tyrion and Olenna have suggested, a beautiful girl with a famous name. So Marg dangles her charming — albeit secretly very gay — brother out as bait.

Arya – rides blindfolded behind Thyros to the cave that serves as home base for the Brotherhood without Banners. The Hound has been dragged along too and it is here that we remeet Beric Dondarian, who Ned Stark sent out to kill the mountain toward the end of season one. If this is the same actor, I couldn’t tell, although he looks a little stockier. The guy is, however, convincingly confident as the leader of the gang and as a scion of the Lord of Light (same god that Stannis’ red lady worships). In a nice Martin moment involving the two sides of things, Arya accuses him of the murder of Micah. You almost feel bad for the hound as in the context of things, he’s actually been pretty decent. Next week he’s in for some trial by combat. Good thing he’s pretty good with a sword.

The art designers must also have gotten a Babylonian vibe from old Astapor

A reconstruction of Ancient Babylon

Dany – They do save the best for last, time and time again. The producers spent some bucks (or pounds) on this sequence, including several wide shots of Astapor. Like me, the set designers must have gotten a Babylonian vibe from Martin’s descriptions of Astapoor, because they clearly based their imagined city on depictions of the ancient city (see right).

In any case, Dany, playing strong as ever, and the audience as well, trades Drogon (delightfully tethered on a leash) for her new slave army. But alas, for the slavers, Dragons choose their own masters. This sequence did literally bring tears to my eyes, and it was well done considering, with several wide angle shots of the army and city, a very commanding performance by Dany, and knowing and impressed looks between Barristan and Jorah — but alas the production cheated a little, for budgetary reasons. The actual slaughter of the slavers is a rather brief affair and doesn’t do the sack of a city justice. We don’t get to see the slave pits or anything. Sigh. They tried their best, but there are limits.

I must also note that the show’s choice to leave foreign languages as foreign languages, like Dothraki and Valyrian, is superb. I felt this with LOTR, and it is equally true here. Dany giving orders in Valyrian was so much more effective subtitled.

We come finally to the last shot, as Dany and her army march from the city and we pull back to take it all in: Astapoor, the vast departing legions, and a trio of scouting Dragons. The new martial music really played into it too, taking my breath away. This is what we fantasy geeks live for!

A queen at last

All in all a fantastic episode, full of great scenes and big movements in the plot. Absent this week were Robb, Cat, Stannis, and Jon.

Another interesting review of this episode.

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]

Here is my dad standing under the arch the Lady Olenna and Varys strolled through

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 22

Apr07

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 22 – April 7, 2013

Title: Dark Wings, Dark Words

Summary: Lots of great scenes

ANY CHARACTER HERE

There is a process of narrative separation happening with GOT, inherited from the novels. The first book of the series begins with two story threads and fractures into four. With the second, and increasingly so as the series progresses, the number of plots grows and grows. They interweave, split and merge. For good reasons of pacing and tension, the editors of the series inter-splice these during an episode, but I’m going to put them back together for the purposes of discussion.

Bran – Opens with a dream (he’s walking after all), that in several ways harkens back to both his previous three-eyed raven dreams and to the beginning of the first episode of the entire series. Two of the magics of Westeros are introduced and explained in this episode, with a clarity not present in the book. Martin is pretty much the ultimate example of “soft magic” in the fantasy genre, and rarely explains his mystical systems. But, for the sake of the TV audience, they’ve made it pretty clear here that Bran is both a “Worg” (able to cast his spirit into an animal — Summer) and has “The Sight” (clairvoyance of a classic sort). The dream here foreshadows the eminent arrival of the Reeds — who I actually thought the writers had compressed out of the story.

It’s also worth noting that several of the kids, most notably Bran, look A LOT older this season. It makes sense, he’s hitting puberty, and he’s taller, leaner, and his voice (and presumably balls) have dropped. Rickon looks older too.

In the second Bran vignette the Reeds actually show. Both of them. This show is sometimes willing to cast woman that aren’t always “cute” in the typical fashion of American productions. Anyway, the male half of the Reed duo (Jojen) serves to explain both mystical systems, hinting into actions of book 5. I also like that the wolves get some real presence, and they look good, and big.

Robb/Cat – The Robb portions always feel anemic because they don’t exist in the source material, although technically this merges in chunks of Cat’s narrative. We have a little moment with his wife, then Bolton (the usual go to man here) bringing double bad news. That of Winterfell’s destruction, and of Cat’s father’s death. This is a substantial change from the book where we go to Riverrun on several occasions and Cat hangs out with the dying Holster Tully. No more.

The second vignette has them on the move to the funeral and takes an opportunity to remind the audience that Robb’s new marriage was politically disastrous. Then a moment with the wife and Cat, which given Cat’s hard side in season 2 is uncharacteristic, but perhaps she’s shaken up by the loss of her father. It’s also a change from the books, where she makes up a complex emotional story about her feelings toward Jon Snow, which in season 1 were pretty cruel. The scene shows to return our sympathy toward her, and I have to say, given how hard she felt, it’s probably a welcome change.

It’s also worth noting a favorite stylistic technic of the series, in that the last line/thought of one scene sets up the next. So we transition from thoughts of Jon to:

Jon – Sure has gotten in close with Mance quickly, as their marching together across the countryside. We learn a bit about the composition of the Wildlings and then get a sort of show and tell demo of the Worg powers where a guy is remote controlling his hawk. We hear about dead crows and then again to:

Sam – Our viewpoint back with the crow expedition. Not my favorite scene, as Sam isn’t looking to good. Although I like how the Commander handles the situation.

