Game of Thrones Retrospective: The Old Gods and the New (Season Two, Episode Six)

Directed by: David Nutter
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Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings,” “A Storm of Swords,” “A Feast for Crows,” “A Dance With Dragons,” and the as-yet unpublished “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.”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.

70/100

As season two of “Game of Thrones” clips along towards its climax, it has become increasingly divided. On the one hand, the show has steadily become more confident in both its plotting and characters, and the introduction of newcomers like Stannis (Stephen Dillane) and Margaery (Natalie Dormer) has only elevated the storylines; on the other hand, there is Qarth. In “The Old Gods and the New” (and its predecessor), that divide widens, and the gulf in quality between, say, the riot in King’s Landing and the indulgent romance between Robb Stark (Richard Madden) and Talisa Maegyr (Oona Chaplin) becomes that much more apparent. 

The quality of scenes can largely be determined by location. The good: King’s Landing, Harrenhal, Winterfell, Dragonstone. The mediocre (or at least unreliable): the Starks’ war camp, north of the Wall. The bad: Qarth, Qarth, and Qarth again. So, at the very least, it’s easy to predict whether or not a scene will be decent; luckily, much of this episode takes place at King’s Landing, where the War of the Five Kings—while not yet reaching the walls of the capital—has pushed the city to its limit.

At least Myrcella Baratheon (Aimée Richardson) is getting out. She’s off to Dorne, the victim of Tyrion’s (Peter Dinklage) machinations as Hand of the King, much to the vitriol of Cersei (Lena Headey). “Thrones” launches into the stratosphere any time Dinklage and Headey share the screen, and this scene, though brief, is no exception. It seems to inspire the writing as well, as Vanessa Taylor redeems herself from the atrocious “Garden of Bones” with Cersei’s promise to Tyrion: “One day I pray you love someone. I pray you love her so much, when you close your eyes, you see her face. I want that for you. I want you to know what it’s like to love someone, to truly love someone. Before I take her from you.” Frankly, Headey and Dinklage could be spewing nonsense and it would have been compelling, and both certainly will do so before their time on the show is up. (Special shoutout to Jack Gleeson in this scene, whose line delivery of, “Not really relevant, then, is it?” belongs in some sort of hall of fame.)

It’s a good thing Myrcella leaves when she does, considering that a riot breaks out when the party begins their return to the Red Keep. This riot has been brewing throughout the entire season, and it is the perfect shocking event: it is both surprising and not surprising at all. Looking back, the seeds have been sown in the last few episodes, and yet it happens with such alacrity and violence that the viewer cannot help but be appalled. It starts with a glob of shit lobbed at Joffrey’s (Gleeson) face and devolves quickly into a wild mob intent on ripping any nobleman or noblewoman they find to shreds.

This includes poor Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), who is dragged into a building and nearly raped. The almost-rape of Sansa is taken from the books, and she is even younger when it happens. That is all well and good, but in the show, her breasts are inches away from being entirely exposed and front and center in multiple shots, despite Turner being only sixteen at the time. The prominence of her breasts as a gang of men tear at Sansa’s clothes is—given the track record of “Thrones” and its habit of making the abuse of women more for titillation than storytelling purposes—rather unpleasant, and unpleasant not because it is horrible to watch a child be assaulted like this, but unpleasant because I simply cannot imagine that there was any thought process behind this other than, “Let’s show our audience some tits,” regardless of how old the actress may be at the time. 

The scene in the book is shown through Tyrion’s point of view and we never witness the attempted rape, we only see Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann) return to the Red Keep with Sansa slung over his shoulder. Whether or not this would be equally as affecting on screen as seeing poor Sansa scream and cry is debatable (and Turner is certainly excellent in the scene), but what is not debatable is that there was a way to film that scene that did not linger on her breasts. The scene is horrifying enough without the sexualization of a teenage girl.

Needless to say, when Sandor finally stepped in and saved the day, I was relieved on multiple levels. It’s also a major step forward for the Hound as he inches towards becoming sympathetic rather than a plain old monster, especially when he tells Tyrion, “I didn’t do it [save Sansa] for you.” (More SanSan discourse later.) But it is still immensely frustrating that even when operating at such a high level—for the rest of the riot is wonderfully full of tension—the show still falls prey to its baser impulses. 

And, on a less important note, the golden Kingsguard armor as its wearers move to protect Joffrey nearly blends into the yellows and reds of King’s Landing. You know what would have prevented that? Proper white Kingsguard armor, which looked so incredible in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” But alas, it was “too much, and too hard to film” according to costume designer Michele Clapton. 

Just as we cannot tell the Kingsguard from the City Watch, over in Winterfell, Theon Greyjoy’s (Alfie Allen) men are nigh on indistinguishable from the denizens of Winterfell. Colors? Contrast? I don’t know her.

Theon and his ironborn have seized the Starks’ ancestral home, bravely triumphing over a crippled child and the old men left to defend the land while Robb (Richard Madden) wages war. It is a despicable act, one made more despicable by how pathetic Theon looks. “I’ve taken Winterfell,” he proclaims. “I took it. I am occupying it.” Everyone—including Theon—knows he cannot hold this position for long, which is why he spends so much of his time posturing. But this posturing and peacocking has consequences; when Theon feels he is backed into a corner, he executes Ser Rodrik Cassel (Ron Donachie) to gain respect and prove he won’t suffer any backtalk. But the execution cannot help but draw unfavorable parallels to Ned Stark (Sean Bean), who so swiftly loped off a man’s head in the very first episode—Theon cannot even give Rodrik a clean death. Instead, he resorts to hacking at the man’s neck and, eventually, kicking the head off. 

