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scifi_rewatchEpisode seven is truly the climactic moment for season one. Most dangling questions (eg who killed Jon Arryn/attempted to kill Bran and why, who are the contenders for the throne and what are their claims, will the Dothraki invade, and whatever happened to those White Walkers) are—seemingly—answered. :P We still have a bowl of complications in front of us, but at least we’re a step closer to unraveling just what the hell is the point of this series…oh, screw it. I won’t mislead you like that; the twists and turns are just beginning. Suffice to say maybe we have some hints as to the point of season/book one. :P
There were some thematic devices used in this ep that I thought served it well. Disregarding Jon (who—a) is not a Stark by technicality, and b) we desperately needed an update from) Ned was the only person from his wolf pack family whom was seen. (No Tyrion either.) Really added to the feeling of him being alone and outnumbered in a lion’s den.
The Wall, to me, really stood out as a place of honor. Here we are at King’s Landing where Ned’s basically getting his ass handed to him by schemers and backstabbers. But the Wall is like Winterfell. It’s straightforward—you answer to your superiors. Your enemies are the folk trying to attack you dead on. Your friends (like Jon/Sam ♥) are real friends, not just people trying to use you. And your duty is defined by serving the greater good, not the other way around. In many ways, the harsh, unforgiving Wall is a sign of hope that Westeros can turn out ok after all.
Anywho. Most of the action took place at King’s Landing, with some secondary plotlines in Vaes Dothrak and at the Wall. Then there were two filler scenes, important for their own reasons.
The Filler Scenes
The Lannister Camp
We finally get to meet Tywin Lannister, the oft-referenced sire of Cersei, Jaime and Tyrion. Jaime scoffs over the courtly command that Ned sent last week, and Tywin skins a stag (symbolism much?) He’s pissed that Jaime let Ned live—but also that he attacked Ned in the first place. Let me give it to you straight—Tywin had Gregor attack Riverrun territory in the hopes that Ned would personally lead the party out to the field, and then Tywin could capture him to exchange for Tyrion. Instead, due to his Jaime-inflicted injury, Ned sent Beric Dondarrion.
Tywin criticized Jaime for caring what others thought of him—though he’s a freaking hypocrite, he totally cares about making sure everyone sees the Lannisters as the most badass pimps around. Sure, he cares about more than just himself—he cares about his family (or, more accurately, the family name,) but ultimately this “strength” is really just pride. And I’m thinking—what’s so noble about making sure his descendents think themselves to be badass pimps? :P I mean, with the Starks (who make a lot of poor decisions based on love of family,) they care about the people, not the name.
Not through with chastising Jaime, Tywin gives him control of half the army to keep assaulting the Riverlands. He tells sonny boy “I need you to be the man you were always meant to be,” aka leading a Lannister contingent rather than being a glorified sentry for a mad king and then a drunk king.Hey, Tywin, your grandson will be worse than both of those combined. …and I can see why the Lannisters are amoral, self-absorbed and cocky, seeing as nothing they do can please dear old daddy. They basically have no hope at happiness.
Winterfell
Tonks Osha is busy doing chores that require her to sift apart reeds when Theon comes in. Now, I’ve been a fan of all of the Theon scenes up to date…but we get it already. He’s a repressed, irritated, political hostage who doesn’t belong anywhere and couldn’t get anyone—even Ros—to really treat him with fear and respect. He doesn’t scare Osha with his stories of how she’d be killed on the Iron Islands for attacking Bran (the Greyjoys and Lannisters are competing for “top pimp family,” I’m telling you. :P) She’s not impressed by the fact that he’s Balon’s heir (neither is Balon, or the rest of his family. :P) She doesn’t know where the Pyke is, and she challenges his perception of himself by calling him a “southerner” because he lives south of the wall. Theon’s about to make sexual advances when Luwin steps in and reminds him that Osha is a “guest.” “I thought she was our prisoner,” Theon responds. And in possibly the most thought-provoking part of this exchange, Luwin asks him, off the cuff no less, “have you found those two to be mutually exclusive in your experience?” …that’s worth thinking about, yes yes. :P
Theon stalks off, and we get to the part of this scene that actually matters. Remember those mythological White Walkers that we saw skulking around in the beginning of episode one? They’re still around, and terrorizing people who don’t have to deal with the political intrigues in the south. :P Luwin, like most everyone else south of the wall, no longer believes in such things. “They’re not gone, old man,” Osha warns him. “They were just sleeping.” … be that as it may, the White Walkers will continue to play a small role in the story for now. Well, perhaps not so small when we’re at the Wall.
Castle Black
Three episodes later and Sam is still whining to Jon about missing girls. :P Jon is too angsty as usual to play him enough attention. To be fair, they are on sentry duty. And…what’s that? A horse galloping to the wall without a rider? Quick, Sam, raise the alarm!
