Directory by: Brian Kirk
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Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings,” “A Storm of Swords,” “A Feast for Crows,” “A Dance With Dragons,” and the as-yet unpublished “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.”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.
60/100
With “Game of Thrones” now nearly halfway through its first season, the pace has begun to pick up. It’s remarkable what has already been conveyed in three hours of television, and, despite this being very early days, the two moments of triumph in this episode (involving Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) standing up for herself and Cat (Michelle Fairley) arresting Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), though the latter will sour once we learn of Tyrion’s innocence) thoroughly earn their fist pumps from the audience.
But, as the world of Westeros grows and expands, it becomes harder and harder to juggle. George R. R. Martin’s point of view structure lets us marinate with each character; we spend pages upon pages with them until the next chapter. The breaks feel smooth—you can see them on the page, you can trace the new chapter header with your finger (or hear Roy Dotrice say it via audiobook, dealer’s choice). In television, there is no such break, there are only cuts. They can be used to great effect, as seen in episode two, but with more plot threads to keep pace with, some of the editing becomes noticeably clunky.
Take the plot up at the Wall, for example. Jon Snow (Kit Harington) has made friends with former bullies Pyp (Josef Altin) and Grenn (Mark Stanley), and has even convinced them to take Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) under their wing. This has made Ser Alliser Thorne (Owen Teale) even crueler than usual, and some of the meaner Night’s Watch recruits such as Rast (Luke Barnes) still enjoy taunting Sam, even with his newfound friendships. When Rast threatens to injure Sam in the training yard, Jon takes action to threaten the rapist with his direwolf, Ghost.
It turns out that having a deadly predator snarl in your face is a good motivator, and Rast resists beating up Sam the next day, even at Thorne’s urging. This marks Jon’s first foray into the politics at the Wall, and his methods—threats—showcase a more vicious side to him, regardless of whether the threat was warranted or not. This lays the groundwork for later seasons, when Jon will perform a baby swap with—oh, wait, that’s not in the show. In the show, he becomes a stick in the mud with no discernable personality other than “honorable,” but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
I bring up this scene because of what happens after: we cut straight to Essos, where Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) has also begun learning how to navigate politics, specifically with regards to her mercurial brother, Viserys (Harry Lloyd). Viserys, the so-called Beggar King, seethes when Dany attempts to gift him with Dothraki clothes, construing the gift as an insult since he views the Dothraki as savages. “You would turn me into one of them, wouldn’t you? Next you’ll want to braid my hair,” he spits, referencing the Dothraki custom to braid hair after battle and keep it long until a battle is lost. Dany, whose backbone has grown stronger and stronger over the course of the last few episodes, calmly shoots back, “You’ve no right to a braid. You’ve won no victories yet.” When Viserys begins to hit Dany, this time, she hits him back, and finds her voice in this oft-quoted line: “I am a Khaleesi of the Dothraki, I am the wife of the great Khal and I carry his son inside me. The next time you raise a hand to me will be the last time you have hands.”
It’s one of the most memorable scenes from season one, despite lasting a mere minute or so, and while it has been quoted to death and back, it’s for good reason. Dany, so soft-spoken and timid, has now shown the makings of a ruler, and finally given Viserys a taste of his own medicine—and it does speak to the skill of the behind-the-scenes team that this buildup felt so organic in only four episodes, especially since Dany only gets a sliver of screentime compared to all of the characters in Westeros. Both Dany and Jon, in these two scenes, have learned how to flex their power, lessons that will serve them well in the seasons to come.
The cut linking Jon and Dany makes sense as our two young heroes experience similar lessons, but when we suddenly go back to Castle Black with no preamble, the shift feels jarring. In this next scene, there is little to learn about leadership or politicking; instead, it opens with Jon and Sam talking about their virginity. The scene between Dany and Viserys is so short that its insertion between two Castle Black scenes feels arbitrary—why not just keep the Castle Black scenes together and put Dany’s scene before, thus maintaining the link between her and Jon but making the transition smoother?
But, of course, at a certain point, the show’s hands are tied. How else can they manage to fit in the sprawling plot of “A Song of Ice and Fire” without some awkward cuts here and there? There is a level of inevitability, especially with the growing pains that first seasons often have—though even here, “Thrones” shows a level of confidence from the get-go rarely found in most modern fantasy adaptations (“The Witcher,” “The Wheel of Time,” et cetera). The cut from Castle Black to Essos, and then to Castle Black again, is ultimately a minor bump in the road. Indeed, it’s not even the biggest quibble I have in the episode—that goes to the handling of Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright).
In “The Kingsroad,” I praised the show’s editing for its conveyance of Bran’s mysticism without showing his dreams. “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things,” however, has no punchy editing to heighten Bran’s storyline, even though he could be called (one of) the titular character(s) of the episode. The dream that I quoted in my “Kingsroad” review, where Bran tumbles through the air and looks “north and north and north… to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain,” and even “deep into the heart of winter,” is reduced to a short clip of a three-eyed crow flying through a deserted but otherwise ordinary Winterfell (Bran III, “AGOT”). This scene opens the entire episode. Yes, it handily establishes that some weird shit is happening with Bran, but its dull color palette and anticlimactic reveal—ooh, the crow has a third eye that you can barely see because its feathers are black and its eyes are also black—hardly whets the appetite.
