Game of Thrones, Episode 1.09: "Baelor"

And here we are at the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones, which ends with the shock all of us GRRM geeks have been waiting for. As always, I blog here with my good friend Nikki Stafford from Nik at Nite, who has not as yet read the novel’s of GRRM’s Ice and Fire series. Nikki suggested we post on this episode two days earlier than usual, as this is was a pretty devastating episode, and we’re both pretty certain that people want to jump in and talk about it.

So: give ‘er.


Chris: So, kind of a boring episode, eh? Nothing really happened, just your usual run-of-the-mill stuff. Certainly nothing to shock the n00bs. ;-)

But seriously, folks … Ned’s TOTALLY UNEXPECTED execution is the moment, in reading the novel, when you suddenly think “Holy shit, this guy plays for keeps.” And that realization sort of comes in stages, as the actual beheading is described vaguely enough that you spend much of the rest of the novel waiting for the revelation that he’s not actually dead. I’ve had several acquaintances finish A Game of Thrones and say, “OK, so this is a Gandalf thing, right? He ‘died,’ but is going to come back in the second book?” I’m pretty happy they didn’t really leave anything to the imagination in the series—now I don’t have to be all mysterious about whether or not Ned actually got it, or worry about having “Yep, he’s dead” be a total spoiler.

Yep, he’s dead. And just a word of warning for those embarking on reading the series: do NOT get too attached to any of your favourite characters. NO ONE IS SAFE.

But of course, the shocking finale of the episode threatens to eclipse everything else that happened, and, all things being equal, this was a pretty eventful episode. And also an episode that warrants another of my “what they changed” lists:

• Shae—in the novel she is not “foreign.” I don’t know what that change bothered me, but it did a little. I kept waiting for Tyrion to guess, in their drinking game, “that accent is fake!” and have her relent and start speaking like the Westeros girl she is in the novels.
• And yeah … that drinking game was not within ten city blocks of the novel. A nifty device to reveal stuff about Tyrion, but it totally screwed up the pacing of an otherwise gripping episode.
• Tyrion getting accidentally conked on the head and missing the battle. That bugged me a little—in the novel, he fights; and his hillmen aren’t in the vanguard, they’re on the left flank, as Tywin assumed they would collapse in battle and entice the northerners into a charge that would leave them enveloped.
• Also, they missed a chance to use one of my favourite of Bronn’s lines: encouraging Tyrion before the battle, he says, “A little man like you with a large shield? You’ll give the archers fits.”
• In the novel, Robb did not sacrifice two thousand men, but sent a healthier host south to engage Tywin Lannister and then retreat, as a diversion, while they took on Jaime Lannister’s force.
• Also, I don’t know if this gripe fits under “what they changed,” but—snow in the Riverlands? Seriously? That strikes me as a HUGE continuity error.

OK, I think that’s enough for that list. What would you like to talk about, Nikki? :-)


Nikki: OK. Breathe, Nikki… BREATHE.

OHMYGODICANTBELIEVETHATJUSTHAPPENED!!!!!!!!

OK, I think that was a rather calm response, don’t you??

I have been watching television for many years, as you all know. I have been WRITING about television and studying it for many years, as many of you know. In that time, there are certain things I know to be true: when a character pops up out of nowhere with a tiny role, but the part is played by a giant of film or television, that is going to become a recurring character (unless it’s on 30 Rock and the cameo was touted in commercials for weeks leading up to it); when a character has been built up with such a rich history surrounding him, and a clear path of right and wrong drawn before him, where you can see how he could join forces with this camp or that one, you know he will remain a focal point of the show; you do NOT kill off your lead… you don’t kill off Jack Shephard on Lost or Buffy on Buffy or Sydney Bristow on Alias because, as mentioned earlier, if much of the show’s plot and mythology has been built around that character, you don’t have much of a bloody show without him/her; when that lead is in terrible peril and you know there may be a way out, there is ALWAYS a way out, especially if people who side with that person are not immediately present in the scene… in which case they shall come swooping in at the last second, lopping off the executioner’s head and saving the day; when you have SEAN BEAN in the lead, you don’t kill him off!!!!!!!

OK, sorry… I’m kind of becoming hysterical again. I think I can say there hasn’t been an ending of an episode that has shocked me the way that did. The end of Lost’s season 5, when Jack dropped the bomb and they didn’t show what the frak happened and just ended the season there… that made every fan scream in frustration. But the events themselves weren’t a shock. I’ve seen characters get killed off, and that was upsetting, but that’s reserved for the end of the series and not near the end of the FIRST BLOODY SEASON!!!

Simply put (in case all of this maniacal ranting wasn’t clear) that ending shocked the hell out of me. My hands were tightly clasped over my mouth, my eyes were gaping open, and I screamed a crazy person’s scream (thank goodness for those hands over the mouth). My husband and I gawped at each other, and I think he may have spoken first, saying, “They killed him!”
“No!” was all I could say once I let out that breath I’d been holding in.
“I can’t believe they killed him!”
“That didn’t just happen. Back it up and let’s watch again.”
“They killed him.”
“How is… what… why would… oh my GOD.”

Honestly I don’t know how I’m going to get through the rest of this week’s post. So much for analysis. I’m just rambling on and on with my reaction. I’ll turn it back over to Chris while I continue to try to get my head around this, because I still have SO much more to say but I’m bogarting the action with my shock and awe. (And by the way, for the record, I think it was a BRILLIANT move on the part of the writers, not a mistake, because I will never, ever forget that moment of television watching…)

Chris: Hee.

I think I speak for all (or most) GRRM fans when I say just how cathartic that moment of television was. Everyone I know who has read the novels invariably says something along the lines of “I can’t wait to see people’s reactions when they kill Ned.” Because it really is something of a game-changing moment—as I said above, it’s the moment when you realize GRRM ain’t your grandma’s fantasy writer. It is akin to the end of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd when you discover that the murderer is SPOILER (yeah, not going to give that one away here)—a brilliant moment of generic rule-breaking.

And as long as we’re on the topic, can I gush for a moment over how well that scene was done? It was handled perfectly, from Arya’s arrival to the emergence of Ned, to Joffrey’s sickeningly self-satisfied grin when Ned calls him the true king, to Cersei’s look of horror when she realizes what Joffrey is doing … and finally to that heartbreakingly long moment of muffled silence as Ned realizes that he is about to die. It was all more or less exactly as it is described in the novel, except for two things: Ned spotting Arya crouching at the base of the statue, and telling Yoren that she is there. (For those who didn’t understand the communication, the statue is of Baelor the Blessed, the holiest of the Targaryen kings—Ned shouts “Baelor!” at Yoren, who then spots and rescues Arya). I must say, I loved this little change: it gives Arya and Ned one last moment of connection, and reinforces for Ned just why he’s agreeing to this travesty of his honor. It plays as a beautiful foil to Maester Aemon’s little lecture to Jon Snow on honor versus love; in the end, Ned chooses love, love of his children. Jon’s stipulation that his father would “Do whatever is right, no matter what” then becomes an interesting philosophical question—did Ned do the right thing? Was it right to choose his daughters over his honor?

Whatever the answer, it was for naught, and Joffrey shows his autocratic, capricious ways. He will come to plague his family with his willfulness as the books proceed. I hope everyone has a stomach for his repulsiveness—it finds way more outlets for expression in book two.

Assuming, Nikki, that you’ve caught your breath by now, what did you think of the episode’s other shocking moments? Which, admittedly, seem only mildly surprising next to Ned’s decapitation.

Nikki: I think it will be several days before I’ve caught my breath. I think I need to watch it again, just to see the end part. (On a completely random side note, my daughter watches the excruciatingly awful “Suite Life on Deck” on Family, and the other day it had the first funny line I’ve seen, where one guy tells this group of environmentalists that the captain has capitulated to their demands, to which ditzy London — who always misunderstands big words — exclaims, “Oh my GOD, they cut off his head?!” Heh.) Anyway, what I found in this episode, now thinking back on it, was that many of the scenes were there to help bolster up the very expectation I was suggesting they tore asunder with Ned’s death. Khal Drogo appears close to death, and I do NOT want him to die, and said to my husband, “They CAN’T kill him off, not after everything we’ve gone through with him and Dany”… and they seem to have found a way around that. Tyrion is knocked unconscious in battle, and the next thing you see is him appearing to be floating above the battlefield, tricking the viewer momentarily into thinking he’s dead and having an out-of-body experience… one I didn’t fall for simply because he’s Tyrion, and you simply can’t kill HIM off. We see Catelyn ride into the Walder (sp?) fortress, and we know she’s probably not in any grave danger because, well, she’s Catelyn, and they won’t kill her, right?

Now I’ll never rest easy. I’m thinking Drogo and Tyrion and Sam and Arya will be in a massive battle to the death next week at this rate. Cripes.

So that is perhaps why they added in the Tyrion scene. But as you say, I would have much rather seen him do battle, especially since we’ve seen him bludgeon a guy to death with a shield. :::shudder:::

But back to Ned (see, I just can’t let it go… Lost has taught me nothing), aside from the shock that ending gave me, I’m really saddened by that final, terrible, beautiful few moments of his life, which at the time I didn’t realize were his final ones. He sees Arya crouching on that statue (and THANK YOU for explaining the name of the statue, because my big question of the week was, why was the episode called Baelor? Is there any tie, by the way, to Baelish?). There’s a look of pain and shame on her face, and of course, anger that her father is spouting such blatant lies. I kind of hated Sansa in this scene, who, on the one hand, is trying desperately to save her father’s life, but on the other, is allowing him to compromise his very soul with those final words. Joffrey made his pronouncement, and Arya made her move. As she was weaving her way toward the stage, I began yelling, “Come on, Arya! Show us what those dancing lessons taught you!! Arya for the WIN!” I was so convinced she would be his savior. Silly me. But now, with a clearer head, I know she would have walked to her own death, and her father’s and possibly Sansa’s, too. Stopping her was the only thing that could have been done in this scene.

