'Game Of Thrones' Season 3 Finale Review: Winter Is Coming

‘Game of Thrones’ wraps up its third season and sets the stage for season four.

SPOILERS for the HBO show and George R. R. Martin’s books follow.

 

 

 

Sunday night marks the season finale of Game of Thrones. It was quite an episode, too, though not as big and dramatic as its predecessor.
I found one scene in particular wonderfully satisfying. Bran Stark and his ragtag band of visionary misfits is sitting in an abandoned castle on the Wall, and the young Stark is telling the old folk tale of the Rat Cook.
In the story, a cook of the Night’s Watch takes vengeance on a king by killing his son and serving him up to the king in a meat pie. For this, the gods curse the cook, transforming him into a giant white rat doomed to feed on his young forevermore, never able to satisfy his hunger. Not because he killed the king’s son, or because he fed the king’s son to him. No, he is cursed because he killed a guest—a crime for which there is no forgiveness.
This is something of a balm.
Last week’s Red Wedding still stings. The murder of Robb Stark, his mother Catelyn, and their loyal bannermen and the capture of Edmure Tully, Catelyn’s brother, all while under the protection of one of the oldest Westerosi customs: that a guest’s protection is sacred. The Freys have broken one of the most binding vows known to man.
The season three finale itself covered quite a bit of ground, and pulling all the disparate pieces together is a tricky but important task as we ready ourselves for the long, terrible wait between now and the start of Season Four. 2014 feels like it’s an awful long ways off, doesn’t it?
Tying Up Loose Ends
In some ways, this episode was about home-coming, about at least some of these many chess pieces scattered across the board coming back together.
Bran and his friends cross paths with Sam and Gilly as one group heads north and the other south. I want to yell at the screen, at Bran, “Go to Castle Black!” Won’t any of the Starks ever meet up again?
Jon Snow, shot through with arrows, finds Sam and the Night’s Watch at long last.
Jaime and Cersei reunite.
At least a small part of Theon makes it home to the Iron Islands.
And Daenerys, the mother of dragons, Mhysa, finds another city of slaves to adore her.
Even across great distances, the pieces begin to move closer together. Ravens from the Wall are sent across the realm, and one reaches Stannis, imploring him to ride north to stop a growing darkness. The Red Lady, Melisandre, must see the truth in the flames. The five kings and their petty squabbles don’t matter, she tells Stannis—the true danger lies beyond the Wall.
And so Stannis will ride north. Daavos, who sets Gendry free when Stannis had determined to sacrifice the boy, is saved from Stannis’s justice when Melisandre, of all people, vouches for him. He’ll be needed in the coming war, she says.

Thank goodness, too. Daavos is one of the only truly good people in the show—or, rather, one of the only truly good people left standing.

A Dance of Dragons
Meanwhile, in King’s Landing we have another fantastic example of why Charles Dance was born to play Tywin Lannister.
News of Robb Stark’s death prompts the boy king to tell Tyrion, rather gleefully, that he’s ordered Robb’s head sent to King’s Landing so that he can serve it to Sansa at his wedding feast.
Of course, Tyrion will have none of it, and reminds Joffrey that kings have been dropping like flies lately. Surely all these threats on the king’s life will come back to haunt Tyrion, but I do so love him for each and every one, however idle they may be.
Joffrey throws a fit and stomps his feet and acts every bit the spoiled child at this, reminding everyone loudly that he is the king.
To which Tywin intones that anyone who must constantly remind us that he is king isn’t really king.
At this point Tyrion and Tywin argue a bit over what’s important. Tywin says family, the House, the Lannister line. Tywin says it’s all about Tywin and his own self interest.
The interesting part—the really important part—is what Tywin says in response.
He tells Tyrion that he went against his own self interest when Tyrion was born. He wanted to carry Tyrion out into the sea and let the waves carry him away but he didn’t, because Tyrion was a Lannister.
Not because he is Tywin’s son, mind you, but because he is a Lannister.
Is this just a refusal on Tywin’s part to call Tyrion his son? Or is it an admission of something more—of some other reason why Tywin hates Tyrion so deeply?
After all, if any of Tywin’s children ought to be the apple of his father’s eye it’s Tyrion.
Tyrion has a brain. He has his father’s wit if not his cruelty. Tywin can’t stand Cersei but he has a grudging respect for Tyrion. Yet he does love Cersei and he despises Tyrion. Why? Simply because he’s a dwarf? Because his wife died giving birth to Tyrion?
Or is it something more? Is there more to Tyrion’s birth than we know?

The Spider and the Imp
Then there’s the scene between the Spider, Varys, and Tyrion’s concubine, Shae: Varys tries to bribe Shae into leaving the city but she refuses.
I’m not sure I totally buy this. A bag of diamonds is a bag of diamonds, after all, and it isn’t like Shae is brimming with happiness here.
But I do think Varys’s admission is crucial: Tyrion, he says, is one of the few people who can actually do some good for Westeros, and Shae is putting him in danger.
Now, Varys is one of the most curious characters in the show/books because his motives aren’t entirely clear. We know he has served in Westeros for a long time as the master of spies and on the Small Council and we know that he says his first duty is to the “the realm.” What we don’t know (in the show at least) is why this foreigner is so eager to protect his adoptive home. What game is he playing at?
I do think we get a better contrast between Varys and his rival Littlefinger in the show than in the book. Varys may be playing at some long-con game of thrones, but he’s not a cruel sociopath like Petyr Baelish. He is kind to Sansa and tries to negotiate her happiness with Lady Olenna. He is kind to Ned Stark as well, and even helps Tyrion. He doesn’t seem to much care for the rest of the Lannisters, at least not that we’re aware of.
Kind to the Starks, and helpful to Tyrion.
Once again, I’m left to wonder: is this simply because Tyrion is a good person, or is there something else about the Imp that we don’t know? Something Varys might know?

