Directed by: Daniel Minahan
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Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings,” “A Storm of Swords,” “A Feast for Crows,” “A Dance With Dragons,” and the as-yet unpublished “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.”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
We all (presumably) learned about dramatic structure in middle school: exposition, inciting incident, climax, falling action, and resolution. It’s why “Thrones” saves its most explosive moments for episode nine, after meticulous setup—at least in the early seasons—and it’s why the first several episodes of each season are somewhat less exciting to write home about. (Of course, this structure can get a little muddied when each book and season has to have its own climax whilst laying groundwork for future books and seasons, not to mention multiple inciting incidents across different plotlines.) “Dark Wings, Dark Words” is far from a bad episode, for what episode can be bad that has extended sequences of Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) bickering their way through beautiful countryside? But, given the way “Thrones” has structured itself, the first four or five episodes are well-made and exciting, but not full of the big moments that make me want to write paragraphs and paragraphs of text complaining that HBO didn’t hire me, all of fourteen years old when season three began airing, as showrunner.
With such an extended cast, “Valar Dohaeris” couldn’t reintroduce everyone, unless they wanted those reintroductions to be whittled down to miniscule scenes, so it falls to “Dark Wings, Dark Words” to reacquaint us to Bran (Isaace Hempstead-Wright), Jaime, Brienne, Theon (Alfie Allen), and Arya (Maisie Williams). This means much of this is still place setting for the rest of the season; we must be reminded of these characters’ wants and needs, flaws, and storylines.
For Bran, this also involves the introduction of Jojen (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and Meera Reed (Ellie Kendrick). Had season two followed “A Clash of Kings” more exactly, these two would have been present long before Theon took Winterfell, sent by their father, Howland Reed, after Jojen’s visions of winged wolves and a three-eyed crow. In fact, Jojen dreams of Theon capturing Winterfell (which gets given to Bran instead in the show), and he dreams of Bran as a king:
“You were sitting at supper, but instead of a servant, Maester Luwin brought you your food. He served you the king’s cut off the roast, the meat rare and bloody, but with a savory smell that made everyone’s mouth water. The meat he served the Freys was old and grey and dead. Yet they liked their supper better than you liked yours.”
Bran IV, A Clash of Kings
His abrupt appearance in Bran’s dreams this episode and subsequent appearance outside of said dreams are not bad, as far as introductions go; season three has an increased budget for new actors and new locations, plus a renewed trust that its audience can keep things straight in their mind, and hence we get Jojen, Meera, Ramsay (Iwan Rheon), and the entire cast of Riverrun this season, even though their book counterparts appear long before. Jojen and Meera appearing here helps give Bran something to do other than wander north, and thus I do not need to devote paragraphs and paragraphs of text complaining about this change (Riverrun, however, will be discussed very soon).
Still, even with the appearance of Jojen and Meera, the show does its damndest to strip Bran of anything interesting. “The raven brings the sight,” Jojen tells Bran. (I guess I should also let everyone know that in the books, it’s a three-eyed crow—as Brynden Rivers was a member of the Night’s Watch—but in the show it’s a three-eyed raven—as Brynden Rivers was nicknamed Bloodraven, so there is some understandable confusion.) But what sights have we seen with Bran? We have only wandered through gray-green forests that all look the same, and sometimes there is also a raven there. But it’s not even the show’s aversion to magic that hamstrings them here, it is also the omission of the Knight of the Laughing Tree story.
As Bran, Jojen, Meera, and the rest travel along, Meera begins to tell a tale passed down by her father, Howland Reed. It is a tale about the tourney of Harrenhal, the fabled tourney where the Mad King admitted Jaime into his Kingsguard to spite Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance), Ned Stark (Sean Bean) fell in love with Ashara Dayne (not even mentioned in the show), and Rhaegar Targaryen crowned Lyanna Stark the Queen of Love and Beauty. In short—as we are talking of dramatic structure—it is one of the inciting incidents for Robert’s Rebellion.
