Well, everyone has already said it, so let me jump on the
train: Peter Dinklage is gunning hard for an Emmy this episode, and I
personally am fine with him going all HAM as Tyrion Lannister. If not now,
when? If not when he’s been imprisoned by his sister and further demonized by
his father and mocked by all of court and abandoned by his supposed friends and
his supposed beloved, when? There is a desperate rage simmering in Tyrion this
week, and Dinklage did excellently with it. Flawless.
What else went down? We were introduced to Braavos, we
saw Reek remember his name, we saw Dany begin to really understand what it’s
like to be a queen. All legitimate excursions! But Tyrion was the
unquestionable highlight of “The Law of Gods and Men,” so let’s get to him
first. I mean, why wait?
And, of course, SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
+ “I saved you. I
saved this city. And all your worthless lives.” There are a lot of Game of Thrones fans who consider
Tyrion their favorite character, and with someone as great as Peter Dinklage in
the role, I can’t blame them. I mean, was there anything more crushing than
Dinklage’s face when Tyrion sees Shae take the witness stand? Or anything more
frightening than him railing against his family, against everyone gathered to
watch the trial, against the people who ignored his triumph at Blackwater and
only saw a small man with a scarred face? Or anything more dangerous, and
therefore more exciting, than the little smirk he gives his father at the end
of the episode, when he demands a trial by combat? Tyrion is very limited in
the moves he can make here, but he does the best he can—and who he picks as his
champion will ramp the final four episodes of the season up exponentially.
Trust.
But aside from his angry speech—“I wish I was the monster
you think I am. I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you. I would
gladly give me life to watch you all swallow it”—there are very, very many
other well-written exchanges in the Tyrion storyline this episode.
There is, of
course, Shae’s cutting manipulation of their conversations and their
relationship; how she says, “He ordered me to call him ‘My lion,’ so I did,” is
a wound that can never be forgiven.
There’s Varys on the witness stand,
twisting his conversations with Tyrion about Joffrey’s awfulness. And then
there is, naturally, Cersei, repeating Tyrion’s threat about watching her “joy will
turn to ashes in your mouth,” and using it as proof for her obsessive belief
that Tyrion killed Joffrey.
All of Tyrion’s most outstanding moments, from slapping
Joffrey in the face to standing up to Cersei, presented as something they weren’t.
And Tyrion knows it, and Jaime knows it, and it seems like the Red Viper knows
it. And how all that doubt will impact the trial by combat … well, you’ll see.
+ “When Tywin’s
gone, who do you back?” Who knew Davos Seaworth was such an excellent public
speaker? Thanks for the reading lessons, Shireen! Because Stannis has only
Davos to thank for convincing the Iron Bank of Braavos to back his claim for
the crown, once Davos waves his four cutoff fingers as explanation of Stannis’s
sense of justice and ethics. The implication is clear: The Lannisters may have
stolen your money and refused to pay you back, but Stannis is a man of honor.
Stannis would never do you like that. Stannis would never pull a Tywin
Lannister—and Tywin Lannister can’t live forever.
So now they’re leaving Braavos with money, yay! So much
money, enough to fund sellswords, perhaps, and definitely to procure more ships
to replace the ones sunk at the bottom of Blackwater Bay. “As long as Stannis
lives, the war is not over,” Davos says, and now they finally have money to
fund it. But what’s next—an attack on King’s Landing, or will Davos remember
the raven he received from the Night’s Watch, needing help at the Wall? Hmm.
+ “Reek, Reek, I’ve
always been Reek!” The perverse mindfuck of Theon Greyjoy continues this week,
as his sister Yara successfully sails from the Iron Islands to the Dreadfort,
works her way into the castle, and then finds a baby brother ravaged by Ramsay
Snow, refusing to acknowledge his real identity. For people who don’t find
Theon sympathetic—and I work with quite a few who don’t, and every Monday
morning I have this argument with them—do
you not have feelings? Because seeing Theon fight so much against his
sister, screaming about how his name is Reek, was some extremely depressing
shit. No surprise, then, that Yara—unable to get Theon to come with her, and
chased out of the Dreadfort by a crazed Ramsay and his flesh-eating dogs—would
proclaim to her men, “My brother is dead.”
But your pity party shouldn’t be over for Theon! Because
Ramsay awards his favorite plaything with a bath (ugh to Ramsay’s smirk at
seeing Theon’s castrated body, which, thankfully, we don’t see), celebrating
him because he “remained loyal.” And as a reward for his loyalty? Why, Theon,
whose pretending to be Reek has basically gone over into full brainwashing at
this point, gets to infiltrate a castle for Ramsay by pretending to be Theon! If
you happen to be working on a graduate-level paper about the construction of
identity and the dissociative impact of trauma, well, here you go. Just write
about Theon Greyjoy and you’ll be set.