One of the other great moments this episode was—surprise, surprise!—an Arya scene.
Maisie Williams continues to pull of one of the best roles in the show/books like a charm, and her token vengeance on Twins men-at-arms was at once hilarious and a bit creepy. We see a side of the Stark girl that doesn’t come out quite as overtly in the books: a girl growing ever more eager to kill, to become a killer.
Valar Morghulis: all men must die.
However brief, these scenes with the Hound and Arya are always riveting. There’s a sense of humor between the two that offsets the tension and horror of their situation.
A situation they find themselves in thanks to the dirty dealings of Walder Frey—the new Lord of Riverrun—Roose Bolton—the new Warden in the North—and Tywin Lannister. “The north will never forget,” Tyrion tells his father as they discuss the murders. Let’s hope not.
Of course, the one running things in the north at the moment appears to be Ramsay Snow, the at-long-last revealed bastard of Roose Bolton, and our psychotic torturer of poor Theon Greyjoy.
This was actually an important moment in the ongoing trials and tribulations of Theon. I’ve bemoaned the amount of torture and the gratuitousness of it all in the past, but this time around Ramsay isn’t the only one who finally gets a name. He gives Theon a new name: Reek. And the slow dehumanizing and transformation of Theon into something (and someone) else, continues.
On a final note, I found the parting shots between Ygritte and Jon Snow a big let down—an almost unnecessary coda to a poorly handled story arc. I’m not sure how much of this is the writing, how much is Kit Harrington who is one of the few actors in the show who I just can’t buy in their role. Since I think Jon Snow is one of the most important characters in the show, this is a thought I try not to dwell on.
Ah well.
In Conclusion…
Let’s summarize where we find ourselves as the season wraps up:
Stannis will head north to the Wall if Melisandre and Daavos get their way (and Melisandre always gets her way.)
Jon and Sam are both back at Castle Black, and Maestor Aemon has sent out the ravens imploring the rest of the Seven Kingdoms to come to the Wall and stand with the Night’s Watch.
Bran and the Reeds and Hodor are making their way north of the Wall, seeking out the three-eyed raven (though we’re still not quite clear why just yet.)
Sansa Stark is heartbroken once again, and whatever strides Tyrion has made with her are now almost certainly for nothing.
Arya gets her first taste of blood and seems to like it. (Edit: second taste. I’d forgotten the stable boy.)
Gendry is free, on a boat on the open sea by himself even though he can’t swim.
Speaking of boats,
Asha  Yara Greyjoy is off to the Dreadfort to save her little brother.
Jaime is back in King’s Landing, along with Brienne, and things are about to get awkward.
And the war looks as though it might just be winding down, at long last, and to the victors go the spoils. The Starks are beaten. Stannis is turning his attention elsewhere. Bolton and Frey hold the North and the Riverlands. The Lannisters, along with their southern allies, appear to be firmly in control of Westeros.
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh, and then there’s Daenerys Targaryen with her three dragons and her army of Unsullied, marching across Slaver’s Bay. What could go wrong, indeed….?
P.S. I was hoping we’d see Lady Stoneheart as well, and I’m a bit miffed that we didn’t get Coldhands. Seems odd not to end on a note of magic and mystery.
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'Game Of Thrones' Season 3, Episode 9 Review: The Rains Of Castamere

 

 

Game of Thrones is a sprawling, epic tragedy. Even beyond the events that made Sunday night’s horrifying episode so tragic, all the markers of the classic tragedy are present, woven into a gritty, fantastical world.
Ned Stark’s tragic flaw was his honor: he was too noble and too stern in his belief system to play the titular game of thrones. Cersei told him as much, but he wouldn’t listen (to her or anyone else.) I’m not sure if he was a fool and believed his enemies to be more honorable than they were, or if he just couldn’t stoop to her level. Whatever the case, it cost him his head.
Robb isn’t quite the same man. He’ll break a vow, for instance—something his father would never have done. Robb’s betrayal of Lord Walder Frey was done for passion. “You say you betrayed me for love,” the Frey patriarch intones, “I say you did it for….” Well, I’ll paraphrase: A pretty face.
Robb is proud but not prideful. He’s honorable, but not ruled by his honor. He’s a smart warlord, but makes too many mistakes.
Most importantly, he’s young.
Is that a tragic flaw? To be young and ruled by lust and romance and short-sightedness? It seems a minor sort of flaw compared to the sins of King Joffrey or the stubborness of Stannis Baratheon or the lechery and mismanagement of King Robert.
Robb simply didn’t see it coming, and he overestimated the loyalty of his bannermen: Lord Roose Bolton; Lord Walder Frey—two men allied to one another by marriage whose desire to be on the winning side of the war drives them to a hideous betrayal. The young Wolf showed weakness, and that was the end of him, plain and simple.
Sunday night we come to the first major wedding in the third book of George R. R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire.
The Red Wedding.

But we don’t get to that right away. We have Arya and the Hound, Sandor Clegane, approaching the Twins, where Clegane plans to ransom the young Stark back to her brother. Every scene between the Hound and Arya is brilliant, and there’s a selfish part of me that’s happy to see their journey together isn’t quite ended.
Poor Arya, though, to get so close…and to see her brother’s wolf slaughtered in his kennel. To know deep down what’s happening in the keep up above.
We also have one of the better Jon Snow scenes in the show so far, as Jon’s true allegiance to the Night’s Watch is revealed when he won’t kill a horse breeder when ordered to. To be honest, I’m still not sure the entire arc here has worked all that well. Jon’s killing of Qhorin Halfhand last season was nowhere near as convincing as it was in the books, and the entire saga has felt forced.