But my heart broke when Ned looked out to that statue one last time and she was gone. The one person who seemed to share his soul was gone, and he would never look at her again. Heartbreaking.

You remember what happened to Viserys a couple of episodes back? That’s child’s play compared to what I want to happen to Joffrey, that sniveling little toad excrement.

So… once word gets over to Ned’s son and his army of bannermen, I’m wondering how long Jaime Lannister is for this world…

Chris: Speaking of that bit where Tyrion seems to be floating over the ground, can I call foul on the director for totally ripping that whole thing off of Gladiator?

I loved all the Drogo/Daenerys parts of this episode, just as I did in the novel. It’s such a harrowing sequence as we realize that however powerful Dany has become, however much she has come into her own, her power as far as the Dothraki are concerned is entirely dependent on Drogo. Jorah’s urgent entreaty for them to flee at first seems cowardly until he explains what is at stake: the khalasar is held together solely by Drogo’s strength—once that strength ebbs, the whole house of cards threatens to come down. And yet Dany hangs on, desperate, willing even to trust to blood magic. And … well, we’ll see how that works out next Sunday.

We also finally get to see Jorah’s own skill with a sword, and he proves himself not as nimble as his Dothraki foe, but tougher—delivering the killing blow while his enemy’s blade is literally stuck in his hip. It’s an interesting little preview of what a war between the Dothraki and Westeros might look like.

But to return to Tyrion, what did you think of his confession during the drinking game? I reiterate my annoyance with the drinking game sequence, but it was really there to reveal one of the defining moments of Tyrion’s life, and the root of his antipathy to his father: his short-lived marriage, and the horrifyingly cruel way in which Tywin ended it. Again, though I disliked the scene the story was embedded in, I thought Dinklage’s retelling of it was heartbreaking.

(Also, now that Shae has made her appearance I can say without fear of spoilage that I had wondered if perhaps the ubiquitous Roz was going to show up as the whore whom Tyrion takes on in the field. But no—she stays in King’s Landing, which means there’s a more likely role for her in season two).

Nikki: Yes, that Dany/Drogo scene was rather disheartening. She’d come so far, and I’ve said in past weeks that she’s gone from being this character who is the object of the story’s misogyny, whether from her brother or husband, to one of extreme feminine toughness, rising above her outsiderness and becoming one of the Dothraki. The scene of her eating the heart was the peak of her power among them, and is the moment when Viserys noticed it and realized she has power because she is loved and respected, and he doesn’t have what she does. But he was wrong. She’s only powerful, as you say, as Drogo’s wife. Nothing more. She means absolutely nothing without him, Dragon or no. I admired her strength in refusing to let the Dothraki rape and pillage, but by taking that away from them, they are certainly questioning their Khaleesi. I hope we see the Dragon emerge next week. ;)

I also want to say on a sidenote that I really enjoy listening to the way the Dothraki language is delivered. Dany says it with some ease, but with a very different accent than the Dothraki use. Drogo speaks it so quickly it’s as if it was the actor’s native language, and the man who challenged her in the episode over and over again (I can’t remember his name) spoke it less gutterally, but with the same accent as Drogo. The way he said “Khaleesi” was entirely different from the way Dany says it, or the way that slave girl said it who worked for her (and who was English-speaking). What a nice, subtle touch.

While there are moments where Dinklage’s English accent doesn’t quite work for me (he seems to say so many of the words with an affectation and a sneer, but in a way that works for his character), I thought his retelling of that story was, as you say, heartbreaking. One wonders if Tyrion is such a sexual character – it’s how we were first introduced to him, after all – because of the way he was treated when he was 16. Perhaps with that woman, his “wife,” he felt like a whole man for the first time in his life, and he’s been attempting to recreate that by cavorting with other whores. Or, could it be some sort of self-punishment, sleeping with so many whores because he’s resigned himself to the belief that he will never find a woman who is not a whore who will actually love him? I just love this character, and that story added a much deeper layer to him this week.

Incidentally, I was reading this week’s Rolling Stone magazine (a book I’d been editing for the past year was reviewed positively in it!) and there was a brief interview with Dinklage. My favourite part of the article was where they talked to Lena Headey, who plays Cersei, who said she’d been very aware of Dinklage’s other roles, and when he walked in the room she was prepared to meet a man who was small. What she wasn’t prepared for, she said, “Was that he would be THAT hot.” Hahaha!

While it doesn’t compare to the shock of the ending, I must say the other gasp moment in this episode was finding out the old blind man (notice how I don’t use names because I simply can’t keep track of them all) at the Wall was, in fact, a Targaryen! Another fascinating backstory! Did that match the scene in the book?

And while I’m firing questions at you, with only one episode left to go, does it feel to you, a reader of the book and someone who’s aware of what is still left to cover, that they are rushing things at all? While the pace is much quicker than it was earlier, and while I do believe there are a lot of things they may still have left to cover, I’m really enjoying the pace, but I wonder if fans of the books feel differently?

Chris: No, I actually think they’ve done an admirable job in pacing the story. When I first heard it would be ten episodes, I was a little concerned that it would be rushed … but I’ve never felt that it has been. I would in fact go so far as to hold up GoT as an example of how to adapt a novel to the screen—with the exception of one or two missteps (which, frankly, might just be me being cranky), the realization of GRRM’s narrative in televisual format has been exceptionally well done. And really, the proof is in the pudding—the fact that so many people I know who haven’t read the novels (like your own lovely self) are absolutely LOVING the series.

I will say nothing about what is in store for Dany next week, aside from saying—don’t worry. All her growth and strength has not been for naught, and the sense that she relies absolutely on Drogo for her power is … well, again, I’ll wait for next week. Suffice to say: the Daenerys we met in episode one would have fled with Jorah. The Daenerys we have now is an entirely different woman.

I agree with you entirely on how smart the writers have been with the Dothraki language. I can’t recall if this has come up before, but they hired a linguistics professor to invent the language. A lot of GRRM’s uber-fans—the type who teach themselves Klingon or Sindarin—asked him for Dothraki grammar and vocabularies so they could learn the language. To which he had to reply, with chagrin, that he had invented all of about seven words. So the achievement with the language in the series is astounding, and Jason Momoa in particular has been particularly impressive with how fluent he sounds. Not just a piece of beefcake, that fellow. It almost makes me want to go see Conan the Barbarian.

So … one more episode left. I am so going to miss this series when it is done, and will have to rewatch it from the start several times just to fill the hole it’s going to leave (that the Seven for PVRs). I’ve been thinking through several article ideas that will give me an excuse to go back and rewatch it under the guise of “research” … there is, I think, certainly something to be done comparing this series to The Wire.

Any final thoughts, Nikki?

Nikki: Only that while waiting for your final missive to come back to me, I was doing an image search for pictures of this episode (they always seem to pop up a few days later, so the pickins were slim) but when I search for “Ned Stark execution” there was a photo of Ned holding the sword in that first episode, and I realized that’s the parallel scene to this one. In that opening episode, the man runs into camp and claims to have seen the white walkers and the wights. Ned doesn’t believe him, and in his black-and-white world, says the man must be executed if he’s suspected as a traitor. Here the sword comes back around, taking Ned’s head because he was too honest and told Cersei what he had discovered, and didn’t act when he should have. Oh Ned…

I, too, will miss this show… I can’t believe we have to wait another year for the next season! I will also miss our discussions; this has been a lot of fun!

I cannot wait for next week’s episode, because I want to know what will happen to Dany… to Sansa… to Ned’s son and his army… to Cersei… to Jaime… to Drogo… and to Jon Snow. So many people revolved around Ned, so I’m interested to see what happens when the centre is gone.

Game of Thrones 1.08: "The Pointy End"

Hello again, and welcome to the eighth instalment of the Game of Thrones co-blogging project between myself—who has read the Ice & Fire novels—and Nikki Stafford, from the blog Nik at Nite, who has not ... wherein we hope to provide a useful dialogue on what is proving to be, episode after episode, an amazingly good television series from HBO.

This week was no exception, once again upping the ante and providing those “OMFG!” moments to shock the n00bs and provide geek-out fodder for the GRRM vets. This week it is Nikki’s turn to lead us off, so I cede the floor to her ...


Nikki: WOW, what an episode!! I think this show just gets better and better. This is the first episode actually written by George RR Martin, and it showed. He managed to cover a ton of ground in under an hour, moving us to the final two episodes. The attack on the Starks at the beginning, that amazing swordfight, Tyrion and Tywin together, King Joffrey (excuse me... I feel sick to my stomach again), Dany trying to soften Drogo, the walking dead attacking Snow... all that AND watching a direwolf take two fingers off a guy. Can a gal ask for more in an hour of television??

I want to start with the swordfight, because my husband and I were whooping and gasping aloud. It was BRILLIANTLY choreographed, and an astounding way to move us from Arya’s “dancing” lessons into the real world of swordfights. Ned certainly didn’t skimp when it came to finding the best teacher for her... he was incredible to watch, taking down most of an army with a wooden sword. And the repetition of his mantra from earlier – “What do we say to Death?” “Not today” – was wonderful and heartbreaking. We didn’t see what happened when Arya ran out of the room... I’d like to think he did a quick somersault and grabbed one of the dead men’s swords to take out the leader. My husband thinks he’s such a fantastic character they wouldn’t kill him off. But I wonder if he was, like King Robert, a catalyst to take Arya from one level to the next. I won’t ask you to spoil it, Chris, since we’ll probably find out soon, but I thought that scene was just absolutely stunning.

But of course, it would be easily overlooked with so much else happening in this episode! The scene where Drogo’s men try to rape and pillage the people as Dany looks on was shocking, and what happened afterwards really moved those characters forward. How did that scene compare to the book?


