Although the pieces move forward slightly for Daenerys, Stannis and Theon this week, the episode is really about one thing, and one thing only: Peter Dinklage absolutely killing it as Tyrion Lannister. Seriously, how many Emmys does this guy have? Just one? In my perfect world he’d have as many statuettes as there are characters on this series, such that he could act out the entire show with them like little action figures, which is definitely something I have never done. Tyrion is the great underdog of the show, the unsung hero whose nobility and courage has become a secret known only to us, which of course makes that knowledge all the more precious. In truth, his pain is almost directly proportional to our love–the more he hurts, the more beloved he becomes to us. So I’m sorry Tyrion: I probably brought this on you as much as anyone else. And I love you all the more for it, which is probably why it’s never going to stop.
Daenerys
Now the Queen of Meereen, Daenerys decides that it’s time to get in touch with her new people the same way a popular radio station would: by taking requests. First up is a shepherd whose flock was barbequed by Drogon, the black dragon who grows larger (and hungrier) by the day. Daenerys pays the man back three-fold and moves on to a tougher case: Hizdahr zo Loraq, a Meereenese nobleman whose father was crucified during Dany’s fit of pique a few episodes back. He wants to give his father’s body a decent burial, and while she immediately gets up on her high horse about the murdered slaves, he says that his father had fiercely opposed their deaths. Since Dany didn’t do a lot of opposition research before she started nailing people to crosses, he died slowly and painfully all the same. Much as Barristan Selmy warned her, this is the sort of thing that happens when you launch the equivalent of vengeful drone strikes at your enemies: collateral damage. Softening a bit, she grants his petition, only to learn that there are 212 more supplicants waiting in the wings. C’mon, Daenerys: delegate, delegate, delegate. It’s what smart leaders do!In the books:
Rather than petitioning for his father’s body, Hizdahr zo Loraq asks Daenerys to reopen the gladiator pits he owns so that sweet, sweet blood money can start rolling in again; there is no indication that his father was crucified. Instead, she orders the crucified nobles taken down of her own accord after they become a public health nuisance. Also, Daenerys does begin to pay shepherds for the herds eaten by her dragons, though she notes that they suddenly seem to have a “prodigious” increase in appetite once word of the payments gets out.
Yara
After raising an Ironborn assault force to rescue her poor, tortured brother from Ramsay, Yara storms the Dreadfort in the dead of night, a siege intercut with some scenes of Ramsay having sex, because HBO. She finds him, but as she quickly discovers, there isn’t much left of him to find. He fights her tooth and nail, insisting that he’s “Reek” and doesn’t want to leave. Soon enough Ramsay arrives with his own soldiers and it doesn’t look good for Yara until Ramsay inexplicably stops fighting and lets the Ironborn go. Although he ostensibly releases his hounds to hunt them, the dogs never seem to reach Yara’s men because moments later they’re stepping leisurely into their boat and sailing away. O…K? Side quest over, I guess. For his “loyalty,” Ramsay offers Theon a bath, and an exciting chance to (probably) betray even more people! In order to help him take an unspecified castle, Ramsay tells the broken man that he’ll have to pretend to be someone he isn’t: Theon Greyjoy.In the books:
If you’re wondering why the rescue plot seems oddly cursory and consequence-free, that’s because–you guessed it–it never happened in the books. Much like Craster’s Keep redux before it, the pointless brutality is really more of a game that the show is playing with us to pass the time, which makes it sound kind of like Ramsay, no? Although Theon definitely develops a pretty intense case of Stockholm Syndrome–even declining a (dubious) offer by Ramsay to set him free–neither Theon’s sister nor any Ironborn attempts to rescue him. Theon does start sleeping in the kennels (a “reward” from Ramsay that elevates him out of the dungeon) but this doesn’t happen until slightly later.