So it comes as something of a relief to have it over with, and to go out with a fight. The fight itself was nicely complimented by Bran learning to take control of his inner warg. First he possesses Hodor when the giant loses his cool during the storm; then Jojen convinces Bran to possess Summer and drive away the Wildlings.
Good thing, too, or Jon Snow might have turned out the worse for wear.

In the east, Dany and company continue their plodding assault on Yunkai. Fortunately Daario, the grunge-band inspired freebooter, has a plan. He sneaks Grey Worm and Jorah Mormont into the city where they have a really terrific fight against the city guards.
I mean that, too. It was brief and brutal and all three—Jorah, Grey Worm, and Daario—have their own unique fighting styles, and all three fight beautifully.
It’s a fast fight, and so lovingly choreographed that I found myself actually wishing there was a bit more of it—something I haven’t done much of in the Dany storyline since the first season.
That being said, I think it might have been best to toss the whole thing into next week’s episode (or even an episode earlier.)
The thing is, Sunday night’s episode had a little room for Arya and a little room for Jon and Bran, but it didn’t have room for much else. There was no real reason we needed to know what was happening in Slaver’s Bay, and there was no reason we needed the brief scene with Sam and his wildling.

But we did have time for a wedding.
In the books, the betrayal of Robb Stark at the hands of the Freys and Boltons was a huge shock. Like the execution of Ned Stark, I didn’t see it coming.
There were hints and signs along the way, of course, and those hints and signs were here in the HBO adaptation as well: Lord Bolton freeing Jaime Lannister and sending him back to King’s Landing; the threatening behavior of old Walder Frey toward Robb and his entourage; and finally the song playing over it all, once it’s too late, once everyone save Catelyn is too drunk or distracted to notice what’s playing.
The Rains of Castamere.
Cersei told us the story of that song a couple episodes ago, of House Reyne, whose power and wealth grew until it rivaled the Lannisters—until the Lion’s rode forth and destroyed House Reyne utterly. A Lannister always pays his debts.

Revenge, opportunity, the swift destruction of a pesky rival. Frey, Bolton, and Lannister each get what they want by slaughtering the Starks and all their men. Lord Frey breaks the sacred laws of hospitality (which the show makes a point to highlight early on in the episode) but only with the assurance of Tywin Lannister’s protection (the House Frey will be forever marked as breakers of one of the most sacred traditions in Westeros.)
Only the Blackfish, Edmure and Catelyn’s uncle, escapes the slaughter in the feast hall. We’re not sure of his fate in the show, but he isn’t there when the crossbowmen rain death down from above; when Robb’s queen is stabbed viciously in the belly; when Bolton sticks Robb with his dagger, hissing “The Lannisters send their regards.”
When Catelyn’s throat is cut and the credits roll.
I admit, the scene in the book shook me up more, but it’s a tough comparison to make. Like I said, I didn’t see it coming the first time I read it. This time around I felt the dread like it was new, but I couldn’t wipe the memory away. I knew what was going to happen, even if I found myself wishing it wouldn’t.
The main difference between show and book has to do with supporting cast. In the books we had several side characters killed or captured in the Red Wedding, which added to its sting. On the other hand, Robb’s relationship was more fleshed out in the show (as was Robb himself) and there was a deeper sense of tragedy knowing he’d also lost his unborn child.
Great television, in other words, even if there’s nothing quite like the very first time, and even if a book can do more with a wide web of side characters than a 50 minute episodic television show.
I’m interested to see what could possibly come next week in the season finale. This was such a brutal climax. I’m glad we don’t end the season on this note. But it’s going to be hard to top.

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'Game Of Thrones' Season 3, Episode 8 Review: Second Sons, White Walkers

‘Game of Thrones’ returns with another excellent episode Sunday night as HBO’s dark fantasy drama nears the end of Season 3.

 

 

Game of Thrones is back in fighting shape after a one-week lull last Sunday. Tonight’s episode was great—another character-driven episode but, unlike last week’s episode, not a dull moment to be found.
It struck me during the very first scene between Arya Stark and Sandor Clegane just how perfectly cast both characters were.
Rory McCann plays the Hound almost exactly how I imagined him. You can see the good man beneath the burns, beneath the brutality that’s defined most of his life.
Maisie Williams gets every bit of Arya right, from her pigheadedness to her quick wit. I’m happy to see this storyline take shape at last, though Arya’s scenes last season with Tywin Lannister are still my favorite of hers.
This was an aptly titled episode: Second Sons.
On the one hand, that’s the name of the sellsword company Dany treats with on the outskirts of Yunkai.
Less obviously, it’s a reference to the many sons we encountered in the episode: Tyrion, the younger brother of Jaime; Samwell Tarly, the first son made second son by his cruel father; Sandor Clegane, whose elder brother, Gregor, gave him his burned face and terrible fear of flame; Stannis, the lawful-neutral younger brother of Robert Baratheon, dropping leeches filled with Gendry’s blood into the flame, guilt and ambition and a frightening commitment to doing the right thing flickering in his eyes.
Speaking of Stannis, we finally have another Daavos episode, and better still it’s one in which he’s finally freed from the dungeon. Daavos is one of the few truly good people in Martin’s stories, though he’s often left impotent in the wake of Stannis’s stern utilitarianism and Melisandre’s creepy Lord of Light rituals.

