Directed by: Alan Taylor
Distributed by: HBO
Written by Anna Harrison
Overview
In these retrospectives, I will be looking back on “Game of Thrones” through my viewpoint as a fanatical fan of George R. R. Martin’s original book series, “A Song of Ice and Fire.” Mostly, I suspect this will be an exercise in venting my frustration about the adaptation of the books and pointing out where things went wrong in my mind—and I have a lot to work out.
For ease of reference, the show “Game of Thrones” can be abbreviated as “GOT” or “Thrones,” and the books in “A Song of Ice and Fire” can be abbreviated as “ASOIAF.”
The books in the series are “A Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings,” “A Storm of Swords,” “A Feast for Crows,” “A Dance With Dragons,” and the as-yet unpublished “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.” These can be abbreviated as “AGOT,” “ACOK,” “ASOS,” “AFFC,” “ADWD,” “TWOW,” and “ADOS.”
Chapters within the book will be referred to by their point-of-view character and a Roman numeral indicating what chapter within the POV it is (ex., Catelyn I, Jaime II, Arya III, and so on), as Martin does not number his chapters nor name them besides indicating whose POV we are about to enter.
85/100
You just had to be there.
At least, that’s probably what the original “Game of Thrones” watchers think about episode nine, “Baelor.” I wouldn’t know, as I was still in middle school when the episode aired—and yet, preteen as I was and even before the rampant use of social media, I still heard about Ned Stark (Sean Bean) getting his head loped off. It was just one of those things that became so ubiquitous that I cannot recall how I learned this tidbit; rather, the knowledge of Ned’s demise seemed to spring into my head fully-formed. “Baelor” put “Game of Thrones” on the cultural map, and for better or worse, it was there to stay.
But even before Ned’s head bounces down the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, this episode shows a confidence in both style and substance that the previous have only dreamed of; from the first moment that Varys’s (Conleth Hill) torch flickers in the dungeons of the Red Keep, “Baelor” oozes beauty, even amongst—perhaps especially amongst—all the death and violence it ushers forth. Varys has come to offer Ned a path forward, a faint lick of flame that could guide him towards salvation if only he will take it: repent, proclaim Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) as the rightful heir, and Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) will send him to the Wall for the rest of his days. At first, Ned scoffs at this, saying, “I grew up with soldiers. I learned how to die a long time ago.” But when Varys reminds Ned that the lives of his daughters hang in the balance, the sentiment shifts—and then we cut.
That is the last we see of Ned Stark until he appears later at the sept, where he will die. It’s a bold move, given that he has been the erstwhile protagonist thus far; we do not get even a glimpse of how he goes from willing to die for the sake of truth and righteousness to lying about Joffrey’s parentage in the sight of the gods and men. Instead, we observe the other characters as they scurry around blindly, prepare for whatever comes next, and feel the temperature rise as war begins to splinter the realm. We are all crabs in a pot of water beginning to boil.
Lord Walder Frey (David Bradley), however, is determined to remain unboiled. As the head of House Frey, he controls the Twins and thus controls who crosses the Green Fork, the river that separates Robb Stark (Richard Madden) from his mother’s ancestral home of Riverrun, which is currently besieged by Lannister forces—namely Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). In a deft bit of political maneuvering, Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) negotiates a price for Lord Frey’s involvement in what will soon be known as the War of the Five Kings: in exchange for allowing the Starks and their bannermen to cross the river, Catelyn betrothes Arya (Maisie Williams) to one of Lord Walder’s sons, and Robb to one of his daughters. This will, of course, result in happy marriages for the both of them and no future problems.
This scene is largely lifted straight off the page with a few exceptions: Cat gets to flaunt her political mind, Walder and his countless children behave poorly, and it tees the Starks up for failure down the road as Robb—inevitably—breaks his marriage pact. Our brief time at the Twins also serves as an excuse for David Bradley to chew scenery, which is always appreciated.
On the other side of the war, Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) has been coasting through on superior numbers and the bannermen he has cowed into submission, no marriage pacts required. He’s been sacking the smallfolk in the riverlands who can’t fight back, sipping wine, and now, putting his son Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) in the vanguard of his army, despite Tyrion’s physical disadvantage. This again proves Tywin’s short-sightedness: he has no male heir other than Tyrion, seeing as Jaime is a part of the Kingsguard and cannot hold land. What was Tywin’s plan should Tyrion fall in the battle? Strongarm Jaime into leaving the Kingsguard to rule Casterly Rock? Let it fall to his brother Kevan (Ian Gelder) and nephew Lancel (Eugene Simon)? Instead of cultivating strong relationships with his children, Tywin leaves them to rot and only intervenes when it suits his purpose, ultimately sealing both his own doom and that of his house—all further proof that he is not a genius tactical mind, as many believe.