Chris: I think the scene of rape and pillage is one of those instances where seeing it rendered that well on the screen is more affecting than reading it—mainly because it removes whatever defence mechanisms we have when we read to make it more palatable. It basically followed the book exactly, except that the part where Drogo’s man challenges him and they fight is new. And ... wow. More than one person I have talked to has admitted that the climax of that fight was an uneasy conflation of icky and sexy. And Drogo continues to come into his own as a character—he’s been rocking the house for the past two episodes.

I will admit, I sqeed a little as Syrio took out the Lannister men. That was yet another scene that was perfectly done, and deeply satisfying to see Syrio in action. The ending is of course sad ... and I will say nothing spoilery about Syrio’s fate.

The closer we get to the end of the season, the more each episode becomes a total geek-fest for me as I watch how they’ve brought all GRRM’s goodness to the screen. I was especially excited about this episode, because I knew we would see the wights for the first time. It sort of makes me regret not having made a point of giving these posts an episode-specific title, if for no other reason than this week’s could have been “The Ice Zombies Cometh.”

You once asked me before if I ever wish I could watch this without having read the novels; at this point, not so much, because it is at least as great a pleasure to see how that adapt it. And to imagine how people such as yourself, who haven’t read the books, will react to seeing such moments as Ned’s betrayal by Littlefinger, the true prowess of Syrio, Arya using Needle for real for the first time, Robb coming into his own as a commander, Tyrion’s alliance with the Mountain Clans ...

That last element was something I quite enjoyed. They have Tyrion acting more hesitant in the series than in the book, but the payoff is when they’re looking down at the Lannister camp and Shagga warns Tyrion that if “if the Halfman cheats us, Shagga will cut off his manhood ...” and Tyrion impatiently finishes, “And feed it to the goats, yes.” Shagga is constantly threatening to cut off people’s manhoods and feed them to the goats in the book; in that brief moment of Peter Dinklage’s superb indifference, this repetition is communicated beautifully.

But back to the ice zombies. I always must remind myself that this novel was first published in 1996, before the walking dead hit critical mass on film and television. What was your reaction to their appearance here?


Nikki: Fantastic. I loved the scene prior where Sam points out that the men don’t smell. (I’ve just started following the actor who plays Sam, @johnbradleywest on Twitter, and he’s hilarious.) Perhaps Sam’s strength won’t be in his fighting skills, but in his brains. But back to the scene itself, it was terrifying. You can’t kill the dead who won’t be killed, and it offered a real supernatural element to the show. It’s something that the series opened with, when we saw the massacre out in the woods, and I thought the show would have several supernatural elements. Instead, it hints at them – there used to be dragons, Dany can’t be burned, the white (wight?) walkers are the dead come back to life, the direwolves have an attachment to their owners – but it’s not overt. But now it is. I knew something bad had to be going on if it freaked out a direwolf. It was scarier than The Walking Dead, to be honest, because on that show you expect the zombies. You don’t expect them here.

I’d mentioned last week that I wondered if Tyrion would give as good as he got when he met his father, or if his dad could be the one person who disarmed him. In the scene we got, it was a bit of both. There was the hesitation on the hill (and you are bang-on with your observation about the way Dinklage says the line – not having read the books, I didn’t realize Shagga had repeated that line over and over, and yet just assumed he had by the way Tyrion responded to him) and you can see Tyrion is nervous when he goes to his father, but he walks into the tent without hesitation, and introduces his men. You can tell there’s no love lost between Tywin and Tyrion (I’m surprised that Tywin would have given his dwarf son the name that sounds most like his, while his other son has a completely different name... perhaps because Tyrion came first?) and when Tywin said that rumour had it Tyrion was dead, there’s a sound in his voice like he’s disappointed that isn’t actually the case. You can tell by Tyrion’s face that he picks up on it, too, but he’s also used to being treated like that, and it doesn’t surprise him.

You asked a couple of weeks ago if I’d trust Varys or Littlefinger, and neither one of them seems particularly trustworthy. Now we have Littlefinger having betrayed Stark, but Varys is the one sneaking water down to the dungeon. I wonder if his caring is genuine, though, or if Varys and Littlefinger are smart enough to know Ned’s important to keep alive. I did love the dialogue between them, though, especially at the end: Ned: “Tell me, Varys, who do you truly serve?” Varys: “The Realm, sir. Someone must.”


Chris: The trope in a lot of contemporary fantasy is this “post-magical” world. I think it was set up in part by the sense of a waning culture in The Lord of the Rings, which of course ends with the elves passing into the West and the rise of the Age of Man. With novels like those of GRRM, we get a sense of a world in which magic remains, but only in traces, a shadow of the power it once had.

The relationship between Tyrion and his father is pretty fraught—Tywin resents his dwarf son (remember Tyrion’s comment to Jon Snow in episode one: “In the eyes of their fathers, all dwarfs are bastards”), doubly so because Tyrion’s mother died giving him birth. But he also has to acknowledge him as a Lannister. The cruel irony of it all is that Tyrion is more his father’s son than is Jaime, at least in terms of his shrewd intellect. We see Tywin’s own shrewdness at work when he flatters the representatives of the hill tribes into joining his army, recognizing them as a potential asset. It wouldn’t have occurred to Jaime to ally himself with them as Tyrion does—he would more likely have fought to the death when they came upon him in the forest.

And just to clarify: Tyrion is the third of Tywin’s children, with the twins Jaime and Cersei being born several years before him.

It was at this point in the novel that Varys really sort of became interesting to me—because we finally start to get a sense of the depth of his machinations, but also a sense of what may or may not be their altruism. Of course, you never know—and when he tells Ned he serves the Realm, the big question is: what is the Realm? Does he mean whatever the most peaceful path is? Whoever the anointed king is? Or does he plot to bring back the Targaryen dynasty?


Nikki: Interesting you should say that, because my husband and I were talking about Ned when he was in chains, and I wondered... is it possible that Ned could get away and align himself with the Targaryens? Now THAT would be an interesting combination.

The game of thrones certainly shifts in this episode, where you begin to see how people could switch sides. Catelyn goes to her sister (HONESTLY, watching Robyn pull at his mother’s cape ties while moaning that he’s hungry just made me hope there aren’t any pregnant women watching, because they’ll be put off breastfeeding forever...) to plead for her help to go up against the Lannisters, her sister refuses and says her job is to keep her idiot-boy son safe, rather than align herself with Catelyn. Catelyn rejoins part of her clan, and you can see the pressure building on both sides: Starks vs. Lannisters. The Lannisters also want to destroy the Targaryens, but Ned defended Dany and her unborn child. Hm...

Two questions I have for you this week that I hope can be answered without spoilage: I seem to have missed who the guy was who stood up against the one Stark son and ended up losing two fingers. Is he the head of his army? And secondly, have we gotten an explanation for why there are certain trees with faces on them that appear to be crying blood? Are they carved that way? Or do the followers believe the trees suddenly appeared and what they see is a sign from their higher power? (And if this is an explanation to come later, we can leave it for now.)


Chris: Happily, I can answer both questions without a whiff or hint of spoilage.

Robb’s antagonist is Jon Umber—called the Greatjon—one of Ned Stark’s bannermen. What needs to be understood is how GRRM establishes the seven kingdoms as explicitly feudal: which means that being a lord entails responsibility to the people who live on your lands, and fealty to the more powerful lord to whom you are sworn. Each of the seven kingdoms (plus the Riverlands) has their liege lord—Ned Stark, for example, is the lord of the North. All of the lords beneath him are sworn to his service. All of these most powerful lords, in turn, are sworn to obey the king. But as the new king’s legitimacy is challenged, we see the seven kingdoms beginning to splinter.

So what Robb did when he ordered Maester Luwin to “call the banners” was to order all the lords sworn to House Stark to raise arms and follow him. Now, in the feudal system, the land-bearing lords would all be knights, or at least mounted heavy cavalry, having been raised in castles and trained by men-at-arms—remember how Jon Snow so easily handed everyone else’s asses to them in the practice yard? That was because he’d been trained since he was a child. Each of the lords then presses their commonfolk into service—they make up the footsoldiers of the assembled army.

So basically, the Greatjon is one of Robb Stark’s most senior lords, and what he was basically arguing about was his right to lead the army’s vanguard—a place of honour. That Robb had given that honour to another led him to challenge Robb’s authority, and Robb’s response (before siccing his direwolf on him) was to warn him that if he took his men and left, his life would be forfeit as an oathbreaker.

Sorry, slipped into lecture mode there for a moment. ;-)

To answer the second question in a less long-winded manner: the trees with faces are weirwoods, believed by those who follow the Old Gods to be those gods’ vessels. I’ve never quite been certain whether the faces are naturally-occurring or carved into them, but they appear to cry blood because their sap is red.

Well. That was quite the episode this week, and apparently it was the highest-rated one so far. The show seems to be gaining momentum in terms of its audience, and was nominated for a Critics Choice Award in the category of Best Drama. That no one on the show was nominated in any of the acting categories is at once a scandal and (big sigh) completely unsurprising to those of us who watch SF or fantasy-based TV. I suppose you could make the argument that, in terms of who you’d nominate—where’d you begin? But that Sean Bean didn’t even get a nod is just frustrating and annoying.

Next week: remember the moments of “OMFG!” in this episode and the last? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Game of Thrones, Episode 1.07: "You Win or you Die"

Hi everyone, and welcome to the seventh installment of the Chris & Nikki Game of Thrones co-blogging project, where in we discuss each episode as they air—Nikki from the perspective a GoT n00b, and yours true as someone who has been reading the books since A Game of Thrones was in hardcover.

So without further ado: episode seven! Wherein we begin to understand the stakes this the aforementioned game where thrones are sort of a prize or something …


Chris: So, remember a few posts ago when I asked you whom you would be more inclined to trust, Littlefinger or Varys? It was sort of the end of this episode I was thinking about. Hee.

