Game of Thrones 7 "You Win or You Die" (Review)

Spoilers ahoy!

"You Win or You Die" seems a straightforward idea, especially when discussing something called the Game of Thrones.  Doesn't it?  Wrong.  Because win or lose, you die.  What you do before all that, you have to decide whether you've won anything or not.  Or what you want to win.

On the one hand there seems to be a huge amount of power play going on in this, as in every episode of the HBO series based on Martin's fantasy epic.  Almost immediately this comes through as we meet Tywin Lannister, Lord of Castlery Rock, father of Jaime, Tyrion and Cercei.  He proceeds to do what many characters do in this and other episodes--try and make a point about how the world works.  Family and power, such is his message boiled down to basics.  Jaime has been a fool to attack Ned Stark.  A bigger fool not to do him in.  Stark himself has been a fool, not least for daring to take a Lannister--any Lannister--prisoner.

Appropriately enough, Tywin is butchering an animal with his bare hands while espousing all this.

Ned Stark meanwhile tells the Queen what he knows--that none of the King's children are his own, but rather the fruit of incest between Jaime and Cersei.  He's also figured out they tried to kill his son.  In an act that does seem terribly naive, he gives the Queen a chance to flee with her children.  Her reply contains more sentiment as well as ruthlessness than her father--the closeness she feels with Jaime, who shared a womb with her, and that Stark was a fool for not taking the throne himself in the war that toppled King Aerys.

Osha meanwhile (the Wyldling woman now a servant at Winterfell) gets caught up in a conversation with Theon, heir to the Iron Islands and hostage/guest of the Starks since boyhood.  She doesn't see things at all the way he does, and it disturbs him just a bit.  In her eyes, he is from The South (i.e. south of the Wall) and not a Lord because his father is still Lord.  She's also not afraid.  As she tells the Maester, she's used to men who would eat "that boy" and use his bones to pick their teeth.  Despite this she is frightened.  Very much.  Of what comes with the Long Winter.  This things have been gone for thousands of years, she's told.  Not gone--sleeping, she replies.  And now, they've woken up...

It goes on.  Littlefinger instructs a pair of his whores about how to deceive/please their customers (one just arrived from the North), not taking part but watching and talking, revealing much.  As a child he loved a high born young lady, and she loved him in her way.  So he says.  But her intended beat him a duel, which taught the young man he will never win "their" way...

Evocative that.

King Robert, meanwhile, has been fatally wounded while hunting boar.  He knows he's dying.  Can smell it in the wound.  Expresses regret he spent so little time with his son, Prince Joffrey (the Vile--editorial comment).  And he names Ned Stark as Regent, agreeing with him to cancel the order to kill Princess Danaerys.  Not that that is really possible now.  But--and here Ned makes another error--he hears no news of his children's real parentage.

The would be assassin of the Princess/Khaleesi fails, because someone we learn works for the Spider (the head of Westeros' spies) thwarts the plan.  Nothing is as it seems.  Meanwhile Danaerys slowly coaxes her beloved Khal Drogo to consider the conquest of the Seven Kingdoms.  He listens to his beloved wife (and it is very nice to see how much these two have bonded) but only up to a point.  After all, re remains Dothraki!

At the Wall, Jon Snow's uncle's horse returns riderless.  Soon after, Jon Snow is fully accepted into the Nightwatch, but to everyone's surprise is chosen from among the Stewards, not the Rangers!  He takes it badly, but gets yet another lesson in how he's being way too lordly and egocentric.  Sam sees the truth of it, that Jon is being groomed by the Lord Commander, who asked for him personally.  On top of this is what just might be something prophetic, when Sam says simply "I always wanted to be a wizard."

Magic is coming back, have you noticed?  The White Walkers walk.  There is talk of Dragons.

Back in King's Landing, King Robert's brother Renly tries to talk some sense into Ned Stark.  He knows Cersei will never sit by quietly and allow Stark to be Regent.  They need to strike now, before it is too late.  Stark's mind is more on who should be King, which in his mind is eldest Barantheon brother, Stannis.  Renly asks pointedly "Do you still think good soldiers make good kings?"

