In this week's installment of Game of Thrones, Theon Greyjoy gives a stirring speech in the face of certain doom, Daenerys Targaryen gate-crashes the House of the Undying Ones, and the Night's Watch encampment at the Fist of the First Men gets some unexpected dinner guests.
Which one of those developments proves the most disappointing for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, the fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin upon which the HBO series is based? You'll find out below: As usual, we've broken down the latest episode of Game of Thrones, comparing the TV version to its source material in an attempt to gauge whether the alterations constitute wise adaptation or pointless tampering.
(Spoiler alert: Plot points follow.)
There was no way the Season 2 finale, "Valar Morghulis," was going to live up to last week's spectacular "Blackwater," but it was nonetheless an entertaining episode. The seeds of most of its problems were planted much earlier in the season, and "Valar Morghulis" did a surprisingly good job of wrapping up some of Game of Thrones' more troublesome subplots in a satisfying way. But the degree to which Danaerys' story was stripped of material this week is sure to drive many fans of the books crazy.
Without further ado, here are some of the more noteworthy changes from the books to the show this week:
1) Littlefinger promises to rescue Sansa
"Valar Morghulis" opens with a great scene that's straight out of A Clash of Kings, in which Joffrey and his courtiers engage in a bit of choreographed speechmaking so that he can set aside his fiancée Sansa Stark and enter instead into a marriage pact with Margaery Tyrell, daughter of the powerful lord Mace Tyrell of Highgarden.
While Sansa pretends to be distressed, secretly she's ecstatic. But Lord Petyr Baelish, aka Littlefinger, soon disabuses her of her naive hopes -- she's not free of Joffrey. In fact, her situation has become even more tenuous, since Joffrey will now keep her as his mistress rather than his queen. But Littlefinger promises to spirit her away to safety.
In the books, it's the drunken knight-busted-down-to-jester Ser Dontos Hollard rather than Littlefinger who shatters Sansa's illusions and promises to rescue her. Dontos arranges to meet with her many times in the godswood -- where she is supposedly praying -- in order to scheme about her escape. We learn later that he was acting as an agent of Littlefinger, so it's a reasonable enough change for Game of Thrones to cut out the middleman, but in that case I'm not sure why Dontos was introduced at all on the show.
2) Robb marries what's-her-name
I hate everything about this Talisa subplot. In the books, Robb falls into the arms of a lord's daughter named Jeyne Westerling after receiving news that his brothers Bran and Rickon have been murdered, and then feels honor-bound to marry her. In the show, I didn't get the sense at all that Robb feels honor-bound to wed Talisa, but rather that he'd just decided to marry for love rather than uphold his arranged marriage/vital military alliance with the Freys. This just makes him look like a complete idiot, and again contributes to the sense that Robb and Talisa are contemporary Americans rather than inhabitants of a medieval world. At least these scenes were short, and we didn't get any more long-winded, improbably aphrodisiacal stories about Talisa's girlhood in Volantis. There was a great deal of fan speculation about whether Talisa was actually somehow Jeyne Westerling in disguise, which seems not to have been the case, thankfully. This subplot is silly either way, but that sort of twist would have been completely ridiculous.
3) Is Stannis Baratheon gonna have to choke a witch?
Seriously, what was up with Stannis choking Melisandre? This scene was totally bizarre and out of character. Stannis was the one who made the decision to leave the priestess behind on Dragonstone, figuring it would look better if he captured King's Landing without her magical help. That didn't really work out so well, but that's not her fault.
>It's an honest mistake. Choking is just totally uncalled for.
One thing that is her fault, though, is misinterpreting what she saw in the flames. She'd seen a vision in which Renly in his green armor led his host against Stannis beneath the walls of King's Landing and routed Stannis' forces, which is what precipitated her shadow baby/Renly-assassination plot. But how was she supposed to know that someone else would dress up as Renly and make the prophecy come true anyway? It's an honest mistake. Choking is just totally uncalled for.
None of this business with Renly's green armor is clear in the show, and in this episode, Melisandre just says some vacuous, "This is all part of God's plan"-type stuff. They should have included the vision with the green armor.
Melisandre is also able to placate Stannis here by showing him -- apparently for the first time -- visions of his future glory in the flames. Um, huh? If she could do that, why is that happening only now? Wouldn't you think it would be an effective rhetorical strategy to show him that before trying to talk him into desecrating the gods, betraying his wife, murdering his only living sibling, etc.?
4) Theon is betrayed by his own men
In this episode, Theon's nerves fray as his captured prize of Winterfell is besieged by Northern soldiers. He gives an impassioned speech to rally his small band to a glorious death, but is ultimately betrayed by them. Fantastic performance here from Alfie Allen, but this is significantly different from the books, in which Theon has started relying heavily on a nasty young man called "Reek": a dirty, stinking fellow who'd been manservant to Roose Bolton's bastard son Ramsay before being captured and held prisoner at Winterfell. When Theon's sister Asha (called Yara on the show) refuses to offer Theon significant reinforcements, he turns in desperation to Reek, who claims to be able to hire local thugs to fight for Theon. Reek returns with more men and breaks the siege, only to slaughter Theon's men and take Theon prisoner. It turns out that Reek is actually Ramsay Bolton, having traded identities with his manservant.