In the book, it felt like basically the second after Benjen stepped north of the wall, people were worried that he was gone for good. On tv, this is the first time Benjen is mentioned since leaving in episode three. Jon recognizes Benjen’s horse and turns to Mormont with a “where’s my uncle?” as if Mormont was beyond the wall this whole time rather than with everyone else. :P
Jon is still preoccupied as the Night’s Watch recruits go through their graduation ceremony. (I swear, Kit Harrington probably has a clause in his contract about how few times he’s allowed to smile per episode. :P) He wants to be named a Ranger so he can ride out to save Benjen like yesterday. Sam gripes slightly about his likely assignment as steward, and Jon assures him it’s an honorable position.
Slight foray into religion when Mormont asks who wants to take their vows with “the old gods.” Jon, like most northerners, still worships them…he’s the only trainee who does. (Reminds me of requesting a Tenach rather than a Christian bible when I graduated from my Episcopalian high school. :P) But lo and behold…Sam stood up as well! Although he’d been raised in the new faith, he’s taken Mormont’s commencement speech to heart. Where you came from before doesn’t matter…the Night’s Watch is your family now.OK, ok, Sam might be crushing on Jon. And I bet I’m not the only one here who’s battling my desire to see the bromance unfold. :P
Jon uses up one of his smiles…but that’s ok, cos he’s not about to get many more. :P He’s assigned to the stewards. The stewards. (Particularly, the personal steward to Lord Commander Mormont.) They’re basically glorified maids! an angry Jon seethes to Sam later, forgetting what he told the boy earlier. “It’s not fair!” But in classic GoT fashion, Jon isn’t allowed to stew in his own sob story, cos someone else’s is always a bigger deal. Pyp, another friend/steward tells Jon and Sam the truth about why he was sentenced to the Wall…a lord tried to grab his cock once and called him a thief when he pulled away. :-/
With some water thrown over the self-righteous fire, Sam steps in with a rational explanation as to why Jon may’ve been chosen for this assignment. Not only will he be emptying chamber pots and the like, but he’ll also be taking messages and squiring for the lord commander. The big cheese. He’s being groomed forgary stu command! :P Which still sounds…too good to be true, personally. I mean c’mon, he’s only been here a few months! And this isn’t supposed to be a story where life is handed out on a silver platter. But then again, to be fair, Jon has shown impressive leadership skills with his fellow recruits. Reckon I should just let this play out, yup. :P
So off Jon and Sam go beyond the wall to take their vows at a weirwood tree. And…wtf, is that Ghost?? I was actually surprised and bewildered the first time I saw Ghost running on screen, cos we’ve seen so little of the wolves! Hopefully this will appease the book fans. :P
Vows include lifelong service and celibacy, yup. Powerful words…serious life choice. They rise “as men” and start hugging their new brothers who’ve accompanied them…kinda reminds me of a more sinister bar mitzvah. :P But the fun is cut short when Ghost comes back from the hunt with a severed hand. :-O Sheesh, Ghost, way to ruin the party. :P …you don’t think that belongs to Uncle Benjen, do you? :-/ We’ll have to wait to find out.
Vaes Dothrak
Daenerys has taken up Viserys’s call to try and convince Drogo to invade Westeros. See, V, she was working in the right direction after all! :P
…but Drogo is difficult to move on the matter. In his worldview, there’s nothing of import beyond “the poison waters.” And a king doesn’t need a chair/throne, just a horse. Dany has her work cut out for her. (Major kudos to Emilia and Jason for making the Dothraki language sound so…real! :D)
At the market she gripes about it with Jorah, who basically gives her the same advice Illyrio gave Viserys (Dothraki do things in their own time. Blah blah.) Dany wants to go hoooome. Viserys was “a fool,” but he was still the rightful king of Westeros.
Jorah starts us off on one of the major themes of the episode/series…who’s to say that? Aegon “The Conqueror” Targaryen didn’t become king through birthright 300 years ago, as his nickname implies. :P He used dragons. Hmm…dragons. No one’s seen any of those in a long while, nope. :-“
Mormont Jr. mysteriously parts ways with Dany…and mysteriously gets a pardon so he can go home now. :-O Then, with a mysteriously conflicted look on his face, he watches a wine merchant sell Dany a “special” cask once he realizes who she is.
J-man finally makes a stand (and switches sides, basically,) when he strides up and demands that the wineseller taste the vintage before selling it. …I think we get the picture that it’s poisoned wine, courtesy of Robert, given the way the wineseller tries to make a run for it. I gotta feel for the dude. If you’re gonna get busted, it should at least not be by someone who’s supposed to be in on it with you. (Well, if they’re meant to be on the same side, anyway. It’s worth noting that the terms are different—the show leads us to believe that Varys was working in cahoots with Jorah to poison Dany, but in canon he was actually warning Jorah about the assassins. :-O So I don’t know if the show intends to change Varys’s motivations or if they’re just keeping him clouded in mystery, but I guess that’s not too important right now. :P Anywho!)
Two lovers who get to shine this week are Dany and Drogo! After learning of the murder attempt, the khal rushes to his bride, calling her “the moon of my life” a la the books. He grants Jorah a horse for saving Dany’s life (which still…I get how horses are a big deal and all, but it seems kinda paltry. :P) To his son, he grants… (wait for it, Jason Momoa’s crowning speech of the series—pun intended!)
