Game of Thrones - “The Wolf and the Lion”
According to my The One Ring bookmark, I am on page 317 of A Game of Thrones. If you don’t know, the book is presented in third person limited, and the character focus switches from chapter to chapter. Still, there are a main set of characters that we get to know personally, and the others can only come through via a third party or whispers.
Filling in these gaps with the other characters that the structure of the novel doesn’t allow will be one of the show’s greatest triumphs, but thus far we haven’t seen too much of it. The first four episodes were pretty strict with sticking to book events and dialogue, distributing scenes equally, but “The Wolf and the Lion” blew the doors off, using a bunch of new scenes and sticking with King’s Landing and The Eyrie to create a complete package - by far the show’s best episode to date.
The scene of the episode has Cersei and Robert talking about their broken marriage and how it never had a chance. None of the usual characters are near this conversation (or could have heard it through plot machinations), so this was a moment Martin’s novels could not have touched. This is where the show can become more than an adaptation of the novel, and it rises to the occasion.
Cersei is barely present at this stage in the novels, and when she is, she isn’t very vocal. Robert is much more physically present, but there’s not much behind his booze and broads mentality. So it was enlightening to see them talk about them, and how they openly acknowledge everything’s a wreck between the two of them, and that’s how the marriage was always supposed to be - political. Our mind should think of Dany, and how she’s handling a political marriage forced upon her. This is why those first four episodes were useful, jumping around and giving all types of exposition. But now, even without Dany being present in the episode, we get a better sense of what she’s going through. More importantly, we get a window into a character we know little about and shading to a character we figured we did.
Another new scene involved Renly and Loras, and for a moment I thought some slash-fic writers had commandeered the script. (The blowjob noises? Kinda awesome.) I understand that their relationship is hinted but never explicitly shown (due to structure) in the novels, and seeing Renly’s thoughts on the throne (while establishing the line of ascendancy) and more of Loras, he of flowers, was excellently done. I was wondering if we were going to get a gay couple, and there we go. We also had breasts, penis and talk of necrophilia (in another new scene with Varys and Littlefinger one-upping each other delightfully), so HBO really covered their sexual bases.
More than just sketching out characters, these scenes give some fan service, as they get to see new things happen within environments they’re comfortable with. But I’d like to note how wonderfully these scenes felt right with the main plot and thematic material of the episode, which I haven’t even mentioned yet. Loras isn’t speaking of killing Robert, just of how Renly would make a good king. But it’s there. We learn in King’s Landing, information is everything, so Varys and Littlefinger’s battle means something as well. These little scenes along with the main plot means that Robert Baratheon isn’t going to be sitting on the throne for long, I think.
Previous episodes presented the idea to the audience that living in the middle ages would probably suck if you weren’t born into a great family. But here we saw bursts of violence, showing even if you are royalty, you can still get stabbed in the leg with a spear.
The episode focused on the conflict between the two main families, the Starks and the Lannisters. Our allegiance as an audience is with the Starks, clearly, if only for Arya, but Tyrion is obviously one of the good guys on the bad team. His moment with the shield is played excellently by Peter Dinklage, and he keeps a level of playfulness and assholery even while in captivity. I did feel Cat’s journey through the Vale was way too quick - I’m not sure there was any explanation on-screen for the attacks, whereas in the books there is a growing threat. Furthermore, the journey up to The Eyrie is tough to read, much less imagine going through due to good writing, and I guess the budget (and storytelling) didn’t allow for a deep journey with Mya Stone. But to see them plopped right in front of Lysa breastfeeding a six-year old was a surprise in a few ways to me.
As I said, I’m reading along with the show, and I would recommend this approach to anyone who doesn’t know which one to start with. It gives you a great grasp on the basic plot and characters, and you still know the background on characters the TV audience won’t know yet. Still, the show keeps sneaking surprises past me, presumably things I haven’t read yet, like the breastfeeding and the final kick-ass scene with Ned and Jaime.
But first, Lysa, and Tyrion’s awesome holding cell. I guess this is mostly set-up to next week. Lysa is clearly crazy and grief-stricken, and I love that again, we think back to Catelyn, grief-stricken over Bran, and how the attack on his life actually woke her up. There are plenty more parallels I’m sure, some I can see and some I can’t, but due to the diligent work before, they popped in my head immediately and the show took a moment and then moved on. And the final shot with Tyrion was great, as the camera work wasn’t too obvious yet there was still a great sense of scale and angle.
The little man will be a big source of trouble, a spark between the two families who haven’t liked each other for a long time. Jaime’s eager to punish Ned, clearly, and Ned doesn’t want anything to do with anything. He’d rather do a little sherlocking around the town, trying to fit the pieces together about Arryn’s death, and go back to Winterfell and lead a nice life. These pieces weren’t particularly interesting thematically, but they gave the show an early momentum it didn’t squander. In the final scene, where Jory is stabbed in the eye (did that catch me by surprise) and Ned is forced to kneel, we see a little of the Lannister pride. They stick up for their family, if only for appearances, not for love. Still, Jaime has a soldier’s sense of battle, shown with all of those scenes recounting war stories, and chastises the guard for interfering. All of these pieces, including Ned’s acknowledgement immediately that he ordered the capture of Tyrion, fit perfectly in with what we knew about these characters.
With the kinda shaky groundwork out of the way, the show is now moving in to full-on excellent territory. With the exception of the weird Theon scenes - are they transplanted from a different book or something? - everything fit together in a near-perfect package. Plus, a horse got fucking decapitated.
