Season 5 Episode 1: The Wars To Come

The long wait is finally over, after months of teasers, filming, premieres and general fan fare Game of Thrones returned on Monday night with a fitting opening to what promises to be an exciting and decisive series.

The episode opened with a flashback to Cerci's childhood where she visits someone who I believe was called the Frog Lady or something similar. In there she promised Cerci 3 answers to questions regarding her future. She answers on about Robert which we can all just about recall from the early seasons and then adds a chill to the air telling her that she will be Queen but then there will be another younger, prettier woman who will take it from her. Clearly this is referring to Margery, well we assume it is anyway. She also tells her about her children "Gold will be there crowns and gold will be there shrouds". An eerie opening. We then cut to a scene with Cerci at her father funeral where we have an introduction to her now religion nut cousin who I think will be hanging around to stay.

Turning to Littlefinger and Sansa, after dumping her cousin on some poor fellow from somewhere in The Vale, they head West. To quite where is anybody's guess so we'll see how that develops. In the background we see Briene and Pod who, now they have lost Arya, are sort of stuck in the wilderness with tensions frayed between them. According to many of the stars of the show Briene has a huge season ahead.

Then of course we have Tyrion. Fresh off of murdering his father and being shipped in a crate to Pentos, is depressed and stuck in a rut where he intends to simply drink himself to death. That is until Varys offers him an alternative, travel to meet Daenerys and side by her in her fight for the Iron Throne. This is a proposition Tyrion of course takes but I have always had suspicions about Varys and how trusted he can be, he is of course known as 'the Spider'. He says it himself though "You'll never sit on the Iron throne" but convinces Tyrion that he can help Daenerys as an advisor, he's wise, a learned man of the world and understands how things work. Personally I get the feeling that although Tyrion will survive this series and some to come, this may be Varys' last.

So of course there are the two main areas of the Seven Kingdoms we haven't covered. In her new Capital Daenerys is starting to feel the pressures of being a ruler. Her subjects are calling for returns to some of the old ways which she is resisting and along with this the murder of an Unsullied in a brothel has left more questions than answers. But as she sees her dragons it becomes clear that locking them away has done her no favours. She's lost any slim control she had over the two locked in the cave and of course the largest of the three is on the loose somewhere across the land. Interesting developments here of course.

And finally we come to the crux of where I think much of the action will take place, or where the characters who have the biggest roles this season currently reside. Castle Black. Currently hosting Stanis, Sir Davos, The Red Lady and of course John Snow (along with other characters like Sam, who sadly I think is for the chop this season). Of course no visit to Castle Black is complete without a death and thats exactly what we get. Mance has been sentenced to death and the only escape is to kneel before Stanis. This is of course a no go. We can see the fear in the mans eyes and they begin to burn him alive and after a speech about how he'll go without dignity screaming and hollering we can all tell its coming. Then right before he begins to rock Castle Black to it's foundations with his screams of pain an arrow nestles in his chest. Of course it's John (Jon? Whatever) Snow taking the incredibly brave decision infront of all of CB's residents to send Mance Raider out with pride and the respect that Jon has for him.

This is part of what I think makes Jon such a likeable and enduring character. The fact that amongst the chaos and violence of the environment he casts a very human figure. One with values and respect for those who earn it. Of course this is a huge season for Jon Snow as well as it is for so any characters and we watch with bated breath ahead of next weeks episode.    

The Children

It may seem odd to some people that the first post in this blog dedicated to Game of Thrones is centred on the last episode of series 4 but such is life. From now on I intend to post following every episode of the series with my thoughts and views, please feel free to comment below and engage with fellow enthusiasts.

In typical GOT fashion The Children tied up some loose ends while keeping us firmly on the edge for the next series and as the name suggests the episode had a firm focus on the offspring of some of the series biggest characters. 

The first of these scenes is with Cerci and Tywin when they again discuss her arranged marriage with Loras Tyrell. Cerci staunchly stands her ground and tell Tywin about her and Jamie with another of her infamous lines "How can someone so consumed by the idea of his family have any conception of what his actual family is doing?". This is followed by her and Jamie having their final romp of the series.

We see Daenerys grip upon her empire again slip as she struggles to cope with the demands of all her subject and this is a common theme throughout the series. The initial joy of her success has burst and it is beginning to come undone for the young Queen. And in a scene deliberately similar to the one earlier in the series a man presents her with a sack of bones that once was his daughter. This leads onto the first of a number of heartbreaking scenes in this episode where Deanerys with tears rolling down her cheeks locks away her remaining two dragons (the other has gone AWOL). A powerful scene where we see her power disintegrate and her human side appear.

We then see John Snow, after burying his friends of the Knights, bury Ygritte his friend, lover and then foe of the last 2 series. We'll never know whether she would have killed him at Castle Black her hesitation suggests not and, as Tormund confirmed what we all knew in the section before, she did indeed love him. She will be sorely missed by many including myself and I thought her death scene was spectacular with her delivering her catch line "You know nothing, John Snow".

Brandon's seemingly never ending journey took a step closer towards the end after he found the three and encountered the dark and mysterious Children. His journey was one fewer than the start though as we lost Jojen, another casualty of the end of this series. Without reading the books though I believe Brandon's journey has a long way to run yet.

We then saw The Hound and Brienne of Tarth go head to head in a brilliantly beautiful fight that quickly turned into a slog fest of low blows, biting, throwing dirt and ending in The Hound landing at the bottom of an outcrop. With a broken leg he asked Arya to kill him saying "You remember where the heart is? Fuck it, I'm ready. Go on girl another name off your list". But she doesn't. He taunts her and eventually begs her, crying to kill him. It was moment that was intended to strike a cord with a man of The Hounds calibre, crying and pleading for a girl a end his life. Yet she just walks away. The closing scene of the episode is Arya sailing off into the distance.

But the superstar of the episode has he has been for so many this series was without a doubt Tyrion Lannister. Peter Dinklage deserves a great amount of credit for the way he plays this role he without a doubt my favourite character. After freeing him, he bid an emotional goodbye to Jamie but before fleeing into the night he turns back for one last finale.

He shares a heart-rendering moment where he kills his former lover and now his fathers lover Shae, strangling her with her necklace with tears pouring down his face. Before taking the cross-bow off the wall and finding his father on the commode. Tywin as calm as he always is, almost arrogant that he won't meet his end speaks with Tyrion telling him he wouldn't have let him been executed which is of course a lie. After calling Shae a whore twice, Tyrion puts a bolt into his midrift. Tywin spits out "You're no son of mine", to which Tyrion replies "I am" before firing the second lethal bolt. He then escapes with Vary's and I think we'll see a lot of these two to come.

It wasn't quite as spectacular visually as previous episodes but it delivered where it needed too with the emotional scenes and the significance is enormous leading into the eagerly anticipated 5th series. I realised this is a long post but I had a lot to summarise they wont all be like this I promise. Only 10 months to wait!