We get a sense of the darkness she’s always on about at the end of Sunday night’s episode, but even the sight of a White Walker doesn’t do enough to chill me into thinking her methods are just. This is where Stannis becomes such a dissonant character for me. If I had to define what drives him, it would be a commitment to justice. He doesn’t care to be king but he believes it is his right and his duty and the only shape justice can take is a crown on his skull.
It doesn’t matter if Renly is his own brother, or if Robb Stark is the son of a man he respected. (Ned Stark was equally committed to justice, though his justice was driven by compassion rather than an abstract sense of order and law.)
Stannis will burn each and every one of his enemies down and broker no peace. Because honor.
Another man would have joined forces with Robb by now, or would have made a deal with Renly. Not Stannis. I suspect it’s both his greatest weakness and his greatest strength. Winter is coming. Maybe half measures have no place in this world.
But Stannis only believes in justice when it doesn’t foil his belief in destiny.
He says he’s seen a great battle in the snow while peering into Melisandre’s flames. He’s spied some glimpse of the world plunged into a terrifying darkness and only he can prevent it,because he’s the Chosen One. Or at least that’s what Melisandre says. I’m not sure Stannis himself believes it, though he may have no choice now.
What’s justice in the face of this horrible need? What’s another royal bastard burned at the stake?
Meanwhile, in King’s Landing….


…we have a wedding.
Joyous occasion!
This was the major event of the evening. The sad, awkward joining of Tyrion Lannister and young Sansa Stark.
She may be distraught at the prospect of bedding a dwarf (and a Lannister) but I hope she realizes how enormously lucky she was to get hitched to this particular Lannister and not…well, any of the others (save our reformed Jaime perhaps.)
So a wedding. The first of many.
Part of me thinks Martin’s book shouldn’t have been called A Storm of Swords—Four Weddings and Some Funerals might have been more appropriate.
This was the least auspicious of the three major weddings in the book (there are four important weddings in all, but only three I’d count as “events.”) It’s also the least deadly of the weddings, though the great, tense scene between a drunken Tyrion and a sniveling, miserable Joffrey, fresh on the heels of terrorizing Sansa, felt as if it might end in blood. Or ought to end in blood.
A part of me hoped they’d break with the books and just have Tyrion leap from the table and stick his dinner knife right into Joffrey’s eye. The look on Tywin’s face would have been worth it. Or Cersei’s. Or Joffrey’s for that matter.
Wishes are for fishes. Let’s sail East.

In Slaver’s Bay we have Dany meet an important character: Daario Naharis, a man who looks as if he’s stepped directly off the set of an early 90′s MTV music video.
I admit that I find most of the Dany stuff in both the show and the books a bit on the boring side. But I’ve been enjoying Dany more this season, and she really does have a good supporting cast. Daario should spice things up a bit, especially with Jorah, whose jealousy is almost certainly about to get the better of him.
As usual, not a great deal happens here in the east, though we get a new character and more nudity. And one really disgusting mercenary loses his head, which was gratifying.
Weddings and second sons and then, finally, north…beyond the Wall to where Samwell the coward and his wildling companion discuss what to name her baby. Lots of names, but a few in particular with a sour taste. The names of fathers.
Outside, the sounds of crows in the trees builds. Their hovel is stranded beneath the weird, watchful eyes of the pale weirwood trees. Crows fill the branches until their raucous cacophony is too much to ignore.
This is one of the best moments in the books. Sam find his courage and he discovers something even more important: the purpose of dragon glass. Obsidian. The secret weapon.
Poor Sam, rushing to his death, toward a foe nobody has been able to kill, toward a myth that just shattered Sam’s sword with its bare hands. And Sam wins, miraculously, driving his little obsidian dagger into the creature. What a glorious moment in a story so often about things going horribly, horribly wrong.
If only I wasn’t so annoyed at how the White Walkers look in HBO’s show. Perhaps more than any other quibble, the ice zombie thing really bugs me. All the mystery and menace is lost.

Grateful dead....

A brief side note: We’ve been seeing the chess pieces of Westerosi politics move hither and thither for most of the show so far. We’re starting to see a bit more of the epic forces that make this clash of kings look rather petty and trivial. Even five books into Martin’s saga, we’ve only really seen bits and pieces of this struggle. But the players here are important to note.
Dany is more than a conqueror. She’s the Mother of Dargons—dragons who breathe fire. What role will she play in fending off the darkness north of the Wall?
Melisandre, and Thoros to a lesser extent, are priests of the Lord of Light, a force we’re led to believe might be able to fend off the doom of the White Walkers. What role does Stannis play in all of this? What is the Lord of Light’s angle?
Nor should we forget the Old Gods, and Bran heading north after his dream crow, or the weirwood trees and the old legends of the north. Magic is old and deep and dark in the north. But it’s where this legendary evil was stopped thousands of years ago.
Where does salvation lie? In which men, and which gods?