Theon – We have two Theon scenes! More and more the show is taking on a life of its own. Theon is basically absent from books 3 and 4. But here he’s captive of the Bastard of Bolton (presumably) and subject to some nasty torture. Nail pulling and a some variant of the knee splitter? Yes, I know way too much about medieval torture, as clearly do Martin and the other writers (they did after all, last year, include the Rat Torture, and it’s alluded to in this episode). But then at the end, we have a big change: a guy is there “sent by his sister” to rescue him! Does he evade the long skinny shadow of Reek in the show?

Joff – He’s such a shit, but such a delicious shit to watch in action. We get a study of contrasts in terms of the relationships with the two major women in his life. First up is mom, and she ain’t doing too well because while this Cersei comes off as considerably smarter and more reasonable (if still a cold bitch) than in the novels, she sure is losing control over her madman of a son.

Second, Marg comes to visit, and even with Joff being not only a shit, but in a shit mood, she manages to wrap him around her little finger. This is one talented handler, as she knows just how to appeal to his vanity and perverse interests. Here we see Joff at his more vulnerable, really a disturbed little boy (and still an unredeemable human being). Also, I have to admit, Marg with the crossbow was kinda hot. There is also, some what oddly, continued and voluminous mention of Renly’s sexual orientation. This was only vaguely hinted (obvious, but subtle) in the novel, but is a subject of continuous over the head beating here. I wonder why?

Sansa – She and Shae are talking and Shae is getting protective. She too has taken on a depth and complexity not present in the novels. Loras visits and brings Sansa to have tea with Marg and her Grandmom, Dame Tyrell. Well, the dame is one funny lady, well played, and disarmingly direct. Good fun. Sansa does a deft job handling the crisis, because she’s under A LOT of emotional pressure with no outlet, and she can’t help but seize one.

Tyrion – Uncharacteristically has only one brief scene in the episode, with Shae, but their back and forth is highly entertaining, and further develops her character — and his.

Arya – Finally we return to beloved Arya (my favorite character along with Tyrion), alas, all too briefly. As she, Hotpie, and Gendry march through the forest, Gendry makes obvious what we all felt last season: that Arya chose rather poorly who to have Jaqen kill. Then they wander right into Thyros of Myr’s little party. This is an amusing scene and I’m already liking the lush of a priest (although no mention of his relgio-magical side yet).

Arya has also grown over the year and it’s getting harder for her to pass as boyish. Nice longbow also.

In the second segment, Thyros gets into his cups and Arya scenes are great as always. Then some of his men drag in the Hound. I can’t remember if this happened so soon in the books, and I don’t think in the same way. I’m wondering if the undead Lord Beric Dondarrion will make an appearance.

Jaime – I saved Jaime for last because we end with him, even though he shows twice. He and Brienne make for great fun because she’s such a stick in the mud and he’s a riot. I particularly like the way in which he’s so endearingly baiting, only to occasionally soften with a meaningful and honest line (like the “we don’t choose who we love” from the above clip). Perhaps it’s because his style of banter is actually so honest, if deliberately provocative.

His maneuver to trick the sword away from Brienne and the fight that follows is delicious as well. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau really does have a natural charisma. And we end with the usual uh, oh.

Overall, a fun episode, if not particularly meaty in any one area. Lots of great scenes. Each individual story is but a blip in the bigger picture. When viewed one at a time, they feel a bit fragmented, but from the perspective I’ve gotten watching seasons 1 and 2 all together on Blu-ray (which looks awesome BTW), I think it will feel coherent as part of the continuous whole.

Another interesting review of this episode.

Or see my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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]

My three year-old at the gardens where Sansa chats with Grandma Tyrell

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 22, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Season 3 Episode 2, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 21

Mar31

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 21 – March 31, 2013

Title: Valar Dohaeris

Summary: Excellent start

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Right off the bat you can feel a difference in pacing. Season 2 suffered from the crunch required to compress a gigantic book into 10 hours, and given that A Clash of Kings is even longer, the decision to split book 3 into two seasons is clearly a smart one. Valar Dohaeris has some leisure to establish (in many cases reestablish) the situations for its gigantic cast. This episode doesn’t even try to handle all of them, leaving Jamie/Brienne, Arya, Bran, and Theon for episode 22.

We begin where we left off, with the decimation of the Black Brothers by the White Walkers (an ironic reversal of color). In somewhat typical budget saving fashion the battle itself is left off screen (sword clanks under black). Sam is our focal point although he doesn’t do much except run through the snow and get rescued by Ghost. This first scene is anticlimactic, turning last season’s big “event” into more of just a reveal (there are lots of White Walkers, uh oh!).

The award winning titles have been updated with a smokey Winterfell and Astapoor (the harpy slave city).

Sticking to the North for the moment, Jon Snow arrives at Mance Rayder’s camp with Ygritte. I do like her, although the way she shuffles on the snow in her heavy boots and parka looks anything but fearsome. Perhaps no one looks fearsome in Eskimo outfits. Perhaps she’s too cute for fearsomeness. In any case, the production takes the time to show off a giant in all its CGI glory, which I’m very happy with. I worried that they might try to play down some of the fantasy elements, particularly as they pick up in intensity in later books, but it seems not. The first meeting with Mance is well handled. I’ve liked Ciaran Hinds since Rome, and the writers hit on the crux of the meeting, with Jon having to convince them why he’s really there. He does.

