Directed by: David Petrarca
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Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings,” “A Storm of Swords,” “A Feast for Crows,” “A Dance With Dragons,” and the as-yet unpublished “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.”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.
75/100
It’s the halfway mark of the season, and we know what that means… someone has to die. It was poor Jory Cassel (Jamie Sives) in “The Wolf and the Lion,” but the deceased in “The Ghost of Harrenhal” is far less sympathetic (or at least, he should have been): Renly Baratheon (Gethin Anthony), murdered by what appears to be a shadow.
Viewers, of course, know that this shadow is the same one that Melisandre (Carice van Houten) birthed in “Garden of Bones” (link) as part of her holy crusade to set the elder Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) on the throne of Westeros. Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) and Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie), the only two witnesses to this assassination, are not blessed with the same knowledge as the audience and therefore must flee Renly’s camp before his retinue begins to suspect the two of them.
But Renly’s death, despite all the annoyingly illiterate efforts of the show to paint him as the best candidate for the Iron Throne and an all around decent guy, feels more lightweight than Jory’s death, despite Renly having far more screentime. Perhaps the reason for this lies in the structure of both this episode and the previous one (link): at the end of episode four, we knew something sinister was afoot, and that it involved Renly. “The Ghost of Harrenhal” solves that mystery within its first five minutes, and in quite casual fashion, too. Jory’s death, on the other hand, comes at the end of a tension-filled hour and serves as the episode’s climax; furthermore, we didn’t go into that episode thinking, “Oh, man, I bet Jory’s going to bite it.”
Now, in fairness, season two has far more plot threads to juggle at this point than season one did, and Renly’s death would present a kink no matter how you slice it—place it at the end of the previous episode, and Melisandre’s strange pregnancy loses its effect; place it at the beginning of this one, and it feels rushed. (My personal vote would have been to put it after the birth scene and really lean into the horror and eeriness of it all, then have this episode open with Cat and Brienne rushing to escape. And, as an added bonus, in order to fit an hour runtime, I could have cut that nonsense with the sex workers! A win all around.)
Plus, with Renly—ostensibly the biggest threat to everyone else in the War of the Five Kings with his enormous army—out of the way, the show can now build to its true climax this season: Blackwater. The speed and skill at which “Thrones” works towards the Battle of Blackwater Bay is truly a sight to behold, and it will all come together beautifully in episode nine, so most issues I have with Renly’s death are at least tempered by that. To some extent, setup will always be clunky; in this case, the payoff makes it worth it. (Though, of course, this does not absolve “Thrones” of its many, many other sins.)
Other than Renly’s death, three key plot developments occur in this episode whose full effects will not be felt until four episodes from now. The first of these is the wooing of House Tyrell by Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen), which is entirely offpage in the books. Indeed, Littlefinger does not even arrive in the Tyrell camp until after Renly’s death, but timelines must be crunched to arrive at Blackwater properly, though I suspect this decision was largely to ensure that Gillen and Michelle Fairley could share the screen as they did last episode (link). Gillen gets another scene to chew on here as he approaches Margaery (Natalie Dormer), who has donned the ugliest dress ever known to mankind, and her brother Loras (Finn Jones) with the proposal of an alliance. (I guess the actual Lord of Highgarden couldn’t be bothered and trusted his very young children to do all the negotiating since Mace (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) won’t be cast until season four. Sure. Whatever.)
This alliance will get Margaery what she wants—as she famously declares, “I want to be the queen”—and save the day for the Lannisters at King’s Landing when Loras comes riding in to drive Stannis back. More importantly, it allows us to admire Dormer and Gillen sniping at each other in most polite fashion, which is one of the more enjoyable aspects of “Thrones.”
It’s not just the Tyrells that will prevent Stannis from taking King’s Landing, however. Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) has some tricks up his sleeve—or rather, he stumbles upon some tricks that happen to save his ass later on. Cersei (Lena Headey) has been doing her best to be Hand of the King behind Tyrion’s back, including looking into the mysterious wildfire that lurks in jars beneath the city. When Tyrion finds this out, he goes to visit Pyromancer Hyllane (Roy Dotrice, narrator of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” audiobooks and now sadly deceased) and learn about wildfire himself, though not before running across a man in the streets preaching against the Lannisters and calling Tyrion a “demon monkey man,” which will surely have no consequences.
Both books and show must do a balancing act here: the audience must understand wildfire and its potency, they must know that Tyrion has plans for it, and yet the surprise of its full impact upon the Blackwater must not be given away too early. So we see only Tyrion looking down rows upon rows of bottled wildfire, as fascinated as he is horrified, and we are left to wonder.
The victims of that wildfire will be led by Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham), who is appointed captain of Stannis’s fleet in this episode. In the books it is Ser Imry Florent, Stannis’ brother-in-law, who leads the fleet, but his absence is no great loss. With Davos, who quickly has established himself as one of the few characters in “Thrones” with an unerring moral compass, in charge, the stakes become more personal. (Davos, of course, is still present at Blackwater in the books, but does not lead the charge.)
And so the pieces begin to come together for one of the greatest episodes in the entire series. Ostensibly the only thing directly connected to Blackwater for first-time viewers is Stannis naming Davos as his commander, but upon rewatch, the Tyrell alliance and the wildfire plot are just as crucial—perhaps even more so—to the success of the battle. Yet none of this feels laborious or forced. The dominoes are aligned so perfectly that we won’t even know they are there until they all topple.
The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about some of the other plots in “The Ghost of Harrenhal.” Those aforementioned storylines all work towards one cohesive end goal, but they are just a small portion of a much bigger episode, and the other plots are not as lucky. Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), in particular, find themselves saddled with the dullest and most separate plots of the season, made even duller in comparison to Martin’s work.