But before Tyrion goes to do battle, he has one night for himself, and, being a man, wants to spend it having sex. Thus we meet Shae (Sibel Kekilli), a sex worker whom Bronn (Jerome Flynn) found and brought back for Tyrion’s pleasure. Shae is one of the few characters that even George R. R. Martin himself has admitted he prefers over his book version; Kekilli, even in her first appearance here, manages to add layers to Shae that do not exist in her book counterpart, who is transparently interested in the finer things in life over Tyrion. Kekilli is so good that the show will have to work overtime to justify her later betrayal of Tyrion, but for now, she is a welcome addition to the cast.
The merry trio gets to drinking—a show-only scene—and, as the saying goes, in vino veritas. Thus we learn about Tysha. Tysha, Tysha, Tysha. The story goes that Tyrion and Jaime found a girl named Tysha on the run from brigands, and after they heroically saved her, she and Tyrion fell in love and were married. When Tywin finds out, he has Tysha raped by his guards and forces Jaime to tell Tyrion the truth: that Tysha was only a prostitute who never loved Tyrion, only his gold. According to the show, that is the end of the sorry tale.
Book readers, of course, will know that Tysha continues to haunt Tyrion long after this scene. When Jaime frees Tyrion from his cell in King’s Landing (after his arrest for Joffrey’s murder), he lets slip the actual truth: that Tysha was not a prostitute, that she did love Tyrion, and that Jaime lied at the behest of his father. This, more than anything, is what spurs Tyrion to put a crossbow bolt in Tywin’s crotch.
The show entirely omits this vital bit of information and the darker path it sends Tyrion on, thus leaving him to spin his wheels and only ever occasionally mouth off pithy sayings after season four. This decision is made all the more confusing by the weight given to the Tysha reveal here and her subsequent mentions in the next few seasons—showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss clearly set up Tysha’s story in this episode, perfectly priming viewers (and Tyrion) for the rug pull later on, only to drop the ball entirely. Perhaps it was part of their effort to streamline as plots branched out, but it is obvious that omitting Tysha was not the initial plan. A shame, really, given how great Dinklage is, but at least he gets this scene to sink his teeth into. What could have been…
The next morning, the battle starts, only Tyrion does not lead the vanguard; in a nod to “The Hobbit,” he gets accidentally knocked out before the fighting starts and wakes up once the battle has already been won. This marks a wide departure from “AGOT,” which follows Tyrion as he fights and manages to survive the Battle on the Green Fork. It’s a decision likely made for budgetary reasons, but one that—in my opinion—works better than Martin’s depiction of Tyrion as a semi-competent (if very lucky) warrior, which stretches suspension of disbelief to its breaking point. (See? I can be complimentary of the show.)
The Lannisters and co. coast to an easy victory at the Green Fork, which might spell doom for the Starks and the North were that not exactly what Robb had planned. Tywin, being the loser that he is, gets tricked by Robb and the other northern men, focusing all his attention on the Green Fork while Robb’s main host slips away to lift the siege of Riverrun. And lift the siege he does at the Battle of the Whispering Wood, another battle not shown onscreen, but this time, that decision comes straight from the books.
As Robb is not a point of view character in “A Song of Ice and Fire,” all we know of him gets filtered through Catelyn; she does not go into battle by his side, but must sit and wait. Martin has likened her to King Arthur’s mother. “Nobody wants to hear about King Arthur’s mother and what she thought or what she was doing, so they get her off the stage, [but] I wanted [to]. And that’s Catelyn.”
She was no stranger to waiting, after all. Her men had always made her wait. “Watch for me, little Cat,” her father would always tell her, when he rode off to court or fair or battle. And she would, standing patiently on the battlements of Riverrun as the waters of the Red Fork and the Tumblestone flowed by. He did not always come when he said he would, and days would ofttimes pass as Catelyn stood her vigil, peering out between crenels and through arrow loops until she caught a glimpse of Lord Hoster on his old brown gelding, trotting along the rivershore toward the landing. “Did you watch for me?” he’d ask when he bent to bug her. “Did you, little cat?”
Brandon Stark had bid her wait as well. “I shall not be long, my lady,” he had vowed. “We will be wed on my return.” Yet when the day came at last, it was his brother Eddard who stood beside her in the sept.
Ned had lingered scarcely a fortnight with his new bride before he too had ridden off to war with promises on his lips. At least he had left her with more than words; he had given her a son…
And now it was for Robb that she waited… for Robb, and for Jaime Lannister, the gilded knight who men said had never learned to wait at all. (Catelyn X, “AGOT”)
Her internal monologue, of course, cannot appear in the show, but is worth sharing nonetheless for its beauty and heartbreak: “Let him [Robb] grow taller, she asked the gods. Let him know sixteen, and twenty, and fifty. Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own son in his arms. Please, please, please. As she watched him, this tall young man with the new beard and the direwolf prowling at his heels, all she could see was the babe they had laid at her breast at Riverrun, so long ago” (Catelyn X, “AGOT”).