Our return to Kings Landing fittingly comes down (haha) to Bron in a brothel. GOT loves its whores, and this one is cute, although serving of little purpose. Back in his dungeon of a room, Tyrion contemplates his new scared face. Just as the show didn’t ugly up Peter Dinklage to begin with (he might be height challenged, but he’s a handsome guy), it didn’t dare maim Tyrion like in the book. Just a scar, no missing nose and the like, although when Cersei visits in this scene, she alludes to the missing sniffer. These Tyrion/Cersei scenes are always fun. My favorite line this time is “You’re not half so clever as you think you are” followed by “still, that makes me cleverer than you.” Bron comes to defend Ty, bookending his earlier appearance. Last season they would have cut both bits out of expediency, but this time around they have room for more nuance and secondary characters. The visual scope feels somewhat bigger too, as Bron and Tryion go for a wander on the Dubrovnik (achem, Kings Landing) walls and we get a sense of space. It’s funny too, having been there myself last year, I have a sense of the positioning in the real city.

Turns out Davos survived his encounter with green fire only to be stuck on a rock (I recognize those too, as they’re just North of Dubrovnik, I believe). He’s rescued by Salladhor Saan. More characterization and setting up what’s going on with Stannis at Dragonstone. First time we’ve seen his missing fingers too in a nice artsy shot.

Robb and Bolton show up at Harrenhal after the Mountain has deserted it. This is pure setup, showing the nasty pile of corpses the big guy left behind, Robb with his new wife, and Cat a virtual prisoner of her son. The slight unrest of his men… well, little in a TV show is an accident.

Tyrion goes to visit his father Tywin, having not himself been visited during his presumably lengthy convalescence. Given that Tywin seemed fairly reasonable last season, and Tyrion really did do a pretty decent job (considering) in his defense of the capital, you’d expect him to get a little love — but no, poor Tyrion, and this is one of the many reasons we love him, just never gets the tall straw (see what I did?). Tywin lays it on pretty thick. Poor little guy.

In another scene that expands the visual grandeur Sansa and Shae hang out together at the little harbor near Dubrovnik’s north gate watching the ships sail. Littlefinger comes to work his little plot involving her, with Ros in tow. Parallel conversations between Sansa/Littlefinger and Shae/Ros allow for compact establishment of character. This is substantial compression from the books, but deftly done. And Ros isn’t a real character anyway, but her exchange isn’t bad.

Tyrion may not have gotten any love, but the dragons do. Drogon in particular has a very fun draconic take on fish BBQ. We learn that Dany is headed to Astapoor to get herself an army. A slave army, which she’s not necessarily a fan of.

At Dragonstone, Davos finally shows up and confronts Stannis and Melisandre. I’m no fan of all three of these characters, but Mel does do a good job being fey and spooky, like an evil shadow mom version of Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel.

Joffrey, the king we all love to hate, doesn’t bother to ride a horse, he takes a fancy litter, clutching a handkerchief to his nose (they should have used an orange stuffed with cloves). Margaery, his new finance, has a mosque shaped litter herself, but she isn’t afraid to get out, step through some shit (literally) and work the people. A talent that not only extends to orphans, but to Joff and Cersei as well as we see next scene when she manipulates them all at dinner. I’m liking Natalie Dormer’s take on this character.

Dany arrives at Astapoor in all its CGI grandeur, and from a distance it does look damn good. But close up, it’s probably Dubrovnik again, or perhaps a nearby Croatian city. I guess it could be Morocco. I’m not sure yet, but it sure looked like Croatia. This scene is basically an intro to the slave culture of Astapoor and the concept of the Unsullied. The subtitled back and forth between the translator girl slave and the master was particularly hilarious, and the slave soldiers well enough handled. They probably won’t be able to justice to what is to come because it involves citywide happenings, but we’ll see.

As the “previous scenes” reminded us about season 1’s dismissal of Barristan Selmy. His return involves some interesting adaption from the novels. Martin loves to reintroduce characters by new names and only slowly reveal their identity, which is great fun, but it isn’t really realistic in a TV show where the audience will just recognize the actor. So Barristan’s return is stripped of his extended posing, and the fun but unnecessary character of Strong Belwas seems written out. But I did love the warlock girl with the blue mouth and the bug ball!

All in all, a great start, if not exactly action packed. My concerns from season 1 about visual scope have been addressed as best as possible on TV. This is a grand looking show, probably one of the most impressive productions in the history of the medium. And it looks like they’ll have room in the script to do far more justice this season to Martin’s nuanced character portraits.

Another interesting review of this episode.

Or see my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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]

Me at Kings Landing

By: agavin
Comments (11)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, Dubrovnik, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jon Snow, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Natalie Dormer, Season 3, Season 3 episode 1, Tyrion, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Season 3 Goodies

Jan23

We’re entering that most exciting time of year: the ramp up and entry into a new Game of Thrones season. HBO has begun doling out the material.

First up, the brand new (as of 3/2/13) Season 3 Trailer, extended edition!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C1pbtBX9Kok]

and the original 2/21/13 Season 3 Trailer:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RzI9v_B4sxw]

Then the 2/10/13 season 3 teaser!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1iTg20x7w2s]

Then, we have a piece on the Art Direction. This includes some cool glimpses of upcoming locations and characters.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3y5aCWFuKo]

Then even more interesting is one on adaption. They don’t say a lot, but as someone who works at storytelling in various mediums (games, novels, and screenplays) I find this fascinating. A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t your typical work, with a single narrative spine to adapt and compress. The same basic mantras of compression apply as they do in most novel -> film/TV adaptions, but the details are much more complex.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VB0JA78wJ4]

And one with the two main producers and a lot of the cast on the season 3 highlights.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaedhISdshA#!]

And January 31 brings us a fourth video about Iceland:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3-hlG6Nn1s]

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Iceland, Season 3, season 3 preview, season 3 teaser, season3 trailer, Song of Ice and Fire, Television

Game of Thrones – Season 2 CGI

Aug13

This video — unfortunately narrated in German — shows many season 2 Game of Thrones FX shots both before and after. I find particularly interesting how they modify real locations, grafting on and extending the world.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvDE1kpm1eg]

I was actually just in Dubrovnik last month, so when I next watch Season 2 (bound to happen soon enough) I want to keep an eye out for the locations.