Rodrik dies much later on in “A Clash of Kings” at the hands of Ramsay Snow (Iwan Rheon), but I cannot fault David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for moving his death up. Donachie and especially Alfie Allen give wonderful performances that sell the tragedy of this situation, not just for Rodrik but for Theon as well, who is hopelessly lost. The rain pours and the music soars as we watch Theon kill not only his old master-at-arms, but also any hope of getting out of the mess he’s made for himself.

Much of Theon’s arc in season two has been greatly condensed from the book, which sees Theon raid the Stony Shore before deciding he will take Winterfell and introduces Ramsay much earlier on. Dagmer Cleftjaw (Ralph Ineson, wasted) has been downgraded from an old mentor figure missing half his mouth to just some guy with a small scar. Jojen and Meera Reed (Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Ellie Kendrick) are nowhere to be found, though they are present when Theon seizes Winterfell in the books. Most importantly, Theon’s horse, Smiler, does not exist, which is a shame—but, for the most part, these changes are a fine way to cut down on what might be perceived as bloat in a television show.

Alas, some bloat still remains, just not in Winterfell. You guessed it: Qarth.

Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) only has five chapters in “ACOK,” halved from her ten in “A Game of Thrones.” As one of the breakout characters of last season, it would have been hard and perhaps contractually impossible to leave Clarke out of half of the episodes, but my god, surely there was something better than this? The contrived existence of the Spice King (Nicholas Blane, who really hams up his scenes—and I say that as a compliment), whatever the hell Xaro Xoan Dhaxos’ vault is, the lack of any sort of variety in color or landscape, and now, Dany’s dragons getting stolen all make me want to throw something at my television screen.

No dragons get stolen in “ACOK.” Yes, presumably Benioff and Weiss needed extra material to pad Dany’s storyline, but why not expand upon existing material? What about the Tourmaline Brotherhood, the Pureborn? Why not have Dany explore the wonders of Qarth and actually make Qarth full of those wonders? This early on in a show, the world should still be expanding. Why narrow it? Why take away when you could add? 

Then again, new additions are not always a good thing. Talisa Maegyr (Oona Chaplin) is a noble from Volantis who is now “not-like-other-girls”ing her way across the ravaged battlefields of Westeros? Give me a break. Were Benioff and Weiss browsing Tumblr in the 2010s to see what kind of self-inserts teenage girls were dreaming of? A Volantene noble? Be for real! It’s actually annoying me so much that I need to stop writing or I will start twitching. Episode eight, though, mark my words…

Stray Observations:

• Another episode, another scene where the writers make Jon Snow (Kit Harington) an idiot. We meet Ygritte (Rose Leslie), a wildling who is captured by the Night’s Watch. In the books, Jon is tasked with dealing with Ygritte; he chooses to let her go. Qhorin Halfhand (Simon Armstrong) passes no moral judgment on this, as he wanted to see how Jon would react so he could get to know Lord Snow a bit better. In the snow, Ygritte scampers off, Jon races after her like a fool and the two get lost and are forced to have a little romcom moment of snuggling for warmth. What the hell? Does Jon do anything this season that isn’t utterly idiotic? Can he do a single thing for himself?
• Qhorin has a great show-only monologue this episode. “I don’t want you to be glad about it [dying for the Night’s Watch]. I want to curse and fight until your heart’s done pumping. Know this, boy: your death will be a gift for them south of the Wall. They’ll never know what you’ve done, they’ll never know how you died, they won’t even know your damn name, but they’ll be alive because some nameless bastard north of the Wall laid his life for theirs. Now, do you understand me?” He then immediately undercuts this and says it doesn’t actually matter. Great.
• Bran asking, “Did you hate us the whole time?” to Theon is deeply upsetting to me.
• House Marbrand gets mentioned in Harrenhal (that’s a real house). So does House Dormand (that’s not a real house).
• Littlefinger’s (Aidan Gillen) brief sojourn to Harrenhal does not happen in the books, but whatever, it’s fun to see Gillen and Charles Dance together. It makes absolutely no geographic sense that Littlefinger would go from Storm’s End to Harrenhal to King’s Landing just in time for the Battle of the Blackwater, though.
• A victim of the King’s Landing riot not in the show is Tyrek Lannister, who has been missing since said riot. Perhaps he is squirreled away by Varys (Conleth Hill) for nefarious purposes. Or perhaps he is a horse.  
• So… is Tywin (Charles Dance) going to tell anyone what he did to his father as revenge for being so weak…? Or are we just going to take him at his word and believe what he did to Tytos Lannister was justified all because people laughed at him? Does the show remember he’s kind of evil, actually? 
• Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton) mentions his bastard in this episode. Wonder if that will be relevant.
• Amory Lorch (Fintan McKeown) lives for a while yet in the books before being fed to Harrenhal’s resident bear by the Bloody Mummers, who do not exist in the show but are pivotal to both Tywin’s and Roose’s times at Harrenhal and Brienne’s (Gwendoline Christie) “A Feast for Crows” plotline. The show-only character Locke (Noah Taylor) will stand in for the Mummers, specifically Vargo Hoat, next season. But Amory’s death scene here is pretty clever and fun, even if it’s a deviation.

Episode Ranking:

• “What Is Dead May Never Die”
• “The North Remembers”
• “The Ghost of Harrenhal”
• “The Night Lands”
• “The Old Gods and the New”
• “Garden of Bones”

“Game of Thrones” Season Two Trailer

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