Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Game of Thrones Recap - Episode 2 - The Kingsroad

The second episode of the series might carry the innocuous sounding title "The Kingsroad," but it might well have been called "Crime & Punishment," since that seemed to be a recurring theme throughout.

Danerys Targaryen could certainly make a strong claim for being punished for her brother Viserys' ambition, since it's clear at the start of the episode that getting railed like a porn star nightly by Khal Drogo is less than enjoyable to her.  Of course, Viserys' crime isn't ambition, but his willingness to pimp his sister out for power and the complete lack of anything regarding a principle.  To him, his sister is merely doing her job, and when Khal Drogo ceases to be a useful ally, she can do her job with some other sucker.  For Jorah Mormont, the knight who's decided to serve the Targaryens, his crime is a little more obvious.  Rather than execute some poachers, or give them the option to "take the black" and join the Night's Watch, Mormont instead sold them off as slaves.  In Pentos, such a thing wouldn't even rate a mild cluck of disapproval.  But in Westeros, it's the sort of thing that gets the King's Justice after you, and makes you abandon your position as the head of your family.  Naturally, Viserys thinks Mormont's a great guy.

Prince Joffrey runs into the nature of crime and punishment twice in the episode.  The first time is when he rousts his uncle Tyrion from the kennels where "The Imp" has passed out after another night of drinking (and doubtlessly wenching).  Some time has passed between Bran's fall from the tower and the present, and Joffrey hasn't exactly been a perfect guest.  Tyrion instructs his nephew to offer his sympathies and his services to the Starks.  Joffrey refuses, leading to Tyrion slapping him.  Every refusal, every protest, Tyrion slaps the kid, and keeps at it until Joffrey goes off to talk to the Starks.  This is a pretty important character reveal for both Tyrion and Joffrey.  For Tyrion, it reveals his knowledge of politics, as well as showing how very unlike his family he really is.  For Joffrey, it demonstrates that he's a very slow learner, and the archetypal spoiled prince.  When your lecherous drunk dwarf of an uncle slaps you around and tells you to stop being an asshole, it should be pretty obvious that "prince" only applies to your social standing and not your social skills.

At this moment, we're properly introduced to Sandor Clegane (played by Rory McCann), a mercenary, thug, and general no-goodnik who goes by the nickname "The Hound."  His current job is bodyguard for Joffrey.  When he remarks that Tyrion will likely have to explain himself later about why he slapped Joffrey, the dwarf is unconcerned.  If anything, Tyrion realizes that being the Queen's brother lets him get away with a lot of behavior that would get other people maimed if not killed, and he's prepared to take almost ruthless advantage of that fact.

Jaime and Cersei Lannister are also thinking about crime and punishment, though not necessarily in the same fashion.  For all his political and family connections, Jaime knows that he's done some pretty ugly things in his life.  It's one thing to be a regicide, carrying the epithet "Kingslayer" even if the king in question was mad as a hatter.  Screwing your sister, who also happens to be the Queen, that's something else entirely.  And attempted murder, particularly the attempted murder of a child, is probably something that at one time he thought would be beyond the pale even for him.  Now, he knows better, and there's definitely a little bit of self-disgust going on behind those pretty eyes of his.  When Tyrion remarks that he's "most interested to hear what the boy has to say when he wakes up," you can see the wheels turning in Jaime's head.  Will he have to add fratricide, or even just attempted fratricide, to the list of crimes he's committed?  Cersei doesn't seem as concerned about Tyrion finding out, though we've seen that she can be a really good actress when the situation calls for it.  After breakfast, she talks with Catelyn Stark, offering her sympathies and her prayers for Bran's recovery.  She even goes as far as talking to Cat about her first child, one born before Joffrey, who died of a disease while still very young.  Cat, who hasn't left Bran's side since he was brought in, thanks Cersei for her concern and her prayers.