Given that Bran is still a child, Meera couches this story in fairytale language. She speaks of a little crannogman, likely her father; she speaks of a she-wolf without a name who defends this little crannogman from some nasty squires who wanted to attack him; and more:
“Under Harren’s roof he ate and drank with the wolves [House Stark], and many of their sworn swords besides, barrowdownmen [House Dustin] and moose [House Hornwood] and bears [House Mormont] and mermen [House Manderly]. The dragon prince [Rhaegar] sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid [Lyanna] sniffle, but when her pup brother [Benjen Stark] teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. A black brother spoke, asking the knights to join the Night’s Watch. The storm lord [Robert Baratheon] drank down the knight of skulls and kisses [Richard Lonmouth] in a wine-cup war. The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes [Ashara] dance with a white sword [Barristan Selmy], a red snake [Oberyn Martell], and the lord of griffins [Jon Connington], and lastly with the quiet wolf [Ned Stark]… but only after the wild wolf [Brandon Stark] spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.”
Bran II, A Storm of Swords
At the tourney itself, along comes a little knight, shorter than the rest of them, with a weirwood tree “with a laughing red face” as his sigil (Bran II, “ASOS”). The knight defeats his opponents, demands that they teach their squires honor, and vanishes the next day. The knight, of course, is largely believed to be Lyanna Stark herself.
As with any references to Rhaegar and Lyanna in the House of the Undying, this has been cut from the show. I haven’t the faintest idea why, nor can I find any explanation from anyone involved. Was it seen as too clunky? Was Bran, who has now hit puberty, seen as too old to want to listen to stories like this? Or was it simply deemed unimportant to advance the plot, never mind that without these events, Robert’s Rebellion might have not happened at all?
They certainly did not cut it for mere time reasons, as we spend far too long in this episode watching Theon get tortured (much, much, much more to say on that later) and we also get an extended, original scene between Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) and Talisa (Oona Chaplin).
Sorry, did I say I wasn’t going to spend paragraphs and paragraphs of text complaining? I take it back.
It has been clear since the very first episode that the show does not know how to handle Catelyn Stark. They have softened her endlessly, taken away much of her political acumen, and contrived to have her every “bad” act explained away for nonsensical reasons. It continues here, where the show has her blame herself for all the terrible things that have happened to the Starks.
Talisa comes across Cat making some sort of… dreamcatcher…? It’s a show-only creation, never mentioned again, and made up explicitly for this scene, which neglects Cat’s deep-rooted Faith of the Seven for whatever this is. Having just learned about the supposed deaths of Bran and Rickon, despite the fact that she should have learned of this ages ago, Cat launches into a monologue wherein she self-flagellates about never being able to love Jon (Kit Harington), her husband’s bastard son, and how “everything that’s happened since then, all this horror that’s come to my family, it’s all because I couldn’t love a motherless child.” Michelle Fairley is an absolute powerhouse here, and she is amongst the most talented actors in the show (no low bar), but this scene is beyond frustrating.
Frustrating not because it is bad; I’d argue it’s actually a good scene, and gives Cat and Talisa some much-needed interaction. Frustrating because it once again softens Cat, who never repents her ill treatment of Jon, and ignores the very real threat that bastards often posed in Westerosi society—Cat was not out of the ordinary in her treatment of Jon, yet the show seems to take the stance that it should have been amongst her motherly duties as a lady to care for him as her own. Anything that makes Cat a less-than stellar mother or wife has been stripped away. Even her own political maneuvers, such as freeing Jaime, are no longer her own. It is, apparently, too discomfiting that we be asked to root for (genuinely root for, genuinely view as one of the “good guys,” as opposed to Cersei (Lena Headey), whom we enjoy precisely because she is a villain and thus we are allowed to enjoy when she is flawed and a little bit evil) a woman who would do such a thing as wish a child dead. Cat is our main point of view for the entirety of Robb’s campaign and a far, far more relevant character in the books than her firstborn, and to see her continually reduced like this is beyond the pale. Cowards, the lot of them. (This episode, by the way, is the very last one written by a woman in the entire series—the woman being Vanessa Taylor, who also wrote the unfortunate “Garden of Bones” last season, which really makes you wonder if she maybe has something to work through.)