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'Game Of Thrones' Season 3, Episode 7 Review: The Bear And The Maiden Fair

SPOILER WARNING: for both the HBO show and the books by George R. R. Martin.
Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thrones was a bit of a slower affair than what we’ve become accustomed to this season.
It was also an episode all about the number two—or, more specifically, about pairs of characters facing off, often in a subtle (or not so subtle) display of power.
Tywin Lannister looms over his insolent grandson, King Joffrey. The former looks grand and kingly  in his black suit; the latter looks anything but grand sitting shrunken in the Iron Throne.
Tyrion Lannister pleads first with Bron and then with Shae, insisting to each that he never asked to marry Sansa and certainly has no interest in her beyond “doing his duty.” The juxtaposition is interesting. Bron the sellsword and Shae the whore—Tyrion’s company is bought and paid for, and neither fails to remind him of this. Sex, violence, and Lannister gold.
Then there’s Sansa and Margaery talking about men and sex. We’re reminded of how innocent Sansa is, and how Margaery is anything but.
Jon Snow and Ygritte pair off, though again very little comes of it beyond Jon’s warning that the wildlings will never succeed in taking the North.
And finally there’s King Robb and his exotic queen, in a long scene designed, I suspect, in making audiences care as much about this young (now pregnant) couple as we possibly can, as they make their way to Lord Frey’s keep, and Edmure Tully’s wedding there. Lord Roose Bolton has also left Harrenhal, we learn, as he makes his way to the same event.
So many pairs. Some lovers, some friends, others family or enemies—or both. This was an episode built to move chess pieces and to flesh out little bits of character development. As such, it wasn’t quite the tour de force we’ve seen in some of the recent episodes.
Other moments—Osha’s chastising of Jojen Reed, for instance, or the snippets of conversation between Jon/Ygritte and the wildling skinchanger—lacked the oomph we’ve come to associate with most of this season.
Dany’s decision to sack another city in Slaver’s Bay—Yunkai, the “Yellow City”—reminds me yet again how hapless her plot becomes as she languishes in the East, mired down by politics I really don’t care about when she ought to really be sailing on those Yunkai ships for the shores of her homeland as fast as the wind will take her. Still, I’m always glad to get another scene with the dragons, especially when they’re angry.

However slow or foot-dragging some of these scenes were (Robb’s scene seemed especially slow) the climax was terrific. Jaime and Brienne continue to have a much more interesting relationship than basically any other couple in the show (and yes, I realize they’re not a couple.) I’m certainly far more interested in these two than with Jon and Ygritte.
And Jaime racing back to Harrenhal to save Brienne, and then leaping into the bear pit to do so, unarmed with just one hand, well that’s just great television. It’s also almost identical to the book (barring some character changes and a dream.) Jaime’s transformation from carefree and rather awful to brave and selfless—dare I say chivalrous?—continues and everything between these two remains magnificent.
We got a little less of Arya and the Brotherhood this week than I would have liked, and I’m not entirely sure Arya’s escape worked as well as it could have. Could all these grown men really not run her down? And the Hound seemed awfully well-positioned for the capture. Perhaps that’s just a quibble, though. A symptom of my irritation with the scene’s brevity.
(Last week many people disputed my claim that Arya “escaped” the Brotherhood before being captured by the Hound, but I’ve looked into this and it’s true. Arya sneaks off, feeling she can’t trust the Brotherhood since they plan to ransom her to Robb. She sneaks off and the Hound, who has been following them, snags her. I think her anger over Gendry is more believable.)

One final thought: enough already with the Theon Greyjoy torture. I’m quite happy we’ve established Ramsay Snow as a sadistic villain. I’m very much looking forward to the revelation that this is Roose Bolton’s bastard, and that Roose himself is something of a bastard (though more of the cold-calculating type than the psychotic torturer type.) But enough is enough.

We could have done with three or four episodes total dealing with Theon’s plight, establishing a new villain, and then moving on. Instead, we’re having a bit of a repeat of the problem Season 2 had with Littlefinger’s brothel, and Sunday night’s episode seemed determined to bring the brothel to the torture chamber. Maybe my stomach just isn’t stern enough, but I’m beginning to find it all a bit gratuitous at this point, if only for its regularity.
I also  think that this season needs to do a better job reminding us that there’s a war going on. Robb is never marching to battle. Tywin is stuck in King’s Landing. Stannis is trapped between a crazy red priestess and an even crazier wife. Nobody’s marching or fighting, though certainly marching and fighting must still be going on. I realize that we’re in a bit of a lull as everyone licks their wounds and tries to recover from the previous season’s battles, but some nod to the still-at-war reality would be nice. Even the chance to see the Brotherhood bring bloody death down on to the heads of a Lannister raiding party has been spoiled.
Still, while I didn’t think this was the strongest episode of the season at all and felt a little bored here and there for the first time since the Season Premiere, I still enjoyed watching all the pieces line up. I have that sinking feeling in my gut watching poor Robb Stark and his retinue pin all their hopes on Walder Frey.
Everything is going to get so much worse, and it’s already pretty bad.

Source:http://www.forbes.com

Game Of Thrones' Season 3 Episode 6 Review: 'The Climb

“Chaos isn’t a pit,” Littlefinger tells Varys toward the end of Sunday night’s deeply creepy episode of Game of Thrones. “It’s a ladder.”
For Littlefinger, the son of a minor nobleman living ever in the shadow of greater men, a ladder is a fitting symbol. That Petyr Baelish is preparing for a voyage to the Eyrie—a fortress high upon a thin spire of a mountain—only heightens the symbolism.
In “The Climb” we have both Littlefinger’s ambition and the sheer, icy face of The Wall to contend with. Both are terrifying.
But we’ll start at one of the more interesting moments of the night, in the Riverlands, in a surprising scene between Thoros of Myr and Melisandre, both servants of the Lord of Light.
Just as I begin to really enjoy the Brotherhood without Banners the Red Lady, Melisandre, shows up. After a lovely conversation between her and Thoros of Myr in the marvelously crafted High Valarian HBO cobbled together for the show, Thoros takes the priestess to meet Beric Dondarion.
It turns out she’s come for Gendry, Robert’s bastard. Melisandre has been burning Robert’s bastards as offerings to her Lord of Light as fast as the Lannisters can hunt them down and strangle them in their cribs. Too bad Robert sired so many inconvenient children.
For a couple bags of gold and because their God said so, Beric and Thoros sell Gendry down the river.