He’s changed his mind on the whole invading Westeros thing. Rhaego will sit on the throne that his grandfather once sat on! Drogo will be the first khal in history to cross the narrow sea! He’ll rape the women and sell the children into slavery! …I’m kinda hoping Dany didn’t understand that part, cos she still looks vindicated about it. :-/
But all in all, I’m glad that the speech was so blunt. I don’t think this makes the Dothraki “savages,” no more than war makes any army into savages. One thing that annoys me about Tolkien and Lewis for example…in the face of the “inhumanity” of WWII, they wrote fantasies based on “the nobility” of the Middle Ages. As if Crusaders with swords didn’t rape and pillage and spread destruction. As if the Southerners and Easterners in LOTR and the usurping Calamorenes in Narnia weren’t described as “swarthy.” A far more obvious display of genteel xenophobia than GRRM accomplishes with the Dothraki. I guess there’s something ironic in calling everyone equal, not because they’re all good, no matter what race, religion, sexuality or gender…but because they’re all bad. …yay humanity? :-/
(Unrelated to the sadist-glorifying aspects of the speech, Jason Mamoa deserves special props for his performance. He’s been pretty much in the background thus far, but suddenly he has this passionate speech to deliver in a made up language…and man does he nail it. :D You have my respect for that, at least!)
I’ll say this for the Dothraki tho. That wineseller, when he was tied up beaten or stumbling naked and tied to Dany’s horse, never looked as gory and tortured as the slave who tried to poison Atia in “Rome.” That was brutal. Dothraki…the humane captors of the world? OK, that’s still scary. :P
(PS: Robert? If you’d just not sent someone to kill Dany, Drogo wouldn’t have decided to invade so quickly! Idiot. Why don’t you go off and die now, and leave others to clean up your messes. >.<)
King’s Landing
Ned and Cersei meet in the garden to hash out season one’s major plot points. :P Gotta say…I really love how Ned is concerned about Cersei’s abuse at Robert’s hand, even with the knowledge that her affair with Jaime led to the death of his mentor, Jon Arryn, and the crippling of his son. Ned has a strong, moral center.
But boy is he in the wrong place for it. This is the episode which is turning non-book readers off. “Good” may have won a victory with Viserys’s death last eppy… “good” will not win this time over.
Book fans may not like this scene for another reason. We start off on target…Cersei knows it’s silliness to deny the affair, or the bastard parentage of her children. To me, her speech about being Jaime’s lover rang more true on screen than in the books. The way GRRM wrote it sounded like some sort of sexual twincest fantasy. Whereas Lena’s performance drove home that these are two people in an unforgiving world (I mean hello, lookit their father,) who are able to find some acceptance with each other. I remain an advocate of this incestuous relationship in theory. But with what it cost the realm in general and the Starks in specific…yeah, not worth it. :P
Where she changes from the book is with her admission that she loved Robert once, up til the moment that he called out Lyanna’s name on their wedding night. (In canon it was Rhaegar she crushed over.) Most book fans don’t like this humanizing of her character. They think she should’ve always been hate-filled (though she does love her kiddies in book). But personally…I think her woman scorned act makes her into a more compelling villain. I can understand her weaknesses and motivations better and I respect that (if not her ultimate choices). I’m really in this for the complex characters (exhausting as it might be to defend them all the time. :P)
Ned lays out his terms—get thee and thy children to exile before Robert returns from the hunt, cos I’m gonna tell him and he’ll have your heads on spikes. Cersei counters with some backstory. After the siege of King’s Landing, Ned found Jaime on the Iron Throne (incidentally, the murdered Mad King was at his feet.) Cersei says Ned should have claimed the throne right then because “when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”
Personally, I think this rings very true for Ned’s career as Hand. But as to Cersei’s assertion that he shoulda taken power right there from Jaime…hell no. I’m not just talking about cos Robert Baratheon was more closely related to the Targaryens. Like Ned, I value his 17 years of family and peace in Winterfell. I miss those days so much. :( GRRM needs to write prequel stories. :P And Ned needs to give up his honor and go hooome! Unfortunately…that seems unlikely to happen. :-/
In the brothel, we have the first HBO sex scene that I think is over the top. :-O And it’s a lesbian sex scene! Featuring women being able to pleasure each other! Which is nice, in theory, but the way it was played out in the scene was kind of prosperous. :P (Unlike Varys, Littlefinger’s motivations are ridiculously transparent, which I don’t think is entirely true to canon, not at this stage.)
Ros is back, and personally, I’m not a huge fan. I get her role in Winterfell…not so much here. Maybe it’s because they didn’t want to pay another new actress for a speaking bit? :P (She’ll actually be filling in for minor canon characters in later seasons, it seems.)