Arya’s character stays intact, at least—for now—but her plot suffers. In a vacuum, it’s fine, but compared to the books… well, isn’t it always poor in comparison? She, Gendry (Joe Dempsie), and Hot Pie (Ben Hawkey) are still adrift after fleeing Harrenhal at the end of last season, though soon enough the oft-mentioned Brotherhood Without Banners finds them. Anyone remember when Ned (Sean Bean) sent some random guy named Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer, soon, no relation to Natalie) to the Riverlands to stop war crimes? Yeah, it’s those guys. The Brotherhood are Martin’s equivalent of Robin Hood, just with more guerilla warfare against the noble houses and their armies, and also resurrections.
This episode truncates Arya’s first five chapters of “ASOS” into one episode. This is a damn shame for several reasons, which I will list and try to be short about, considering that I opened this piece by saying I was not going to go on and on and on about this and that change that made me angry.
One: Harwin. Harwin is a member of the household guard at Winterfell who came with Ned to King’s Landing and was sent with Beric into the Riverlands. In the grand scheme of things, he is a less than minor character, and would have been difficult for the audience to recall as he would have been offscreen for the entirety of season two. In the books, it is he who recognizes Arya, and it is a testament to Martin’s skill that a reunion with even a minor character like Harwin could nearly bring me to tears:
“Harwin?” Arya whispered. It was! Under the beard and the tangled hair was the face of Hullen’s son, who used to lead her pony around the yard, ride at quintain with Jon and Robb, and drink too much on feast days. He was thinner, harder somehow, and at Winterfell he had never worn a beard, but it was him—her father’s man. “Harwin!” Squirming, she threw herself forward, trying to wrench free of Lem’s iron grip. “It’s me,” she shouted, “Harwin, it’s me, don’t you know me, don’t you?” The tears came, and she found herself weeping like a baby, just like some stupid little girl. “Harwin, it’s me!”
For a moment she did not know how to answer. She’d had so many names. Had she only dreamed Arya Stark? “I’m a girl,” she sniffed. “I was Lord Bolton’s cupbearer but he was going to leave me for the goat, so I ran off with Gendry and Hot Pie. You have to know me! You used to lead my pony, when I was little.”
His eyes went wide. “Gods be good,” he said in a choked voice. “Arya Underfoot? Lem, let go of her.”
“She broke my nose.” Lem dumped her unceremoniously to the floor. “Who in seven hells is she supposed to be?”
“The Hand’s daughter.” Harwin went to one knee before her. “Arya Stark, of Winterfell.”
Arya II, A Storm of Swords
An understandable omission, but one that robs us of a touching scene and a reminder of home for Arya.
Two: Lady Smallwood. She, like Harwin, is an inconsequential character in the long run (more so than Harwin, in fact), yet her inclusion in the books breathes life into the fabric of Westerosi society. There are not only the great houses and everyone else, there are those like Lady Smallwood, who has a modest castle as these things go and provides succor to the Brotherhood. She is not a great player in the game of thrones, but she shows kindness to Arya and bravery in helping the Brotherhood, whom many of the high lords would see killed. She puts Arya in a dress, sparking an entirely different discussion around Arya’s views on femininity, which get reduced in the show to “most girls are idiots.” Gendry sees her as a lady for the first time when Lady Smallwood puts Arya in an acorn dress:
“You look different now. Like a proper little girl.”
“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”
“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.”
“You don’t. You stink.”
Arya IV, A Storm of Swords
And Arya and Lady Smallwood discuss needlework:
She scuffed a toe amongst the rushes. “Needlework.”
“Very restful, isn’t it?”
“Well,” said Arya, “not the way I do it.”
“No? I have always found it so. The gods give each of us our little gifts and talents, and it is meant for us to use them, my aunt always says. Any act can be a prayer, if done as well as we are able. Isn’t that a lovely thought? Remember that the next time you do your needlework. Do you work at it every day?”
Arya IV, A Storm of Swords
And, even when Arya accidentally tears her dress and Lady Smallwood puts her in her dead son’s clothes:
“I’m sorry, my lady.” Arya suddenly felt bad for her, and ashamed. “I’m sorry I tore the acorn dress too. It was pretty.”
“Yes, child. And so are you. Be brave.”
But I suppose these types of interactions would be too much of a contradiction for the show to unpack.
