Category: Fantasy (Page 2 of 2)

I’ve been on vacation for the past two weeks, but now that I’m back home, one of the first orders of business is getting caught up on Game of Thrones! Episode 8 was certainly worth the wait: this was one of the best episodes of the season, in my opinion.

It starts off in Mole’s Town, where the wildling, including Ygritte, show up and slaughter everyone they find. We see that Ygritte is just as brutal as the rest of the wildlings… almost. She spares Gilly and her son when she finds them cowering in a back room.

At the wall, Sam is freaking out about sending Gilly to Mole’s Twon, and Jon and the others try to cheer him up, but they’re in a grim situation and they know it. Although, when they ask how 100 men of the night’s watch are supposed to stop 100,000 wildlings, I had to think to myself “Well, the 700 foot tall wall of ice is a good start.”

Over in Meereen, the interesting subplot between Gray Worm and Missandei moves forward. Missandei notices Gray Worm (somewhat creepily) watching her bathe in the river, and later he comes to apologize for her and they have a surprisingly tender scene where he says, basically, that being castrated was not all bad because it led to him getting to meet her. Which is about as close to “romantic” as this show gets. In a show with very few respectful relationships between men and women, this subplot is a nice change. I’m not sure what it says that all it took was for the man to be a eunuch for a subplot like this to happen though…

Jumping over to the North, Ramsay sends Reek/Theon to go treat with the ironborn who hold the fortress of Moat Cailin. The commander sneers at the prospect of surrender, but one of his subordinates kills him and says that if their lives are spared, he’s willing to surrender. This… doesn’t exactly work out well for him: in the next scene we see his flayed corpse. Ramsay never had any intention of letting the ironborn go, he just needed a way to get into the castle. With his success at taking Moat Cailin, Ramsay is officially named a Bolton rather than a Snow. I thought it was a nice bit of writing that Roose’s asks Ramsay what his name is in much the same way that Ramsay asks Theon/Reek what his name is. With Ramsay now an official Bolton, and Moat Cailin claimed by the Boltons, they now have control over the whole north, and the episode wraps up this subplot by showing the Bolton army marching toward Winterfell.

Back in Meereen, Barristan gets a scroll containing a royal pardon from Robert Baratheon for Jorah Mormont. I guess the mail service between Westeros and Essos is a bit slow… In any case, the pardon reveals that Jorah had been spying on Danaerys, and she is none to happy about it. She kicks Jorah out of her city. I could have sworn that this betrayal already happened much earlier, but maybe I’m confusing my book memories with my show memories. It seems odd to me that it took so long for the message to arrive. Haven’t we seen the small council meeting in King’s Landing with relatively up-to-date information about what Danaerys is up to? Or maybe I’m confusing the book and the show again.

Over in the Eyrie the nobility of the Vale are paying Petyr a visit, investigating the rather suspicious death of Lysa Arryn. Petyr claims it was suicide, and then the nobles summon Sansa in to testify. The details of Lysa’s murder were changed for the show so I was interested to see how the aftermath would play out. In the book, there’s a minstrel who can be framed for the murder, but in the show, it’s just Petyr and Sansa. In a turn that surprised me, Sansa admits to being a Stark, and then tells the nobles of the Vale a well-crafted mix of truth and lies to convince them that Lysa did indeed kill herself. At the end of her testimony, Sansa shares a look with Littlefinger that I took to mean “there, I said just what you wanted me to say,” but it turns out that in the show, the whole testimony was Sansa’s idea.

I’m not sure I buy this. Littlefinger isn’t the sort of person who orchestrates such a detailed plan and then fails to plan for the inevitable interrogation that follows. But even though it’s not in character for him not to be in control of the situation, Sansa’s transformation in this episode was great. Seeing her acting confident instead of helpless was quite a change, though she needs to talk to her tailor about the outfit she was wearing in her last scene as she descends the stairs looking like an evil queen. Maybe tone down the evil a bit, Sansa. If you’re going to try to manipulate people the way Littlefinger does, it would help not to look like Maleficent.