So: lots of great stuff in this episode, but I want to address what I think is the series’ first real misstep: Littlefinger’s tutoring of the whores. First: Roz is in King’s Landing ALREADY? That seems like a pretty fast trip, considering it took the king and his retinue a month to get to Winterfell. And I suppose it was inevitable that, once they decided they wanted to keep her character around, she would end up working in one of Littlefinger’s brothels. I’m not entirely sure why they’ve decided to make her a relatively prominent character. There is one possibility that I won’t voice, as it would be spoilery … but for the moment she seems to be there for the purpose of upping the skin factor. And it’s not that she isn’t nice to look at, but it seems a bit gratuitous.

But really, all that’s neither here nor there. Littlefinger’s little soliloquy provided an interesting window into his character, but it came across to me as totally contrived. For one thing, does Petyr Baelish strike you as such a micromanager that he would deign to give his prostitutes lessons? Or to make such revelations about himself to them? One of the brilliant things about Littlefinger’s character is he keeps so much buttoned up that you’re always guessing about his motivations and ambitions. I felt at the end as if the writers thought they needed something to make his ultimate betrayal of Ned more comprehensible, which to my mind is a rare moment of them not trusting their audience.

That being said: the plot thickens! We finally meet the mighty Tywin Lannister! The King is gored by a boar! Jon Snow will be a steward! His direwolf finally gets a name (oh, and finds a human hand)! Jorah saves Daenerys from being poisoned! Drogo promises to give her the Iron Throne! And Ned Stark TOTALLY FAILS to save the realm from Cersei and her bastard brood!

So much goodness to talk about. Where do you want to start, Nikki?


Nikki: I’d say you’ve covered everything beautifully! So for next week’s blog post…

Haha… Okay, seriously, I enjoyed this episode, although I found it a little bit slow at parts, until the very end (whereupon I sat up bolt upright, hands over my mouth, and just kept saying, “I KNEW IT!!”) The next day I saw a few posts talking about what an idiot Ned Stark was – “Baelish says ‘don’t trust me’ and gives you every indication he’s going to stab you in the back… and you trust him anyway. Are you really that stupid?” but I think that Littlefinger’s betrayal was brilliant, because it showed just how slippery he was, but also what a great actor Mayor Carcetti Gillen is. First, there was always something a little weaselly about the guy – he seems to goad Sansa with the story of the Mountain and the Hound, telling her what horrible trouble she’ll be in if she ever tells the Hound what she knows; he tells Ned there’s no one he can trust; he has backroom meetings with people behind Ned’s back; we know he was in love with Catelyn, and THAT can’t be good. But on the other hand, there seemed to be something more genuine about him – he pointed out all of the listeners to Ned so he’d be aware that he’s being tracked at all times; when Ned made his court declaration last week, Baelish looked at him like he was impressed, as if to say, “THIS is the guy I need to get behind”; he cares about Catelyn, and perhaps that might extend to Ned; he seemed to be helping Ned get to the bottom of what happened to Jon Arryn. But in the end, it was for his own means… he used Ned, knowing that Ned sees the world as black and white only, right and wrong, whereas Baelish knows it’s actually several shades of grey. He knew he could easily take advantage of Ned’s morals to push him to a point where he aligns himself against the Lannisters, and then Baelish could betray him. What Baelish hopes to get out of it ultimately is unclear, but I can’t wait to see what happens next week.

Can I just pause to say the sight of Joffrey on the throne made me throw up a little? UGH.

I’d like to talk about the Drogo scene. Wow, talk about an actor being kept quiet for six episodes and finally commanding a really long scene in the seventh! I didn’t know he had it in him. And for someone who is as obsessed with words as I am, I was thrilled to see all those subtitles. I’ve been picturing the name of the queen as “Calisi” for so many episodes, and when he finally said, “Khalisi” a light went on, and I realized it was meant to be a derivative of Khal, which must mean King (I hadn’t caught that earlier; I just thought that was his name), and he referred to his son as Khalasar, which must be a further derivative, either for son of a king or just prince. Loved that.

But wow, talk about declaration. After his long speech I looked at my husband and said, “So… how come YOU have never offered to rape entire villages of women and murder their children in my name? Sheesh…” I couldn’t take my eyes off Daenerys’s face throughout this scene… rather than looking terrified or disgusted, she looked serene, as if flattered by this declaration of his. As you said last week, she is definitely no longer a child.


Chris: Heh. Yeah, you kind of now imagine the writers soothing Jason Momoa, who plays Drogo, saying “Don’t worry. We have a totally kickass scene for you coming up.” Two things kept running through my mind as I watched that scene: (1) that the Dothraki have thus far been something of a conflation of Mongol warriors and plains Indians, but here we get a little bit of Maori sprinkled in. Seriously, by the end of it, it looked like he was dancing the Haka. (2) Perhaps this was a bit of a rehearsal for the upcoming Conan the Barbarian reboot, which stars Jason Momoa in the title role? I kept waiting for “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women” to show up in his incantation.

Yeah. Not a good scene for anyone insecure in their masculinity to watch. ;-)

I loved the subtitles in this one … especially the moment when Dany is trying to convince Drogo to invade Westeros, saying “There are many dirts across the sea,” and he corrects her, saying “Lands—many lands across the sea.” Hee. It’s such a brilliant little moment—blink and you miss it, but it’s that kind of attention to detail that makes the writing so good.

To be fair to Littlefinger (which is more than he deserves), I think the suggestion is there that if Ned accepted his advice to swallow his honour and crown Joffrey, wed Sansa to him, and later down the road eliminate Stannis and crown Renly, that Littlefinger would have kept faith. But of course Ned simply isn’t capable of such scheming. The point was made several times throughout this episode that the entire concept of what we could call divine right is bullshit—as Jorah tells Daenerys, Aegon the Conqueror did not claim the throne of Westeros because he had the best claim, but because he had might enough to do it (and dragons). Renly makes the same point to Ned—that Robert’s rebellion was not about right but might. And finally, Littlefinger says it most plainly when he points out that his plan would not be treason if they win.

This is one of the things I love about GoT, both the books and the series—in a Tolkien-esque universe, Ned Stark would be the Aragorn figure (notwithstanding his wonderful portrayal of Boromir), whose rigid and unyielding honor wins out in the end. But in King’s Landing, it merely makes him a stationary object for the likes of Littlefinger and Cersei to navigate easily around. GRRM was famously dubbed the “American Tolkien,” the highest praise one can give a fantasy author; but really, this narrative has far more in common with Shakespeare’s history plays.

And yes—the sight of Joffrey on the throne, especially when he petulantly screams “KILL HIM!” is really rather vomit-inducing. And I thought it was bad in the novel. Ugh.

Though I must say that one moment I loved is just how distraught Joffrey looks when he’s at his father’s deathbed—it’s obvious here that he worships him, which is something we imagine must eat at Cersei to no end. He doesn’t seem to spend much time in mourning, mind you, but it’s a lovely cruel irony to Cersei and Jaime that their son identifies with the lout they both loathe so much.

And speaking of Jaime … what did you think of the opening sequence in the Lannister camp?


Nikki: Oh, that opening. I was absolutely fascinated by it. First, I didn’t get right away that that was Tywin… it took me a few moments before I realized, “Wait, the guy who’s skinning the animal is his father!” but that was probably because I couldn’t take my eyes off him skinning the animal. Partly because I thought it was just a brilliant introduction to this character, the way he so deftly does it (I saw him as a king figure and typically you wouldn’t see a leader doing the dirty work, but it would appear this guy likes to do these things himself and has been doing it his entire life) but also, I think that was a real animal. Usually they would use some sort of model or something, but that would have been a hugely expensive undertaking, and I was imagining how they had trained the actor to skin the animal with such mastery.

So yeah, I had to watch that scene again just to hear what they were saying! I hope I wasn’t the only one who was watching that animal-skinning over everything else. But yes, Tywin was fantastic. It’ll be interesting for me if/when we actually see Tywin and Tyrion together. We’ve seen Tyrion with his brother and sister (can I just say not seeing Tyrion at all this week was disappointing? I think that confirms he’s my favourite) but he’s mentioned on a couple of occasions how let down his father was when he discovered his son was a dwarf. I’d like to see Tyrion go head to head with him verbally… but also I’d be interested to see if his father may be the one person who disarms him. I see their relationship as being closer to the one Sam has with his father than anything else.

Speaking of which, talk about a shocker when Jon doesn’t end up being a Ranger like he thought he would be. Do you think Sam is right, and that he’s been put in a position where he could ultimately take over? Of course, I ask that not knowing if it’s an answer you already know…

And in addition to that question, I’ll ask about the King’s death. Was that as big a surprise in the book as it was for me to see on the show? The King is such a big, overwhelming character, and I was shocked to see him killed off so early in the series. But then again, he’s more of a catalyst of events – he’s that bridge between a past of glory and the present, filled with stasis. He’s a go-nowhere drunk, and despite being such a powerful character up to now, his purpose has been mostly to illuminate Ned’s morals in contrast and make us question what a king should be. He’s important because of what he’s not – he’s not moral, he’s not a good king, he’s not a loving husband, he’s not ambitious, and he’s not the father of any of his children. The only thing he was, was Ned’s friend. But even that wavered at the end when Ned saw him for what he was.


Chris: I was, to be honest, a little ambivalent about Tywin for the simple reason that my mental image of him in the books is totally different. That being said, Charles Dance’s take on the character is totally compelling, and the deer-skinning scene won me over on the rewatch. I actually think it’s a fairly clever little gambit on the writers’ part, because as a culture we’ve become at once completely divorced from such simple realities as the food we eat and at the same time desensitized to screen violence. The familiarity with violence, I want to suggest, is not unlike King Robert’s love of killing things and his concomitant reluctance to really deal with the consequences of violence. Tywin’s deer-skinning thus becomes a shrewd conceit. Unless we hunt or work at a slaughterhouse, there’s little mental connection between the cute lamb at the petting zoo and the rack of lamb crusted with herbs. And as one of the wealthy elite of Westeros, Tywin need not do his own dressing of the deer; that we’re introduced to him elbow-deep in blood suggests, as you say, that this is a character with few illusions and no tolerance for those who won’t face the unpleasant realities of ruling.