It's a shame this couldn't have been retained for the show, since the book's revelation that Reek is Ramsay is dramatic and horrifying, whereas in the show, the betrayal of Theon by his men is mostly played for laughs. The Reek subplot is sufficiently complicated that it might have been too much to squeeze into a TV storyline, though the fact that Dagmer was given so many of Reek's lines led to a lot of fan speculation that Dagmer was somehow Ramsay Bolton in disguise, which thankfully seems not to have been the case, as that would have been extraordinarily far-fetched.
5) Qhorin and Jon are prisoners of the wildlings
Last episode, Qhorin Halfhand and Jon Snow had been taken prisoner by wildlings, and Qhorin had been pretending to hate Jon. This week, Qhorin gets a chance to grab a wildling sword and attack Jon, forcing Jon to kill him in self-defense, which earns Jon the respect and trust of the wildlings. It's obviously just a ruse, though, as is made painfully obvious by the fact that with his dying breath Qhorin reminds Jon of his oath. Um, Qhorin, dude, you know that the wildlings are standing right there, right? It's a little hard to believe that the wildlings are actually gullible enough to fall for this.
>Jon has been depicted throughout the story as a character who's painfully earnest and emotionally transparent.
Honestly, I had the same problem with the books, although the scenario there is different in that Qhorin is never taken prisoner. Rather, Qhorin's band, including Jon, is being tracked by wildlings, and when it becomes clear that the rangers can't evade the pursuit, Qhorin orders Jon to go undercover among the wildlings and report back to Castle Black with what he's learned. The wildlings force Jon to prove his loyalty by killing Qhorin, which Jon is able to do only with the help of his direwolf Ghost. The fact that Ghost joins in increases the plausibility slightly, by making it less obvious that super-ranger Qhorin Halfhand is throwing the fight to young neophyte Jon Snow, but Jon's sudden change of heart is fishy any way you look at it.
I think the basic problem is that Jon has been depicted throughout the story as a character who's painfully earnest and emotionally transparent, so it doesn't really matter what he does to prove his loyalty, or how convincing his stated motives are. I just don't believe that he possesses the guile and cunning to actually convince anyone that he hates the Night's Watch and is all gung-ho wildling now. If we'd seen some indication that Jon is a really good actor -- and if he marched into the wildling camp, casually tossed down Qhorin's head, and announced that he wanted in -- then I could almost see them buying it. But the way his character is written now, it just seems way too obvious where his true loyalties lie.
6) No Jojen and Meera
In the books, Bran and Rickon split up after leaving Winterfell. Bran heads north with his friends Jojen and Meera Reed to journey beyond the Wall and find the Three-Eyed Crow of his dreams, while Osha takes Rickon to an undisclosed location. Since Jojen and Meera have yet to put in an appearance, and Osha can hardly leave Bran alone with Hodor, it appears that for the moment they'll all be traveling together. It's been announced that Jojen and Meera have been cast for Season 3, so presumably Bran will run into them on the road. I think it definitely would have made more sense for them to be at Winterfell, but we'll see what happens. Maybe their dreams will serve sort of like cell phones that enable them to find each other.
7) Daenerys sees different visions in the House of the Undying Ones
This is the big one -- the part of the story that fans of the books have been waiting for all season, as we wondered what revelations might possibly be inferred from the way this sequence was shot.
In the books, Daenerys Targaryen seeks advice from the warlocks of Qarth, even though her friends and allies warn her they're not to be trusted. Upon entering their mansion, she imbibes a hallucinogenic liquor and then wanders through an Escher-esque sequence of rooms where she beholds all manner of surreal visions. In one room, she sees a king with the head of a wolf in a room full of corpses. In another, she sees her dead brother Rhaegar holding up his infant son Aegon and declaring that the babe is "the prince who was promised" and that "his is the song of ice and fire." When she finally meets the warlocks, they whisper prophecies to her such as, "Three treasons will you know. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love." She then experiences a rush of images, and as she swoons the warlocks crowd her, seeking to drain her life. She's rescued by her dragon Drogon, who sets the warlocks and their house ablaze.
Obviously, fans of the books expected that the two dozen or so prophetic visions presented in this chapter would probably have to be trimmed down to something a bit more manageable for the television screen, and boy were they ever. The number of visions from the books that made it into the show is ... zero.
Zip. Nada. Nothing.
Dany does see a vision in which her dead husband Drogo and stillborn son Rhaego are alive and well, which is at least in the same spirit as the vision in the books in which she sees and longs for the house where she grew up. In the show, she also sees a vision in which the throne room in King's Landing is a snowy ruin -- presumably this is what will happen if the White Walkers overrun the South. These scenes are beautifully shot, but don't offer much to analyze -- unlike the visions in the novel, which have provoked year after year of frenzied speculation. Though I did like that Daenerys gives the order to barbecue Pyat Pree, which makes her a bit more of an active character than in the scene in the books.
8) Sam watches the zombie parade
Season 2 ends on a fantastically creepy note, as icy, blue-eyed horsemen lead an army of zombie soldiers against the Fist of the First Men. I was a little annoyed that Grenn and Edd run off without so much as a backward glance, leaving Sam alone with the zombies (in stark contrast to the way Grenn tries to care for Sam in the books). I also didn't care for the way Sam found himself hiding behind a rock as a million zombies walked past, which seems like a horror movie cliché that doesn't really make much sense here. But the visuals were cool, especially the zombie horse, and overall this was a pretty terrific scene with which to end Season 2.
Blowback: What's Your Take on Season 2 of Game of Thrones?
Give us your spin on Sunday's episode of Game of Thrones, your take on the HBO series so far and/or your ideas about Season 3 -- which is set to add many new characters we think will invigorate the show -- in the comments below.
