The third season of Game of Thrones is here, and we’re chronicling the TV adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s world of Westeros — and how it differs from the books — in a series of letters between Wired writers (and Game of Thrones fanatics) Erik Henriksen and Laura Hudson.
__WARNING: The following includes spoilers for A Song of Ice and Fire Books 3-5 which have been redacted for your convenience with black bars. You can toggle spoilers on at your own risk by clicking the button to the left or highlighting. IF YOU CAN SEE THIS SENTENCE, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SEE THE SPOILERS.__First, a TV versus book recap of "And Now His Watch Has Ended":
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Jaime: After last week's shocking amputation, the Bolton men are now making Jaime ride with his severed hand tied around his neck. It is... not a good scene. He falls off his horse into the mud; they make him drink horse piss, and he then tries to steal a sword—only to learn just how poor a fighter he is with his left hand and get soundly beaten. After announcing that he plans to give up and die, Brienne—who realizes now that his lies saved her from getting raped—gives him the verbal smackdown he needs to stop feeling sorry for himself and start plotting revenge. In the books: Largely the same, though while I've talked a lot about what we gain on the show by freeing it from the book's point-of-view limitation, here's a moment when I miss it—and the opportunity to see the internal monologue (and internal change) going on inside Jaime. The most telling thought he has? “Now I know how Tyrion has felt, all those times they laughed at him.”
Tyrion: Still concerned that Cersei may be plotting to kill him—and still interested in taking revenge for her last attempt—Tyrion goes to Varys for information. Instead, Varys relates the very personal story of how a magician castrated him as a child, a story he tells while opening a mysterious box. The box, by the way, contains both the magician from all those years ago, and a lesson: Both revenge and power are often a matter of patience. In the books: Varys does tell Tyrion the story of his castration by a sorcerer, though he does it in the previous novel, Clash of Kings, and doesn't actually have the man on hand.
Samwell: Back at Craster's Keep, the men of the Night's Watch—two in particular—are growing hungry and resentful as Craster chows down on delicious food (while they eat scraps) and advises them to leave their wounded to die. Eventually, one of the men goads Craster into a battle and then stabs him, and when Mormont threatens him, the other jerk stabs the Lord Commander in the back, and all hell breaks loose. Sam, wisely, finds Gilly and her baby, and gets the hell out. In the books: Sam is far less proactive at The Mutiny at Craster's Keep, sitting in a semi-fugue state with the dying Lord Commander's head in his lap until three of Craster's wives basically push him out the door with Gilly and her child.
Bran: Still having his strange, prophetic dreams, Bran ends up chasing the three-eyed crow by climbing up into a tree, only to find dream-Catelyn at the top, who freaks out at him and accidentally sends him plummeting to the ground below. Jojen, who was also in the dream, is sitting across the fire from Bran when he wakes up, which is a little freaky. In the books: Bran doesn't have this dream specifically, though he does have a lot of dreams about the three-eyed crows.
Varys: After learning about the prostitutes oddly refusing money from Pod last episode, Varys brings Ros in for some questions. Turns out it was all a pretext to get Varys's attention, and alert him to Littlefinger's secret plans to spirit Sansa away. My, you're an interesting woman, Ros. Varys goes to meet with Lady Redwyne, a scene that surpasses even the Varys/Littlefinger battles of wits for clever repartee. The two new allies agree that Littlefinger shouldn't get his hands on Sansa (or her claim to the North) and their solution—which Margaery suggests to Sansa in a later scene—is one that the poor girl who used to dream of knights and flowers likes very much indeed: that she should marry Ser Loras instead. In the books: We tragically see very little of Lady Redwyne and her machinations in the book, as she is not a POV character. She does however, hatch a plot to have Sansa aligned with Highgarden—but by marrying her grandson Willas, not Loras (who is a member of the Kingsguard and cannot marry).