Outside the gates to the Eyrie, the Hound and Arya arrive and ask to speak to Lysa. When the guard tells them that she recently died, the Hound is crestfallen – he had been hoping to sell Arya to her aunt. Arya bursts into uncontrollable laughter. It’s tempting to say that this is more evidence that she’s becoming unstable, but really: at this point, what else can she do but laugh at how ridiculously unfortunate her life has been recently? Of course her last living relative (that she knows of) is dead too. Figures.

Finally, the episode gets to King’s Landing, where Jaime and Tyrion are chatting in Tyrion’s cell. Tyrion ends up giving a long monologue about their mentally handicapped cousin, who would spend all day smashing beetles, and how Tyrion became obsessed with figuring out why. It might seem like an odd story for Tyrion to tell his brother during what may well be their last conversation, but the point is, I think, that the world that they live in is full of morons smashing things just because they can, and Tyrion has tried and tried in vain to figure out why, particularly because he is one of the small creatures likely to be smashed.

They wrap up their conversation, and then we move to the arena where Oberyn and Gregor, the Viper of Dorne and the Mountain that Rides are to fight. Even knowing what would happen, this was a very well-done fight scene, and had my heart pounding. Stupid Oberyn couldn’t just be satisfied with killing the Mountain, he had to make a performance out of it. It’s terrible to see such a great character (quite possibly better in the show than in the books) meet his end, but really? Don’t mess around with The Mountain.

That said, just as I complained before about the gruesome “sword through the mouth” death scene earlier in the season, this “crushed skull” death mostly indicates to me that this show underestimates how strong skulls are. I’m sure a strong enough guy could kill someone by gouging out his eyes, but I am skeptical that even the Mountain could actually crush a skull with his bare hands like they showed. Anyway, it was gross, and the Viper died first, so Tyrion is out of luck.

And that does it for this episode! Compared to previous episodes of the season, there was not a lot to criticize in this one. It was Game of Thrones at its best, and I’m looking forward to the last two episodes of the season!

Another very good episode of Game of Thrones this week. Some changes from the books, some direct quotes, but all good stuff. Book and show spoilers ahead! Also, I’ve given up on doing the recaps in chronological order… lately there is so much packed into an episode that remembering it all is hard enough. Remembering it in order? Nope.

The episode started off with Tyrion and Jamie arguing about Tyrion’s awesome speech from last episode. Jamie can’t believe Tyrion threw away his only chance at living because he fell in love with a whore. And then I yelled at the TV: “But you’re in love with your twin sister. And you raped her next to your dead son’s body!” And then Tyrion said something pretty similar, pointing out that Jaime can get away with anything up to and including losing his hand and incest, but Tyrion can never catch a break because he’s always guilty in his family’s eyes. The scene ends with Jaime revealing that he can’t fight with his left hand, so he won’t be Tyrion’s champion.

The episode came back to Tyrion’s cell a couple of times as he tried to find other champions to fight for him. The second scene in his cell is between him and Bronn. This was a deviation from how it went in the books, but it was a really well done scene. It was hard to watch Bronn say no, but at the same time it made perfect sense. I particularly liked when Bronn asked Tyrion “When was the last time you risked your life for me?” Ouch.

But for me the final scene in Tyrion’s cell, with Oberyn, was my favorite of the episode. Partially because much of it was a direct quote from the books, revealing just how deep Cersei’s hatred for Tyrion goes, but mostly because Pedro Pascal and Peter Dinklage acted the heck out of the scene. The show has made Oberyn such a badass, and Pascal has played the role perfectly. I’m really looking forward to the big showdown with the mountain next week.

