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!