Interestingly, this aligns Tywin with Ned against Robert—don’t forget, one of our first encounters with Ned was his execution of the deserter, based on the principle that he who passes the sentence should swing the sword. He later castigates Robert on that point when Robert caves to Cersei on the issue of killing Sansa’s direwolf. Robert likes to kill things, but doesn’t care to clean up the aftermath.

I will be mum on Jon Snow’s future, for the sake of spoilers.

Robert’s death was a big surprise for me when I first read the novel, though now in hindsight it seems pretty inevitable. You’re absolutely right when you say he’s essentially an agent of stasis—him and Cersei together, really, keeping the realm steady in their uneasy marriage. For the game of thrones to start in earnest, that stasis has to shatter.

To return to Vaes Dothrak, what did you think of Jorah in this episode? He’d been revealed to us as an informer and a spy, sending information about Daenerys and Viserys to Varys, and here we see that he has won his heart’s desire—a royal pardon and the freedom to return home. Which of course raises his suspicions about the wineseller, but by intervening and saving Daenerys, he pretty much irrevocably yokes his fate to hers.


Nikki: This was definitely an episode about betrayal, and that revelation about Jorah was something that I didn’t quite understand the first time through… why was he being given a pardon? What the heck is going on? I had to watch it more than once to get that. Where Littlefinger was suspicious because of the way he actually instilled the suspicion in Ned on purpose (almost as a ploy… “I’m not the guy you should trust, you know… and me saying that pretty much means I’m the only one you CAN trust”) whereas Jorah was under my radar the entire time. The way he stood in Viserys’s way; his protectiveness around Dany; the way he’s helped her assimilate herself into the Dothraki; his sympathies for the Dothraki clan and innate understanding of everything they stand for… there was just something so trustworthy about him, and I think it’s clear, as you say, that that stems from a genuine affection for Dany. While he was sending secrets, he actually cared for her, I think.

Jorah is actually the one character I’d like to know more about, and I wonder if reading the books could cast more light on him for me? Just a couple of weeks ago my husband said, “So, okay, was he with the Dothraki or with Daenerys and her brother?” And I said, “He was with the Dothraki… no, wait, he was with the Targaryens… no… the Doth—you know, I can’t remember…” but it just didn’t seem to matter. His purpose for me was to offer a narrative to Daenerys and make her more sympathetic to us and to explain the Dothraki, who are the most foreign to us in the episode (I agree with your Maori take, by the way, and actually the very first time we saw Khal Drogo my initial thought was to wonder if the actor was Maori, because he certainly looks it).

So this turn of events was an interesting one for me, because it means Jorah is so much more than just a Johnny the Explainer, he’s a real character who could be the bridge between the Targaryens (I know I’m spelling that wrong, by the way…) and the rest of them.

Only three more episodes to go! I can’t believe the season is almost over, and it feels like it’s just beginning.

Game of Thrones 1.06: "A Golden Crown"

Nikki: And welcome to Week 6 of the Nikki Stafford/Christopher Lockett rundown of this week’s instalment of Game of Thrones. I’m Nikki Stafford (excitedly waving from my desk), your TV guide of a select few shows over here at Nik at Nite, and that is Christopher Lockett (sagely nodding while sipping his scotch) over there at An Ontarian in Newfoundland. Together we’ll discuss the show with me talking about it as a newbie to the world of George RR Martin, and Chris as the longtime fan of the books.

Well, let’s start at the end of this episode, with a scene that most viewers will never forget: Viserys finally getting his golden crown. I LOVE this scene, even though it’s terrifying and gory and graphic, but how often do you see a truly vile character really get his these days? Viserys was worse than usual in this episode, mostly because he went from Mr. All That to realizing that maybe he’s really not. He watches Daenerys as she eats the horse heart (ew), and is held aloft before her adoring followers... and that’s when he realizes, oh my GOD she has adoring followers, and he has none. “Who can rule without wealth or fear or love?” he asks as he decides to make a break for it. The Dothraki aren’t a people who will follow his rule as his army, and so instead he decides to steal the only valuable thing Daenerys has – her dragon eggs – and get another army (one that would no doubt eventually rise up against the Dothraki).

We hear all sorts of predictions of what Daenerys’s son will be like, and at the end of the episode, she says bluntly that Viserys couldn’t have been the Dragon, because a Dragon can’t be hurt by fire. So, does that make her the Dragon? Perhaps her son? Chris, I was interested in what the scope of the books is when it got to this scene. Are we only watching the very beginning of a very long saga that will cover decades, or is it still moving along in a methodical pace? Is this just the first generation of the series or will the books continue to follow these people? (Now, try to answer THAT one without spoilers!) ;)


Chris: The heart-eating scene is brilliant, not least because the first shot of Emilia Clarke, with the blood on her mouth and her slightly manic grin, makes her look like a very sexy zombie. Or some kind of flesh-eating succubus. Either way, that whole sequence was beautifully done, and manages to be faithful to the novel while conflating the sequence with Viserys’ realization of his isolation (well observed, by the way). Ser Jorah was great in this episode, especially in terms of his quiet yet fraught dignity when he faces down the larcenous Viserys with the dragon eggs.

I can be relatively spoiler-free when I say that over the first four books, GRRM isn’t doing any long-term, multigenerational things. In fact from the start of A Game of Thrones to the end of A Feast for Crows (which I am just now in the process of rereading—not unpredictably, rereading GoT has sucked me back into the other books ... and now I have to wait until July for book five! Wah!), only about two or three years elapse. Now, GRRM has said some cryptic things about the timeline of A Dance with Dragons, so this may change. But as of now, we’re still in the thick of it with all the characters you know and love from GoT. Well, most of them. ;-)

And there is simply nothing I can say about Daenerys’ child that wouldn’t be spoilery. So you’ll just have to wait and see.

Can I add here that though this was an AMAZING episode, with all sorts of cool and mind-blowing moments that we’ll undoubtedly get to, that my hands down favourite moment was Arya’s look of horror at Sansa’s fairy-tale dream about her and Joffrey, and her appalled exclamation “Seven hells!” Heh. I don’t know where they found Maisie Williams, but that young actress is superlatively good. Arya is one of the best characters in the novels—if not in fact the best, which is saying a lot—and I was concerned that they wouldn’t be able to find a child actor who could do her justice. And not only is she doing her justice, she is going beyond and making Arya her own ... something few adult actors can do with a complex, nuanced character adapted from a novel. It’s a shame she gets killed by the sassy robot at the end of book one.

OK, I was lying about that last bit. Seven hells. Heh.

Nikki: You are evil. I should pour YOU a golden crown. ;) I agree, Arya is fantastic. In fact, in a complete aside, our family got a new female kitten this week and were on the hunt for a name, and a friend who has been reading these blog posts suggested Arya. I didn’t go with it, but I thought it was a great suggestion, especially her connection with cats. That scene with her sister is hilarious... the woman with Sansa notices she’s changed her hair style and seems quite happy to be integrated into the world of the Lannisters, and she’s right. Do you sympathize with Sansa, or do you find her rather annoying? I wonder if you get more of her own thoughts in the books... in the show, there are times when I think she deserves Joffrey. I did absolutely adore the line, “I don’t want someone brave and gentle and strong. I want him!” Hahahahaha... that’s like saying, “I don’t want to be with someone who’s smart and good-looking. I’m happy with you.”

Speaking of great lines, check out the back and forth between Cersei and Robert after he slaps her across the face:

Cersei: I shall wear this like a badge of honour.
Robert: Wear it in silence, or I’ll honour you again.

Yikes! As we’ve discussed before, I really do think the king is a washed-up, ineffectual ass, and despite Cersei’s Lady Macbeth tendencies and general miserable nature, I don’t blame her given the husband she’s had to be with all these years. Ned is a much more effective ruler in that scene where he actually holds court and DOES something when a civilian comes before the council with a problem. I loved that scene, and you could tell Littlefinger was relishing the fact he actually got to write down something interesting for a change.

Ned seems to be coming to the realization that his old friend is incompetent as well, which could be why he makes such a drastic ruling in that scene. Of course, from the conversation he has with Sansa, he begins to put things together and realizes that while the Baratheons all have hair of black, his “children,” as the old Brady Bunch song used to say, “Have hair of gold, like their mother, the youngest one a douche.” (I could be remembering that song differently.) That was a big moment. I can’t wait to see what he does with this information.

Chris: Sansa is one of the key POV characters throughout the books, and her development is quite nicely done. She is irritating for the balance of book one, especially when seen from someone else’s perspective. She’s still in the irritating phase in the series, but if they hold true to the book, she’ll get substantially more sympathetic by the end.

On rewatching the episode this morning, I caught the little smile that Ned and Arya share at Sansa’s oblivious comment about Joffrey. Arya is so totally her father’s daughter, even more so than in the novels.

And yes, there were some amazing lines in this episode. The one you quote between Robert and Cersei is actually taken verbatim from the novel, as is his threat to make Jaime Lannister Hand if Ned throws it in his face again. Among my other favourite lines were Tyrion’s confession about jerking off into the turtle stew, “Which I do believe my sister ate. At least, I hope she did,” and his attempts to bribe the gaoler Mord. His first attempt, when he talks about wealth and ownership being an “abstract” thing had me howling, as did his slow, precise “Because you’re a smart man.” Also, Bronn’s word’s after he wins the duel:

LYSA: You don’t fight with honour.
BRONN: No. [indicates where Vardis fell] He did.

But I think my favourite line, and it’s one the writers added themselves, was Syrio’s comment “There is only one god, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: not today!”

One of the great themes running through this episode was the contrast between effective leadership and not. King Robert, we see again and again, is a moral coward—fearless in battle, but quails before any sort of difficult decision. We saw it when Cersei browbeat him into killing Sansa’s direwolf, we saw it in his inability to see reason on the question of the remaining Targaryens, and we saw it when he basically begs Ned to settle the dispute with the Lannisters in such a way that (1) Jaime will never be called to account, and (2) he won’t have to deal with the sticky question of standing up to a man whom he owes a vast amount of money. It sort of goes without saying that if he’d been sitting the throne when the despoiled peasants petitioned him, he’d have fobbed them off with vague promises. Ned’s condemnation of the Mountain and Tywin Lannister was ballsy.