Speaking of which: The Mountain apparently practices his fighting on prisoners? This short scene sure got the point across that he’s brutal, but also, I have to think it wouldn’t be very good practice. I think this is the third actor the show has had playing the mountain, but at least this one is not just tall but also huge. Once he’s suited up in full armor, he’s going to look enormous, which is perfect.

The other Clegane brother had a painful episode this week. After Arya and the Hound come across a farmer with a mortal wound, we get to see Arya being nihilistic about death and then the Hound mercy-kills the guy, teaching Arya where to stab to hit the heart and make it a quick death. And then the Hound gets jumped and bitten by Biter, who he promptly dispatches. They have a longer conversation with Rorge: just long enough so Arya can learn his name, add him to her hit-list, and then cross of his name with a well-placed Needle to the heart.

I’m not sure why Rorge and Biter died here, because in the books don’t they have to cross paths with Brienne? I guess Brienne’s mauling at the hands teeth of Biter won’t be happening. This scene served the purpose of giving the Hound a nasty infected wound, which I believe is consistent with the books.

Later on in the episode, the Hound is trying to stitch the wound shut, and freaks out when Arya tries to burn away the infected flesh with a flaming brand. This allowed the show to give the backstory of the Hound’s scarred face, which he told to Sansa long ago in the books, further establishing that his brother is a monster. I wondered why they downplayed the relationship between the Hound and Sansa and left out this moment back in earlier seasons, but I can understand why they might have wanted to save the details of his scars for this episode.

The other odd couple, Brienne and Pod are stopping at an inn to eat something that Pod has not set on fire, and the find familiar baker who loves to go on and on about the nuances of making a proper steak and kidney pie. Hot Pie! When Brienne tells Hot Pie that they are looking for a Stark girl he clams up, but then approaches them as they are getting ready to leave, saying that he knew Arya stark, and giving them some adorable direwolf bread to give to her if they find her. So, Birenne and Pod decide that their best bet is to head toward the Vale, and the Stark girls’ last living relative, Lysa.

In the Vale, Sansa is reminiscing about Winterfell and showing some serious snow-castle-making prowess when Robin shows up. He gets really excited about the prospect of adding a moon door to Winterfell, apparently not making the mental leap that a moon door requires a castle to be perched on a cliff. When he knocks over a tower Sansa gets upset and nobody gets upset with the Lord of the Vale, so he goes Godzilla on her castle. So she slaps him. No seizures for show-Robin apparently, but he runs off crying and Sansa immediately realizes that she probably can’t get away with slapping Robin no matter how much he deserves it.

Littlefinger shows up and reveals that his real reason for killing Joffrey was his deep love for Catelyn. Nope, no other motives, just True Love. I definitely believe you, Littlefinger. And then Littlefinger goes into full creep mode, saying in one breath that Sansa could have been his daughter with Catelyn, and then kissing her because she reminds him of Catelyn. And of course, Lysa sees.

She confronts Sansa in the throne room and totally flips out, threatening to toss Sansa out the moon door. We are reminded again that Lysa has committed murder because of her love for Littlefinger. I still don’t understand why we learned about her murder of Jon Arryn a few episodes ago instead of this week, but anyway. Petyr comes in just in time and talks Lysa into letting Sansa go. Then he tells Lysa that he has only ever loved one person… her sister. And out the moon door she goes. Apparently in the books his last words to her are “Only Cat,” and this has the more die-hard book-reading fans upset about the line change. I was not that attached to the specific line, but it does highlight the show’s annoying tendency to change things that don’t need to be changed.

Considering that the defense the show gave for slipping Lysa’s big confession into a bit of throwaway dialogue with Petyr was that viewers are smart enough to catch little details and figure things out, it seems silly to change the line from “Only Cat” to “Your sister” so that viewers aren’t confused. Either claim that you think viewers are smart enough to follow along, or be honest about dumbing down some details to make the show easier to follow. Don’t do one and then claim to be doing the other.

