Andrew: Good morning, Chris! Last night’s episode of GoT mostly spent its time checking in with familiar characters, introducing new ones, and advancing conflicts old and new that will hopefully pay off ater in the season. At least one really big thing happened last night, though: Arya killed a guy. She killed someone last season too, of course, putting a knife in the eye of a man who’d bragged of his participation in her brother Rob’s death—but this killing felt more momentous, somehow. The scene in the tavern was a storyline from GoT past come back in a really satisfying way—the man who stole Arya’s sword, killed a defenseless boy, and brought her to Harrenhal getting his at last. Thanks to HBO’s weekend marathon, I’d recently revisited that scene—so seeing Arya recover Needle, say the same words, and kill the man in the exact same way he’d killed her friend was chilling and electrifying. Not a ton happens in every hour of GoT, but I’ll give Benioff and Weiss this: they know how to end an episode.
Chris: I must say Andrew, I just love how much you want Arya to start killing folks. She’s just a kid! The tavern scene to end this episode, and the reveal of Arya’s pony, was easily the highlight last night. The Hound and Arya pairing is sure to be a blast. The first thing my wife said after it ended was: “The Hound is awesome.” Hard to disagree. Otherwise, though, a standard first episode, I thought. Slow opening. Slow middle. I was a bit surprised by Jamie’s eagerness to get back in the sack with his sister. I thought he’d a bit more distant, but it was Cersei for whom things had changed. I’m very excited about Jamie. You pointed that out in our preview, that bringing Jamie back to King’s Landing would make for wonderful complexity. Joffrey’s humiliation, Cersei’s rejection, his father’s abuse, and Brienne’s friendship make Jamie’s story something to anticipate.
Andrew: The premiere began in the blacksmith’s shop where a new sword was being forged for Jaime’s left hand—but Jaime seems unwilling to forge a new identity for himself. He’s pretending that nothing’s changed: that he can still have his relationship with Cersei, that he’s still a brilliant swordsman, that he can still be in the Kingsguard and fill his page in the annals of history with daring exploits. He’s so committed to his old identity that he’s willing to be disowned by his father and give up a plum spot at Casterly Rock. But he’s not the only one who’s committing to an old identity in spite of everything that’s happened: Jon Snow, back at Castle Black, seems fully committed to the Night’s Watch, in spite of killing Quorin Halfhand and “laying with a Wildling girl.” He’s a Crow again. But I suspect that what happened on the other side of the Wall won’t be so easy to shake off—that being with the Wildlings, and with Ygritte, has changed him somehow.
Chris: I sure hope so because Jon Snow’s been the least dynamic of the central characters throughout the series. His decision to join the Wildlings was the first really interesting choice he made, and that it was a false one (and obviously so) made it less interesting from the start. His private time with Ygrette added some needed depth, which is appreciated because I really like Jon Snow. And his scene before the Night’s Watch Committee of Old White Guys was really pretty fun. The Night’s Watch, as an organization, is fascinating. No matter who you are or what you were in your previous life, you are there only because you failed in the world and were summarily rejected.
Andrew: The Night’s Watch is fascinating—as are, it turns out, the Wildlings! Every couple episodes or so something happens to remind us that this world is still a lot bigger than we know, and for me that moment came with the introduction of the menacing, cannibalistic Thenns. The Wildlings, we learned last season, are a mixture of tribes that hate each other, temporarily united under the leadership of Mance Rayder in a southward march. The motivations of the “Free Folk,” of their army, and of their king are hazy, at the moment. As a group, the Wildlings are chaos personified. Or is that the White Walkers who most represent chaos? Either way, the North is a powderkeg of warring groups, making it one of my favorite Westerosi settings—even if Jon Snow tends to be a snooze. I just can’t wait for this powder keg to blow, for the battle lines to be drawn, for motivations and balances of power to make themselves clear.