Across the narrow sea, we see a similar contrast between Viserys and Daenerys. I think your reading of those scenes is spot-on. Viserys continues his downward spiral unto death, but we see Dany maturing and, as Jorah observes, becoming more queenly. Is it just me, or does it seem that Emilia Clarke has lost some weight? In her face, at any rate—she looks older, leaner, as if she’s lost her baby fat. And she is more poised now. The look in her eye when she tells Viserys that Drogo will give him his golden crown is both heartbreaking and chilling. She knows Drogo’s intent right away even as Viserys is cheerfully oblivious, but does not flinch from it.


Nikki: Absolutely. There is a hardness in her face, but also a determination that she’s doing the right thing. And, at the same time, you can tell this is difficult. He may be an ass, but he’s also her brother. However, he’s an interloper who claims to be the Dragon, when he’s not. Back in the fourth episode a couple of weeks ago, Ser Jorah tells her that her other brother was the last dragon, not Viserys, and so in this moment she has this look like, “Fine. You’re the real dragon? Prove it. If you are, this won’t hurt a bit.” But she knows if it DOES kill him, he died a charlatan and a fraud, and the world’s better off without him. Amazing scene. Probably the most vividly memorable of them all (except for the horse being decapitated... that still gives me the heebs).

The scene of Tyrion’s champion fighting the other man is excellent, and worthy of mentioning that when HBO sends out the screeners, they’re not always complete. Often there will be a scene where you can see flashing in the corner, “Temporary audio” or “Temporary VFX” and it’s usually very minor, like the wind whipping around the Wall that’s not as harrowing as it will ultimately become. But in the Tyrion scene, when the queen’s sister’s champion is bested, he fell through the hole and sort of laid there, flailing his arms while a green screen appeared behind him and “Temporary VFX” flashed in the corner. My husband and I were laughing, and we got the gist even if we didn’t quite see what happened, so I was looking forward to seeing the drop for reals this time.

Tyrion’s confession is brilliant, as you say. As are his discussions with the aptly-named “Mort.” (I wondered how long it would take for Mort to get clunked on the head after Tyrion leaves the castle so someone else could take his purse.) As Tyrion marched out, my husband and I said in unison, “A Lannister always pays his debts.” LOVE it.

Did you notice that the man who steps up as Tyrion’s champion is actually the same guy who was at the inn when Tyrion was captured by Catelyn? I happened to be rewatching the fourth episode again this week with my father, and sure enough, the champion is the one who, when Tyrion walks in and demands a room, clinking his gold piece on the tables, holds up his hand and says, “You can have my room.” Strange that the same person has stepped up twice to help out Tyrion when it was needed. I never would have noticed that if I hadn’t gone back to see the earlier ep.

My last question to you is, we’ve now twice seen Bran’s strange dream of the three-eyed raven. I guess you can’t really say what it is without spoilage, but is that dream also in the books?


Chris: I hadn’t noticed that Tyrion’s champion—Bronn—was that same man. I looked for him later when they were fighting on the way to the Eyrie, because Bronn becomes a fairly significant character as the novels go on. He’s a great character, actually, doubly because he never loses his simple mercenary pragmatism. He fights for Tyrion here because he knows he’ll be well paid, and he stays by Tyrion’s side for a long time for the same reasons. But he’s no fool for honour, and—mild spoiler—when the time comes in book three, he refuses to stand for the Imp.

There are a number of things we haven’t yet discussed, and since you’ve left the last comment to me, I think I’ll run through them before answering your question about Bran.

• Robert’s admission that he never loved his brothers, and that Ned was the brother he chose … oh, so heartbreaking. Poor Robert. Poor stupid, cowardly, oblivious Robert. You should have made Ned your Hand so long ago.
• Catelyn didn’t have much to do in this episode, but I have to give her credit for some great face-acting throughout Tyrion’s “confession”—in particular, the look she gives her batshit sister when she realizes they’ve all been played by him.
• Syrio! I love Syrio.
• The scene between Joffrey and Sansa was utterly cringe-inducing. Seeing him playing the gracious prince (at the behest of his mother, no doubt) and Sansa’s buying of the act, was painful to watch. So much so that on my re-watch, I fast-forwarded through it. Seven hells, indeed.
• King Robert’s excruciating monologue about the good old days, and how simpler it all was. A bit heavy-handed, perhaps, but it did a nice job of showing the fissures between him and Renly, and also set up a necessary plot point.
• I love love love how the penny drops for Ned. The first part, when Sansa points out that Joffrey is nothing like Robert, is exactly how it happens in the novel. Ned’s perusal of the “ponderous tome” is implied in the novel, but not depicted. Watching him realize Jaime and Cersei’s incest is brilliant. Can’t wait for the next instalment.

They’ve modified the dreams somewhat, but the three-eyed raven is quite prevalent in the books. I can’t really say why here without being REALLY spoilery, aside from saying that Bran becomes an increasingly important and central character as the books go on. And the three-eyed raven (and wolf with wings, heh) is quite prevalent.

Game of Thrones Episode 1.05 -- "The Wolf and the Lion"

Hi everyone, and welcome to installment five of the Game of Thrones co-blogging project, wherein I write as the GRRM veteran, and Nikki Stafford writes as one who has not read the books. I think it's safe to say that this most recent episode was a barn-burner, and we're sorry this week's post is a day later than usual. Nikki had to rush her direwolf to the vet -- poor thing ate a Lannister, and choked on the smugness.

*crickets*

Anyhoo, without further ado ...


Chris: Before I start, I thought I should offer a “what they changed” list for today, as there was a lot of deviation from the novel in this episode … almost always in intriguing and interesting ways.

What They Changed / Added

• Ned’s conversation with Barristan Selmy. Well, it’s broadly the same as it unfolds in the novel—starting with their discussion over Ser Hugh’s body, and ending with Barristan stating the King’s plan to take part in the joust (though in the novel it’s not the joust, it’s the melee). What’s interesting here is the establishment of Barristan’s bona fides as a knight—the bit where Ned says he’s happy they had not met in battle is added.
• Bran’s geography lesson. This was a neat little way to educate the audience about the geography of Westeros and its noble houses. Interesting that Bran cannot recall the Lannister family motto (which is, incidentally, “Hear Me Roar!”). Is this part of his mental block about how he fell?
• Theon and Rosie. The red-haired prostitute of Winterfell is having an interesting half-life on the show, considering she does not appear in the novel. I can’t decide whether this is HBO upping the skin factor (there was a lot of it in this episode), or using her as a means to give voice to the exploited and subjugated classes of Westeros. Though I suppose it doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
• Varys and Littlefinger. This conversation is entirely invented, though it is more or less implicit in the novel—Varys and Petyr are the two most devious characters in the books. I liked this exchange—it was sort of like the spy’s version of the pissing contest, seeing who knows more about the other. There has been the suggestion that they work together—such as when Varys informs Littlefinger of Catelyn’s arrive in King’s Landing, and shows up at the brothel—but this scene makes very clear that not only don’t they trust each other, they may well be enemies.
• No Brynden Tully! One of my favourite secondary characters in the novels has been left out—Brynden “Blackfish” Tully, Catelyn’s gruff uncle, who is in the service of her sister. Perhaps he will show up later, but I was looking forward to seeing him in this episode.
• Loras and Renly! There is the faintest suggestion in the novels that Robert’s brother and the Knight of Flowers are lovers, faint enough that it only occurred to me on later rereadings of the books. But there is nothing explicit. Well, so much for subtlety here—not only are they obviously lovers, but Loras is goading Renly to jockey for the crown. And all I’ll say on that point for the benefit of the other GRRM geeks reading this … veeeeerrrrrry interesting.
• The conversation between Robert and Cersei. I loved this, even though it goes farther toward making Cersei a more sympathetic character. His description of the state of the realm is lovely.
• The confrontation between Ned and Jaime. Almost spot-on, except that in the novel Ned is injured when his horse falls on top of him, and there is no swordfight between him and Jaime. In the novel, we never get a glimpse of Ned actually fighting—we assume he knows what he is doing with a sword, but no actual evidence, whereas Jaime’s prowess is constantly mentioned. So, interesting that they show us here that Ned can hold his own against the Kingslayer … until he is stabbed in the leg.

OK, so there we are. Nikki: what did you think of episode five? Two of our main storylines were simply ignored, as we don’t see the Wall or Daenerys.


Nikki: Thanks for that list, Chris! You covered off many of my questions right there; as I watched the Bran geography lesson, I immediately wondered if that was a way to sum up a lot of history in one quick scene. Great stuff.

And yes, I noticed the complete lack of Daenerys and the Dothraki. I missed her for sure. I enjoyed this episode a lot, but it was by far the goriest. From the joust in the beginning and what the Mountain does to his horse (gah!!) to the ambush on Catelyn’s group and Tyrion smashing the attacker’s head repeatedly with a shield (gyaaahh!!), to the fight at the end between Jaime and Ned’s group, complete with a dagger in the eye socket (nnnggggaayahhh) it was one cringeworthy episode. Definitely the one where you realize this ain’t for the squeamish. Luckily, despite my noisemaking throughout (which pretty much echoed what I wrote there), I thought it was pretty amazing.

But I really must begin by asking you about Catelyn’s sister… whose name escapes me (of course). That woman gave me the heebs from the moment her 10-year-old (or older?) son stopped breastfeeding momentarily to look up. Good god. I’m a big proponent of breastfeeding, but… :::shudder::: And that kid does not appear to be playing with a full deck. Have you seen the episode of 30 Rock where Paul Reubens plays the inbred prince? Yep. He reminded me of THAT guy.