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]

Me on the walls of Kings Landing — achem, Dubrovnik

This is my own photo of the same wall that is behind Tyrion and Varys as they look out over the sea. I thought so at the time from memory but I didn’t have the shot in front of me to compose it the same.

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, CGI, Computer Graphics, Dubrovnik, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Season 2, special effects, Visual effects

Game of Thrones – Episode 20

Jun03

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 20 – June 3, 2012

Title: Valar Morghulis

Summary: Fantastic Wrapup

ANY CHARACTER HERE

The season finale has a lot of threads to cover, the extra long “previously on” clip covers no less than eleven major plot lines! Amazingly, the episode manages to do a pretty damn good job with them — even when many only get one scene.

We open with Tyrion — well his eye — suffering at the tender ministrations of the less-senile-than-he-seems Maester Pycelle. Ty learns he’s no longer hand, and we see what he does not, his father receiving the honors that Tyrion had a hand (haha) in earning. Then in a magnificent bit of public theater, Joffery casts down Sansa and takes up with Margaery Tyrell. Could the third marriage be the charm? With Joff? This begins a running thread about oaths that flows through the entire episode. For Joff, despite his lip service, oaths mean nothing. I do also have to give credit to the actor who manages to make every line, every gesture thoroughly loathsome.

I can't wait for his wedding

Sansa, freed of her engagement, is confronted by Littlefinger. He claims to be an ally, being the second man to offer her a way north. But does she dare? Personally, I would have gone with the Hound.

And speaking of Littlefinger, Varys visits Ros in the interest of plotting against his rival. It’s not entirely clear what the point of this scene is other than an update on everyone’s least favorite hooker and a restatement of the Varys/Littlefinger hostility. I prefered their “manhood” discussion in episode 10.

Jaime and Brienne only get one scene, but it’s a doozy. After the usual banter they run into a bunch of Stark men who recognize the Kingslayer. She totally kicks ass in her lumbering way. But her choices flow from her own oath: to Cat Stark. Her interpretation is literal in the extreme.

Robb and Cat discuss this very topic. He is in love with the nurse, she warns him of his oath, even invoking Ned and his own literal interpretation of said matters. Robb walks a different road.

Stannis broods with the Red Lady, nursing his pride. He tries to strangle her, but cannot. She shows him the secrets of the flames. We, of course, see only some flicking in his eyeballs. Is this hypnotism, or more? Certainly one of the weaker threads, but it has been all along. I guess Davos’ fate will be left to season 3.

Theon is surrounded and in his room with Luwin. The old man honors his own oath and gives Theon solid advice: run for the Night’s Watch. “You are not the man you are pretending to be, at least not yet.” This is a great exchange. “It’s too late to pretend to be anything else,” Theon answers. Then he gives a really nice speech to his troops — only to have them betray him. Poor Luwin is stabbed.

What is dead will never die!

Varys visits Tyrion and delivers news of further humiliations. I swear GRRM looks at every character every chapter and says: “on the way up, take ’em down. On the way down, take ’em up.” The Ty/Varys interaction this season has been great as both actors are spectacular. Shae is next. She removes his bandage. The scar is bad, but nothing like in the book where he has no nose! They couldn’t bring themselves to put Peter Dinklage through that much ugly (and he’s a good looking man anyway, unlike the pre-face-cut novel Tyrion). Shae at least is loyal (so far). Dare I say, honoring her oath? She tries to get him to leave the city with her, but stays when he won’t.

Robb gets married. A nice tiny little ceremony. Oaths oaths oaths. But it is still the second worst thread.

Dany walks through a cool garden to an even cooler tower-like “house of the undying.” She finds a magic entrance. I like these lightly handed mystical moments.

Jorah, don't let her out of your sight!

Arya, having escaped, is found by Jaquen. He tries to draw her to Bravos to train as a Faceless Man. She isn’t ready yet, and still seeks her family. He gives her the coin then as I hoped he might, changes his face. “That man is dead.” Awesome scene.

Osha and the boys emerge to a burnt and destroyed Winterfell. If those wolves are CG, they look pretty darn good. They find a dying Luwin and the old man gets a few final words in. Perhaps not realistic, but he’s been very fine in the role and so they’re well deserved. He sends them to Jon. Bran rolls north in a wheelbarrow!

Dany is back in the House of the Undying. She finds a room of doors and wanders through into a sequence of visions that gave me goosebumps. First the Iron Throne, its hall burnt by dragon fire. Then lured by the sound of dragons, through the door in the wall and into the north. There she finds Drogo’s hut and inside the man himself in a surprise reprise of his role. The Dothraki dialog between them brought tears to my eyes. I always liked the way his rumbly voice read the guttural language. But she is not to succumb to the “last temptation of Danerys Stormborn,” instead returning to the house to find her dragons. All three in fact — for the first time in the entire season. The warlock emerges. He uses the plural, but we only see one — before or now. “With the dragons returned our magic.” It’s nice to hear this reiterated. Makes one wonder. Is this true of the Red Lady as well? Not the White Walkers for sure, they showed up in the pilot before the dragons did. Or do they foreshadow coming of the beasts? Anyway, Dany is not one to take captivity lightly, she lights up the warlock like a bonfire. This scene was cool, but felt light on the effects. I would’ve liked to see the three dragons flying around laying waste to the house and it burning down. Sigh. Budgets.