Three: the Ghost of High Heart. She is an absolutely tiny old woman who knew Jenny of Oldstones, the commoner who would go on to marry Duncan the Small, son of Aegon V (also known as Egg), and says very normal things like this:
Arya IV, A Storm of Swords
The old gods stir and will not let me sleep. I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from terror. All this I dreamt, and more.
Arya IV, A Storm of Swords
This references Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) killing his brother Renly (Gethin Anthony), Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk) killing his brother Balon Greyjoy (Patrick Malahide), and the resurrection of Catelyn Stark as Lady Stoneheart. She dreams, too, of the Red Wedding, the Purple Wedding, and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner). But, as we have established, any sort of prophesying must be either cut or toned down. Even in this very episode, we have a character who can see the future whose only dreams in the show are him walking slowly after a loud raven. By this point, the show has soundly rejected any chance to show magic; there are no budgetary excuses any more, as the show was beginning to hit at least five million viewers per episode. No, “Thrones” has now actively rejected the chance to have anything that cool, and its repercussions will be felt very strongly very shortly. And thus we skip to nearly halfway through Arya’s “ASOS” arc by having the Brotherhood capture Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann) ahead of schedule. It’s great to see him again, but as with the presence of Stannis last episode, a little mystery as to his whereabouts and health could have done us a bit of good.
Okay, okay, I hear you, pipe down. My complaints are done. Now we are back to the good stuff: Jaime and Brienne. (Just kidding, I have to sneak one more complaint in—Brienne takes far too long to decide against killing an old man she and Jaime stumble across. Brienne should have never even entertained the idea at all.) The two are still off on their merry journey towards King’s Landing in the hopes of exchanging Jaime for Sansa and Arya.
The show started Jaime and Brienne’s plotline a bit early at the end of season two, whereas it opens book three. Jaime is our first regular point of view chapter in “A Storm of Swords” (after the prologue from Night’s Watchman Chett’s POV as the wights attack), and after two books conditioning the reader to hate him, this is a bold move on George’s part. Bolder still is to have his thoughts open so poetically:
An east wind blew through his tangled hair, as soft and fragrant as Cersei’s fingers. He could hear birds singing, and feel the river moving beneath the boat as the sweep of the oars sent them toward the pale pink dawn. After so long in darkness, the world was so sweet that Jaime Lannister felt dizzy. I am alive, and drunk on sunlight. A laugh burst from his lips, sudden as a quail flushed from cover.
Jaime I, A Storm of Swords
The show cannot put us entirely in Jaime’s head, but it does capture that giddy feeling of freedom (of a sort) after so much politicking and war. Jaime even proves to be charming, in an asshole, roundabout kind of way. Of course, he will not be this carefree for long, as the episode ends with both Brienne and Jaime being captured by Roose Bolton’s (Michael McElhatton) men.
But, before that, Jaime tries an ill-advised escape attempt and finds himself sword-to-sword with Brienne. This is not an especially graceful fight as it plays out on television, as both Coster-Waldau and Christie seem a bit awkward with their instruments, but it is incredibly charged on page:
Ignoring her protests, he grasped the hilt of his cousin’s longsword with both hands, held the corpse down with his foot, and pulled. As the blade slid from the scabbard, he was already pivoting, bringing the sword around and up in a swift deadly arc. Steel met steel with a ringing, bone-jarring clang. Somehow Brienne had gotten her own blade out in time. Jaime laughed. “Very good, wench.”
“Give me the sword, Kingslayer.”
“Oh, I will.” He sprang to his feet and drove at her, the longsword alive in his hands. Brienne jumped back, parrying, but he followed, pressing the attack. No sooner did she turn one cut than the next was upon her. The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again. Jaime’s blood was singing. This was what he was meant for; he never felt so alive as when he was fighting, with death balanced on every stroke.
…
High, low, overhand, he rained down steel upon her. Left, right, backslash, swinging so hard that sparks flew when the swords came together, upswing, sideslash, overhand, always attacking, moving into her, step and slide, strike and step, step and strike, hacking, slashing, faster, faster, faster…
…
He laughed a ragged, breathless laugh. “Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music’s still playing. Might I have this dance, my lady?”