Of course, Cat's motherly side disappears completely once Jon comes into the room.  While Robb and Arya treat him like he's their full brother, which Jon fully reciprocates, Cat simply cannot bring herself to love him even a little bit.  Jon's love and concern for Bran offends her greatly and she continues to punish him with scorn and loathing for the crime of being Ned's bastard son.  Of course, she also punishes Ned a little bit for having a bastard son in the first place.  She reminds him that the last time he rode south to King's Landing, he came back a year later with Jon, and she's clearly afraid the same thing is going to happen again, or worse.

We already know Bran's "crime" was only to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some would say that being tossed off a tower and laying comatose in bed with only medieval-level medical science available to him would be punishment enough.  But no, somebody has decided that Bran needs to be permanently and thoroughly silenced.  Of course, some punishments are a little more swift than others, as Bran's would-be assassin discovers to his surprise when Summer (Bran's direwolf) comes to his boy's rescue and rips the assassin's throat out.  Once the threat is dealt with, Summer simply lays down next to Bran on the bed and looks at Cat, as if telling her, "Go take care of business around the castle, I've got this."

Sansa and Arya both learn a great deal about crime and punishment while traveling with Ned to King's Landing.  For Arya, her crime basically is that she's not much of a girl.  Sure, she has to wear the dresses and takes the sewing classes and do all the girly stuff she's expected to do.  But it's clear that she doesn't want to do any of that, and worse, her natural talents predispose her to pursuits considered more manly like archery and swordplay.  And while she might say "ouch" when getting hit with a stick while fencing with a butcher's boy along a river, she's not going to go crying or pouting because of it.  On the other hand, Sansa's great crime is being an empty headed little simp.  She so thoroughly believes the hype of princes, princesses, and "happily ever after" that she literally can't see how much of a toad Joffrey is to everybody.  For the second time in the episode, Joffrey learns about crime and punishment, though it's doubtful this lesson will stick any better than the last one.  His crime is more or less the same as before, terminal assholery, though he adds assault with a deadly weapon to the mix when he takes his sword and cuts the cheek of the butcher's boy Arya was playing with, supposedly as punishment for hitting Arya with a stick.  Arya responds by whacking Joffrey once with her stick, drawing his attention away from the butcher's boy.  Joffrey chases Arya and ends up with his sword pointed at her chest, threatening to cut her badly (and my, what lovely vocabulary he has, Mom should be so proud of him).  At this point, Arya's direwolf Nymeria provides us with another demonstration of why threatening a direwolf's two-legged packmates is a very bad idea.  Nymeria doesn't kill Joffrey, but he won't be playing tennis or threatening violent assault anytime soon.  When Arya picks up Joffrey's sword and has him in the same position she was in moments earlier, we realize that Joffrey is not only a bully, but he's a stupid bully.  It's viscerally satisfying to hear him blubber for his life, but you can't help but think the world would be a better place with him no longer in it.  Showing far more mercy than Joffrey deserves, Arya throws his sword into the river rather than run the little toad through.  And Sansa?  She yells at Arya for "ruining everything" and pleads with Joffrey to not hurt her.

Arya knows she's in trouble, and worse, Nymeria is in trouble.  Chewing on a prince's arm might be satisfying, but it's not going to be looked upon favorably by the powers that be.  Nymeria's only hope for survival is to get as far away as possible from Arya, and Arya knows it.  It takes throwing a rock at her furry friend to convince Nymeria to run, but Arya believes it's for the best.  The scene where Nymeria is looking at Arya while the girl tries to get her to run away brings to mind the old saw about "no good deed goes unpunished."   The truth of that saw is brought home rather brutally when Robert  holds court in the local inn about the incident.  Joffrey, being not only a bully but a lying weasel, makes it sound like Arya deliberately orchestrated an attack with a commoner, her direwolf, and a pair of large clubs.  Arya refutes the charge, but Sansa plays dumb.  Caught between her sister, her would-be husband (the betrothal mentioned in Episode 1 is a done deal at this point), and her King, she wimps out and claims not to have a clear recollection.  Robert's willing to let the matter drop, with both fathers disciplining their respective children, but Cersei demands blood.  Since Nymeria is gone, Cersei sees absolutely no problem with Sansa's direwolf Lady standing in.  Ned asks Robert if this is really what he wants to do, indirectly reminding him that he's the King, and should have the final say in the matter.  Robert's silence is telling.  Never one to shirk responsibility, Ned informs Cersei he'll do it himself.  Cersei suspects a trick, but Ned assures her there will be no tricks from him.  The amount of pain and regret on Ned's face as he cuts Lady's throat is palpable.  However little he might have wanted the direwolves around in the first place, they're as much a part of the family now as his daughters and sons.  Even Jon Snow.  Yet, as Ned is executing one of his furry children, Bran finally awakens.  A shame Tyrion's not there to hear what he has to say.