In an astoundingly “American Psycho” moment, Littlefinger lays out his dastardly motives while instructing the whores on how to pleasure each other. At first I thought…is this explanation really needed? (Though apparently some non-book people think he’s on Cersei’s side.) Uh….noooo. As per his speech here, he’s only on his own side. (Hell, I’m not even sure he’d be on Cat’s side, even if she was waiting in his bed.) He wants “everything” (aka power over everything) and he intends to fuck the people, cos that’s the only way he can get it. :P “Fucking” in this context meaning causing political mayhem…and basically screwing anyone and everyone over. …it works better in the books where he’s not twirling his nefario mustache and laying out his evil plans out in the open. Maybe the sex scene was there to act as a muffler. :P
Speaking of people who are screwed…a frantic, disheveled Renly makes his way to Ned to tell him that Robert’s been badly hurt in a hunting accident. And I mean it’s bad. So bad that he’s actually talking to Joffrey, his non-heir, and giving him such kingly advice as “I should have spent more time with you…I was never meant to be a father.” I gotta say…I hate Joff, and I never expected to feel the sympathy I felt for him during those two seconds with that pained look on Jack Gleeson’s face. Damn you, Jack, damn you! (Kudos for acting chops omg.) It’s certainly one of the rare moments where we’ll get to see Joffrey Baratheon as a human.
Cersei is of course nervous that Ned will spill the beans…she has nothing to worry about. Ned doesn’t want his last words to his friend to be “btw, (all) your children are bastards.” Robert and Ned were close. :( Not demonstrative, but…the love was there. At least boyhood love.
As Ned takes down Robert’s last will and testament, of a sort, he deviously substitutes “my son, Joffrey” with “my rightful heir.” He’s rewarded with Robert having a change of heart about Dany. Looks like the king doesn’t want to die with innocent blood on his hands, either. Too bad the ravens have already flown, says Varys. :-/
Out in the hall with the small council, we touch on the point that Robert’s squire (the Lannister boy) fed him enough wine so that he was drunk when he took on the boar who ultimately took his life. Lancel may or may not have been in cahoots with Cersei…but Ned is forgiving of the boy. “No one could save Robert from himself,” he said. (Varys is passive aggressively sewing contention about that though. Hmmm.)
Since Ned refuses to play his Lannister card, he starts walking around with his house guard to stave off any possible attacks. :P Though what he gets instead are political intrigues. First up: Renly! Renly is willing to give Ned 100 more guards. The goal? Take Cersei’s kiddies prisoner and declare Renly himself as king (canon-wise Renly doesn’t add in that last part, but I get why they put that there in the show for continuity’s sake.) Honorable Ned has mucho problems with this. First of all--Stannis is the elder brother, so he’s first in line. Renly becomes the second person to bring up, “no, really, why are we worried about the line of succession when Robert himself usurped the throne?” Also backstory on Stannnis…he inspires no love, a theory that is tested in the following season!
Ned’s real problem with this, however, is that he doesn’t want to spill blood, particularly kiddie blood. Personally, I wouldn’t shed a tear for Joffrey, young as he is, but I’m with Ned on innocent Tommen and Myrcella. More (unexplained) backstory…Ned remembers the sacking of King’s Landing when the Mountain killed Rhaegar’s toddler children, and then Tywin offered the corpses up as gifts to Robert. Child murder haunts the Nedster.
Instead he writes a letter to Stannis and sends it off with strict instructions that his messenger place it directly in his hands. Now to the second political intrigue…Littlefinger! His advice is to actually support Joffrey, cos yeah, Stannis sucks. And peace with the Lannisters would be…peaceful! So why don’t you keep Joff’s engagement to Sansa, Ned (*throws up a little inside*) and rule the kingdoms until Prince Psycho!Brat comes of age, as Robert put in his will…and if Joff ever becomes a problem, we’ll out his bastard secret and put Renly on the throne. This is how you win the game of thrones! Play your strongest cards first and have your others waiting in the wings, yes.
…also, this arrangement puts Ned in Littlefinger’s debt as his confidant, so…yeah, more power for the Littlefinger. :P Booyah.
Of course Ned refuses to listen to any of this. But he does want one dishonorable thing…he wants to buy the City Watch, so that he has enough swords to stand up to Cersei’s swords. As per the promise he made Catelyn, Littlefinger agrees to make the arrangements with coin.
The day finally comes when Robert dies. It’s off screen and pretty pathetic, kind of like the Baratheon rule. :P Gotta say…Viserys Targaryen had more pizzazz with his demise. :P Is that saying something?
Ned’s guard is touchier ("yo, Ned!" *SWORDS UNSHEATHED*), and Lord Stark is called to the throne room to pay fealty to King Joffrey. (Renly, btw, has fled with Loras and others to make crown-usurping arrangements in peace--see ya next season, Rens! :P) Before the funeral bells die down, King Psycho!Brat demands to be coronated within the fortnight. And kindly Cersei repays Ned’s advice from before… “bend at the knee, declare my son your king, and you can go back to that wasteland you call home.” …dude, I almost wanted Ned to do it. Take your daughters and go, and leave King’s Landing to wrack and ruin without you!!!