Up at the wall, we just get a quick scene to show that, yes, Jon Snow made it back to Castle Black, and no, Thorne and Slynt et al. still don’t like him, or his wolf. Jon urges them to seal off the gate of the wall with ice and rocks, saying that a giant could definitely break through the 4-inch steel bars that currently brace the door. Thorne scoffs at this, virtually guaranteeing that he will later be killed by a giant busting through those doors.

Across the sea in warmer climes, Daario sneaks into Dany’s room and complains that he isn’t allowed to kill anyone fun anymore and that if she’s not interested in him then he needs a mission. She orders him to take off his clothes. We check back in the next morning as Daario is leaving and Jorah (also known as Lord Friendzone on twitter) is not particularly happy to see that Dany has decided to put Daario’s talents to good use. He also urges temperance when she blithely says that she has sent Daario and his men off to massacre the slave masters in Yunkai.

Jorah reminds Dany (and viewers) that he was once a slaver and is only alive because of Ned Stark’s mercy. I liked how this set up a contrast between Dany and Ned, and also showed once again how interconnected the characters on the show are, even when they are on separate continents. Ned was the sort of good ruler that Dany wishes to be, and this is a Stark reminder (I didn’t even mean to make that pun until I had already written it) that she is veering over to the dark side and acting more like the bad rulers she wishes to depose than the good ruler she wants to be. She decides to let Hizdar zo Loraq accompany Daario and give the slave masters an ultimatum instead of just summarily executing them.

And finally, we checked back in with Melisandre at Dragonstone, where she is enjoying a half-filled bathtub and revealing to Stannis’ wife that she lies a lot to convert people to the faith. This scene seemed to exist primarily to fit some female nudity into the episode (can’t briefly show a naked man in the show without balancing it out with lingering shots of a naked woman), and also to inform the viewers that Melisandre has some nefarious plans involving Shireen, presumably related to her royal blood. Speaking of which, what ever happened to Gendry, who seemed to be taking the place of Edric Storm? Now Shireen is being the royal blood instead of Edric? Also, apparently Stannis and friends are getting ready to set out on a voyage. Do we know what this is about? Has the show told us that he plans to sail north, or why?

I guess we’ll find out soon enough. That’s a wrap for this week. Next week… is memorial day, so no new episode. And then we get to see the duel between the Mountain and the Viper that everyone has been waiting for!

People seemed to like my recap/review last week, so here we go again!

We start the episode off with Gray Worm getting language lessons from Missandei, and a brief glimpse at their lives before they became slaves. Or, in the case of Gray Worm, the extent of his psychological damage. One of the nice things about the show is that it can do scenes like this and flesh out non-point-of-view characters. This scene segued into the taking of Meereen, with Gray Worm and some Unsullied sneaking into the city with weapons and arming the slaves. We get just a glimpse of the slaves trapping one of their masters in an alley and rushing him with a large number of knives. One weird part of this alley ambush scene was that there were words written on the wall… in English. Right on the heels of Gray Worm’s language lesson, and his speech to the slaves that so strongly reminded us that the people of Essos mostly don’t speak English, it was weird for the slaves’ threat to their masters to then be in English. If the show didn’t feel like inventing a written language, then why not just skip the red writing altogether?

I noticed that this week they did show a few slaves who seemed to be causcasian, and there was also mention of previous slave revolts, so that helps a bit to address some of my complaints about the tendency for these scenes in the show to be simply “white people show up and save brown people”. Still, I’m glad we’re transitioning to the next stage of Dany’s story where she has to come to grips with ruling all of her new subjects. We got the tiniest hint of this upcoming struggle when Barristan tried to advise Dany to be merciful to the captured slave masters, who are now her subjects. Of course, she had no interest in mercy for slavers, and she had 163 of them crucified just like the child slaves that the masters had placed along the road to Meereen.