Perhaps Benioff and Weiss could have devised a scene where Cat discusses her fears with Ser Rodrik (Ron Donachie), but almost nothing could match the beauty of her innermost thoughts during this battle and the atmosphere which Martin so expertly crafts. The show can use editing and other tricks of the trade to add what books cannot; likewise, the books allow us to delve into our characters’ minds more deeply in a way that film simply cannot match. Thus there are some scenes that the show cannot capture entirely, but there are also elements that it can add that the written word lacks inherently—neither is better than the other. There are characters, like Cat, whose internal lives are richer than the show or even the immensely talented Michelle Fairley can convey, but that is simply the way the cookie crumbles. The issues come when the show misunderstands the text they are trying to adapt, but this is not one of those cases, merely a difference in medium.
Meanwhile, at the Wall, Jon (Kit Harington), is also stuck waiting as he watches for ravens bringing word of his brother’s war on the Lannisters. It’s clearly wearing on him—despite Lord Commander Mormont’s (James Cosmo) gift of his Valyrian sword, Longclaw—to the point that old Maester Aemon (Peter Vaughan) takes him aside to impart his words of wisdom, and to reveal his true heritage: he’s a Targaryen.
The show does a little fudging of the timelines here; in the books, Aemon is the great-uncle of the Mad King Aerys, not his uncle as he is in the show’s timeline. Given that the show aged up all its main characters, this was likely a necessary choice to keep the timelines somewhat sensible—besides, who cares about Jaehaerys II? (Sorry to any Jaehaerys II lovers.) Whether or not this will affect the spinoff “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” remains to be seen.
But Aemon does not bring up his lineage just to impress Jon with his bloodline. Rather, he does so to empathize, for he too knows what it’s like to sit on the sidelines and wait as your family marches to war. “What is honor compared to a woman’s love? And what is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms or a brother’s smile?” he posits to Jon. Aemon could have been a king, and yet he went to the Wall to avoid being used in any plots against his brother, Aegon (also known as Egg), who was crowned as King Aegon V. Jon, who had previously been convinced—in the way that only young people can be—that his problems were unique and no one had ever faced them before, sobers up upon this realization. Vaughan brings a terrible weight of melancholy to Aemon, making this reveal less of a “gotcha” and more of a moment of mourning as we realize what honor and duty have cost Aemon.
It will be even harder for Jon to keep to his vows once he gets word of what happens to his father at the end of the episode. Ned’s beheading is not a rug pull, per se; the writing is on the wall, but you can’t help but think, Well, he’s the protagonist and the good guy, surely they won’t kill him! It’s hard not to search for a way out—after all, it seems likely that he could live and merely be sent to the Wall. Cersei is vindictive and cruel, but she’s not unreasonable, surely. Killing Ned as his son marches south with an army would be a bad call, right?
It would be, but unfortunately for Ned, the throne has fallen to Joffrey, and Joffrey is, to put it mildly, a bastard, both literally and figuratively. He does not operate on political logic, nor does he listen to his mother or the pleas of Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner). Instead, he destabilizes his entire realm with just a few words: “Ser Ilyn, bring me his head.” With the swing of Ilyn Payne’s (Wilko Johnson) sword, Joffrey upends not only the politics of Westeros but our television screens, establishing that no one is safe in “Game of Thrones,” not even Sean Bean. It’s a maxim that will later come to hobble the show as it tries to continuously top itself with more and more shocking deaths, but in “Baelor,” it’s nothing short of a gut punch. Where could we possibly go from here?
Stray Observations:
- Meanwhile in Essos, Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) is doing anything she can to prevent Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) from dying of an infected wound, including dark magic. This is what we call Stockholm syndrome, and it surely will have no consequences.
- Tyrion is forced by his father to participate in the gang rape of Tysha in the books. He’s also only thirteen when they marry. Tywin is a very evil man.
- In the books, Yoren (Francis Magee) only happens upon Arya (Maisie Williams) at Ned’s execution. The show makes a clever choice here by having Ned surreptitiously tell Yoren where Arya was hiding in order to ensure her protection.
- Jon claims that his father would do the honorable thing, no matter what… meanwhile, Ned has compromised his honor to save his family. Oh, my heart.
- It’s easy to forget how Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is offscreen for much of season one and two. He gets captured by the Starks in this episode and, with the exception of a stellar scene next episode, largely sits around until Cat releases him much later.
- Olyvar Frey gets mentioned here but never appears in the show. He’s one of the few “good Freys” and is loyal to Robb until the end (and he’s still alive in the books). Unmentioned are the two Freys who go to foster at Winterfell in the books, nicknamed Big Walder and Little Walder, who become important in the complex Winterfell plot in “A Dance With Dragons.”
- Let’s just ignore how Aemon’s line that “love is the death of duty” gets used in season eight, shall we?
- Varys saying that Stannis “is utterly without mercy” reminds me of this great moment from a Cat chapter in “ACOK” when she meets with Stannis: “‘I am not without mercy,’” thundered he who was notoriously without mercy” (Catelyn III, “ACOK”).
Episode Ranking:
- “Baelor”
- “The Pointy End”
- “A Golden Crown”
- “The Wolf and the Lion”
- “The Kingsroad”
- “Lord Snow”
- “Winter Is Coming”
- “You Win or You Die”
- “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things”
“Game of Thrones” Season One Trailer
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