Jaime III, A Storm of Swords
Then, later, when the Bloody Mummers (not in the show) arrive to take them prisoner:
She looks as if they caught us fucking instead of fighting. Jaime crawled over the rocks to shallow water, wiping the blood from his eye with his chained hands. Armed men lined both sides of the brook. Small wonder, we were making enough noise to wake a dragon. “Well met, friends,” he called to them amiably. “My pardons if I disturbed you. You caught me chastising my wife.”
“Seemed to me she was doing the chastising.”
Jaime III, A Clash of Kings
The linkage of sex and death is nothing new in literature; here, Jaime and Brienne’s swordplay functions as a sexual encounter. The swords “kiss,” he moves into her “faster, faster, faster,” and later calls her his wife. This aspect is lost in the translation to television, as is the line about chastising his wife, even though it would have fit perfectly.
Still, the chemistry between Christie and Coster-Waldau is amongst the best in the show, up there even with Headey and Dinklage, and the whole thing is such a delight that I cannot help but forgive the exclusion of Lady Smallwood and even the Ghost of High Heart. What they did to Cat, on the other hand…
Still, “Dark Wings, Dark Words” is an episode that prefers to marinate in character over spectacle. Even though I complained about the scene between Cat and Talisa, chats like that will become a rarity as the show goes on—a discussion between two women that does not further the plot, that lets them be flawed (even if not as much as I’d like), and forces the audience to sit in the quiet for several minutes? That’s a hard thing to come by starting around season six. Bran and his companions travel at a languid pace compared to the veritable teleportation that happens later, and they are in no hurry to get to the plot machinations. His dreams may be uninspiring and tepid compared to his source material, but Jojen does not rush Bran towards understanding. Jaime and Brienne can hurl barbs at each other for long swathes of time before the bad guys stumble upon them. It suffers in comparison to its source material, yes, but is nearly a miracle when held up against later seasons of “Thrones.” Were I not passionate to the point of mental illness about “ASOIAF,” I might even say it’s a pretty darn good episode.
Stray Observations:
- We are finally introduced to another Tyrell this episode: Olenna (Diana Rigg). This scene is taken nearly verbatim from the book, though sadly does not feature the bard screeching “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” as Olenna commands him to sing louder and louder to hide her conversation with Sansa. Nor does it feature this zinger: “No, don’t blush, with your hair it makes you look like a pomegranate” (Sansa I, “ASOS”). (Very impressive, by the way, that Sophie Turner holds her own in this scene.)
- Jaime is (if you hadn’t noticed) my favorite character in “ASOIAF,” but his POV can be repellent. Even that beautiful opening line is marred by his thinking about his partner in incest, and later, he wonders why he and Cersei should not be married, and even marry Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) off to Myrcella (Aimée Richardson). “We don’t get to choose who we love,” he tells Brienne this episode (while staring straight at her, mind), but that flattens his “love” for Cersei, which is far more twisted on both their sides than what this line implies.
- As much as I detest how they handle Theon’s torture, I admittedly laughed when Cat asks if Robb has heard anything from Theon and it immediately cuts to him in the torture nexus.
- Cersei continues to learn the kind of monster she has created in Joffrey; this time, it’s him saying, “That’s what intelligent women do—what they’re told.”
- Margaery (Natalie Dormer), unlike his mother, knows how to play Joffrey like a fiddle. The scene with his crossbow is great fun and has a bit of foreshadowing: Joffrey asks if Margaery could kill someone, and she says yes, all whilst the crossbow bolt points at Joffrey in the mirror. That said, did we really need the random homophobic hate crime proposal from Joffrey?
- Once again, how are we talking about how diverse wildlings are when they are all wearing the same clothing amongst a bland white landscape?
- Bravely, the show lets Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) have an unsympathetic moment, as he admits that he finds Sansa—a child—attractive. They will iron out these darker tendencies soon enough, don’t worry, but I was impressed they left it in for now as he does have those thoughts in the books (and she is even younger in those).
Episode Ranking:
- “Dark Wings, Dark Words”
- “Valar Dohaeris”
“Game of Thrones” Season Three Trailer
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