Finally, we return to Jon Snow in the frozen north. Ygritte is marching behind him whacking him on the head with his own sword. That’s got to hurt both the pride and the noggin. The Halfhand grabs a sword and they fight. He forces Jon’s anger and this time, Jon doesn’t hold back and kills him. I’m not sure I bought this important moment 100%. I did, however, like the look Ygritte gives him as she backs him up and then leads him off to see the valley with the Wildling (CGI) camp. This vista looks fantastic as they just painted in the camp in a real Icelandic valley. It felt massive in scale, in contrast with the lightweight troop of a dozen Wildlings in furs marching around in the snow. The Lord of Bones has no presence.

Somehow the captive is the trustworthy one

Xaro is sleeping with Doreah. I guess that explains her absence. Dany and her dragons march in and steal his medallion/vault key. But the vault contains nothing. She locks him and the slave girl away. These are both changes from the novels, but while I will miss the girl on girl on girl action that is supposed to occur later (unless they bring it back with different girls) the relationship with Xaro makes more sense. In the books I never really understood what Xaro was up to or why Dany did what she did with him. Here she loads up with enough gold to buy a ship and move on.

I expected that to be the end, but we have an even better setup. Sam and the brother’s black are gathering frozen turds by the Fist of the First Men when the horn sounds three times. An army of zombies pass, lead by zombie horse riding White Walkers. That was pretty cool. It also helps to explain, at least to me, the difference between the wraiths (zombies) and the White Walkers (something more, and often mounted). This peculiar distinction has eluded me for five books.

Sigh again. The ten month wait begins. But in the meantime I’m heading myself to King’s Landing this summer. Well, Dubrovnik at least. It looked so good in the show that I booked a vacation there!

Overall, a brilliant episode. I was worried that with so many threads each be starved of attention, But the producers saved a good percentage of the budget for these last two episodes. And more importantly the writers managed to draw most of the threads, although not all, to a satisfying conclusion. Still, the biggest flaw this season suffered, and it is a big flaw, is the compression of the large scale novel into only ten hours of programming. While a problem last season, A Game of Thrones is shorter than A Clash of Kings and the compression felt less pronounced. Season 2 did mostly address the problems of visual scope and mystical elements that bothered me in season one, but the new problem is even worse. With twelve episodes they could have mitigated it somewhat, but really the scope of the story needed perhaps sixteen. We can hope that by splitting A Storm of Swords into more than one season this can be overcome.

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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]

Boys like a challenge

By: agavin
Comments (10)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, Blackwater, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 20, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Historical fantasy, House, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Robb, Television, Tyrion, Valar Morghulis, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 19

May28

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 18 – May 27, 2012

Title: Blackwater

Summary: Tight and intense

ANY CHARACTER HERE

With Episode 19, Blackwater, the normally highly fractured narrative of the show lasers in and focuses on a single place and night: The attack on King’s Landing by Stannis and its defense. Hallelujah, they finally show us a real battle! And not just a little one, but a multi-staged “Helm’s Deep” style battle. Sure, it’s not like Helm’s deep level visuals, but it’s pretty damn great.

This is certainly the most climatic scene from A Clash of Kings, although with so many threads it is but one of many. By choosing to focus, we are allowed to see the play out of emotions in King’s Landing with considerable more depth than the usual 2-3 scenes per thread allows.

We open at sea with Davos and his navy. I like the puke barrel the soldiers heave into. Then we cut to Tyrion in bed with Shae in a nice intimate pre-battle moment of intimacy. Cersei, in contrast, receives cold comfort in the form of poison from her silly and ancient Maester. Bronn parties with his men and a bevy of the usual whores (we keep seeing the same ones). The Hound enters and the two killers lock antlers only to be interrupted by the bells signaling the invasion.

Varys and Ty banter as usual, much to our pleasure. The master of spiders passes crucial information to Ty, and in a subtle nod to later, Ty admits that he trusts his squire Pod. In the books Pod is an actual character, here in the show, he’s just a role. Still, at least he has one.

The bells on the wall are met by drums from the ships. Ty and Bronn find Joff and the Hound in the throne room. Joff continues his obnoxious streak in saying goodbye to Sansa, and she cleverly appeals to his ego to try and egg him into the most dangerous part of the battle.

Everyone sallies forth to watch from the walls. In a very effective sequence we cut from the battlements to the ships and show the sailor’s surprise at finding only one Lannister ship, unmanned and leaking green fluid at that. Bronn sets the whole thing alight with a single flaming arrow and Stannis’ fleet is obliterated in a cloud of green fire. I do have to say, the green fire looked badass (for TV).

One shot is the charm

But undaunted, Stannis leads his surviving men aboard his medieval PT boats and rows for shore.

Meanwhile, we have been cutting back to inside the keep where Cersei has sequestered herself with all her ladies. This is all the more painful for Sansa when the queen singles her out for more attention. The queen’s dress is very interesting: Mostly medieval ladies gown, it does have a bit of Amazonian breast plate action going.

When Stannis mounts his landing Ty sends the Hound to command a defensive party outside the walls. Men storm toward the walls under fire and do their best with ladders. Lancel takes a flesh wound and heads inside where Cersei orders him to drag the king to safety. Cersei continues to talk Sansa and takes notice of Shae, something doesn’t add up for her.

The Hound goes to town butchering the invaders until the fire grows too close and he starts to freak out. This is certainly understandable considering his fiery encounters with his older brother. Stannis is a leader of the old school, and you can’t say he’s a coward because he storms the walls himself and lays waste to the King’s men.

Does anyone have the armor polish?

When the hold returns inside getting too close to the heat he is ordered back out again. He swears off the King entirely and leaves. The invaders batter at the games with a huge battering ram. Joff runs off with his cousin and Ty finds the courage to lead the men in a rousing speech and drag them out himself.