Cersei: While Joffrey takes Margaery on a gruesome historical tour of the Red Keep (which Margaery insists is so fascinating and in no way creepy), Cersei and Lady Redwyne make plans for the wedding, which devolves into a conversation about how their sons are idiots, yet somehow get to rule the world. And when Margaery hears the crowds shouting outside—and sees the flash of fear in Joffrey's eyes, after his previous near-death experience with the commoners—there's a quick moment of calculation and she does something very deft and very powerful. Having laid the groundwork through her public charity in Joffrey's name, she takes him outside to greet them and gives him the one thing Cersei and her brutal, fearful approach to politics (and life) never could: the love of the people. In the books: Cersei isn't a POV character in Storm of Swords so most of this is invented, but in the fourth book, Feast for Crows, we get far more insight into her hatred of Margaery. As a child, Cersei received a very dark prophecy: that she would one day become queen, at least “until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.” Sound like anyone you know?
Theon: The mysterious savior continues to lead Theon away from the torturefort, giving the heir to the Iron Islands time to exposit about his identity problems after growing up as a ward of the Starks, but never feeling like one of them, and then finally going home only to be rejected by his own people. When he stormed Winterfell he betrayed one father to please another, and now he admits that he “chose wrong.” The young man leads him inside and lights a torch, only to reveal that he's brought him back to the torture room with the giant wooden X, and shouts to the guards to put Theon “back where he belongs.” Ice cold. In the books: As discussed last week, this is almost certainly Ramsay Snow, the bastard son of Lord Bolton, playing reindeer games torture games with Theon that book readers only learn about retroactively in Dance with Dragons.
Arya: Now in her third season of being dragged random places by people, Arya finds herself in some sort of cave with the Brotherhood of Banners, which we learn was founded by Beric Dondarrion (now a devotee of the Red God) after Ned Stark originally sent him to capture the Mountain way back in Season One. Ned's dead, but the Brotherhood have persisted into some sort of Robin Hood collective that fights any who prey on the weak. He wants to charge the Hound, but is having trouble coming up with a specific crime until Arya reminds them all of Mycah, her little friend from Season One that the Hound had killed on Joffrey's say-so. Beric Dondarrion is pleased with this call back as well, and sentences him to trial by combat. In the books: Largely the same, and Beric's comment that “I've been reborn in the light of the one true god” (and the patch over his eye) seems to indicate that much like the in the novels, he's already been killed at least once by the Mountain and resurrected from the dead through the power of the Red God.
Daenerys: As per her agreement, Dany brings her largest dragon, Drogon, to pay for the army of Unsullied, trading him for the symbolic whip that gives her ultimate power over the soldiers. The moment she gets confirmation that the deal is done, she walks to the front of the army and starts shouting commands in High Valyrian (which you may remember as the language that the slavemaster has been using to insult her for the last four episodes). When he looks up, shocked that she understands Valyrian, she turns to him with her vast army behind her, voice dripping with scorn, and says, “I am Daenerys Stormborn, of the House Targaryen of the Blood of Old Valyria. Valyrian is my mother tongue.” And it is so. Freaking. Awesome. To Drogon, who is hovering over the slavemaster, she simply says, “Dracarys,” at which point the dragon drenches the man in flame. One of the best moments on television this year, everybody. She commands the Unsullied to slay all masters, free all slaves—and after the city has been taken apart she frees the Unsullied as well, who agree to fight for her as free men. As they march away from the smoking city, she drops the whip in the sand. In the books: Dany also hits the slaver in the face with the whip before lighting him on fire, but otherwise it rules just as hard.
-Laura
Can we talk about the fact that Daenerys is FINALLY DOING SOMETHING INTERESTING (it only took her two and a half seasons!) And also that Theon is... well, as a certain sorority sister might say, Theon should probably strap himself down, because he's in for a rough ride. Wait, what? Theon's already strapped down? Okay, cool. That's convenient.
I'd like to get a few things on the record before we get to Daenerys and Theon, though:
My Halloween costume for next year is going to be Jaime Lannister with his hand dangling around his neck, so nobody else do that.
