Game Of Thrones Season 3 Episode 1

Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 1

Note: I haven’t read the books. Nor do I ever intend to read the books. I have very little interest in how the source material compares to the television show that we are watching. I care about the quality of the television show.

I was late to the Game of Thrones party, binge watching twenty episodes in the late summer. I didn’t know whether I’d like or not, but I was willing to give it a shot. This is sort of a lie. I grew up reading fantasy books by the dozen. For years, when other pre-teens and teenagers were hanging out with friends or trying to figure out the riddle of the opposite sex, I was holed away reading fantasy novels. For a while, I’d come home and read a book a day. Eventually I gave up on fantasy novels, myth books and dragons were replaced by banana boats, bull fights, and Macondo. However, the seed that was planted in my childhood never went entirely dormant, and so, when I started watching GOT it was with a childish and nerdy joy. Look, dragons and people wearing armor! Yay!

The show has wound up being much deeper and interesting than just dragons and armor. We have a beheading within the first ten minutes of the first episode, which, though executed legitimately and with honor by Ned Stark, arises out of a misunderstanding of what the man who is being beheaded has scene. This scene casts a long shadow over the rest of the show, and it was important that they nearly lead with it. It immediately set the tone that no action or decision was absolutely white or black. This was a world of complexity, no ring of power and ring wraiths in this version. No. Everyone wasn’t going to be as good or as smart as we’d like them to be. And, if things went poorly, they’d lose their head.

I wrote a great deal about the last season of Downton Abbey, and what I was constantly harping on was the show’s pacing. Every episode seemed intent upon bringing up an issue, money, a marital quarrel, and then having it resolved by episode’s end, often to the detriment of good storytelling. Well, now we have the return of the show that is almost the antithesis of the Downton model, GOT is telling a story in ten episodes, not one, and so the individual episodes can feel flatter than they really are, mere preludes to a longer journey, and, of course, they feel that way because that’s precisely what they are. However, when done well, as I’d argue GOT is, the narrative matches that of a good conversation. You don’t keep talking with someone to hear how things are going to wind up. You keep talking to hear the next joke, next quick turn of phrase, or interesting story. We are too consumed with narrative endings, finalities etc. The late great David Foster Wallace’s master work Infinite Jest followed this model to a t, continually keeping you interested by humor, sadness, pyrotechnical linguistic wizardry, memorable characters, and occasionally, the plot. The good things are worth waiting for, sometimes even when they don’t come. GOT, at its best, works in this manner. They have lush scenery from Croatia, Iceland, coupled with sword fights, low cut dresses and fire breathing dragons. So, even if the characters aren’t doing as much as we might like, we’re entertained along the way.

The first episode of the third season follows the model of season two. Establish the wide set of characters in their new surroundings. The first is John Snow, who has moved from Winterfell (Which made me sad when I didn’t see it in the opening map scene) to the Night’s Watch, to keeping company with the wildlings in short order. He delivers a semi-convincing reason for joining with the wildlings, citing the complicity of the watch with the slaying of innocent baby boys, which becomes a theme in this episode, oh, GOT, how you warm my cold heart with all your talk of innocents being slain. I’m going upstairs to hug Julian. Anyhow, Snow delivers a brief speech, and here is the cool thing about GOT. I’m eighty percent sure that he’s just saying it to get in good with the wildlings. I’m also eighty percent sure that he’ll find out it’s more complex than he thought, and twenty percent of me thinks that maybe he has changed his mind after seeing Gwen from Downton Abbey.

The action shifts from there to the armies of Robb Stark, marching after the retreating Lannisters. At Harrenhall, they discover two hundred of their kinsmen slain and the castle empty, which pretty much just confirms what we already knew about the Mountain. Also, he finds a cell for his mother, which, it may have been a bit kinder to not put her up in a castle renowned for ghosts and death, but a son has to do what a son has to do to his traitorous mother.

Was the episode good? Sure, it was good. It was good in the sense that I’m fairly heavily vested in a number of the characters, and they’ve been put in interesting and or dangerous situations. I’ve also been shown that the characters, like Tyrion, are complex, capable of change, and I’ve also been shown that valor and honor isn’t always rewarded as we might like. In short, I rarely know what is coming next, and I find that kind of delightful. I don’t get the sense of meandering that other folks sometimes complain about with GOT. Sure it meanders, but thus far, through two very solid seasons I’ve no reason not to trust that we’re going somewhere good. This is not the smoke monster from Lost. This is the smoke monster born of the red lady, which, what the hell was that about? Are they all just in purgatory?

From there we move to the plight of Tyrion, locked away in his tiny cell despite having saved the kingdom at Blackwater. He and Bron negotiate new terms of service for his protection and then Tyrion spars with his ever acidic sister and later, his father. Tyrion has it tough. If the show has a “hero” at this point, it’s probably Tyrion, which just means that he’ll wind up with his head on a pike a year from now.

That’s the other interesting thing about the show. Once you’ve established that anyone is fair game for a beheading, it unsettles the viewer. It makes us question who we’re supposed to be rooting for. By the end of Season 2, when the white walkers (I’m just glad we have another show with some zombies on it because it’s fresh) appeared, you find yourself sort of rooting for everyone to start getting their shi- together lest they become white walker meat, which means, you have no idea who you’re pulling for. You’re pulling for peace, which doesn’t look promising.

One excellent scene in the first episode shows Marjorie leaving the caravan to speak to the children in an orphanage about their father’s, dead in the battle of Blackwater, and promise them her patronage. If we’ve learned anything about her character thus far, it’s that she’s rather calculating when it comes to power . And though it would be easy to be charmed by her, especially when compared with Geoffrey, it’s clear to me that she is doing it to help mend the rift between the royalty and the commoners. Right now I’ve got dibs on her sticking around for a while, just as I have dibs on Lord Balisch running away and marrying Sansa against her will.

The final two pieces of the puzzle are Lord Davos, surviving the wildfire and the death of his son to head back home for a good old fashioned failed murder attempt on the red lady. This one was seen from a mile away, so much so that even his friend who dropped him off warned him of it. Sir Davos was too good. He had to go.

The final piece is the mother of dragons, who spent the large portion of season 2 whining about her dragons. In this season, she seems a bit stronger, only briefly whining about her army before watching her dragons roast and gobble up fish. She then goes to a small island to try and obtain some enuchs soldiers from a salty war lord who cuts off their manhood and nipples and has them kill baby’s to prove their worth. It’s not necessarily a job I would apply for, but I’d at least inquire about the health benefits. By the end of the episode it’s unclear if the Dragon Lady is going to buy the slaves, reform them and turn them into a wandering band of troubadours, or whether she’s going to burn them all with dragons. I’m voting for dragons, but I know that’s my childhood talking.