Seasons one and two of “Thrones” had a miniscule budget compared to what would come after, and even with the budget of later seasons, Bran’s visions would be tricky to adapt without jarring tone shifts—but maybe that shift could have set him apart. Surely they could have at least expanded the colors a bit, rather than making his visions that uniform muddy brown and dull gray that comes to define the look of Winterfell, thus lumping in Bran with the rest of the “gritty” and “realistic” crowd in an effort to court the normie viewer and keep them comfortable. Once more, as in episode two, this is not an issue that breaks the individual episode, but rather a symptom of a sickness that will continue to spread until it cripples its host.
The other goings-on at Winterfell prove more interesting than the crippled child who can see the future, which is emblematic of future problems. Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) has arrived after leaving the Wall, and though Robb (Richard Madden) gives him a chilly reception, Tyrion gifts Bran a saddle that will allow the boy to ride again, then says a quip straight out of the book: “I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things” (Bran IV, “AGOT”). He then, from the tenderness of his heart, proceeds to rip Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) a new one by insulting the failed Greyjoy Rebellion led by Theon’s father, Balon (Patrick Malahide, later), as well as deaths of Theon’s brothers and the Greyjoys’ general stupidity.
It’s a brief visit, but in it we witness Robb learning how to act as Lord of Winterfell, Tyrion’s kindness and acerbic wit, and learn some backstory for Theon, who has, until this moment, been more of a glorified extra than a real character. And, because this is “Game of Thrones,” Theon and Tyrion had to talk about how good a (show-only) prostitute is in bed and how nice her breasts are. How lovely.
Tyrion then begins his trek back to King’s Landing, where Ned Stark (Sean Bean) has clearly studied up on Gregor Mendel. Ned has learned that, before his death, former Hand of the King Jon Arryn enjoyed reading up on royal bloodlines, though his little Punnett square project gets put on hold for the tourney held in his honor. Before then, he still manages to find time to visit an apprentice armor named Gendry (Joe Dempsie), black—well, dark brown—of hair. According to Ned, Gendry looks just like young King Robert (Mark Addy), leading him to deduce that Robert fathered Gendry illegitimately; this is a much easier pill to swallow when reading, as there is little physical resemblance between Dempsie and Addy. Such are the limits of television.
At the tourney, both Ned and King Robert (Mark Addy) seem bored for different reasons: Robert because he wants more blood, Ned because he finds the whole thing distasteful. Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) manages to worm his way into the stands and be a creep towards Sansa (Sophie Turner) while giving us backstory on Sandor Clegane, also known as the Hound (Rory McCann) and his brother, Gregor Clegane, also known as the Mountain (Conan Stevens, though the role will be recast two times).
Ned manages to slip away, followed by Cersei (Lena Headey), and the two have a simple conversation. The scene feels slightly out of place, like it was tacked on; perhaps it was part of the extra footage shot for season one when showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss found themselves with more time to fill than they believed. But, frankly, it doesn’t matter that the scene feels a bit awkward, because why would you ever complain about getting Sean Bean and Lena Headey in a room together? “Thrones” rightly revels in its actors these early seasons, and this scene is nothing but an excuse to throw Bean and Headey at each other. Later, this type of thing will dwindle, and with it, the quality of the show; in this case, correlation does equal causation.
In the scene itself, Cersei confronts Ned over his presence at King’s Landing, protective as she is over her secrets—namely, her children’s bastardy and her plot to kill Robert (spoilers?). But she relaxes somewhat upon realizing the depth of Ned’s loyalty to Robert, saying, “You’re just a little soldier, aren’t you? You take your orders and you carry on.” Except… there she would be wrong. Would Ned have cut ties with Robert all those years ago if he merely took orders, and the sight of dead children had not horrified him? Would Ned be conducting a secret investigation if he merely took orders? Would he have kept Jon’s parentage a secret? Alas, Cersei is not privy to all these things, and her assumptions prove false, though many a viewer seem to take them at face value, thinking that Ned is straightforward and foolish—let’s remember how to read between the lines, people.
Speaking of…
The episode ends with the first true cliffhanger of “Thrones.” Littlefinger has been inching Westeros towards war, first with his (still undiscovered) murder of Jon Arryn, then by nudging Ned to investigate the Lannisters and blaming Tyrion for the assassination attempt on Bran. Things finally boil over when Catelyn Stark, coming to Winterfell from King’s Landing, has a chance encounter with Tyrion, coming to King’s Landing from Winterfell, at the same inn in the riverlands. Cat then arrests Tyrion.
There is a tendency in the fandom and online—a fandom largely dominated by men—to blame Catelyn for beginning what will become known as the War of the Five Kings. They are poised to blame her for anything that goes wrong regardless because, since she was cruel to Jon, she must be an unreasonable bitch, and because we, the reader or viewer, know (or can reasonably guess) that Tyrion did not try to kill Bran, Cat should also know this and therefore is an unreasonable bitch for arresting him.
