Hello, all! Welcome to another year of Game of Thrones and
another year of recaps brought you by me. Perhaps you read my Walking Dead recaps this year or my True Blood recaps last year or my Game of Thrones recaps last year, and if you’re a return reader, thank you! And if you’re new, hi! And
either way, let’s get down to business.
Let’s be upfront: I have read all the Game of Thrones books,
I love them, and I have definitely enjoyed knowing some of the major plot
points that were covered in the previous four seasons. It’s been great seeing
some of my favorite moments and scenes acted out in all their glory! But with
season five, we’re at a parting of the ways: showrunners Benioff and Weiss have
caught up with many of the main characters’ plots in the books so far, and are
choosing to sit some characters out (no Bran and Hodor this year) while
reworking other major plots (Sansa, Jaime Lannister, Brienne and Pod, I could
keep going). So I’m going into uncharted territory here, and now we’re all kind
of on the same page. Let’s go into this strange new world together!
With season five premiere “The Wars to Come,” we catch up,
albeit briefly, with pretty much every major character: the Lannister siblings Cersei,
Jaime, and Tyrion in the aftermath of their father Tywin’s murder at the hands
of Tyrion; Dany, still struggling to rule well in Meereen; Jon Snow on the Wall,
trying to balance the needs of the wildlings with the demands of Stannis
Baratheon; and Sansa and Petyr in the Vale, unknowingly crossing paths with
Brienne and Pod. Not seen: Arya, the Boltons at Winterfell, or Dorne and the
Martells, which is a bummer since I’ve been waiting for Doran and the Sand
Snakes ALL YEAR.
But overall, like most of the premiere episodes, “The Wars
to Come” sets a lot of pieces in motion (and for book readers, you’ll notice
that a lot of character motivations are tempered or altered, which we’ll circle
back with at the end of this recap) without too
much excitement. No Red Weddings or Purple Weddings in play yet, but still a
lot of important stuff going on. Let’s get to the five things you’ll be talking
about all this week.
+ “Everyone wants to
know their future, until they know their future.” The premiere opens with
the show's first flashback, to Cersei’s youth, when her visit to witch Maggy
the Frog resulted in a prophecy of her future:
“You will never wed the prince. You’ll wed the king. You’ll
be queen, for a time. Then comes another, younger, more beautiful, to cast you
down and take all you hold dear. The king will have 20 children, you will have
three. Gold will be their crowns. Gold their shrouds.”
Some explanations here: If you remember, Cersei was
originally supposed to marry Prince Rhaegar, Dany’s older brother, but the Mad
King Aerys refused to wed his son to his Tywin’s daughter because he saw Tywin,
the Hand, as his servant. So Cersei ended up marrying Robert instead and never
having any of his children, since Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen were all Jaime’s.
And, if the prophecy is to be believed, Cersei’s time is running out – any array
of younger queens could be coming for her, from obvious choice Margaery to Dany
to even Sansa – and her children’s could be, too. Joffrey is already dead.
Myrcella is in Dorne, which might not be the safest place for her. And Tommen,
so young and naive, could be manipulated by Margaery into something devious.
So the prophecy is clearly weighing on Cersei as she goes to
mourn Tywin, whose body is being watched over by Jaime, as he did with Joffrey.
But there’s no questionable sex to be had by Jaime and Cersei next to Tywin’s
body; instead, Jaime gives her advice – “What he built is ours. He meant it for
us … They’re going to take it away, our enemies” – that Cersei rebuffs in
demonstrating her hatred for Tyrion alone – “That little monster is out there
somewhere, drawing breath.” Jaime’s not wrong in saying that the vultures will
be circling to tear Cersei apart, but she doesn’t want his concern; not when
she’s saying things like “You killed him by mistake, with stupidity.” Things
seem to be on the outs for the Lannister twins.
But Jaime isn’t wrong about people coming out of the
woodwork to bother Cersei, especially when later on, their cousin Lancel – the one
Cersei was sleeping with back in the day, and who she convinced to help kill
Robert for her – appears, with his hair shaved off, dressed in rags, and now a
pious follower of the Seven. He’s a “bloody fanatic,” notes his father, Kevan,
but the “sparrows” aren’t going away anytime soon. Cersei may laugh when Lancel
says “I will pray for your father’s soul,” but his ilk is going to be a bigger
problem in King's Landing than she would like to believe.