Lancel returns to Cersei again empty handed, and she runs off. Sansa finds her own strength to rally the women and Shae urges Sansa back to her rooms. But guess who’s there? The Hound, fed up with fighting for Joff the Toff and ready to take her back to Winterfell. But Sansa has been conditioned and she is too nervous to jump ship.

Can you toss me that rope on the dock over there?

Ty leads men through the sewers (setup with Varys and the map), comes out behind the invaders, and lays waste to them. He goes to town with his axe. This time around, the producers don’t shy from battle. Finally. Ty is fighting away only to be betrayed and attacked by one of the King’s Guard. He falls badly injured, although not seemingly as badly injured as in the book. More troops invade and just as soon as all looks lost, a Lannister army arrives to save the day.

Cersei sits with her younger son Tommen on the throne and is about to take poison but Tywin rides in to save the day. So this is where he rode off too last episode!

Overall, this episode burned a lot of money. While it still feels like TV, it’s epic TV and the mix of wide shots and extra pounding action served well to convey the sense of a fairly large battle. I like the scope and intensity allowed by ignoring all the other threads, but I suspect that the final episode will be one rapid-fire whiplash!

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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]

Things that say boom!

By: agavin
Comments (4)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a clash of kings, A Dance with Dragons, a game of thrones, Blackwater, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 19, Episode Review, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Historical fantasy, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Television, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 18

May20

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 18 – May 20, 2012

Title: The Prince of Winterfell

Summary: A little rushed

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Last week’s episode ended with Brienne drawing her blade, but this begins at Winterfell with the titular Price of Winterfell, Theon, killing all the ravens to stop word of his treachery. His sister arrives and presses him to return home so as not to die. Somehow this scene felt stilted, her rapid shift from haughty to concerned a bit forced.

Then in the far north, Ygritte and her men deliver Jon to the Lord of Bones (wearing a plastic skull helmet). Qhorin is there too, captive as well, Jon’s fault. Bones wants to gut the bastard, but Ygritte repays her debt by convincing him not.

Robb strolls through pretty Irish countryside while talking to his girlfriend the nurse. I still don’t love their chemistry, even though they talk about Ned. Then Robb learns of the Kingslayer’s escape. New viewers will undoubtedly be confused, because he escaped and was recaptured last week.

Jon Snow or baby seal?

Some minor clarity (for those who haven’t read the books) is offered when Robb returns and confronts Cat. She tries to explain. Karstark is furious, but I wasn’t really feeling his acting. Robb arrests his own mother, which is vaguely Oedipal.

Really, Cat sent Brienne off to haul Jaime back to Cersei and trade for the girls. And we see this now, but the show’s need for brevity has trimmed it to the bone. Still, Jaime is great fun teasing Brienne and it’s fun to watch him muscled around by this enormous girl.

Arya is doing table duty again when she learns that Tywin is about to ride and she is to be left behind with the Mountain (uh oh). She runs off past some grisly hung men and finds Hot Pie and Gendry, but she’s really looking for her pet assassin. Presumably she has finally decided to use her third death to rid the land of Tywin. In the book, this has a real feeling of urgency. The show’s efforts to make Tywin more human have diluted that, but everything has trade offs.

Back to Jon. Qhorin hints that Jon should try to infiltrate the wildlings and starts to taunt him. This is extremely brief, and also likely to be lost on new veiwers, but it’s an important bit of info.

Tyrion and Bronn have an amusing chat and Vary’s shows up again. Oh, how I missed him. They discuss the difficult task of defending the city. All three of these actors are in fine form.

Sly minds think alike

Sam and the Crows, still on the Fist of the First Men, are digging latrines and find an ancient cache of obsidian blades. What could those mean? Something obviously as it got two minutes of precious screen time.

Arya finds Jaquen too late. But, always too clever for her own good, she forces him to help her escape by naming his own name. In order to avoid killing himself, he reluctantly agrees to help her.

Tyrion and Cersei are eating lamprey pie (again a nod to the books). Last week’s moment of fraternal love is long gone, for Cersei announces that she holds Shae and is holding her as ransom against Joff’s security. Ty plays it cool, even when she’s brought in and revealed to be Ros (good riddance). Afterward Ty is not so reserved with Shae. He even extracts from her what is akin (in a hooker kind of way) to vows.

Robb talks to Bolton to put pressure on the Bastard retaking Winterfell. Then Talesia (sic?) comes in. He’s stressed, and as usual doesn’t really play much of the king with her. Contrast him with the insufferable Joff! This time around their chemistry is much better as she tells a story of her brother’s near death. There seems to be a sibling theme going on in this episode because we have this story, Theon’s sister’s about him as a baby, and the rivalry between Ty and Cersei. Robb throws his Frey engagement to the wind and plays some serious doctor with the nurse. Do any of the actresses in this show not have nudity clauses in their contract?

Why, why don't I get any respect?

Arya, Hot Pie, and Gendry sneak through the gate Jaquen has prepared. All the guards have been viciously murdered and propped up. Jaq’s quite the killer.

Stannis and Davos sail toward King’s Landing. They talk of Davos’ rescue of Storm’s End. His whole Onion Knight story is being spooled out in tiny doses. I wonder if the non-readers will get it, but it’s nice to hear.

Joff is playing at being a proper soldier. One just loves to hate him, from his manner to his ridiculous girly man posturing. I can’t wait for… Anyway, Tyrion and Vary’s have another great talk. I do love V. Ty unveils his desire to stay hand (and alive) while V lets slip the threat of Dany and her dragons.

Speaking of, a brief scene where Jorah and Dany discuss what to do. He councils safety, she won’t leave her dragons. Although she has only this one moment in the episode, it’s a good one.