This never happens in the books. I checked to see if it was even possible that it occurred off-screen, but there’s no way. In book four, A Feast for Crows, Brienne meets Gendry. In fact, Gendry is knighted Ser Gendry of Hollow Hill by Beric Dondarrion in the books.
In some ways it works better this way, at least in terms of Arya’s character. In the books, Arya escapes the Brotherhood but I found her reasoning a bit baffling. Yes, they planned to ransom her to her brother, Robb, but that was the quickest way home. Why leave when she had essentially a free ticket home? The Brotherhood seemed like good enough men. Even her impulsiveness seemed too rash.
Now Arya has a very good reason to run off: Beric and Thoros have betrayed Gendry and she has no reason to trust them.
On a side note, Paul Kaye continues to make Thoros a far more fascinating character in the show than in the books. His has quickly become one of my favorite performances in the show.

Just to the north, at House Tully, we have two of the many Frey offspring setting terms with Robb Stark and Edmure Tully. If Lord Frey is going to lend Robb his men, after Robb broke his vow to the old lord, he wants a formal apology and he wants Edmure to marry his daughter.
Much arguing ensues. The Blackfish threatens his nephew. Robb pleads. Catelyn, remarkably, stays silent.
For those of you who’ve read the books, it’s a painful deliberation to watch. Everything is veering toward disaster and betrayal.
To the south, in Harrenhal, we can glimpse another front in this collapse: Lord Roose Bolton agrees to send Jaime Lannister back to King’s Landing, asking only that he vouches for Bolton to Tywin Lannister. Bolton is either afraid that the Lannisters will pay their debt by placing Bolton’s head on a spike (or chopping off a hand, perhaps) or he wants something more.

I’m glad to see Bolton taking a larger role in the last couple episodes. His calculation and menace is beginning to soak through.

Speaking of menace—and Boltons, for that matter—we ought to fly as the raven flies, north, to a dark torture chamber where poor Theon Greyjoy hangs tied to a cross.
His mysterious tormenter (Ramsay Snow, the bastard of Bolton) is playing a game with the son of the Iron Islands: if Theon can guess where they are, who his tormenter is, he “wins.”
This is one of the more gruesome scenes so far in the show which, I suppose, is fitting given how grim and terrible Theon’s storyline is in book five of Martin’s series. Ramsay Snow is one of the few truly wicked people in the story—he’s like Joffrey if Joffrey had nobody to keep him at bay.
Scary stuff, but important given where this story goes.

Speaking of which, we’ll clamber further north to The Wall. Just south of it we get yet another brief scene of Bran Stark and his band of misfits. Osha and Meera squabble over rabbits; Jojen has a seizure brought on by his visions, and Bran begs everyone to get along. Hodor and Rickon make an ever-so-brief appearance. Basically, the Bran story continues to tip-toe along, but there’s not much to say about it.
On the opposite side of The Wall, Sam and his wildling girl sit by a fire and Sam shows off the loot he found at the Fist of the First Men: an obsidian spear-head (or dagger?) Dragonglass.
“What does it do?” she asks, to which Sam replies, “I don’t think it does anything.”
Well, let’s just say it’s called dragonglass for a reason.
Finally we have Romeo and Juliet: two lovers from opposite sides of warring houses, making out on a thousand-foot-high balcony of ice. Wherefore art thou crow?
I liked the climb scene. Maybe because I have a perfectly rational fear of heights, but I always get tense in scenes like this even though I know what’s going to happen.
I still can’t connect well with Jon Snow, which is too bad given how much I liked his character in the books. Things should get more interesting soon, though. I hope.

Nevermind the north. Things continue to plod along there. Let’s go south once again to the sweltering, stinking streets of “the worst place in the world,” according to Loras Tyrell: King’s Landing.
Here we have the scene I’ve been waiting for since the beginning of Season 3. The showdown between Olenna Redwyne, the matriarch of House Tyrell, and the patriarch of House Lannister, Tywin. They’re an even match, with both managing to play their cards at exactly the right moment to make the other uncomfortable.
The problem is, Tywin holds the trump. He threatens forcing Loras into the Kingsguard if the Tyrells refuse Tywin’s proposal to marry him and Cersei. This leaves Sansa to Tyrion, who has to break the bad news to the poor girl. It’s all very awful and sad as all the good things that finally started happening quickly degenerate and unravel.
And why do they all fall apart?
Because chaos is a ladder. Littlefinger leers at Varys, gloating about his success in foiling The Spider’s plans to wed Loras and Sansa. It only gets worse when he reveals that he knew who Varys’s spy was and gave her to Joffrey. This is the second really chilling moment in the episode, when we learn the fate of Ros, a character made up for the show but whose role in it seemed unfinished nonetheless.
We didn’t need her death to reveal what a sick and twisted person king Joffrey is, but it did help remind us just how cruel and ambitious and vengeful Littlfinger in his quest for upward momentum.
Of course, Varys is clever and cruel as well, even if he was outplayed. Varys is still a master at the game of thrones, and one gets the feeling Littlefinger may underestimate him. His little speech on chaos, for instance, is a pretty clear sign that he doesn’t really understand what Varys really means when he says he’s doing what he does to serve the realm. Varys understands chaos.
So we’re left with just four more episodes of Game of Thrones, and this makes me sad. We need at least ten more, twenty perhaps. Whereas last season I found myself enjoying the show, but with mixed feelings one episode to the next, this season I remain glued to the TV. There are easily as many changes from the books this time around, but the spirit of Storm of Swords is here in a way that I never felt happened with Season 2.
We have at least three weddings ahead of us, though I strongly suspect only one before this season is over, and many funerals. And next Sunday is much too far away.

