Game of Thrones Episode 4.09: “The Watchers on the Wall”

[chavalah.livejournal.com]

In a way, this is the worst time to transition to an episode that only takes place in one location, somewhere where the action has been only peripheral up until now, too. I mean, what the hell is going on with the Stark sisters?? Lysa might be dead, but Arya’s been outed as her niece and she’s literally a pathway away from her sister, Sansa.

Ok, ok, I assume more fans were concerned with whether Tyrion would go the way of Ned Stark now. :P Either way, I kind of worried at first whether this episode would be able to hold my attention, or if I’d constantly be brought back to those other cliffhangers. Fortunately, this hour proved powerful and enticing enough on its own.

I’m not really into this series due to the action and battle scenes, but I recognized enough of the technical aspects to be impressed by. There’s definitely a more visceral feel here than to “Blackwater” two seasons ago. That fight centered more on wildfire, with less hand to hand combat between recognizable characters, and we also got more cutaways to Cersei and Sansa discussing the more long term implications of this war.

Here, for the first 15 minutes, characters get their mental ducks in a row, about facing down death and the rest of it. Maester Aemon carts out his season one “love vs duty” speech, something Jon and Sam contend with in various ways. And on the southern side of the wall, Ygritte grouses about Westerosi elitism and cruelty to decide that this land now belonged to them, and the wildlings weren’t worthy of any safe haven. Despite all the horrible acts we’ve seen them take part in this season, there is a broader sympathetic aim to their campaign—to escape the White Walkers and live—than there is to any of the ego-stroking that stoked the fires of the War of the Five Kings.

So yeah, definite strong episode, with both well-executed action sequences and emotional gravitas, too.


Summary
Only one location this time, so no subheads! We start with where Thorne last sent Jon and Sam—to man the Wall until the wildling attack. Sam wants to talk about what it’s like to be with someone—sexually, that is—and has some fairly liberal ideas about the parameters of their Night’s Watch vows. :P Mostly, he’s trying to kill time before their imminent doom. Jon attempts something flowery to describe his time with Ygritte, but he’s not “a bleeding poet.” Both men are haunted by the women in their lives—Jon because he and Ygritte ended so badly, and Sam because he believes Gilly to be dead. He even goes down to the library rather than getting some shut eye, in order to research the horrible torture the wildlings may have inflicted on her and baby Sam. Aemon interrupts him with a “love vs duty” speech similar to the one that he gave Jon a few years back; Sam’s love for Gilly is driving his actions. This leads to some personal reminiscing about one of the many women he met while Aemon Targaryen, in line for the throne—someone more real to him than Sam is at this moment. Facing death makes the past a most sweet place to visit.

On the southern side of the Wall, Ygritte, Tormund, the Thenns and etc. wait for the signal to begin their attack on the Wall; their warg is in owl form there. Tormund is regaling the troops with some crazy story of fucking a bear, until Ygritte gets her heckles up. She’s not interested in this tom-foolery; she wants to focus on the task at hand, killing the crows who were audacious enough to come to First Men land and then keep the free folk out of it. Seems like the Thenns don’t share her righteous anger. Styr claims that she’s just a talker, who will offer herself to Jon rather than kill him if she gets the chance. Ygritte responds by getting into his face; hands off, he’s mine to deal with.

For all of his obsession with Gilly’s possible demise, as Sam leaves the library who else does he hear trying to get passage in at the gate! :O After some choice words to Pyp, the lovers (and baby) are reunited. Sam promises that they will never be separated again, and that’s the time that the horn sounds for war. He brings Gilly and little Sam to the store room to be safe, and she’s indignant when he moves to join the fight. The wildlings killed everyone in Molestown, she claims. Stay here, where you mean something, rather than go up there to be one of the many dead bodies. But Sam remains firm; he made a vow to protect the Wall so that’s what he’ll do; “that’s what men do.” He promises to return to her, and gives her a whopper of a kiss.

In the meantime, he joins Pyp at his post at the south of the Wall. Pyp is shaking, having never had any real combat experience before. Sam recounts how he was able to kill a White Walker last season; his entire identity fled him in that moment, and he was nothing. If you’re nothing, you have nothing to lose. That being said, now Sam’s “not nothing anymore,” and he’s terrified, if not so outwardly expressive about it, of the upcoming battle. Also, little do they know but Ygritte is spying on them, doing the math about how easy it’ll be to break down the southern defenses. Once she tells her comrades that this’ll be pie, they’re off.

The “call to war” that started all this turned out to be what Mance promised last season—“the biggest fire the north has ever seen.” Sure enough, from atop the Wall, they see the forest burning. Jon joins Thorne in an area of command; his old enemy admits that he was right to suggest plugging up the tunnel. Too late to feel bad now, and Jon attempts diplomacy. Thorne plays along, too, at least to the tune of “let’s fight this bigger threat together and then go back to hating each other.”

He calls for barrels of ice and flaming arrows to be brought to position. There’s one comedic moment when Grenn drops a barrel too early. They have to wait until the wildlings—and the giants riding mammoths!—get closer. But the fight’s already begun on the southern side of the Wall, a frantic Slynt arrives to tell Thorne. Thorne gives his friend control up here, and goes down to join the impending fight. The southern wildlings are breaking into Castle Black with relative ease, and Sam and Pyp, working together on a bow and arrow routine, must move.