Her castle was glorious in its frightworthiness, though. Did it live up to the description in the book? And is she as loopy in the book as she is on the show?


Chris: Actually, believe it or not, they’ve downplayed Lysa’s batshit insanity a little bit. Not much, mind you—but still. I think the boy is supposed to be six years old in the novel. If you want a comparison, here’s a representative passage from the novel, from Catelyn’s POV:

‘Quiet!’ Lysa snapped at her. ‘You’re scaring the boy.’ Little Robert took a quick peek over his shoulder at Catelyn and began to tremble. His doll fell to the rushes, and he pressed himself against his mother. ‘Don’t be afraid, my sweet baby,’ Lysa whispered. ‘Mother’s here, nothing will hurt you.’ She opened her robe and drew out a pale, heavy breast, tipped with red. The boy grabbed for it eagerly, his face buried against her chest, and began to suck. Lysa stroked his hair. Catelyn was at a loss for words.

The little Lord Robert actually gets ever creepier as the novels go on, as does his mother.

The Eyrie—Lysa’s castle—I was so-so on. I thought the interior was brilliantly done, as was Tyrion’s cell. But our first view of it from a distance was the first time the series has disappointed me with its mise-en-scene—it looked pretty fake.

A friend of mine who has been watching the episodes on torrent recently told me that in the comments on episode four there were complaints about how slow-moving the series has been—that it wasn’t like a fantasy novel at all. I think this episode puts those complaints to rest. All of the swordplay and violence we’ve been waiting for sort of just comes all at once here, no? And if the series keeps faith with the books, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Next week’s episode is titled “A Golden Crown”—and all I’ll say to the n00bs is: (1) We’ll be seeing Daenerys and the Dothraki again, and (2) Gah!

I think my favourite part of the episode was the war of words between Littlefinger and Varys. Knowing what I do of their characters, I have a much better sense of who is plotting what, and where their respective loyalties lie. What did you make of that exchange, Nikki? If you had to trust one of them, whom would it be?


Nikki: That passage from the book made me shudder. Eep.

I’m surprised to hear the criticism. The people who would complain that these episodes are slow-moving are probably the same ones who said they just didn’t “get” The Wire. It’s too bad. (And having seen next week’s episode, I second your “Gah!” and can tell everyone it’s probably my favourite episode of the six.)

I, too, was intrigued by the scene between those two, because I don’t trust either one of them. They’re both underhanded and seem to be playing Ned in one way or the other, and both actors have this way of looking at him in a sidelong glance that makes you think they’re up to something. So when they go head to head… it was almost as if they were both lying, both bluffing in this game of chess they’re playing, tiptoeing around the issue and daring the other one to go further than he has already gone. So you’ve stumped me with that question. If I had to choose one of them, I might choose Baelish, because there are moments of humanity in him, especially when he talks to Catelyn. I haven’t seen anything similar in Varys yet. But I simply don’t understand why they’re offering to help Ned, and what could be gained by doing so.

Are we to assume that Jon Arryn was trying to round up the king’s bastards to prove they were all dark-haired, as opposed to the platinum-blond non heirs that are roaming the castle right now as his children? Presumably the queen’s children are ones she’s had by Jaime, and not Robert. But what’s to be gained by this? I’m intrigued by what Ned will put together here… and why Baelish is leading him down that path.

Speaking of the king and queen, how about that scene between the two of them? There are times where the king is absolutely loathsome, and I wonder if he’s very different from the man that Ned once knew? Becoming a king has not only made him too fat, but he’s excessive in everything and seems quite ineffectual as a king. He’s heartless to Cersei in this scene as she reminisces with him over their sham of a marriage. He tells her that nothing has filled the hole that Ned’s sister left behind, and she admits that she actually felt something for him once and asks if there’d ever been a single moment in their marriage where he felt the same. “No,” he declares after a thoughtful pause, followed by, “Does that make you feel better or worse?” She replies, “I don’t feel anything.” The conversation was shocking and devastating to watch.

Was the conversation the same in the book? It also made me wonder about the relationship with Jaime: she may trust him and be having an affair with him, but I wonder if that weighs on her? Could someone be truly happy being in a sexual relationship with her brother? Isn’t there a part of her that is in anguish that this is the only love she can find? Is he using her in some way? He doesn’t seem to love her so much as possess her.


Chris: The conversation between the king and queen was quite well done, I thought—and it’s not actually in the book. Every chapter is from a particular character’s point of view, and we don’t have that from either Robert or Cersei—so while the conversation might have happened, we could never know (ditto for the Varys/Littlefinger exchange). However hurtful Robert and Cersei have been to one another, there was a sense of understanding between them in this scene, however grudging or underlined with malice. We don’t get that in the book—the only feelings between them are Robert’s contempt for Cersei and her loathing of Robert.

The sexual relationship between Jaime and Cersei is played somewhat more ambivalently in the series, at least on Cersei’s part. In the novels, it is more of a long-standing thing—basically since even before they knew what they were doing, they were together sexually. Though they are not of one mind: Jaime is utterly devoted to Cersei, and is oddly faithful to her … but there is the sense that she is more opportunistic, and more concerned with her own power and ambition. That’s one of the reasons I loved Jaime’s chilling promise to kill everyone but him and her—that captured his ruthless, single- minded devotion perfectly. He would be perfectly happy having the world know about them, and damn the consequences. Cersei, conversely, it rather more circumspect.

I said something to this effect in my first post on GoT, but I have to imagine it’s the Littlefingers and Varyses, much more than the jousting, swordplay, and other staples of fantasy, that drew HBO to GRRM’s books. This goes to those who find the series boring, you are probably absolutely right to observe, are the same as those who just couldn’t get into The Wire. HBO certainly does not stint on giving us violence, or graphic sex and nudity, but the commonalty between its best shows is this degree of complexity and the frequent preoccupation with power. The scheming and plotting in King’s Landing echoes that which we see between the prisoner factions in Oz, the mob politics of The Sopranos, and the nascent democracy of Deadwood. As we see with such a spectacularly bad series as Spartacus, the blood and sex is easy to do. But without good, intelligent writing, it collapses on itself.


Nikki: So well put. I agree that writing is king on HBO. I think going hand-in-hand with that is the acting. The ensemble cast is so well put together on this show – they work well together, there’s chemistry where there needs to be, and the acting is absolutely superb. I have to point out Dinklage again: the look on his face when he sees Catelyn’s sister (and her tiny weirdo) is priceless. And when she accuses him of killing the hand of the king, he says, “Oh! Did I kill him, too? I’ve been a VERY busy man.” I just love Tyrion.

Even the secondary characters are superb. That scene of the king’s council flatly telling Ned how they need to put the Targaryens down is superb, with Littlefinger using the analogy of slicing a woman’s throat without a second thought, Robert simply raging against their family, Varys quietly agreeing with everyone, and Ned standing there in utter shock at the madness of it all. I loved that scene.

It’s interesting that HBO could take a book that, by your description, sounds like it’s entirely in first person from various points of view, and turns it into an objective, third-person narrative. Amazing. Yes, the writer is definitely king.

Chris:Just to clarify: the character POVs in GRRM’s books are third-person limited, not first person; but that doesn’t take away from your observation that the writers’ accomplishment is tremendous.

Speaking of the writers, it’s probably high time we gave them a shout-out: D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, who are responsible for having brought this to the small screen to start with, have done the lion’s share of the work on this series in terms of the writing. Looking at their resumes on IMDb.com, one wouldn’t have predicted it: Benioff has graced us with such brilliant screenplays as X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Troy (though also Brothers and The 25th Hour, which I can’t comment on, not having seen them), and Weiss’ only credit for anything is Game of Thrones. But even if everything they do from this point on is shite, they will have my eternal respect for this series. They have managed at once to be faithful to the source material, to deftly incorporate GRRM’s own dialogue at key points, and augment the narrative with scenes of their own invention that work seamlessly.

We should also note that episode eight, “The Pointy End,” is written by GRRM himself—so it will be interesting to see how the novelist’s episode compares to those of his adaptors.

And with episode five, we are also at the halfway point in season one: five down, five to go, and I have to say it has thus far exceeded my expectations. For the final word, Nikki, what are your thoughts as we sit at the Ides of Game of Thrones?


Nikki: Only that I’m enjoying co-blogging with you immensely. This is fun!

Thanks for the shout-out for Benioff and Weiss… I wonder if Benioff’s background as a novelist has helped him envision how a novel could be brought to the screen? I think they’ve done a helluva job. I was shocked when I first saw this season would only be 10 episodes (I was hoping for the usual HBO 13) but so far they’re doing a brilliant job in truncating such a vast book into 10 hours.

I can’t wait for reader reactions to this Sunday’s episode… it was the last of the episodes that HBO sent to me in advance, and it’s a shocker. Enjoy!

Game of Thrones, Ep 4: “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things”

OK, a bit of weirdness -- both Nikki's and my posts that went up last Saturday disappeared. We have no idea why, aside from the fact that Blogger sometimes sucks. So here is mine again, and I know Nikki's will be up again shortly on her site. Unfortunately, all comments have been lost, so please -- comment again!



Hi all—welcome to instalment four of the Game of Thrones parallel blogging project, in which my good friend Nikki and I react and respond to the series, she as a GRRM n00b and yours truly as a long-suffering GRRM devotee.

Though I’m not nearly as long-suffering or as devoted as a certain subset of GRRM’s fans, some of whom have apparently suffered psychotic breaks in response to how long he’s taken to produce book five, A Dance With Dragons. This New Yorker article is pretty eye-opening ... the vitriol the poor guy has had to deal with is truly shocking. And speaking as someone whose own writing productivity tends toward the glacial, I really feel for the guy. Anyway, if you are so inclined, read the article ... and please feel free to comment on it. I mean ... I love the Ice & Fire series, and have been increasingly impatient to read the next one, but I’m not about to turn around and start calling the man names. Lighten up, people ...

At any rate. This week Nikki and I are trying a different format, so let us know if you like this conversational style better.