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| Game of Thrones |
Braavos
Stannis sails through the famous gates of Braavos under his new Baratheon sigil, a stag on a fiery red heart (aka the sigil of the angriest Care Bear). You may remember Braavos as the homeland of Syrio Forel, Arya’s one-time “dancing teacher,” as well as J’aqen H’ghar, her murder buddy from Season 2. The city across the sea is also home to the infamous Iron Bank, the financial center of the known world that has been bankrolling the Lannisters for some time now. Despite all that Lannister talk about paying their debts, however, it turns out they’ve been having just a little bit of trouble living up to their unofficial motto lately, thanks to the massive debt accrued (and inspired) by nefarious puppetmaster and former Master of Coin Littlefinger.Despite the Bank’s displeasure with the current credit rating of the Lannisters–and long tradition of funding the enemies of recalcitrant debtors–the Bank is equally skeptical about whether or not King Droopy Dog here will actually be able to win the Iron Throne. While books in Westeros may talk of blood and birthrights, the Bank is far more interested in books full of numbers. “We prefer the stories they tell,” says the medieval JP Morgan Chase loan officer. “Less open to interpretation.” Unfortunately for Stannis, the stories they tell–much like the George R. R. Martin novels themselves–are not particularly optimistic, especially after his crushing military defeat at the Blackwater. The Bank declines his loan request, and so Davos–who would have made an amazing White House chief of staff–steps up to the plate with a speech worthy of Leo McGarry himself: “There’s only one reliable leader left in Westeros: Stannis. He’s got the birthright. He’s a tried-and-tested battle commander. And he doesn’t just talk about paying people back, he does it.” Paid for by the committee to re-elect Stannis Baratheon! Davos even waggles his amputated fingers at the men, the ones Stannis cut off as a punishment for smuggling–even though that smuggling saved Stannis from starving to death. His point is clear: Stannis is a humorless hardass that makes Ned Stark look like Daario Naharis in the stick-up-his-butt department, a human version of The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms who promises to be just as game-changing as he is boring.
Turns out that’s exactly the kind of foreign dictatorship the Bank is looking to install, and their loan is approved. Cha-ching!
In the books:
Although the Lannisters are deeply in debt and Stannis does enlist the help of the Iron Bank, it doesn’t happen until much later in the books. Nor do Stannis and Davos ever travel to Braavos personally; instead, a representative of the Iron Bank–Tycho Nestoris, the same guy who condescends to them at the Bank–comes to Westeros. And while Salladhor Saan returns to Stannis this episode, in the books he never actually leaves his service. |
| Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO |
Kings Landing
After a quick Small Council meeting to put a bigger bounty on the Hound and assess the growing threat of Daenerys, the kangaroo court is finally in session, judges Tywin, Mace and Oberyn presiding. To review, Tyrion is on trial for the second time in four seasons, yet again for a crime he didn’t commit. And as Tyrion so eloquently demonstrates in a Emmy-worthy speech by Peter Dinklage, it’s almost certainly because he’s a little person who ends up scapegoated for every bullshit thing that happens around him. It’s… it’s almost like some socially disadvantaged groups face more prosecution and harsher judicial penalties than other people! Proving that there is nothing new under the sun, Tywin totally laughs off the idea that he might be (gasp) prejudiced. He’s all, “I don’t even see height, man.”The witnesses for the Crown are basically a who’s who of everyone Tyrion has ever wronged: Meryn Trant (threatened to kill him for beating Sansa), Grand Maester Pycelle (sent him to the Black Cells), and of course, Cersei herself, all of whom are happy to recount every richly deserved threat that Tyrion offered the young king. The deck is pretty firmly stacked against him, and by the time the court adjourns for a break, Tyrion is almost certainly doomed. So Jaime–sweet, noble, definitely not-a-rapist Jaime–decides to offer Tywin the one bargaining chip that he has left: himself.