Pyp achieves his first kill—but then is shot through the neck by Ygritte. Sam speaks words of comfort, and cradles his friend while he dies. Up on the Wall, Slynt is having a bit of a breakdown—blathering on about the lack of discipline in the Night’s Watch, and refusing to believe in giants and mammoths, despite them being in eyesight. Grenn does some quick thinking, and makes up a story about how Thorne needs Slynt on the ground. With Slynt gone Jon is in control, and he sends Grenn and some extras to hold the inner tunnel gate against whatever’s out there. The giants and mammoths are already making quick work on the outer one.

Slynt’s of no more use on the ground where the fighting has gotten heavy. He decides to bolt for the storehouse where he and Gilly exchange surprised glances. Thorne doesn’t have this problem; he spots Torrmund rapidly moving through men, so he moves to engage him. Tormund wins this fight, too, striking several blows to the acting leader of the Watch. As he’s dragged away Thorne screams to the men to protect the gate. Sam rouses himself from Pyp’s death, kills a Thenn with some quick arrow work, and makes it to the elevator where Grenn, headed to the tunnel, tells him to speak to Jon if he has concerns. Olly is manning the elevator, or is supposed to; the traumatized boy is quaking with hands over ears after watching Styr hack a man to bits. Sam slowly coaxes the boy back to doing his duty, and then encourages him to join the fight. Olly eyes a bow and arrow nearby.

On the Wall, Sam tells Jon that they need more men on the ground; Thorne has fallen. Now it’s Jon’s turn to lead down there; he leaves Edd in charge of the Wall. Edd continues to carry out attacks, including taking down a giant with a big arrow. This makes his companion so angry that he’s finally able to break through the outer tunnel door, just as Grenn et al are arriving. By now, they all know this is a suicidal mission. Grenn is able to keep some extras who want to flee with him, as they all recite their Night’s Watch vows, the final words they will ever say.

In the elevator back down to the action, Jon tells Sam that he doesn’t want him out there, but what he means is that his friend should take this key and let Ghost out. Once the elevator stops and Jon joins the fray he get this single, panoramic shot—Ygritte rapidly firing arrows from a place on the inner wall, Tormund and Styr fighting aggressively, a bunch of extras battling and dying, and finally Sam again, as he disembarks and runs towards Ghost’s quarters, barely escaping a flaming arrow. He lets out Jon’s wolf, who of course is a skilled killer on his own.

Styr catches sight of Jon and goes after him; once they start fighting Ygritte sees them, too. She bounds off of her post, though still shooting people along the way, and makes for the pair of them. Tormund gets in some good jabs against Jon, including slamming his head against an anvil once or twice, but Jon finally kills him with a hammer to the head. Spent and panning, Jon turns to see Ygritte with an arrow pointed towards his chest. He smiles, genuinely relieved to see her again, and she looks pained—emotionally and then physically. She never shoots that arrow, as one of Olly’s shoots her down first. Jon looks up at the boy with alarm and despair, before rushing towards the woman he loves. Ygritte recounts their cave from season three, wishing they could have stayed there. Jon promises that they’ll go back someday, and she utters her final words: “you know nothing, Jon Snow.” Her lover cradles her body as the action slows.

Tonight’s battle is almost over, but not quite. As wildlings climb the Wall, Edd calls for the release of a humongous scythe, which strips the wildlings clear of it. Inside the Castle Black compound, still fueled by adrenaline, the arrow-ridden Tormund continues swinging his sword though he’s the only wildling left standing. Jon orders him put in irons for questioning, and while he’s dragged away Tormund bellows that he should have thrown the boy from the Wall way back when. Jon, walking away, agrees with him.

Sam and Gilly get their reunion, with a bemused Slynt watching from the corner. The next morning, Sam joins Jon in surveying the damage. Sam’s optimistic that they’ve survived their first night, but Jon contends that that’s all this is. The wildlings still outnumber them vastly; it’s only a matter of time before the Castle falls. So far as Jon sees it, his only course of action is to try and kill Mance, the only man able to unite the wildling clans. It’s crazy and technically not sanctioned, but with some trepidation the men agree that it’s the only plan they’ve got.

In the tunnel, they find the corpses of Grenn, his companions, and the giant they stopped. Jon closes his friend’s eyes and tells Sam that he’ll have to burn the bodies. First, however, he has to open the gate, and take Longclaw (Jon’s sword from Mormont) for safekeeping. Sam asks Jon plaintively to come back, and his friend walks out beyond the Wall as the screen goes white.

Thoughts
Ironically, when it comes to causes, the free folk cause is hands down the most sympathetic. The War of the Five Kings is about one thing, in several different disguises and culminating at Blackwater--old money, entitled men whining about their rights to rule, and killing a shitload of people in the process. Most of the wilding attack this season hinged on guerrilla warfare, dampening sympathy for them, but at the end of the day their broader goal is to get the hell away from the White Walkers and the all-encompassing death that they symbolize. And there's the all-too-familiar bitterness about groups of people oppressing each other over land. The Wall, in fact, was built by Bran the Builder thousands of years ago, and it was meant to keep White Walkers, not fellow humans, out. But over time, and especially as the WW faded into myth, the us vs them shifted to groups of humans who, as Tyrion said in season one, happened to fall on different sides of the ice structure.