From Meereen, we go to Jaime and Bronn practicing their swordsmanship again. After slapping Jaime down with his own golden hand, Bronn  manages to make Jaime feel bad about not visiting Tyrion in jail yet. This scene also serves as a nice reminder of Tyrion’s previous trial at the Eyrie, reminding viewers of those events before we return to the Eyrie next episode.

Cut to Jaime in Tyrion’s cell, failing to make Tyrion feel better by saying that his imprisonment by Robb Stark was way worse. They discuss the hopelessness of Tyrion’s situation, with particular emphasis on the fact that Cersei wants Tyrion dead by any means necessary. Jaime wants to help Tyrion, but when Tyrion suggests helping him escape, Jaime says that it’s impossible, especially since he’s the head of the kingsguard and Tyrion is on trial for regicide. They also discuss whether Sansa might be the killer, and that Cersei has put a price on her head.

Speaking of Sansa, she’s still on a boat with Littlefinger. She asks where they are going, and Littlefinger tells her they are going to the Eyrie for him to marry Lysa. She also asks him if he killed Joffrey, which leads to the first in what will be many examples of Littlefinger being a creepy dude while also teaching Sansa his crash course in being a power-hungry manipulative backstabber, who is also smart enough to avoid physical danger. It is my strong suspicion that these lessons of theirs are going to be very important for the future of Sansa’s story.

Anyway, Sansa is shocked to learn that her necklace played a role in the assassination. Littlefinger explains that his loyalties have shifted from the Lannisters to some new friends who wanted Joffrey dead (at this point the camera shifts to show Margery and Olenna walking in the garden, while Littlefinger’s voice continues), and that he enabled the assasination to “make a new friendship grow strong.” This was a nice nod to particularly obsessive book readers who may know that “Growing Strong” are the Tyrell house words.

Margery and Olenna chat in the garden about their next steps, and much to my surprise, Lady Olenna admits to Margery that she is the one who poisoned Joffrey. I was sure they would at least to wait for this reveal until the episode focusing on Tyrion’s trial, but apparently not! This way was rather anticlimactic, but then, find out out that Olenna did it is not really the exciting part is it? The exciting part is watching to see how Tyrion gets free when everyone is convinced he’s the culprit, including most of his own family members.

His siblings have a tense encounter where Cersei questions Jaime about why the Starks released him, and then questions his loyalty given that he swore to return the Stark girls to their mother. She is outraged when he refuses to hunt down Sansa and return with her head. Cersei is also annoyed that only one kingsguard is posted at Tommen’s door, and orders Jaime to place more men there. This scene begins with Jaime greeting Cersei formally as “queen regent”, and ends with her dismissing him just as formally.

What’s really weird about this scene is that it completely ignores what happened last episode. I said last week that I hoped the show had a really good reason for changing a consensual sex scene in the books to a rape scene in the show, but it appears that the show is going to proceed as if nothing happened. Yes, Jaime and Cersei are more and more at odds, but their unraveling relationship was already clear without tossing a random rape scene in. What’s most concerning is how this episode clearly thinks Jamie is a good guy and Cersei is evil/crazy. This whole confrontation, it’s clear that the viewer is supposed to be siding with Jaime. After all, Cersei is angry at him for doing whatever was necessary to get back to her, she orders him to hunt down and kill an innocent girl, and she tells him how to do his job protecting the king. And yeah, it would be easy to side with Jamie in this scene, except for the part where he raped her last episode. For all her many failings, Cersei is not a weak character, but we’re suppose to think she is going to do nothing about being raped other than chide her rapist brother for not posting enough guards on Tommen’s room? I’m just failing to see why this major change was made if they don’t plan to follow through with it.

But, moving on. We get to see Jamie being a sympathetic and nice guy to Brienne (please just ignore the voice in your head that keeps reminding you that he’s a rapist who throws children out of windows). He gives her his Valyrian steel sword and a sweet suit of armor and asks her to track down and protect Sansa. In a change from the books, he asks her to name the sword instead of naming it himself. The name is the same: “Oathkeeper”, but coming from her it’s a not-so-subtle jab at him rather than the ironic self-deprecation that we see in the books. Also: Pod is going with Brienne! I liked this change. In the books, it takes him a while to catch up with her, but this way we get another wonderful odd couple to travel around with.