In Winterfell, Maester Luwin sees Asha and tracks her down into the crypt to put our minds at ease. Given the gratuitous hint dropping, I doubt most viewers really thought they were dead. In the books, it was pretty worrisome, as GRRM has killed before!

Overall, this episode had some great scenes but felt rushed and disjointed. So much is going on here that the writers trimmed aggressively to set everything up before next week’s Battle of Blackwater. They’ve done the best they can, but I wonder if noobs (non-readers) will make perfect sense of it.

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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]

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 18, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Historical fantasy, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, The Prince of Winterfell, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 13

Apr15

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 13 – April 15, 2012

Title: What is Dead May Never Die

Summary: The wait from week to week is tough

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Intros are over (almost) and things are really starting to rock and roll. What is Dead May Never Die is certainly the best episode yet of the new series. No small part to focusing a little more tightly on a few storylines. Robb, Dany, and Stannis are all missing, but we have lots of Tyrion.

The John Snow thread moves just a tiny bit, with resolving last week’s cliffhanger with John a bit too easily. The writers take a scene to setup Gilly and Sam’s relationship and then move on to Winterfell. Bran explains his peculiar dreams to the Maester. I like that the chains come into it, but I wonder how much new viewers will get of this.

Then we finally come to Renly. Seems he has already married the lovely Margaery Tyrell, played by the Tudor’s Natalie Dormer. She’s well cast, even if a few years too old of the book version of her character. And Briene. Wow, that’s some hulk of a woman. What is she, like seven foot? Perfectly cast too. While short, this tourney looked much less dinky than the season 1 version, mostly due to a single establishing shot. Renly puts on a good show, but literarily and figuratively. But Cat is not so easily fooled.

Then Theon confronts his sister and is schooled by his father. Uh oh, seems he needs to make a choice. Old family or new. Things are never easy!

The middle part of the episode shows Tyrion coming into his own and wrestling with the political forces in the capital. But first Shae is restless and he’s putty in her hands, but back in the palace he’s tough as nails. Cersei tortures Sansa a bit more and she is starting to wonder who she is. But when Shae shows up as her new maid, she isn’t exactly showing her best side. In this way, the episode appears to be about choices. Each character is faced questions of loyalty and role.

And so Tyrion tempts each of the three capital conspirators with a different story. Maester Pycelle, Varys, and Littlefinger. The parallel structure of the scene is quite amusing.

Speaking of choices, Renly is in his tent, first with Loras, and then with his sister. Boy or girl? Pleasure or duty? In the earlier scene’s Natalie’s Margaery was a little flat, but here not only is she gorgeous (and we see plenty of her), but when she exposes her awareness of the situation that scheming little smile is perfect. Interesting that Renly is so torn, finding it so difficult to deliver on the practical realities of his responsibilities.

Tyrion does continue to try and talk some sense into Cersei, but she isn’t listening. Which too, is a choice. And Theon. He finally makes his, and we find him baptized to the Drowned God.

Tyrion continues to play his hand deftly. His ruse has flushed out the spy in the council. But perhaps he knew all along. He makes good with Littlefinger and Varys (more or less) and deals with Pycelle. The old man is so annoying one can’t help but enjoy seeing him get a bit of comeuppance. The writers take the time to remind us that Tyrion has a soft spot for whores. Still, the best is Varys’ little speech about power. I love how the show (and the actor) hand this nuanced character. He was great last season and continues the streak.

Finally, we get to Arya, my other favorite. After building up Yoren a bit, the Lannister forces arrive and he too makes his choice, proving to be quite the badass. “I always hated crossbows.” Poor Arya’s guardians don’t have a very good survival rate. The battle that ensues is both well choreographed, graphic, disturbing, and touching. Lorch’s men don’t quite yet have the nasty nasty feel from the book, but they’re getting started. Poor Lommy. A powerful end.

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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]

By: agavin
Comments (4)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, HBO, Historical fantasy, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Natalie Dormer, Roleplaying, Tyrion, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 12

Apr08

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 12 – April 8, 2012

Title: The Night Lands

Summary: The wait from week to week is tough

ANY CHARACTER HERE

After suffering through the week, Sunday night, Game of Thrones, night arrives. After last week’s tease, we open with Arya (finally). I liked Jaqen H’ghar (the civil man in the cage) but I have to wonder why they didn’t make one of the others noseless. I always liked that nasty detail. Loren is fun with the knife though. Then it’s on to everyone’s favorite, Tyrion, and in combo with Varys, even better. The fishpie jokes are classic. “I don’t think he likes fishpie.” Classic.

Then the small council gets Robb’s terms. Then back to Crastor’s keep with some more fun between the crows. Sam and the whole woman angle is amusing. Then Gilly temps him, and we see Jon taking last week’s lesson from the commander seriously. Dany receives an unpleasant gift in the waste. Her whole part in A Clash of Kings isn’t huge, so I suspect we will only see her briefly in most episodes.

Essentially all of the above scenes are finishers from the previous episode. Last week we only set up the positions of the pieces on the board, and it needed at least an hour and a half to even do that. We still havn’t even seen Renly (and we won’t this episode)!

But with Theon approaching his homeland (Pyke) the plot begins to move a bit. And so does the sexposition. As usual he’s laying into some poor girl. I like that she isn’t even that attractive. The view of Pyke is awesome though, with the castle split into four or five parts. The shores of the Iron Islands (achem, Northern Ireland) look good. Then talking about sexposition, we cut to a mysterious sex on sex bit in one of Littlefinger’s brothels. The momment with the wiping of the mouth and the kiss is perfect though. So gratuitous, but awesome. Then we have Littlefinger venting his frustration with Cersei on Ros. I hate Ros, but they are giving a little more nuance than the books to the personalities of some of the King’s Landing players.