Of course, Ned does not. First he presents Robert’s final words to the court (aka, Ned rules until Joffrey comes of age.) Cersei tears the letter up. :-O Barristan is shocked—“those were the words of the king!” “We have a new king now,” Cersei reminds him. …indeed we do. Your move, Ned.
Ned orders that the City Watch, which Littlefinger just promised Ned was bought and paid for, escort the queen and her children to their private chambers for noble justice doing. :P (“KILL HIM, KILL ALL OF THEM!!!!” screams King Psycho!Brat, a common refrain throughout his horrific rule.) Instead…the City Watch turns on the Nedster. :-O They kill the remainder of his household guard. And with a knife pressed to the back of his throat, Littlefinger reminds Ned, “I did warn you not to trust me, you know.” :-/
…focusing on the betrayal of Lord Stark is just too painful. :( Will ramble more on that in future episode reviews. :P For now, I will bid my hearty adieu to King Robert, and the talented Mark Addy who brought him to life. A worthless and broken man, husband, father and monarch…he nevertheless had the best jibes in the entire series. :P Part of me hopes he can meet up with Lyanna in the hereafter, yup yup. I wonder if he’ll like what he finds. :P
___
There were some thematic devices used in this ep that I thought served it well. Disregarding Jon (who—a) is not a Stark by technicality, and b) we desperately needed an update from) Ned was the only person from his wolf pack family whom was seen. (No Tyrion either.) Really added to the feeling of him being alone and outnumbered in a lion’s den.
The Wall, to me, really stood out as a place of honor. Here we are at King’s Landing where Ned’s basically getting his ass handed to him by schemers and backstabbers. But the Wall is like Winterfell. It’s straightforward—you answer to your superiors. Your enemies are the folk trying to attack you dead on. Your friends (like Jon/Sam ♥) are real friends, not just people trying to use you. And your duty is defined by serving the greater good, not the other way around. In many ways, the harsh, unforgiving Wall is a sign of hope that Westeros can turn out ok after all.
Anywho. Most of the action took place at King’s Landing, with some secondary plotlines in Vaes Dothrak and at the Wall. Then there were two filler scenes, important for their own reasons.
The Filler Scenes
The Lannister Camp
We finally get to meet Tywin Lannister, the oft-referenced sire of Cersei, Jaime and Tyrion. Jaime scoffs over the courtly command that Ned sent last week, and Tywin skins a stag (symbolism much?) He’s pissed that Jaime let Ned live—but also that he attacked Ned in the first place. Let me give it to you straight—Tywin had Gregor attack Riverrun territory in the hopes that Ned would personally lead the party out to the field, and then Tywin could capture him to exchange for Tyrion. Instead, due to his Jaime-inflicted injury, Ned sent Beric Dondarrion.
Tywin criticized Jaime for caring what others thought of him—though he’s a freaking hypocrite, he totally cares about making sure everyone sees the Lannisters as the most badass pimps around. Sure, he cares about more than just himself—he cares about his family (or, more accurately, the family name,) but ultimately this “strength” is really just pride. And I’m thinking—what’s so noble about making sure his descendents think themselves to be badass pimps? :P I mean, with the Starks (who make a lot of poor decisions based on love of family,) they care about the people, not the name.
Not through with chastising Jaime, Tywin gives him control of half the army to keep assaulting the Riverlands. He tells sonny boy “I need you to be the man you were always meant to be,” aka leading a Lannister contingent rather than being a glorified sentry for a mad king and then a drunk king.
Winterfell
Theon stalks off, and we get to the part of this scene that actually matters. Remember those mythological White Walkers that we saw skulking around in the beginning of episode one? They’re still around, and terrorizing people who don’t have to deal with the political intrigues in the south. :P Luwin, like most everyone else south of the wall, no longer believes in such things. “They’re not gone, old man,” Osha warns him. “They were just sleeping.” … be that as it may, the White Walkers will continue to play a small role in the story for now. Well, perhaps not so small when we’re at the Wall.
Castle Black
Three episodes later and Sam is still whining to Jon about missing girls. :P Jon is too angsty as usual to play him enough attention. To be fair, they are on sentry duty. And…what’s that? A horse galloping to the wall without a rider? Quick, Sam, raise the alarm!
In the book, it felt like basically the second after Benjen stepped north of the wall, people were worried that he was gone for good. On tv, this is the first time Benjen is mentioned since leaving in episode three. Jon recognizes Benjen’s horse and turns to Mormont with a “where’s my uncle?” as if Mormont was beyond the wall this whole time rather than with everyone else. :P
Jon is still preoccupied as the Night’s Watch recruits go through their graduation ceremony. (I swear, Kit Harrington probably has a clause in his contract about how few times he’s allowed to smile per episode. :P) He wants to be named a Ranger so he can ride out to save Benjen like yesterday. Sam gripes slightly about his likely assignment as steward, and Jon assures him it’s an honorable position.