Source:http://www.forbes.com

'Game Of Thrones' Season 3 Episode 5 Review: 'Kissed By Fire'

‘Game of Thrones’ brings blood and fire to Sunday night’s dramatic episode.

[Spoiler warning for both the HBO show and the books by George R. R. Martin.]

 

(I know I’ve just warned you about spoilers, but I’m doing it one more time for good measure. Okay?)
Game of Thrones has found its stride in Season 3. Seasons one and two were both good, but the third has been some of the best television I’ve ever watched.I’m riveted by nearly every scene, and Sunday night’s episode is no exception.
‘Kissed by Fire’ is an episode filled with flame and heat—from the red of Ygritte’s hair to their first kiss (“You know nothing Jon Snow,” she tells him before realizing he may know a thing or two); from the fiery blade of Beric Dondarrion, to the prayers of Lady Selyse, Lord Stannis Baratheon’s zealous wife; from the steaming cave pools north of the wall, to the bath houses of Harrenhal. Fire everywhere, in hearts and stone and steel.
It was wildfire that stole the show, however. Jaime’s delirious soliloquy as he bathed with Brienne of Tarth was one of the strongest moments in the show so far. His revelation to Brienne that the Mad King had stored wildfire throughout King’s Landing and had planned to burn that city and all its inhabitants rather than surrender to Tywin and Robert casts his part in Aerys’s death in a whole new light.
“Help, the Kingslayer!” Brienne calls as he begins to swoon.
“Jaime,” he replies. “My name is Jaime.”
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has played pretty much the perfect Jaime so far, but tonight he took the role to a new level entirely. He’s managed the suave, witty, irreverent knight exceedingly well, and he looks the part. Tonight’s episode showed not only a deeper side of the character, but just how powerful Coster-Waldau’s performance in Game of Thrones really is. I think I held my breath through half the story.
The episode began with a fight to the death between Brotherhood Without Banners chieftain Beric Dondarrion and Sandor “The Hound” Clegane.
I feel a little bad for Sandor, whose monster of a brother burned him as a child leaving him deathly afraid of fire. The next worst thing after a bay of wildfire is a blade kissed by fire.
Thoros of Myr’s Lord of Light must have felt bad, too, because Sandor wins, slicing his blade clean through Dondarrion’s shoulder.
Of course, Thoros is a holy monk, a red priest, and in some ways I suspect he’s more a true priest to his God than the Red Lady, Melisandre. At least he doesn’t burn people alive, or make grand promises about Beric being the Chosen One.
Perhaps I say that simply because I actually like Thoros and have a strong dislike of Melisandre. The entire Brotherhood is a storyline I’d love to see lots more of, because it’s filled with characters I like in a show (and series of books) with far too few likable characters.
Then again, not only doe sThoros not burn people, he also raises people from the dead. He’s brought back Beric six times. Dondarrion jokes that he’s been killed more than once by a Clegane now. Arya doesn’t appear to be amused.
She asks Thoros if he can bring back someone who has had their head cut off.
“I don’t think it works that way, child,” the priest replies. Nothing ever quite works the way Arya wants it to.

In the north we have yet another brief scene with Jon Snow, whose storyline has taken something of a backseat as he traverses the frozen landscape of Hoth with the wildlings.

I joke, of course, but there is something Hoth-like about the snowy expanses north of the wall. I keep wanting them to mount their tauntauns and get this long trek over with. Even a steamy sex scene can’t alter the fact that nothing is going on with Jon’s story. Why not devote a bigger chunk of one episode to these tangled stories up north? Bran, Sam, and Jon all need a bit more screen time, and we need to see it all happen at once.
Don’t get me wrong, the politics south of the wall are great. We have Robb Stark proving he’s his father’s true-born son by sticking to his honor rather than listening to the advice of his counsel. In one very literal fell swoop he dispatches half his armies to the north. Loosing heads and losing heads are apparently skills linked quite closely by stubbornness and pride.
Ultimately, rather than listening to his wife, his mother, or his uncle, Robb comes upon his own brilliant plan: to take Casterly Rock, home of the Lannisters. And to do that, he’ll need to go crawling back on hands and knees to Lord Frey whose daughter, he reminds us, he’d promised to marry. Which reminds me: perhaps he’s not quite Ned Stark’s son after all. Eddard would never have turned his back on such a promise, and certainly not for love.
The things we do for love….
Further south we have Tywin plotting against the Tyrells, maneuvering Sansa Stark into the reluctant arms of Tyrion “The Imp” Lannister, and Cersei into the even more reluctant arms of Loras Tyrell, who Littlefinger is spying on. (On a side note, the spying-on scene leads to quite possibly the twentieth bare buttocks we see this episode, which seemed determined to moon audiences at every opportunity.)
Tywin’s plotting is a great example of the King’s Hand letting his ruthlessness get the better of his judgment. Giving up Sansa to the Tyrells could have been a reasonable way to extricate himself from both her and the north rather than somehow thinking that he could seat a Lannister in Winterfell and get away with it. The Tyrells could have worked their magic on the northerners, no doubt, in ways poor Tyrion would never be able to do.
Meanwhile, Tywin surely could have secured a better alliance than he would by doubling down on Highgarden. Isn’t marrying Joffrey to Margaery enough? Can the ties that bind really wind any tighter?
One imagines an alliance with Dorne, for instance, would have been better. And Tywin could use it as an excuse to send Cersei away—south to Dorne, where Tyrion has already sent her daughter, Myrcella.