Back in the castle, we see Margery follow Olenna’s advice and pay her future husband a late-night visit. This scene was wonderfully awkward, but was great at showing Margey’s skill at manipulating Lannister boys, and at knowing right where to draw the line, kissing the boy on the forehead before leaving. Also, can I just say how great it is that Ser Pounce is now in the show? It’s actually a smart and concise way of differentiating Tommen from Joffrey. Joffrey killed things with his crossbow, Tommen raised a kitten and named it Ser Pounce, and that basically tells you what you need to know about the brothers.

And finally let’s talk about what happened at the Wall and beyond. Jon is training new recruits and who should appear but Locke, on his mission from the Boltons to kill Jon. Not that Jon knows it yet, since Locke is posing as a newbie who just happens to know how to fight. Jon is sent back inside to clean chamber pots by Allister Thorne, who is then advised by Janos Slynt that maybe that foray beyond the wall might be a good way to get rid of Jon Snow. They meet with Jon later in the mess hall, where Allister is messily eating some chicken. Messily eating seems to be shorthand for “this person is loathsome”, see also: Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor. John gets permission, but is only allowed to take volunteers, a neat way for Thorne and Slynt to see who Jon’s friends are.

Cut to Craster’s keep itself, where we are very quickly reminded that the mutineers are bad guys. The show lays it on really thick here. Not only is what’s-his-face drinking out of Lord Mormont’s skull, but he is encouraging his men to rape Craster’s wives “until they’re dead”. To fulfill the show’s nudity quota for the episode, we get a brief glimpse of several of the wives without clothes on, being taken by some of the mutineers. There’s even an out-of-focus rape going on in the background of the shot while what’s-his-name rambles drunkenly about growing up on the streets. It’s almost as if this show doesn’t really get that rape is a horrible thing. They’re using it here as an excuse for nudity, because why else would these women be nude or partially clothed? They live in a shack in the arctic. So is the young male demographic supposed to find it sexy to see these women partially clothed…while being raped? There’s all sorts of things wrong with that. Are the showrunners going to argue that showing these rapes was necessary to establish that these are bad guys? Because I’m pretty sure drinking from a human skull establishes that pretty well!

Anyway, one of the wives comes forward with a newborn, who is set out in to cold as a sacrifice. Nearby, Bran et al hear the baby crying and Bran wargs into his wolf to go investigate, only for the wolf to first find that Ghost has been locked up, and then get captured himself. Bran et al. rush into the camp and are promptly captured, and the mutineers do some Hodor-baiting (I was really hoping Bran would warg into Hodor and kick some butt, but alas). They also discover that Bran is Bran, and are pleased to have such a valuable captive. Also: Jojen has a seizure.

I’m really wondering what HBO plans to do with this storyline, which is entirely new. I can’t see how Jon and Bran can meet and still have things go as they’re supposed to, but I don’t see how they wouldn’t meet either. One thing’s for sure, it is really exciting to watch the show and not know what is going to happen. Is this what it’s like for non-readers the whole time? No wonder this show is so popular!

And speaking of things that are totally made up and not in the books. How about them white walkers? We get to see one pick up the sacrificial baby, and carry it to some sort of icy stonehenge, where the king of the white walkers (?) comes out and turns the baby into a walker?! That was certainly… interesting!

One thing’s for sure, the show is getting much more confident in deviating from the books, and in this case, it might even be getting into territory that is in future books. It’s exciting to be seeing things as a new viewer sees them, but also a bit scary for people like me who hoped that the books would remain well ahead of the show so that we can experience events in the “official” novel setting before seeing them on the screen. I suspect this is just a taste of things to come…