Slight foray into religion when Mormont asks who wants to take their vows with “the old gods.” Jon, like most northerners, still worships them…he’s the only trainee who does. (Reminds me of requesting a Tenach rather than a Christian bible when I graduated from my Episcopalian high school. :P) But lo and behold…Sam stood up as well! Although he’d been raised in the new faith, he’s taken Mormont’s commencement speech to heart. Where you came from before doesn’t matter…the Night’s Watch is your family now.
Jon uses up one of his smiles…but that’s ok, cos he’s not about to get many more. :P He’s assigned to the stewards. The stewards. (Particularly, the personal steward to Lord Commander Mormont.) They’re basically glorified maids! an angry Jon seethes to Sam later, forgetting what he told the boy earlier. “It’s not fair!” But in classic GoT fashion, Jon isn’t allowed to stew in his own sob story, cos someone else’s is always a bigger deal. Pyp, another friend/steward tells Jon and Sam the truth about why he was sentenced to the Wall…a lord tried to grab his cock once and called him a thief when he pulled away. :-/
With some water thrown over the self-righteous fire, Sam steps in with a rational explanation as to why Jon may’ve been chosen for this assignment. Not only will he be emptying chamber pots and the like, but he’ll also be taking messages and squiring for the lord commander. The big cheese. He’s being groomed for
So off Jon and Sam go beyond the wall to take their vows at a weirwood tree. And…wtf, is that Ghost?? I was actually surprised and bewildered the first time I saw Ghost running on screen, cos we’ve seen so little of the wolves! Hopefully this will appease the book fans. :P
Vows include lifelong service and celibacy, yup. Powerful words…serious life choice. They rise “as men” and start hugging their new brothers who’ve accompanied them…kinda reminds me of a more sinister bar mitzvah. :P But the fun is cut short when Ghost comes back from the hunt with a severed hand. :-O Sheesh, Ghost, way to ruin the party. :P …you don’t think that belongs to Uncle Benjen, do you? :-/ We’ll have to wait to find out.
Vaes Dothrak
Daenerys has taken up Viserys’s call to try and convince Drogo to invade Westeros. See, V, she was working in the right direction after all! :P
…but Drogo is difficult to move on the matter. In his worldview, there’s nothing of import beyond “the poison waters.” And a king doesn’t need a chair/throne, just a horse. Dany has her work cut out for her. (Major kudos to Emilia and Jason for making the Dothraki language sound so…real! :D)
At the market she gripes about it with Jorah, who basically gives her the same advice Illyrio gave Viserys (Dothraki do things in their own time. Blah blah.) Dany wants to go hoooome. Viserys was “a fool,” but he was still the rightful king of Westeros.
Jorah starts us off on one of the major themes of the episode/series…who’s to say that? Aegon “The Conqueror” Targaryen didn’t become king through birthright 300 years ago, as his nickname implies. :P He used dragons. Hmm…dragons. No one’s seen any of those in a long while, nope. :-“
Mormont Jr. mysteriously parts ways with Dany…and mysteriously gets a pardon so he can go home now. :-O Then, with a mysteriously conflicted look on his face, he watches a wine merchant sell Dany a “special” cask once he realizes who she is.
J-man finally makes a stand (and switches sides, basically,) when he strides up and demands that the wineseller taste the vintage before selling it. …I think we get the picture that it’s poisoned wine, courtesy of Robert, given the way the wineseller tries to make a run for it. I gotta feel for the dude. If you’re gonna get busted, it should at least not be by someone who’s supposed to be in on it with you. (Well, if they’re meant to be on the same side, anyway. It’s worth noting that the terms are different—the show leads us to believe that Varys was working in cahoots with Jorah to poison Dany, but in canon he was actually warning Jorah about the assassins. :-O So I don’t know if the show intends to change Varys’s motivations or if they’re just keeping him clouded in mystery, but I guess that’s not too important right now. :P Anywho!)
Two lovers who get to shine this week are Dany and Drogo! After learning of the murder attempt, the khal rushes to his bride, calling her “the moon of my life” a la the books. He grants Jorah a horse for saving Dany’s life (which still…I get how horses are a big deal and all, but it seems kinda paltry. :P) To his son, he grants… (wait for it, Jason Momoa’s crowning speech of the series—pun intended!)
He’s changed his mind on the whole invading Westeros thing. Rhaego will sit on the throne that his grandfather once sat on! Drogo will be the first khal in history to cross the narrow sea! He’ll rape the women and sell the children into slavery! …I’m kinda hoping Dany didn’t understand that part, cos she still looks vindicated about it. :-/
But all in all, I’m glad that the speech was so blunt. I don’t think this makes the Dothraki “savages,” no more than war makes any army into savages. One thing that annoys me about Tolkien and Lewis for example…in the face of the “inhumanity” of WWII, they wrote fantasies based on “the nobility” of the Middle Ages. As if Crusaders with swords didn’t rape and pillage and spread destruction. As if the Southerners and Easterners in LOTR and the usurping Calamorenes in Narnia weren’t described as “swarthy.” A far more obvious display of genteel xenophobia than GRRM accomplishes with the Dothraki. I guess there’s something ironic in calling everyone equal, not because they’re all good, no matter what race, religion, sexuality or gender…but because they’re all bad. …yay humanity? :-/
(Unrelated to the sadist-glorifying aspects of the speech, Jason Mamoa deserves special props for his performance. He’s been pretty much in the background thus far, but suddenly he has this passionate speech to deliver in a made up language…and man does he nail it. :D You have my respect for that, at least!)