As Davos wisely pointed out to the Iron Bank, the Lannister legacy currently amounts to little more than a one-handed, dishonored swordsman who can’t marry, a deeply unpopular dwarf accused of killing the king, and a cruel, vengeful woman who hates and is hated by her people in equal measure. When the 67-year-old Tywin–who is practically ancient in medieval years–finally kicks the bucket there’s a good chance that everything he ever accomplished is going to spill right out and soak into the ground, unless he can get Jaime to step up. So when Jaime offers to give up the Kingsguard and finally be a dutiful son in exchange for Tyrion’s life, Tywin’s answer is instant: “done.” It’s so fast, in fact, that if I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if he was in league with Lady Olenna all along–or at least willing to let her plot play out–because having Tommen on the throne, Tyrion at the Wall and Jaime as his heir is straight up Tywin’s best case scenario.
Everyone is happy–or at least “#GameofThrones happy”–until Cersei’s final witness steps up to the stand: Shae. Tyrion’s former lover gives a surprisingly truthful account of her time with him, with the requisite treason added by Cersei’s request, no doubt. Shae uses the word “whore” to refer to herself over and over, practically spits it. This isn’t an accident, or self-effacement; it’s an echo, an equal and opposite reaction to the scene where Tyrion called her the more horrible names he could imagine and then told Bronn to drag her to a boat and send her to another continent. It’s the revenge of someone with a broken heart. While I’d like to think that calling Shae was Cersei goading Tyrion into giving up his chance for mercy, that’s more of a next-level Littlefinger move, and Cersei has always been a bit more checkers than chess. No, this was just Cersei taking the victory lap; Cersei rubbing salt in the wound; Cersei nailing little 165 little Tyrions to 165 little crosses across the Meereen of her heart.
Remember what Tyrion said to her once, the curse she seems to have tattooed across the inside of her eyelids? “A day will come when you think you’re safe and happy and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth. And you will know the debt is paid.” That’s the most like his sister that Tyrion ever sounded–the closest, perhaps, that the two of them have ever been. If you recognize the theme that plays over the credits of this episode, that’s because it’s “The Rains of Castamere,” the Lannister vengeance song you’ve heard a million billion times already, notably at the Red Wedding. But somehow it sounds different here, because this time the Lannisters are singing it not at their enemies but at each other. Fun fact: “Rains of Castamere” was about the Lannisters obliterating House Reyne, a competing family whose sigil was a red lion to their gold lion. So yes, the song was always about lions feasting on the spoils of their enemies. But it was also always about lions eating themselves. In a way, it is the same mistake that the Targaryens made, and the one that Dany might be making now: not only does an eye for an eye leave everyone blind, but it has a way of lighting your own house on fire and slowly reducing it to ashes.
Perhaps that’s why in his final moments, Tyrion decides to act not like a Lannister but like a Targaryen, and do the same thing the Mad King tried to do in his final moment of power and fury: burn the motherfucker down.
In the books:
The Small Council does not learn about Daenerys conquering of Meereen; at best, they hear rumors about dragons, though this is dismissed as fanciful gossip. Varys and Oberyn, tragically, never enjoy a scene with the snappy patter we see here (though Oberyn is right: Varys is from Lys). There are several differences in Tyrion’s trial, but the most critical is that Jaime never bargains for Tyrion’s life. Although Jaime is present, he never meets with either Tyrion or Tywin and certainly never offers to give up the Kingsguard. (Tywin does give Tyrion the chance to take the black, but the offer comes through Tyrion’s uncle, Kevan.) It’s a big shift for Jaime: not only is he willing to give up the life he wanted to save Tyrion, but he’s willing to sabotage Cersei’s carefully laid plans–and abandon his twin and former lover for her most hated enemy. Shae’s testimony is also markedly different, in large part because Tyrion never insulted her or sent her away by force in the books. Rather than heartbroken and angry, she simply seems mercenary and perhaps like she never loved him at all. Also, she tells an even uglier lie, claiming that she was engaged to a squire until Tyrion had him killed and turned her into his prostitute by force. Tyrion gives pretty much the same “screw you all” speech, though, and it’s equally awesome. As for the trial by combat… let’s just say that Tyrion didn’t come up with the idea all on his own.
Source: Wired
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