After Jonas Slynt perpetrated his baby stabbing last week, we can’t help but cheer to see Tyrion set him up. The scene gives a nod to his lame squire Podryck, but I doubt new viewers will notice. Bronn gets a big promotion here he didn’t in the books, cutting the lackluster character of Jacelyn Bywater. Arya (along with Tyrion) is one of my favorite characters and I’m glad to see more or her, but we still only get the one first scene and a second here with some nice development between her and Gendry. One does wonder how he is the only one who thinks she is a girl.

Then the delicious irony of Theon’s return home. He shamelessly (SPOILER) fails to recognize his own sister and then feels her up. The whole Greyjoy look of the castle (although they skipped the windy, scary bridges) is great. And even better is Theon’s shock at the culture contrast. I love how he’s become a man of gold instead of iron and his father knows it. They changed his sister’s name for some reason but I like that she’s young.

After this, we return to Davos bringing pirate Salador on at Dragonstone. Salador is funny, and Davos is fine, but I still find this thread a bit dull — just as I did in the books. Not so with Tyrion and Cersei tearing into it. The writers have continued to develop the angle where Cersei has lost control of Joff (he ordered the slaying of the bastards). This isn’t fully stated in the books but adds some complexity to her choices.

And they continue new things when we return to Stannis and Melisandre. Maybe this was implied in the books. Maybe not, but it sure is explicit here. I just have to say that map table sex has to be a literal pain in the ass. And a final bit of extrapolation has Jon Snow follow Craster out into the woods to witness him offer a baby to the white walkers. This act was implied in the books, but I don’t remember any actual trip into the woods, and certainly not the little cliffhanger that ends the episode.

But I’m not a purist. I think most of these changes are for the better, emphasizing and clarifying things that Martin leaves half said. Some of the character count reductions are a loss, but I understand why they need to do it. If they don’t slice fairly harshly by season four we won’t see some threads but once every three weeks. As the show faded to black all I could think was “damn, I have to wait another week!”

or See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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]

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Clash of Kings, Craster, Davos, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, HBO, Historical fantasy, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 11

Apr01

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 11 – April 1, 2012

Title: The North Remembers

Summary: Amazing!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

It is with great relish and anticipation that I sat down to devour the first episode of Season 2 of Game of Thrones — and it didn’t disappoint. Like many of the earlier episodes in season 1 this is an establishing episode where we rotate through the players and put into place who is where on the board. But it does suffer a bit from Martin’s widely expanded scope in A Clash of Kings. There are so many characters in so many different places that we see each major thread exactly once, for what is usually two scenes. Arya we barely see at all, only for a tiny shot at the end, and Renly not even that. Only Cersei and Joffrey get multiple segments as they are at the center of things in King’s landing. This left me licking my lips, like after two sips of wine. I can’t help but feel the season would have been better served by twelve hours and a two hour premier.

Still, I have no major complaints. Already I’m getting the feeling that the producers have taken steps to address a couple of my major problems with season 1 (and don’t get me wrong, I adored it). The shots felt bigger. The new King’s Landing feels a little different, and certainly larger, and it’s vaguely obvious they moved from Malta to Dubrovnik. It looks more coastal now, with the sea close at hand. Malta is an Island, but it didn’t feel that way in the show. There are also several notable dire wolf shots in the first episode. All CGI, but who cares, I’m just glad to see the wolves. Although where was Ghost?

Tyrion is awesome as always, I just wish we had more of him. Two young veterans from Skins are in evidence too (Gendry and Craster’s daughter Gilly). Joffery is not only as unloveable as ever, but actually seems to be getting more nuance than in the books and hence Cersei also. I really like the way it’s showing him getting away from her. With what he does to Dontos they take a page from Caligula (I can’t remember if it went that way in the books). The new characters are fine. Stannis comes off as cold an ass as he should. Davos seems likable, although it’s hard to tell in three minutes. The sad enter of his Maester though lacked any real punch as there was no time in the abbreviated version to actually build any sympathy for him or his position. I’m still cold on Melisandre. I’m no big fans of the whole Stannis sub-plot in the books. And one wonders why the hell we have Ros in here at all, and how a provincial whore from the backwaters of Winterfell is suddenly the high and mighty mistress of a King’s Landing brothel. And that scene starts off the most significant change from the books (SPOILER ALERT) an early purge of Robert’s bastards. Perhaps it’s just the producers trimming down the cast or perhaps it’s just add even more drama and menace.

All in all, I just want to see more. But we have to wait a week, sigh.

Some clips from this episode can be found here

or See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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]

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 11, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Season 2, season 2 episode 1, Television, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Season 2 Episode 1 Clips

Mar30

HBO has released six 30 second clips from “The North Remembers” which is the first episode of season 2. Spoiler alert! And the show is only 2 days away. Woot! But maybe, like me, you can’t resist.

Dragons!

Oh, how we love Tyrion.

And more Tyrion.

Beyond the wall x 2.

Robb isn’t bending no knee.

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]

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: dragons, Game of Thrones, HBO, Season 2, The North Remembers, Tyrion

Game of Thrones – Price for our Sins

Mar18

Just 2 weeks from Season 2, HBO has released more trailer goodness (3/18/12). This is one of the best yet, featuring all sorts of footage from the new season, and cut into a more comprehensible story arc.

And the 3/25/12 “Nowhere to Hide” preview:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, Blu-ray Disc, Clash of Kings, DVD, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Teaser, Television program, Trailer

Game of Thrones – The More You Love

Mar10

As we close in on Season 2, HBO has released more trailer goodness (3/10/12). This is one of the best yet, featuring all sorts of footage from the new season, and cut into a more comprehensible story arc.