If I ever decide to start a band that plays at Renaissance faires (a decision that is, I will admit, exceedingly unlikely), I will be calling this band "Chaos at Craster's," so nobody else do that, either.
As for Theon: Like you suggested last week, the dude messing with him has got to be Ramsay Snow, a guy who gives Joffrey a run for his money when it comes to gleeful cruelty. I'm still a bit confused by this, and I can't imagine that people who haven't read the books aren't confused as well: There's been practically no setup for the character. Still, I find all of this Theon stuff really moving; as someone who's read the books and knows what Theon has in store (he's not leaving that black site anytime soon), I also think this is an excellent change from the books, where we find out about all this after it's happened.
I'll admit that I've never found Daenerys nearly as interesting as most of the other characters, but what happens here is the exception to that rule: We see Daenerys take control, outsmart her enemies (to the extent that they didn't even know they were her enemies until it was too late!), and unleash her wrath, which was conveniently embodied in those lethal, scorching blasts of dragon vomit. Unlike her drawn-out arcs in the first two seasons, Daenerys' season three hijinx have been fantastic so far, and the whole "Here's how I managed to get an army, kill some bad guys, and take advantage of HBO's special effects budget, all in one fell swoop" thing is, so far, the highlight. I want more of this kind of stuff, and less of her usual entitled moping; she's the sort of character who gets better the more we see how canny and determined she is, not how sad she is.
That reminds me, though: Did you notice how this episode opened with a series of humiliations for Jaime—a formerly powerful man who's now lost his power—but closed with a formerly powerless woman who's now gained more power than anyone dreamed she could?
-Erik
________The major theme of the show always been the illusion of power and its mutability, something that is working fantastically well for some characters and... less well for others. The torture game with Theon really strikes a chord for me because it reminds me of something that both worst characters on the show (Joffrey, Ramsay) and the show itself like to do: put a character through horrific pain, make them believe, however briefly, that it might still work out all right... and then pull that hope away at the last moment. (Note: This makes very concerned for Sansa.)
And yes, the reversal of power is particularly dramatic—and sad—for Jaime this episode, as he suffers a series of humiliations that are pretty difficult to watch. The impact of losing both his hand and his dignity is devastating for the former golden boy, but as bad as you begin to feel for him, Brienne's “check your privilege” conversation is critical. Jaime has spent his whole life in absurd opulence with every advantage possible, doing whatever he wanted and not caring who it harmed. Now, he's finally getting a glimpse of reality as it exists for the 99% who aren't magically insulated from pain by wealth and power. “You have one taste of the real world, where people have impprtant things taken from them all the time, and you whine and cry and quit,” Brienne tells him. "You sound like a bloody woman.”
Brienne's sexist insult also provides a useful transition, because guess who's also having a pretty crappy week? That's right, it's Cersei! She continues to watch Joffrey drift away from her influence and into the arms of the lovely Margaery, who puts on amazing performance of looking absolutely delighted by Joffrey's macabre stories and saying things like, “Sometimes severity is the price we pay for greatness!”, a comment that Joffrey immediately Likes on his mental Facebook.
When Lady Redwyne mentions that excluding women from all social and political power is perhaps not the best system, Cersei says, "the gods have seen fit to make it so," with a whispery bitterness that betrays a lifetime of thinking this is bullshit. Perhaps inspired by this Feminism 101 convo, Cersei finally confronts her father about why he doesn't trust or respect her, and unwisely decides that the best way to demonstrate her value is complaining about her petty insecurities about Margaery. This earns her a brutal but entirely accurate shut-down from Tywin: “I don't distrust you because you're a woman. I distrust you because you aren't as smart as you think you are.” To reiterate: She isn't powerless just because she's a woman in a sexist world; she's powerless because she's a woman in a sexist world AND she isn't good enough to play the game. (Again, consider Daenerys, who started out the series as a virtual slave, and is now leading a massive army with three dragons at her side.)