Nikki: And Game of Thrones knocks another one out of the park with this week’s stellar instalment. Chris and I were both talking last week about how much information was jammed into episode 3, and how that episode was a bit of a welcome lull in the action to stop, go back, and fill in a lot of backstory on several characters. This week we take that information we now know... and add more. There were many new scenes of exposition, but these seemed more anecdotal and less integral to the history of the series. They were told with thrilling suspense, and I couldn’t help but wonder time after time if these scenes were taken right from the book or if they were bringing various histories together to convey it to us very quickly. A real standout is Viserys telling the slave girl about the dragon skulls that used to decorate his father’s throne room, with Viserys being understood to be the last of the dragons (I find that hard to believe). This story was fascinating. Do the books go back in time and fill in more details about the dragons themselves? Or was it summed up in this succinct scene in the books as well?

Chris: I’m still somewhat speechless over this last episode. I think you’re spot on, Nikki, in noting that the exposition is more anecdotal—but that imparted more background information and context almost by dint of being anecdotal, which is kind of impressive when you think about it. And while the series is far more compressed in its exposition, this is more or less the way it falls out in the novels. There are no flashbacks or historical sequences per se—there are a few instances of characters reminiscing or dreaming past incidents—but for the most part, we get a sense of history in the books precisely by characters talking, sharing stories, and so on. Now, that may change in A Dance With Dragons, the new novel coming out in July; GRRM has said that the timeline will blow our minds, which has been variously interpreted as meaning that he does go back in time to give us backstory, or possibly just that the various overlapping narratives will make it hard to figure out chronological sequence. Given the nature of the books so far, I’m assuming it’s column B, but we’ll see.

I think my favourite backstory moment was Tyrion’s nasty taunting of Theon Greyjoy. I’ve been wondering when we were going to get to his story: he’s been present at Winterfell this whole time, obviously not one of the Stark children but not exactly a servant, and I was getting a little concerned … thinking that the longer they went without fleshing him out, the more awkward it was going to be when they did. And I needn’t have worried: Tyrion’s lovely little condescending disquisition on Theon’s father’s failed rebellion was beautifully succinct. But then, I know the history there—did you find any of the moments like this confusing or opaque?


Nikki: Great scene choice, because yes, the first time I watched this scene I looked at my husband with a completely puzzled look and said, “Wait... who is he supposed to be?” There had been hints along the way that he wasn’t one of Stark’s sons – I remember when they were passing out the direwolf pups he said something about not being able to have one – but it still wasn’t clear exactly who he was. Even with the explanation it was still a little foggy, but many of the backstories of the secondary characters are pretty difficult to follow. It doesn’t bother or worry me – I figure in time, it’ll all be clearer once we not only know these people better, but their stories begin to converge and/or take on lives of their own.

My favourite anecdote in the episode was Littlefinger’s story of the The Mountain and The Hound. You mentioned last week that you thought the Hound’s face was disappointing, that it should have been far more horrifying than it actually is on the show. Did you continue to think that this week? There’s something very interesting in his face, I think... it’s horrific from one side, normal from the other, and I don’t know if that’s a comment on his personality but it certainly seems so (he comes across as gruff, but not vicious, and I wonder if you actually tried to speak to him on a normal level if he’d respond). I also found some sadness in the way his hair falls on the right side of his head, as if he’s trying to cover up something that simply can’t be covered up. He doesn’t get one of those masks Jack Huston’s character, Richard Harrow, wears in Boardwalk Empire.

This episode had a lot of one-on-one moments, where you simply had two characters in a scene (many scenes have been like that, actually). I LOVED when Daenerys whacked Viserys in the head and threatened him. It’s a moment that turns her story around completely... it began as something almost misogynist and became a very feminist take on this powerful character. Are GRRM’s books as openly feminist as this or have they twisted the story for TV?


Chris: One of the most amazing elements of GRRM’s books is their strong women. The fantasy genre can be pretty regressive sometimes in terms of its representations of women—though to be fair, it has gotten better. But GRRM’s women are remarkable and, if anything, they’re more muted in the series. Though that might just be the natural advantage fiction has over film to provide nuance. And for the record, the scene between Daenerys and Viserys is pretty spot-on to the way it unfolds in the novel.

David Simon once compared the way The Wire unfolded to a Russian novel—where you struggle through the first hundred pages or so, totally at sea in the multiple narratives and huge cast of characters, but after a certain point you stop doing the heavy lifting and instead the story carries you. I always thought that was an excellent description not just of how The Wire worked, but also HBO series generally … and GoT is no exception. At a certain indeterminate point, you just go with it. That may be a disadvantage to all us GRRM geeks … we miss that moment when the struggling to keep up stops and we’re just swept up in the narrative(s).

I find it interesting that they rejigged the story of The Mountain and The Hound to have Littlefinger telling Sansa. In the book, it’s the Hound himself who tells her, and it’s a moment of rare, raw sympathy for that character. What I do love about having the story come from Littlefinger is that you simply don’t know whether to believe him or not. Is this a true story? Or is he telling it to impress Sansa, whom he so creepily compares to her mother? Or is he playing some other inscrutable game?

I agree, the Hound’s scarring looked better in this episode. He still hasn’t been as terrifying as he is in the book, but that might also be a function of how the book unfolds from different characters’ points of view. In the novel, a lot of our impression of the Hound comes by way of Sansa, who in her love of all things unicorny and pretty would be doubly horrified by his disfigurement … and the comparable disfigurement of his character.

What did you think of the bits at the Wall? I think Jon’s confession that he couldn’t bring himself to sleep with Rosie because he was afraid of fathering a bastard was quite well done. Alliser Thorne’s subsequent rant about the dangers they would face was perhaps my least favourite part of the episode …


Nikki: I thought the same thing about Littlefinger’s story... I can’t figure that guy out at all. Was he just trying to spook Sansa when he told her she could never tell the Hound that she knew his story, or was he telling the truth? Similarly I liked the scene when he was pointing out all the spies in the garden to Ned, and I felt like I really couldn’t trust him. But the very point he’s trying to make is that you can trust no one (notice he tells Ned to send his most trusted man to the blacksmith shop, and Ned does send his most trusted man: himself).

In this episode I actually found the Wall moments to be less intriguing than the others; I was looking forward to getting back to King’s Landing every time they were at the Wall, although I thought Thorne’s talk about what the last winter was like was rather harrowing.

One moment that particularly intrigued me in the episode was Ned talking to Arya, who was standing on one foot and trying to become like a cat. He tells her in no uncertain terms that she will marry someone important and will give birth to boys who will be knights and will reign the lands. He tells her this thinking this is what she wants to hear, but it’s actually the sort of thing Sansa aspires to, not Arya, and she says as much, saying that’s not the sort of life she plans to lead as she goes back to the top of the stairs to continue standing on one foot. What was so wonderful about this scene is that it stands in complete contrast to last week’s scene with Joffrey and Cersei. She tells him that he will be king and will rule the land in any way he wants. He listens to the hype and believes every word of it, puffing himself up with such airs that you just want to stick a pin in him and watch him deflate. Like Ned, she states his future as if it’s already set in stone, but while Joffrey goes along with whatever Mommy tells him, Arya has a mind of her own, and she refuses to be pigeonholed into whatever her dad tells her she will be. And unlike Cersei, Ned actually seems to take pleasure in his daughter’s defiance.

But what about that last scene? Not only do we get a lot of Catelyn’s backstory, but it’s just pulled off with such aplomb I was thrilled by it. I really adore Tyrion (he shone throughout the episode) but Dinklage is superb in this scene, the way he looks to the side and is genuinely shocked and pleasantly surprised to see her sitting there, and then listens to her calling out to each of the clans without ever catching on to what she’s doing, and when he finally realizes what’s happening, his face is priceless. I’ve thought he was brilliant up to now, but in this scene he really rises up and brings it to a whole new level of really subtle facial acting. You seem to know a lot more about Catelyn than we know in the series so far; is her backstory something that comes later in the books or at this point in the action do you already know a lot about her?


Chris: Can I just say I cannot wait to see how they do the bit with Arya chasing cats? It’s wonderfully described in the book; the actress playing Arya has been so perfect, this can only bring the awesome.

The scene between Ned and Arya goes back to our comments above about the strength of GRRM’s female characters. Arya’s matter-of-fact rejection of the life Ned predicts for her is both a beautiful counterpoint to Joffrey’s arrogant acceptance of his mother’s dreams of power, and—taken in the abstract—a poignant, brief commentary on the constraints on women’s roles. Ned may indulge her tomboyish tendencies, but that doesn’t change the fact that a nobly born woman makes very few choices in her life. Of course, and this shouldn’t come as a galloping great shock to anyone who’s been paying attention, the fates have something entirely different in store for Arya than the life Ned outlines; and paralleling Arya’s resistance to those expectations is the slow realization on Sansa’s part that the life she dreams of is not golden and beautiful. The brutal death of Ser Hugh in the tourney right in front of her rips through the pomp and pageantry of mock battle to suggest the terror of true battle, and to show that not all knights are chivalrous ... all of which unfolds within the slowly dawning realization that princes can be sociopaths.

I think this last realization found expression with Septa Mordane in the Throne Room, when she interrupts her to ask of this was where the Mad King killed her grandfather and uncle. Several times in the books she is told, but several characters, that “life is not a song.” Here we see her starting to grasp that.

And yes—that final scene was superb, and another sequence that perfectly mirrors the book. Both Michelle Fairley and Dinklage were spot-on, and Dinklage’s expression as the swords are drawn on him is priceless. At this point in the book, you do know a fair bit about Catelyn—she’s pretty fully fleshed out. There is more to learn about her as the books progress, and more details and nuances emerge, but we have the broad strokes by this point. You learn a lot more in the book about her background as the eldest daughter of the Tully family, whose seat of power (which she mentions in passing in the scene) is the fortress of Riverrun—a nice little Joycean shout-out.