Let’s start with Jon, who has continued to rely on Harington’s good looks to make up for his lack of personality. As the Night’s Watch continues their Great Ranging, they arrive at the Fist of the First Men and meet up with Qhorin Halfhand (Simon Armstrong), who shows up to lead a scouting party. Jon mopes about and whines and wheedles his way into Qhorin’s scouting party by being annoying, whereas Qhorin immediately chooses Jon of his own accord in the books. A minor change, but one that continues to paint Jon as more incompetent than he should be.
The bigger offender here is Dany, whose storyline in Qarth is really quite abysmal. The city itself looks dull, small, and uninteresting in a way that even the earlier seasons’ smaller budgets cannot account for, especially considering its written description:
All the colors that had been missing from Vaes Tolorro had found their way to Qarth; buildings crowded about her fantastical as a fever dream in shades of rose, violet, and umber. She passed under a bronze arch fashioned in the likeness of two snakes mating, their scales delicate flakes of jade, obsidian, and lapis lazuli. Slim towers stood taller than any Dany had ever seen, and elaborate fountains filled every square, wrought in the shapes of griffins and dragons and manticores. (Daenerys II, “ACOK”)
Once again, the show shoots itself in the foot in an effort to downplay the fantasy aspects of… the fantasy book series that it is adapting. Qarth is all the same sandy shade of orange, its denizens limited to the Warlocks of Qarth and Xaro Xoan Dhaxos (Nonso Alonzie), and the invented drama—both between Irri (Amrita Acharia) and Doreah (Roxanne McKee) and the nonsense involving Xaro Xoan Dhaxos’ “Valyrian stone” vault, which does not exist in the books—feels more at place on a CW show than an HBO drama.
Admittedly, Dany’s Qarth plotline in “A Clash of Kings” is certainly weaker than her arc in “A Game of Thrones” or “A Storm of Swords.” Still, it at least has color to it, and the politicking in her five “A Clash of Kings” chapters proves more interesting than… uh… standing around at a garden party. (Not to mention that the show continues to play on the whole “Dothraki savages” bit when Dany says, “My brother used to say the only thing the Dothraki knew how to do was steal things better men build,” and Jorah replies, “That’s not the only thing. They’re quite good at killing the better men.” This all without any introspection on Dany’s part despite her insistence on being called a khaleesi, her wearing Dothraki-inspired outfits in Qarth, etc. Martin may not be at his best when writing the Dothraki, but surely the show doesn’t have to actively portray them more offensively.)
There is, at least, one great plot this episode that does not involve Blackwater, and it belongs to the titular ghost of Harrenhal: Arya (Maisie Williams). Though her chats with Tywin (Charles Dance) strain belief, as I have said before (link), there is no denying the earlier scenes between the two of them are among the best in the show. Arya calmly telling Tywin that “anyone can be killed” feels as rich a scene as Sansa (Sophie Turner) contemplating whether or not to shove Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) off a parapet in season one, and it’s good to see the sisters—so often at odds with each other—given this parallel. It is also one hell of a feat that Williams, just a teenager at the time, holds her own against Dance, one of the titans of the industry.
Harrenhal also feels alive in a way that Qarth does not. There is constant movement and background activity in the castle; even when Arya pulls Jaqen H’gar (Tom Wlaschiha) aside to have a private conversation, we can see guards, servants, and even chickens coming and going in the background. There is a richness to the setting that will not be found anywhere in later seasons, and even this early on is still lacking in other locations.
And yes, of course, it’s very satisfying to hear Arya name the Tickler (Anthony Morris) to Jaqen and then to watch as he keels over and dies. For all my griping about the show’s positive depiction of revenge and violence, I am not above some catharsis like this, and it serves as a welcome distraction from a certain other plotline. (Qarth. I’m talking about Qarth.)
Stray Observations:
- This will get its own section in a future episode this season, but Brienne casually killing some of Renly’s guard here is very disheartening. So much of her character depends on her innocence; in fact, in the books, she doesn’t kill anyone until “A Feast for Crows,” where it is heartbreaking. Once again, “Thrones” goes for “le epic” fights and “badass” moments instead of interior character work. I’m shocked.
- Not really sure what they are doing with Loras in this episode. Like, okay, he’s sad his boyfriend died, yes. But his sadness is boring when compared to Loras killing Renly’s guards in a blind fit of rage at his death and fully believing that Brienne killed Renly until Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) disabuses him of that notion much later. Loras just sitting there and mumbling about how he doesn’t believe Brienne killed Renly is so uninteresting compared to the source material.
- Theon’s (Alfie Allen) plot is also unrelated to Blackwater, as are the goings-on at Winterfell with Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), but both of these are more interesting than Jon and Dany’s snoozefests, so they feel less out of place.
- Tyrion tells Lancel (Eugene Simon) that Jaime would kill Lancel if he found out that Lancel and Cersei were sleeping together. This seems like foreshadowing of what Tyrion will say at the Tysha reveal, except, oh no, that doesn’t happen.
- I’m actually quite surprised the show didn’t opt for book-accurate Qartheen gowns, which leave one breast exposed. It’s a shocking show of restraint!
- Arya claims that her mother was a servant for House Dustin. When I am rich and famous, one day I will fund an accurate “Thrones” show that includes all of Theon’s “A Dance with Dragons” plotline in its full glory, most especially his interactions with Barbrey Dustin.
Episode Ranking:
- “What Is Dead May Never Die”
- “The North Remembers”
- “The Ghost of Harrenhal”
- “The Night Lands”
- “Garden of Bones”
“Game of Thrones” Season Two Trailer
You can follow more of Anna’s work on Letterboxd, Twitter, or Instagram, or her website.