If there was any sort of secondary theme to the episode, it would be that of enlightenment, of learning unpleasant truths and making decisions based upon those truths.  Jon learns the truth that the Night's Watch isn't all comprised of selfless heroes, but just as easily rapists and murderers can fill their ranks.  Cat learns that what happened to Bran really wasn't an accident and that the Lannisters are very likely involved right up to their pretty blonde heads.  The telling evidence was the weapon used by Bran's would-be assassin, a dagger made of Valyrian steel with a dragonbone hilt.  More background on this below.  Ned learns that Robert's actual power is very sharply circumscribed when it comes to the whims of his wife, and her whims seem entirely too focused on her family and herself rather than the Seven Kingdoms.  Daenerys learns, with the help of a slave/lady-in-waiting, that she doesn't have to just take it like a Boy Scout when it comes to sex with Khal Drogo.  If anything, she can probably do what Dothraki hordes and Free Cities merchant princes couldn't: she can make the Lord of the Dothraki her slave, subject to her desires and wishes, if only she's willing to take him as roughly as he's been taking her up to this point.  As for Sansa, well, much like her betrothed, she's a very slow learner.  She can't quite shake her illusions, the fairy tale crap still mucking up her thought processes in the face of harsh reality.  And where she's going, slow learners tend to get eaten alive.

I'm hoping you're hating the wait for these episodes as much as I am.  Only two episodes in, HBO's greenlighted the next season, where things get even more intense, and I'm almost dying for the next one to come in.

Winter is coming.



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BACKGROUND NOTE: VALYRIAN STEEL
Just as the forging of Damascus steel was considered a lost art for many years in the real world, Valyrian steel is a lost art for the peoples of Westeros and the Free Cities.  The only difference is that rediscovering Damascus steel didn't require magic be present in the world.

Valyrian steel is the closest that any character in Game of Thrones will ever come to owning the stereotypical "magic weapon" beloved of fantasy settings.  In a world where "castle forged steel" is the gold standard which virtually every soldier and general recognizes, Valyrian steel represents history, a link to a much different and romanticized past.  Stronger, slightly lighter, and able to hold an edge far better than regular ferrous alloys, Valyrian steel is vanishingly rare in the world.  Ownership of a weapon made of this material marks the individual as either very rich or unspeakably lucky, almost always the former.  Eddard Stark's greatsword Ice is one such weapon.  The fact that the assassin carried a dagger whose blade was Valyrian steel and whose hilt was made of dragonbone is a dead giveaway that there's an individual with a lot of money and a lot of power at their disposal.  To give some modern context in terms of scarcity and cost rather than relative force, the assassin carrying that dagger would be roughly the same as a gangbanger trying to rob a 7-11 with a Hellfire-armed Predator drone.  Dragonbone is not a metaphorical name, but a literal one.  In the books, dragonbone is a semi-ferrous material that comprised the skeletons of the dragons that the Valyrians used in their ancient conquests and which House Targaryen used to seize and cement their hold on Westeros.  Despite it's iron content, dragonbone is remarkably light.  It too is increasingly rare in the world, since there are no more living dragons that anybody knows about.

Valyrian steel can be reforged easily enough, but the process for creating new Valyrian steel is lost, hence the great value placed upon such weapons.

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