These questions keep coming up.  What helps make Martin's work so interesting is that he never provides a definitive answer.  Honestly, is there a single person we've met yet who looks like they should sit on the Iron Throne?

All this disturbs Stark, but he doesn't see any path other than the straight and narrow.  Littlefinger also has a plan, one that sounds ruthless if workable (although by now only someone quite naive in the audience quite believes anything the man says).

In the wake of the failed assassination attempt, Khal Drogo pledges to his wife "Moon of my Life" to give to their son the Iron Throne.  So that seemingly naive bit of advice from Ned Stark, to leave her alone, proved wise after all.

On the other hand, tactically he's completely outmatched back at King's Landing.  The Queen and her son the new King care nothing of King Robert's written instructions once he is dead...

Game of Thrones 5 "The Wolf and the Lion" (Review)

Spoilers ahoy!

True story.  Back when I first started to get into Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, there was this movie.  A really cool one.  The very first Harry Potter flick--and during the quidditch match I found myself hissing at Gryffindor!  Why?  Because their arms as the same as the Lannisters.  The vile, greedy and vicious Lannisters (except for Tyrion of course).

Lannisters (the name comes from the managers of gladitorial games in ancient Rome--the pimps of death) are the lions, just as the Starks are wolves.  This episode is about them both.  For once we don't see the lovely Danaerys or her semi-sociopathic brother.  We hear about them, though.  News arrives at the King's Council that the last Targaryan is pregnant--and King Robert wants her assassinated.  It says a lot about Ned Stark that he resigns as the King's Hand rather than have any part of it.

What's going on with Tyrion says a lot about him--and about his captors.  En route to the Aerie, tall castle of the Vale where Catelyn's sister (and the late Hand Jon Arryn's widow) rules, Tyrion points simply asks what kind of idiot gives a hired assassin his own dagger?  When the party finds itself attacked by brigands, Tyrion ends up saving Catelyn--who cannot help but notice he is making sense.  Plus he issues a warning.  How long since she's seen her sister?  The lady in question as changed...

As in, she's kinda nuts.  In fact Lady Lysa feels insulted Catelyn has brought a Lannister--whom she blames for her husband's death--there.  Think about that for a few seconds.  How much sense does that make?  Add to that the...well...weird detail she's still nursing her son.  Her son who looks at least five years old.  Catelyn publicly notes Tyrion is her prisoner, not to be harmed, which gets the young(ish) Lion tossed into a prison cell.  An impressive one.  One wall is missing, leaving the prisoner exposed to the elements but allowing no escape since there's sheer drop of several hundred feet.

Back in King's Landing, repercussions from Catelyn's capture of a Lannister starts things rolling, albeit not immediately.  Lord Stark still traces the steps of his predecessor (the aforementioned Jon Arryn), visiting the various bastards of King Robert.  His daughter Sansa crushes quite a bit on the Knight of the Flowers at the ongoing tournament, unaware he already has a secret paramour--the King's brother Renly.  In fact he's urging the man to make himself King one day, despite being fourth in line.

Parenthetically, one of many refreshing things about this fantasy is the presence of homosexuals.  Usually this genre ignores them.  More on that later as the story unfolds.

Arya meanwhile--my fave of the Stark daughters and pretty much my favorite Stark period--is learning how to catch cats.  It is to make her quick of hand and foot and mind.  Bet that would work, too.  Down in the dungeons, amidst the skulls of dragons (mentioned by Viserys last week) she hides when hearing voices.  It seems the King's Master of Whispers (i.e. spymaster) is having a conversation with the the very merchant prince who arranged Danaerys' marriage to Khal Drogo!  The wolf and the lion will soon be fighting each other, which may be too soon.  Drogo won't even consider bringing his troops until after his son is born!  Too bad Arya doesn't recognize the speakers, nor memorize their words nor understand enough to tell her father the full gist--although she tries.