Chris: Cannibalism. Woo. The only thing missing so far from Game of Thrones was a band of wild roving cannibals cooking an arm over an open fire. The Thenns are terrifying, though, and I greatly appreciate their introduction because I feel like we’ve gotten a little too comfortable in Westeros. Even our monsters-Joffrey, Cersei, etc-have been humanized to a degree of non-monstrosity. Joffrey’s still horrible, of course, but he’s been turned into a kid. Leave it to Martin to bring us new monsters to replace the old just when we need them. Like Oberyn Martell. We know next to nothing about Oberyn except that he’s in King’s Landing for Joffrey’s wedding, and he hates the Lannisters and wants to murder them. That, for my buck, is all we need to know. The stroll he and Tyrion take after the brothel scene is enlightening as a reminder that warring Houses are housed by people. The castaway from the Lannister clan milling with a man who wants to kill his family. Great stuff.
Andrew: Oberyn’s presence at King’s Landing is sure to make the pending royal wedding an eventful one. Speaking of, we haven’t spent much time talking about Margaery and the rest of the women of GoT yet! They weren’t given a whole lot to do this episode, aside from worrying over jewelry—but Olenna’s reaction to the sight of Brienne was classic. Finally, someone in Westeros who thinks Brienne’s as amazing as we do! Sansa, meanwhile, is deep in depression after the death of her brother and mother—though after a scene with Ser Dontos, the knight she saved from death-by-drinking in Season 2, she seemed to perk up a bit. Dontos’s gift of his mother’s necklace twinned nicely with Tyrion’s quite correct reminder that Catelyn would want Sansa to go on with her life, and with Margaery and Olenna’s fretting over the necklace for the upcoming wedding.
Chris: I’m starting to think it’s possible that Margaery will turn out to be the most fearsome player yet. There’s something about her smile, her elocution. Seems likely that we’ve not seen a single sincere moment from the woman who would be Queen, and that’s worrisome and electric. Her response to Brienne’s promise of revenge for Renly-“Joffrey is our king now”-really left me shaking. Daenerys too marches on, leaving nothing but quaking earth in her wake. I worry about what this season will do with Dany. We already love her for what she’s done last season, but the premiere leaves me worried we won’t see anything new. I love that she wants to look upon the faces of all the dead girls on her march into another slave-built city, where she’ll lay waste the wealthy and free the slaves, but I hope they continue moving her forward. Also, the show recast Daario Naharis? What could the actor have been offered that’d take him from Game of Thrones?* I don’t know what happened to the blonde-haired shirtless slaughtering-boyfriend guy from season 3, but now he’s brunnette, and giving the Mother of Dragons bouquets of wildflowers.
Andrew: I love Dany, but at times her storyline feels less real than what’s going on with the gang on the other side of the sea. Lacking the hard-edged realpolitik of Westeros, Dany’s story can start to feel like an allegory in the vein of The Faerie Queene or The Pilgrim’s Progress, with symbolic villains popping out of the woodwork to complicate or assist the hero’s journey, but without any connection to a real political or cultural landscape. Dany’s story, for better or worse, is dedicated to a concept: The Making of a Queen. On that level it’s interesting, and I anticipate plenty of challenges along the way—at some point she’ll have to decide if her thirst for military power and desire for freedom for the downtrodden can coexist, for instance. But truth be told, I’m eager for this allegorical bildungsroman to draw to a close, and for Dany and her dragons to muck about in the real world with the rest of the characters.
Chris: Agreed. The fact that things like this are being written just tells you that Dany’s story lacks dynamism and consequence. Bring those dragons to the mainland, and let’em roar. If she’s got liesure time to sunbathe on boulders, then she’s under valued. More than anything, the start of season 4 did what we expected, moved our stories incrementally towards the day when they will all come crashing together. Watching Game of Thrones is starting to feel like continental drift. Things are moving very very slowly. And that’s okay. That’s what Game of Thrones is and I love the politicking, and family drama, and the slow expansion of this universe. As long as, episode to episode, we feel like we’re actually building to that moment when the continents collide. Then look out.
Andrew: I have a feeling the collision—or a collision, at least—isn’t too far off. Joffrey’s wedding is coming. Mance Rayder’s preparing to light a fire like the North has never seen. And those dragons are going to roar sooner or later.