So yeah, there's lots of legitimate reasons to fight (and on the Night's Watch side, in this particular moment it's not like the wildlings are presenting themselves as anything but bloodthirsty revenge artists). I'm saying on a philosophical level, this conflict carries far more weight than Stannis and Joffrey and pals waging a bloody siege over their own egos. But in terms of developed characters to feel for...yeah. Lots more gravitas in season two. And yet, this episode did a damn good job of making me care about what was predominately a fight between bearded extras.

It’s not entirely fair to say the only casualties were bearded extras. Pyp and Grenn also met their ends, a controversial move because they’re still alive in the books. I’m not sure what extra special significance they might ultimately have in canon, but here they were a cruel reminder of the cost of war. The audience will miss these people who’d been with us since season one. Pyp’s death was so horrible in it’s suddenness and gore—he wasn’t even trained to be a fighter, and the look on Josef Altin’s face as his character bled out…horrible. Grenn’s sacrifice—the biggest sacrifice one can make in battle—had a lot more gravitas, even in how it was shot, thundering up on Mark Stanley and the others until the very end.

Then of course we also have Ygritte—meant to die from the books, but still tragic. She and Jon had been doomed since season three, but there was still a genuine part of both of them that would rather forsake their oaths to these opposing armies and live in peace in that cave. The look on Kit’s face when he saw her, especially after that heavy action scene where he killed cartoon villain Styr, was just so arresting. (In the book it’s unclear who shot that arrow, but of course ever since Ygritte killed Olly’s father, it was only a matter of time before the boy picked up Chekhov’s bow and arrow. :P) I’ll also miss Rose Leslie, who played Ygritte with such ferocity of spirit. She knew who she was and what she believed in, yet she also had this softer side of wanting a more personal love, beyond duty. She and Jon were really quite suited for one another. Their final dialogue was lifted from canon. (Sidenote: I loved how they slowed down the action and turned off the sound here. Might have been too schmaltzy earlier, but since the battle was ending, it worked well for an emotional tie-in.)

It’s an interesting juxtaposition to Sam and Gilly at this time. Gilly presents Sam with a choice similar to what “the cave” represented to Jon and Ygritte—stay here where you matter as a person and can live, not where you have to die as a random soldier for a cause. For the moment, Sam seems to be enjoying—if that’s the right term for his Night’s Watch service—both worlds. But can it last? (Sidenotes—he and Gilly actually didn’t play any part in this battle, since they still weren’t back yet. Also, in the books Aemon was nowhere near so close to becoming king in his former life. Certainly makes for more compelling backstory, though.)

Speaking of people who weren’t there yet—Thorne and Slynt! (Also Tormund, technically, but on the show he’s now our most identifiable non-Mance wildling. :P) They arrive near the end here, have Jon briefly imprisoned for “deserting the Watch” in season three, and then they send him to treat with Mance as a suicide mission, basically. It wasn’t really Jon’s choice. I enjoyed Thorne here, though, in this setting where he sets aside his own assholery, if just briefly, for the greater cause. I was even rooting for him against Tormund; though the wildling is the more gregarious individual, this battle is showcased predominately through members of the Watch.

There’s a lot of action here that I barely even touched upon—the giant’s arrows, one of which pierced a guy through the chest, sent him catapulting through an awning and down several stories to his death, the oil barrels filled with ice and then set on fire, more stunt coordination than I could ever handle. Apparently Kit is so gifted at his action scenes now that the crew assumed his stunts had been sped up…not the case. :P The book is kind of more boring, in that nobody tries to scale the Wall, and the Night’s Watch is basically just using bows and arrows, some barrels filled with ice, but no big scythe. There’s still a giant attack, and a secondary character who basically has Grenn’s sacrifice. Styr dies when some steps collapse in fire and ice. Jon does act as informal commander for a time, since very few fighting men are actually at the Wall (Ghost and even Edd aren’t there either), and the siege lasts a bit longer before Slynt and Thorne imprison him, then send him to Mance.

My main quibbles have to do with the treatment of women, surprise surprise. :P Nothing too big, just a little disappointing. Ygritte wasn’t supposed to be the only woman warrior among the free folk, though she was depicted as such. Although leaning more heavily towards men, there should have been some other female warriors. This episode in general was very binary when it came to male and female roles. Presumably, no one would expect Gilly, untrained in battle and the mother of an infant, to stand and fight, but Slynt, after blathering on like a coward and idiot, was obviously meant to look weak by choosing to hide with her. Like with Joffrey in the Blackwater, I’m annoyed by this comedic-intended conflation of cruelty and cowardice. Meh, I just wish there had been a little more nuance beyond men being warriors, women being mothers underground, and Ygritte being the special snowflake exception. But these are pretty small potatoes.