Let me put these ideas to rest right now.
First, on the subject of Jon: Cat was, undeniably, cruel to him while Bran was sick. When she was not saying she wished he had gotten paralyzed instead of Bran, she was giving him the cold shoulder. This is, by any sort of measure, not a very nice way to treat a teenager. But how was she supposed to react to Jon’s presence? Time and time again in Westerosi history, bastards—no matter how well they seemed to get along with their trueborn siblings—have caused infighting and succession crises (see “House of the Dragon” for more). Their claims, or lack thereof, have plunged Westeros into war and wreaked havoc. That Ned fathered a child on someone else was bad enough, but to have this child walk around with his trueborn children is an insult both to Catelyn and her brood. With our modern, non-feudal lens, we can look at this situation and feel outraged that Cat doesn’t treat Jon like one of her own, given that Ned has never shown inclination towards other women since Jon’s birth, and given that we know Jon’s thoughts on the matter. But with the information that Cat has at her disposal, her reaction is understandable, if not kind.
So it is with Tyrion’s arrest, too. When Tyrion spies her at the Inn of the Crossroads, Cat has very few options. If she lets Tyrion on his merry way, he will go back to King’s Landing and tell his Lannister siblings that he spotted Catelyn Stark traveling back to the North when she was supposed to be indisposed and still at Winterfell. Ned, Arya (Maisie Williams), and Sansa have the protection of King Robert at King’s Landing, but the Lannisters are many, and they are shrewd. At best, it would turn into a hostage situation where the Lannisters hold all the cards. If she arrests Tyrion for suspicion of murdering Bran—and, mind you, she has no reason to doubt the claims of her old friend Littlefinger, because she has not been privy to his scenes of scheming and debauchery like the reader or watcher has—then she has the upper hand, even if the hand dealt was still a bad one.
Before she arrests Tyrion, Cat shores up her support by identifying what house every man in the room is sworn to, and getting them to swear again their loyalty to the house of her father, House Tully, which rules the very lands the inn sits on. Thus, if Tyrion manages to outrun Cat and loyal Rodrik Cassel (Ron Donachie), the other men at the inn would need to catch him lest their loyalty to the Tullys come into question. Cat has always been good at navigating the rules and customs of Westeros; her downfall will come about not because she was too stupid or even too trusting, but because those rules and customs will be violated so flagrantly that it will implode the kingdom.
But it seems that many viewers and readers are doomed to be like Cersei and incapable of understanding the true depth in other characters.
Stray Observations:
- Sansa mentions her friend Jeyne Poole in this episode. Jeyne appears in episode one as an uncredited extra and is quickly cut from the rest of the show, a decision which will lead the show to… interesting places later on.
- While Viserys namedrops a few dragons that would later appear in “House of the Dragon,” such as Balerion, the writers also made up quite a few names for fun.
- Thoros of Myr (Paul Kaye, eventually) and his flaming sword gets mentioned for the first time, though he, unlike Jeyne, will become relevant in the show. Same with Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds), who gets namedropped by Alliser Thorne. Walder Frey (David Bradley) also gets a mention! So much groundwork. You know who doesn’t get mentioned? Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), despite being the lead detective on the “Robert’s bastards” case when he was in King’s Landing (pre-Ned’s arrival). Poor Stannis.
- In addition to Tyrion’s barbs at Theon, Jaime also discusses the Siege of Pyke—part of the failed Greyjoy Rebellion—with Jory Cassel (Jamie Sives) before also dunking on Theon. “He’s a good lad,” Jory says. “I doubt it,” Jaime replies. After three episodes of learning very little about Theon, all his exposition gets dumped into this one.
- When Ser Hugh of the Vale (Jefferson Hall, who will go on to be twins Tyland and Jason Lannister in “House of the Dragon”) is introduced, he’s taking long, exaggerated steps on the jousting grounds. Horse riders do this to gauge the number of strides getting from point A to point B will take—four of those big steps usually equals about one canter stride. When jumping, people will often walk the course to get a feel of things (speaking from experience here). I guess the same thing goes for jousting.
- I understand why they cut this since they aged up Robb from his fifteen-year-old self in the books, but one of my favorite scenes in the series would have occurred around the time of this episode, after Cat has left for King’s Landing:
“Are they ever coming back?” Bran asked him.“Yes,” Robb said with such hope in his voice that Bran knew he was hearing his brother and not just Robb the Lord. “Mother will be home soon. Maybe we can ride out to meet her when she comes. Wouldn’t that surprise her, to see you ahorse?” Even in the dark room, Bran could feel his brother’s smile. “And afterward, we’ll ride north to see the wall. We won’t even tell Jon we’re coming, we’ll just be there one day, you and me, it will be an adventure.”
“An adventure,” Bran repeated wistfully. He heard his brother sob. The room was so dark he could not see the tears on Robb’s face, so he reached out and found his hand. Their fingers twined together.
Episode Ranking:
- “The Kingsroad”
- “Lord Snow”
- “Winter Is Coming”
- “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things”
“Game of Thrones” Season One Trailer
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