Also, an aside: I still don’t think the show has captured
Ramsay Snow correctly. Oh, he has kinky sex with Myranda, that girl who helped
him hunt down other girls a few episodes ago? Great. Except for where in the
books, Ramsay Snow is so terrifying, so deranged, so revolting, that no one
would ever find him physically
attractive in the slightest. He’s not the sexy kind of dangerous; he’s straight fucking insane. So while I
continue to enjoy Iwan Rheon’s performance—I mean, he is kind of cute—I don’t
think they’re making Ramsay as batshit as he needs to be. Example: I don’t
remember if they’ve mentioned how he killed daddy Roose Bolton’s other young
son because he didn’t want any competition. IN THE BOOKS, HE KILLED HIS OWN
HALF-BROTHER BECAUSE HE WANTED TO BE ROOSE’S ONLY LEGITIMATE HEIR. That
involves long-term planning on top of cruelty, and I would love the TV version
to capture that aspect of Ramsay, too.
+ “Is it justice by answering one crime with another?”
That’s the question Meereeneese noble Hizdahr zo Loraq asks Dany, and I suppose
it’s a legitimate one. Because Dany, at this point, is properly ruling the
former slave city, holding court with her advisors, addressing the pleas and
concerns of her constituency, creating new laws and rules for her land. She’s
attempting to do it conscientiously, but you can’t ignore that when you take
over a place, you also take over the
people who used to rule there. It’s short-sighted of Dany to think that
nailing those slave masters would send a strong-enough message to end their
distrust and dislike of her—that’s not how power works. Fear isn’t enough of deterrent
all the time.
So we meet Hizdahr—who will be a very important character
moving forward, if showrunners Benioff and Weiss follow this aspect of Dany’s
storyline—and see a crack in Dany’s façade, a flicker of doubt shadow across
her face. Notice that she wasn’t at all concerned at the goatherder complaining
about Drogon eating his flock—“Just pay him off,” was her essential response to
that problem—but she begins to realize that humans dealing with her may not be
as easy to appease as humans who fear her dragons.
How can she combine fearing
the dragons into fearing her? And if the dragons don’t listen to their mother,
where does that leave Dany’s power? All intriguing questions as we move forward
in Meereen.
+ “Everybody is interested in something.” Let’s finally
look at the scenes with Varys this week, who pops in the Small Council meeting
led by Tywin and also in a meeting with Oberyn in front of the Iron Throne. The
Spider is in fine form, informing on the Hound tearing up the Riverlands (“I
believe ‘Fuck the King’ was uttered,” he drily says to Tywin, who then assigns
a reward for the capture of Sandor Clegane), affirming to Pycelle that Jorah
Mormont was spying on Dany for them (A VERY IMPORTANT PLOT POINT THAT SHOULD BE
HANDLED MORE SERIOUSLY BY BENIOFF AND WEISS), and essentially rolling his eyes
when Mace Tyrell jumps up to fetch Tywin a quill and paper. Running errands for
the Hand of the King? Please. That’s so below Varys’s level.
And perhaps that’s because Varys has his eyes on a larger
prize: the Iron Throne itself. In his conversation with Oberyn in the throne
room, he admits that he was asexual even before his castration, interested less
in pleasures of the flesh and more in a long-term goal: power. “The absence of
desire leaves one free to pursue other things,” he says to the Prince of Dorne,
and it’s just another reminder that Varys is a player. A very important one.
One you can never forget is watching.
+ And a few final thoughts:
+ Is there anything more perfect than Tyrion’s droll “Well,
we mustn’t disappoint Father”? No, I didn’t think so.
+ Speaking of Tywin, how smug did he look when Jaime
played right into his hands by agreeing to return to Casterly Rock as his heir
if he let Tyrion live? Poor, noble, stupid Jaime. Your honor is shot to shit,
and letting your father dictate to you—“You will marry a suitable woman and
father children named Lannister and you will never turn your back on your
family again”—won’t help.
+ “You’re not my friend, my friend.” Gotta love Salladhor
Saan essentially big-pimping in his first appearance in a few seasons’ time.
+ New credits location Braavos looks good, no? The huge
warrior stone sculpture straddling over the entrance to Braavos reminds me
quite a bit of how the The Pillars of Kings looked in the Fellowship of the
Rings, but appropriately fiercer.
+ Your grossest moment of the night: “Do you love me,
Reek?” “Of course, my lord.”
+ And your most ridiculous moment of the night: “We have
some lovely boys on retainer…” You’re a treasure, Oberyn.