+ “Things have gotten
worse, not better. Westeros needs to be saved from itself.” The unlikely
adventures of Tyrion and Varys begin this week as they travel to Pentos, on
the way to Meereen, where Varys hopes that Tyrion will become an advisor for
Dany. Tyrion isn’t entirely sold on the idea, which means that we get some
arguments between the pair about the nature, and responsibility, of power. “I
don’t believe in saviors,” Varys says, but he respects Dany because “earning it
for yourself, that takes work,” and thinks she might be the best bet for “peace,
prosperity, a land where the powerful do not prey on the powerless.” But
cynical, world-weary Tyrion replies that “The powerful have always preyed on
the powerless; that’s how they became powerful in the first place,” and of
course he’s right, and it raises questions about what kind of a ruler Dany will
be. Varys is convinced she’s flawless, but is she really? Things in Meereen
aren’t exactly going off without a hitch.
+ “You’re not the
Mother of Unsullied. You’re the Mother of Dragons.” It was kind of
irritating this episode to have Jaime tell Cersei advice that was correct that
she didn’t want to hear AND have Daario tell Dany advice that she didn’t want
to hear, because honestly, men explaining things to women is pretty omnipresent
on every television show ever, and I really didn’t want it on Game of Thrones
this prevalently in our very first episode of the season. But regardless, Daario
is right: Dany is forgetting who she is, and where her power lies.
Let’s back up to her most-recent problem: a terrorist group called the
Sons of the Harpy, pretty obviously backed by the old slave masters who oppose
Dany, are undermining her power by attacking the Unsullied and Dany’s
supporters in the middle of the night and killing them while wearing terrifying golden masks, so that no one will know who they are. They have an upswell of popular support, and they're not to be blown off. So while Dany has
succeeded in pulling down the gigantic statue of the golden harpy in a symbolic
move, that doesn’t mean her reign is secure – nevertheless, when Hizdahr zo
Loraq, one of her advisors who happens to be from one of Meereen’s great
families, suggests that she reopens the fighting pits as a way to sway citizens to her side, she refuses. “I do not respect the tradition of human cockfighting,” she
says, but later on, in bed, Daario makes her question that by telling his own
story of being sold into slavery and winning his freedom by impressing in the
pits. Since Dany has, at this point, never really told Daario no, we’ll see if
his advice sways her opinion – and note how similar what he tells her is to
what Jaime tells Cersei: “You’ve made thousands of enemies all across the world.
As soon as they see weakness, they’ll attack. Show your strength, here, now.”
But, by far the best scene, and most defining for Dany so
far, was her walking into that dark-as-night pit, unable to sense Viserion or
Rhaegal or tell where they where, until they almost forced her out of there
with their advancement and their fire. I don’t think they were going to hurt
her - I do think they still acknowledge her as their mother, although there is clearly betrayal there - but it seems like Dany fears them now in a way that she never would have
before. How much of herself has she forgotten? And what is the point of “a
dragon queen with no dragons”?
+ “If you can’t
understand why I won’t enlist my people in a foreigner’s war, there’s no point
explaining.” Rest in peace, Mance Rayder! (The first character from the books who dies early this season, as author George R.R. Martin warned.) Another one of Jon Snow’s father
figures bites the dust this episode, executed by Stannis for not bending the
knee but also by Melisandre because, if you recall, she thinks there is power
in king’s blood, and Mance being the King Beyond the Wall still suffices. I’m
sure neither of them will be very happy, though, by Jon’s merciful arrow in the
heart so that Mance didn’t have to actually burn alive, since that undermines
everything they wanted to accomplish: Stannis, making an example of Mance and
trying to convince the other wildlings into joining his march against the
Boltons at Winterfell, and Melisandre, harnessing his power.
It’s important to remember how much of what Mance says can
apply to Jon: “The freedom to make my own mistakes was all I ever wanted,” he
says to Jon, and that seems like a guiding principle that our favorite bastard
would live by, if he didn’t have the strict code of the Night’s Watch. Another important
line would probably be Jon’s “Isn’t their survival more important than your
pride?”, which is a nice clue into what Jon’s priorities will be moving forward
as he struggles to figure out how to care for and protect the wildlings that
are now on the other side of the Wall with the Night’s Watch. (Oh, and don’t
forget Davos’s "Many of them love you; many don’t" about how the rest of the Night's Watch views Jon. That’s ominous enough, don’t
you think?)