A weird and melancholy scene acts out between Robert and his Queen, noting how neither is happy yet both feel an odd comradarie in mutual hate.  He even admits how he cannot recall how his beloved fiancee, Ned's sister, looked--but when she died the hole in his life couldn't even be filled by seven whole kingdoms.  She admits to never having asked, initially out of hurt, then out of spite, and now asks because she feels...nothing.

No wonder these two produced that mini-Caligula Prince Joffrey!

We end this episode with an ambush and an attack.  Jaime Lannister, learning his brother was carried off by Lord Stark's wife, demands Tyrion's return.  He does so with soldiers--and several end up dead, including Jory Cassel who takes a dagger through the eye.  Jaime's dagger.  A broadsword duel between Jaime and Stark is interrupted by one of the former's soldiers stabbing Stark in the leg from behind.  Interstingly, Jaime backhands him for that stunt.  He demands the return of his brother, then rides off leaving the Lord of the North to find medical attention.

All in all, interesting how none of the Lannisters so far have proven quite as vile as they seem--Tyrion to Catelyn, and the rest to the audience.

 

Game of Thrones 4 "Cripples, Bastards & Broken Things" (Review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Rarely was a title so apt.  When Tyrion shows up at Winterfell with plans for a special saddle--one that would allow young Lord Bran to ride again--Robb Stark asks him why he did this?  "Because I have a weakness for cripples, bastards and broken things" is the dwarf's reply.

This world seems full of such.  Not least Tyrion himself.  Others are crippled or broken in other ways.  At the Wall, the Night Watch faces the coming winter and terrible times with few men, most of those unready.  Jon Snow, however, he wants to do something about it.  He's training the other new recruits, and in the process becoming their Leader.  Even Samwell, the newest "volunteer" (as in volunteered by his father, upon pain of an accident while hunting) to take the black--fat, nervous, a terrible fighter.  But winter is coming.  More, the White Walkers are back--even if nobody believes it.  Not yet.

One curious thing about Martin's epic fantasy is the relative lack of fantasy elements--which is why of course the seven kingdoms aren't ready nor trying to get ready for the danger looming.  Dragons existed once, yes.  But not for many years.  White Walkers?  Last seen eight thousand years past.  A slave girl tells Viserys she's seen a man who could change his face.  But we haven't.

Bran, though, saw a raven with three eyes.  In his dreams.

Viserys himself is broken, a stunted prince who longs for a throne but remains petty.  He actually reacts with rage when his sister sends a servant to invite him to dinner.  Why?  Because he doesn't take orders.  Neither does he react well to Danaerys growing into her own power (with a chilling threat--"The next time you lay hands on me is the last time you will have hands").  She sees him as broken now, someone who can never reclaim the Iron Throne.  Never.

Lady Sansa begins to feel broken, maybe even crippled.  Seeing her first tourney, in which a ferocious knight known as The Mountain Who Rides kills a younger man in front of her, proves sobering.  Horrifying.  Even terrifying.  Baelish, aka Littlefinger, seems to want to strengthen her and also her father.  Ned Stark himself finds himself busy following the clues of what happened to Jon Arryn, his predecessor as King's Hand.  Littlefinger warns him too, even going so far as to tell him "Not trusting me is the smartest thing you did since you arrived."

So much intrigue.  Family drama.  Politics and mystery brewing.  But almost all of it distractions.

Broken also is Lady Catelyn Stark, which leads her to do something wonderful and shortsighted at the end.  Believing Tyrion's dagger used in the attempt on Bran's life, she doesn't want him to see her on the road.  Doesn't want his family to know she hasn't been at Winterfell, the vast castle of the North.  But when he recognizes her at an Inn, she rises to the occasion.  Not addressing him, but the various warriors present--all sworn to her father's banner, Tully of Riverrun--she stirs their loyalty.  Then points her finger at the Imp, accusing him of conspiring to kill her son, demanding they seize him to face the King's Justice!

His face as they draw their swords is how the episode ends.  Rarely have we seen Tyrion Lannister at a loss for words.  Is he that good a liar?  Or is he innocent?  What do you think?