I’ll say this for the Dothraki tho. That wineseller, when he was tied up beaten or stumbling naked and tied to Dany’s horse, never looked as gory and tortured as the slave who tried to poison Atia in “Rome.” That was brutal. Dothraki…the humane captors of the world? OK, that’s still scary. :P
(PS: Robert? If you’d just not sent someone to kill Dany, Drogo wouldn’t have decided to invade so quickly! Idiot. Why don’t you go off and die now, and leave others to clean up your messes. >.<)
King’s Landing
Ned and Cersei meet in the garden to hash out season one’s major plot points. :P Gotta say…I really love how Ned is concerned about Cersei’s abuse at Robert’s hand, even with the knowledge that her affair with Jaime led to the death of his mentor, Jon Arryn, and the crippling of his son. Ned has a strong, moral center.
But boy is he in the wrong place for it. This is the episode which is turning non-book readers off. “Good” may have won a victory with Viserys’s death last eppy… “good” will not win this time over.
Book fans may not like this scene for another reason. We start off on target…Cersei knows it’s silliness to deny the affair, or the bastard parentage of her children. To me, her speech about being Jaime’s lover rang more true on screen than in the books. The way GRRM wrote it sounded like some sort of sexual twincest fantasy. Whereas Lena’s performance drove home that these are two people in an unforgiving world (I mean hello, lookit their father,) who are able to find some acceptance with each other. I remain an advocate of this incestuous relationship in theory. But with what it cost the realm in general and the Starks in specific…yeah, not worth it. :P
Where she changes from the book is with her admission that she loved Robert once, up til the moment that he called out Lyanna’s name on their wedding night. (In canon it was Rhaegar she crushed over.) Most book fans don’t like this humanizing of her character. They think she should’ve always been hate-filled (though she does love her kiddies in book). But personally…I think her woman scorned act makes her into a more compelling villain. I can understand her weaknesses and motivations better and I respect that (if not her ultimate choices). I’m really in this for the complex characters (exhausting as it might be to defend them all the time. :P)
Ned lays out his terms—get thee and thy children to exile before Robert returns from the hunt, cos I’m gonna tell him and he’ll have your heads on spikes. Cersei counters with some backstory. After the siege of King’s Landing, Ned found Jaime on the Iron Throne (incidentally, the murdered Mad King was at his feet.) Cersei says Ned should have claimed the throne right then because “when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”
Personally, I think this rings very true for Ned’s career as Hand. But as to Cersei’s assertion that he shoulda taken power right there from Jaime…hell no. I’m not just talking about cos Robert Baratheon was more closely related to the Targaryens. Like Ned, I value his 17 years of family and peace in Winterfell. I miss those days so much. :( GRRM needs to write prequel stories. :P And Ned needs to give up his honor and go hooome! Unfortunately…that seems unlikely to happen. :-/
In the brothel, we have the first HBO sex scene that I think is over the top. :-O And it’s a lesbian sex scene! Featuring women being able to pleasure each other! Which is nice, in theory, but the way it was played out in the scene was kind of prosperous. :P (Unlike Varys, Littlefinger’s motivations are ridiculously transparent, which I don’t think is entirely true to canon, not at this stage.)
Ros is back, and personally, I’m not a huge fan. I get her role in Winterfell…not so much here. Maybe it’s because they didn’t want to pay another new actress for a speaking bit? :P (She’ll actually be filling in for minor canon characters in later seasons, it seems.)
In an astoundingly “American Psycho” moment, Littlefinger lays out his dastardly motives while instructing the whores on how to pleasure each other. At first I thought…is this explanation really needed? (Though apparently some non-book people think he’s on Cersei’s side.) Uh….noooo. As per his speech here, he’s only on his own side. (Hell, I’m not even sure he’d be on Cat’s side, even if she was waiting in his bed.) He wants “everything” (aka power over everything) and he intends to fuck the people, cos that’s the only way he can get it. :P “Fucking” in this context meaning causing political mayhem…and basically screwing anyone and everyone over. …it works better in the books where he’s not twirling his nefario mustache and laying out his evil plans out in the open. Maybe the sex scene was there to act as a muffler. :P
Speaking of people who are screwed…a frantic, disheveled Renly makes his way to Ned to tell him that Robert’s been badly hurt in a hunting accident. And I mean it’s bad. So bad that he’s actually talking to Joffrey, his non-heir, and giving him such kingly advice as “I should have spent more time with you…I was never meant to be a father.” I gotta say…I hate Joff, and I never expected to feel the sympathy I felt for him during those two seconds with that pained look on Jack Gleeson’s face. Damn you, Jack, damn you! (Kudos for acting chops omg.) It’s certainly one of the rare moments where we’ll get to see Joffrey Baratheon as a human.