+ “All I ever wanted was to fight for a lord I believe in. The
good lords are dead, and the rest are monsters.” Excessively noble, somewhat
wise words from Brienne of Tarth, everyone, as Sansa and Petyr literally ride by her and Pod. Timing is
everything, I suppose.
And, some random thoughts:
+ “I don’t care, I’m not your mother.” Brienne keeping it
100.
+ “He swings the sword like a girl with palsy.” Lord Nestor
Royce, Keeper of the Gates of the Moon, also keeping it 100. Lysa’s son
Sweetrobin really is shockingly weak
and small for his age, and I think it’s a pretty prevalent theory that he dies
this year – either because of Petyr and Sansa’s actions or otherwise.
+ “You don’t need to be afraid of my father,” Cersei says to
her friend Melara, who goes with her to visit Maggy the Frog and learn their
futures, because the implication is that Melara should be afraid of Cersei herself. Melara’s prophecy isn’t shown
in this episode, but it’s important to know in context, I think: She learns
from Maggy the Frog that she will never marry Jaime (a question she asks that
enrages Cersei) because she’ll in fact die that night – and she does, by
drowning in a well. It’s implied in the books that Cersei herself killed Melara
because she thought of her as a threat to her and Jaime’s relationship, and so
Cersei played a part in the prophecy that came to pass – it wasn’t
necessarily set in stone until she helped make it so. Maybe that’s a little too
theoretical to tackle in the show’s format, but Cersei’s ruthlessness goes back
a long way.
+ Little details I miss: In the books, everyone is disgusted
by how Tywin’s body smells – it’s supposed to be an awful, rancid odor, and
indicative of how rotten his soul supposedly was. And, to top it off, he’s
supposed to have this ridiculous smirk on his face, which enrages Cersei
because it’s belittling to his serious demeanor. Just some amusing tidbits I
wish could have been adapted.
+ I’m a big fan of Tyrion drinking his pain away, but
obviously the highlight was his utterance of the line “The future is shit, just
like the past,” followed by a shocking amount of vomit, and then concluded with
another swig of wine. Well played.
+ Loras is convinced that he’s not going to have to marry
Cersei anymore now that Tywin is dead, but is anyone else surprised that his
dalliance with the prostitute Olyvar has lasted this long? I miss the book
version of Loras, the one who became a celibate courageous idiot after Renly’s
death. I guess this version is fine since we get some man butts out of it as
well as Dorne geography lessons and faux-insight from Loras – “Everybody knows
everything about everyone. What’s the point of trying to keep a secret in a
place like this?” he says to Margaery – but, overall, eh.
+ Most heartbreaking scene of the night was that Unsullied,
White Rat, paying a prostitute to hold him. And Missandei asking Grey Worm
about it and him lying – MORE HEARTBREAK.
+ Some great lines from Dany tonight; even when she kind of
fails as a ruler, she still acts the
part of a ruler with great efficiency. My favorites were “I’m not a politician,
I’m a queen” and “How many times must I say no before you understand?” Ice
cold.
+ Sam gets to gloat a bit this week, which is a nice change
of pace for him: “How many brothers can say they killed a White Walker and a
Thenn? I might be the first in history!”
+ Why did Melisandre need to ask if Jon Snow was a virgin? Weird.
Gross. Ugh.
+ Finally, FOR BOOK READERS: So, Benioff/Weiss are totally
dialing down the level of Cersei’s crazy, right? Which is unfortunate, because
I would have loved to see her standing in front of the Hand’s Tower, watching
it burn down, while Jaime realizes how far off the deep end she’s going. But
they’re really going with a “desperate mother” angle for her, I guess, with a
bit of “ineffectual and naive leader” thrown in. That’s not a bad combination,
necessarily, but it feels like that’s the M.O. of our showrunners at this point
– to dilute character motivations until it almost feels like characters are
dragging their feet. Cersei’s increasingly unhinged behavior is what ultimately
severs Jaime and Cersei, so I wonder if the show will continue the
starcrossed-lovers thing for them or will eventually allow them to break it
off. Curious. Also, WHY NOT include the part about the “volanqar” in Cersei’s
flashback prophecy? That moment inspired so much of Cersei’s hatred and fear of
Tyrion for years to come, and would have been helpful to the show in
demonstrating her motivations, no? I don’t get it.