The scene between the Queen of Thorns and Tyrion was yet another lovely illustration of the Tyrell’s rather more skilled approach to managing the public than their Lannister counterparts, and a nice juxtaposition to the Lannister family gathering. It’s nice to see the chess pieces move, and not just the blades fly.
But forget King’s Landing. Things will get more interesting there soon enough.
Let’s fly south—south, but mostly east, past the Free Cities to Slaver’s Bay, where Daenerys Targaryen is trying still to make free men of the Unsullied. She is Khaleesi now of a horseless army of unmanned men whose brutal training has left them only part human.
More interesting than her efforts are the squabbling of Jorah Mormont and Ser Barristan Selmy, who reminds Jorah that back in Westeros he’s a disgraced man—an exile, banned for his selling of slaves in a land where slavery is outlawed. Selmy doesn’t quite say as much, but he suggests that perhaps Jorah’s days as Dany’s right-hand-man are limited.
Unsurprisingly, Jorah seems to disagree.
I’m still wondering where this all goes given the very different way the show has handled the matter.
Wherever it goes, I’ll be watching. I’m firmly under the show’s spell at this point, whether in the icy north or the dusty sun of Slaver’s Bay. HBO has brought life many of the characters from the books who felt too flat, and have stayed true to the characters who were already fleshed out in the books. I do think the north is suffering a bit from neglect at this point, and has been for some time, but I have faith that much of that will change either in the second half of this season, or in Season 4.
Either way, this is television not to be missed. It’s quickly becoming one of my top shows of all time, right up there with Breaking Bad as dramas nobody should have the misfortune of missing.

Source: http://www.forbes.com

Game Of Thrones season 3 episode 4 review: And Now His Watch Is Ended

3.4 And Now His Watch Is Ended

When it comes to playing the Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister said that you either win or you die. As we have seen throughout the show's history, some have played the game very well indeed (like the Small Council, who have served multiple kings during their time) and others have played the game with disastrous results (Ned Stark, Robert and Renly Baratheon, Jon Arryn). The Queen of Thorns Olenna Tyrell and her granddaughter the future Queen of Westeros Margaery seem to be better at playing the game than any of the other great ladies who have been bandied about as Queen, been actual Queen, or been betrothed to the King.
In particular, Magaery seems to be conducting a master class on how to win friends and influence people this week, from her little tour through the dead Kings of Westeros section of the Sept of Baelor with Joffrey to her friendly conversation with Sansa during prayer time. Of course, she learned by watching the best (see Olenna's awesome pairing with Varys in the garden, giving me one of my most-wished-for character match-ups), but sometimes it seems as though she's two steps ahead of the dupes she's manipulating - even someone like Cersei, who can smell the deception in Margaery, can't stop her because she's simply too good at what she does. She even manages to make Joffrey likable for an entire minute of smiling-and-waving-at-the-small-folk!
As for Cersei, well... in a brilliant scene between Charles Dance and Lena Headey, we see just how little regard Tywin Lannister has for his children. Despite going to war for Tyrion, we saw what Tywin really thinks of his youngest child. Despite serving as the Hand of the King, we see how little respect Tywin has for Joffrey and for Cersei. Tywin is brilliant as a general, and his knowledge of tactics seems to extend all the way to managerial tips. When talking with Jaime, he was gutting a deer. When talking with Tyrion, he was busy writing a letter, and Cersei gets the same treatment this week (right down to some very similar shots of the two courtesy of director Alex Graves). Management 101 says that the best way to show that you're in charge is to never give someone your full attention during a meeting, and Tywin Lannister seems willing to do that to everyone, even his kids.
One of the better ways the show has handled its massive cast is by creating natural pairs and sticking with them. You have small groups, like the Brotherhood Without Banners, Arya/Gendry, and The Hound, or perhaps the remnants of the Night's Watch or the King Beyond The Wall's gathered forces, but when the show pairs off two characters and lets them at one another, that's when the its high writing quality comes to life. Benioff and Weiss have done wonders adapting the novels to the screen, and while some fans complain that the show doesn't properly adapt the full gigantic Martin literary universe, I think enough of the character elements have been captured and plots preserved (thus far) to keep the show entertaining both for the knowledgeable nerd and for latecomers like myself.
Certainly the series manages to keep things moving and interesting, and it's a rare episode of Game of Thrones where I'm not surprised by the ending credits. The show makes 58 minutes or so of television sweep by like nothing, and even if I might want to occasionally slow down and give me some focus on one setting, perhaps the pacing needs frequent scene changes to really work to full effect. If I got all of Dany's adventure in Astapor in one episode (or two even), it wouldn't be quite as exciting to watch her predictable plot play itself out. However, with the episodes as split as they are, each brief scene is something to savour, as we may only get one Tyrion moment in an episode.
However, when you get an episode as packed with as much good character work, good writing, good fight scenes, and brilliant special effects as this one, you don't really need to lean on fan favorites like Tyrion. Give me a few good shots of the dragons flying around and vast armies on the march, and I'm pretty happy. (Glad to see that HBO is willing to loosen the purse strings for its most popular show, footing the bill for some awesome special effects this week.) If we are only to receive little bits of stories throughout an episode, they may as well be the highest of high-impact.

Source: http://www.denofgeek.com