Oh, and that moment where Joffrey turns to Margaery in the doorway to the outside world with a sort of awe in his eyes, and she beams him a thousand-watt smile as throngs of people cheer their names? For the record, Cersei, that's the moment when you lost him.
-Laura
It kind of bums me out, because it seems like Cersei is fading into the background a bit, and I love Cersei. Naturally, Cersei's aware of this (her fading, not my love, which she doesn't care at all about) and blames it all on Margaery. Maybe Cersei figures that her influence is going to wane no matter what, so that's why she decided to finally confront Tywin about how he's never respected her. It's something she's clearly been fuming over for a while, but when she calls Tywin on it, she doesn't get the answer she wants. From Tywin's perspective, this snap might be true, or it might not; I get the sense that he's enough of a dick that he'll insult his children however he can in order to keep them from having the power he wants. (Which makes me wonder what Tywin and Joffrey's interactions are like. Have we seen any of those?)
Seeing Cersei and Tyrion in such similar positions, and seeing Jaime wander around with his hand dangling from his neck, does something else pretty interesting: It makes at least some of the Lannisters underdogs. Weird, right? Sure, their family is still in control of Westeros, via Joffrey and Tywin, but three of the family's most influential, famed, and seasoned characters have all been rudely kicked to the curb. How weird is it that Tyrion, Cersei, and Jaime's fortunes have all reversed so completely and so quickly? And how will they solve it? I know! By putting aside their petty differences and realizing they're more powerful as a united family and HAHAHAHAHHAHAAA. No, that would be functional.
But now we're starting to see what happens when privilege goes away: Those who've taken it for granted simply don't know what to do when it's gone. Is it possible for any of these characters to get back on top? Possibly: Tyrion's used to being marginalized, and Jaime's precious wounded pride might propel him to fight back. But Cersei seems so poisoned and so bitter—toward Tywin, toward Margaery, toward Joffrey, and hell, toward you, Laura, probably—that I can see her just... settling in to angry loneliness. Maybe she should throw in the towel and just go have tea with Lady Olenna, and they can glare at everyone who walks by and trade increasingly insulting remarks about everyone who isn't them. I'd watch that show!
And hey, here's another question for you: Who's the dude in the box? Is he Varys' castrater? (When Chaos at Craster's inevitably breaks up, I'm going to start a band called "Varys' Castrater," so nobody else do that.) I assume so, given Varys' otherwise inexplicable, "Here, let me tell you my life story!" monologue that preceded the unboxing... but that still seems like a stretch. Unless the castrater was somehow magically transported to Varys' house? By magic?
-Erik
________Well, as you'd know if you'd bothered to pay attention during my recap—maybe if you weren't so busy coming up with dumb names for a dumb Renaissance faire band?—that guy is indeed the sorcerer who castrated Varys and burned his genitalia as part of a magical ritual (though Varys never captured him in the books). This understandably inspired a life-long hatred of a magic in Varys, something that is more relevant now than ever now that magic has started returning to the world in force, from the growing danger of the fabled White Walkers to the cryptic powers of the Red God of Melisandre. (It's even theorized by at least one character in the books that the return of magic may be related to the rebirth of the dragons, though it may be a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.) Regardless, while most of the Seven Kingdoms is busy fighting a civil war, undead hordes are massing in the North and while Daenerys builds a massive army in Essos and her three Weapons of Mass Dragon Destruction grow ever larger. But by all means, guys, continue to weaken all the armies of Westeros with your petty, internecine battles over the Iron Throne!
I suspect that Varys cares about magic not only for personal reasons, but because he is one of the few people in the series who knows how to see this sort of big picture; Littlefinger is another. The difference, as Varys tells Lady Redwyne, is that Littlefinger “would see this country burn if he would be king of the ashes.” Prophetic words, perhaps?
-Laura
Interesting question, Laura. It makes me wonder if—hey! I just thought of something else! Another good band name would be "Valyrian Steel"! That one would only work if it was a metal band, though. Do they let metal bands play at Renaissance faires? I should start a metal band.
-Erik