Cersei is of course nervous that Ned will spill the beans…she has nothing to worry about. Ned doesn’t want his last words to his friend to be “btw, (all) your children are bastards.” Robert and Ned were close. :( Not demonstrative, but…the love was there. At least boyhood love.
As Ned takes down Robert’s last will and testament, of a sort, he deviously substitutes “my son, Joffrey” with “my rightful heir.” He’s rewarded with Robert having a change of heart about Dany. Looks like the king doesn’t want to die with innocent blood on his hands, either. Too bad the ravens have already flown, says Varys. :-/
Out in the hall with the small council, we touch on the point that Robert’s squire (the Lannister boy) fed him enough wine so that he was drunk when he took on the boar who ultimately took his life. Lancel may or may not have been in cahoots with Cersei…but Ned is forgiving of the boy. “No one could save Robert from himself,” he said. (Varys is passive aggressively sewing contention about that though. Hmmm.)
Since Ned refuses to play his Lannister card, he starts walking around with his house guard to stave off any possible attacks. :P Though what he gets instead are political intrigues. First up: Renly! Renly is willing to give Ned 100 more guards. The goal? Take Cersei’s kiddies prisoner and declare Renly himself as king (canon-wise Renly doesn’t add in that last part, but I get why they put that there in the show for continuity’s sake.) Honorable Ned has mucho problems with this. First of all--Stannis is the elder brother, so he’s first in line. Renly becomes the second person to bring up, “no, really, why are we worried about the line of succession when Robert himself usurped the throne?” Also backstory on Stannnis…he inspires no love, a theory that is tested in the following season!
Ned’s real problem with this, however, is that he doesn’t want to spill blood, particularly kiddie blood. Personally, I wouldn’t shed a tear for Joffrey, young as he is, but I’m with Ned on innocent Tommen and Myrcella. More (unexplained) backstory…Ned remembers the sacking of King’s Landing when the Mountain killed Rhaegar’s toddler children, and then Tywin offered the corpses up as gifts to Robert. Child murder haunts the Nedster.
Instead he writes a letter to Stannis and sends it off with strict instructions that his messenger place it directly in his hands. Now to the second political intrigue…Littlefinger! His advice is to actually support Joffrey, cos yeah, Stannis sucks. And peace with the Lannisters would be…peaceful! So why don’t you keep Joff’s engagement to Sansa, Ned (*throws up a little inside*) and rule the kingdoms until Prince Psycho!Brat comes of age, as Robert put in his will…and if Joff ever becomes a problem, we’ll out his bastard secret and put Renly on the throne. This is how you win the game of thrones! Play your strongest cards first and have your others waiting in the wings, yes.
…also, this arrangement puts Ned in Littlefinger’s debt as his confidant, so…yeah, more power for the Littlefinger. :P Booyah.
Of course Ned refuses to listen to any of this. But he does want one dishonorable thing…he wants to buy the City Watch, so that he has enough swords to stand up to Cersei’s swords. As per the promise he made Catelyn, Littlefinger agrees to make the arrangements with coin.
The day finally comes when Robert dies. It’s off screen and pretty pathetic, kind of like the Baratheon rule. :P Gotta say…Viserys Targaryen had more pizzazz with his demise. :P Is that saying something?
Ned’s guard is touchier ("yo, Ned!" *SWORDS UNSHEATHED*), and Lord Stark is called to the throne room to pay fealty to King Joffrey. (Renly, btw, has fled with Loras and others to make crown-usurping arrangements in peace--see ya next season, Rens! :P) Before the funeral bells die down, King Psycho!Brat demands to be coronated within the fortnight. And kindly Cersei repays Ned’s advice from before… “bend at the knee, declare my son your king, and you can go back to that wasteland you call home.” …dude, I almost wanted Ned to do it. Take your daughters and go, and leave King’s Landing to wrack and ruin without you!!!
Of course, Ned does not. First he presents Robert’s final words to the court (aka, Ned rules until Joffrey comes of age.) Cersei tears the letter up. :-O Barristan is shocked—“those were the words of the king!” “We have a new king now,” Cersei reminds him. …indeed we do. Your move, Ned.
Ned orders that the City Watch, which Littlefinger just promised Ned was bought and paid for, escort the queen and her children to their private chambers for noble justice doing. :P (“KILL HIM, KILL ALL OF THEM!!!!” screams King Psycho!Brat, a common refrain throughout his horrific rule.) Instead…the City Watch turns on the Nedster. :-O They kill the remainder of his household guard. And with a knife pressed to the back of his throat, Littlefinger reminds Ned, “I did warn you not to trust me, you know.” :-/
…focusing on the betrayal of Lord Stark is just too painful. :( Will ramble more on that in future episode reviews. :P For now, I will bid my hearty adieu to King Robert, and the talented Mark Addy who brought him to life. A worthless and broken man, husband, father and monarch…he nevertheless had the best jibes in the entire series. :P Part of me hopes he can meet up with Lyanna in the hereafter, yup yup. I wonder if he’ll like what he finds. :P
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