In honor of the final season of Game of Thrones, I’ve decided to rewatch the entire series, finishing up just in time to watch the upcoming season 8 in real time. As I went through it, I decided to make little notes to myself: at first, it was just a note of when every major (or semi-major, in some cases) character dies, and maybe some of the best quotes. As I got deeper into it, I made more and more notes, little questions, or revelations (“oh, that’s what that meant!”), or snide comments on dramatic ironies (“yeah, sure you’ll talk about it ‘when you get back’ ...”), or just observations of my outlook or feelings on a particular happenstance. Eventually, it involved into the pseudo-outline you see below.
When I first began, I had 72 days to watch 67 episodes. As of this writing, I have 29 days left to watch 31 episodes, so I’ve fallen a bit behind, but definitely not enough to make me worried that I won’t be able to hit the goal. Obviously I’m not done yet; what you’re getting today is only the first 3 seasons. But it worked out that that’s about the right length for a blog post. Since my commentary is picking up (and going deeper) the longer I go on, it’s likely that the next 4 seasons may turn into 2 blog posts; we’ll just have to see.
Here are the rules of my rewatch commentary:
- THERE ARE METRIC SHIT-TONS OF SPOILERS HERE. One wouldn’t think I would have to point this out, as it’s a rewatch, but people will complain. If you haven’t already watched all the seasons of GoT up till the last one, DON’T READ THIS. Perhaps you can come back when you’re all caught up. (To be crystal clear: just because the comment is in season 3 doesn’t mean that it won’t contain spoilers for season 4 ... or season 7. Obviously there are no spoilers for season 8 yet.)
- (Speaking of “shit-tons” ...) I curse. Anyone who’s read any of my other blog posts will already know this, but perhaps you got here via some link or other and don’t know what you’re in for. Although the previous bullet point should have been a giveaway.
- My opnions are just that: opinions. I present them here in case you find them interesting, but I’m not trying to convince you to believe as I do. I ask that you show me the same courtesy should you choose to leave a comment—
that is, feel free to share your own opinions, but don’t try to tell me I’m “wrong.” - Likewise, whatever moments I found worthy of comment are also my opinions. If I left out one of your favorites, sorry about that. Feel free to remind me of it in the blog post comments.
- My comments are always super-quick. If I want to expand on a particular thing, I do it as a pseudo-footnote. In this case, “pseudo-footnote” means “formatted almost exactly like a footnote, but way more obvious.” These “footnotes” are designed to be less ignorable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ignore them if you want to. They’re just topics I wanted to explore a bit further. Sometimes only a sentence or two more, sometimes whole paragraphs. Read ’em or not: your call.
- There’s not a comment on every episode. Especially in the early episodes: sometimes there’s just nothing that jumped out at me that hour.
- I am watching the “Inside the Episode” shorts after the shows, for every show. Occasionally that will inform my commentary (but usually not).
- Once I’m done with the rewatch, I may keep some commentary on the final season. Or I may not; no promises.
Season 1
- Episode 2: I never liked Sansa.
- Episode 6: I continue to dislike Sansa. In fact, I may like her even less at this point.
- Aaaand there goes Viserys. “He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.” —
Daenerys - Episode 7: Aaaand there goes Robert.
- “I did warn you not to trust me ...” —
Littlefinger - Episode 8: Arya kill #1. (Many more to come.)
- Episode 9: “Surely there are ways to have me killed that are less detrimental to the war effort.” —
Tyrion - Aaaand there goes Ned.
- Episode 10: “There are no men like me. Only me.” —
Jaime
Season 2
- Episode 3: Man, I really dislike Sansa.
- Tyrion is really good at all this political maneuvering stuff. Theon is really bad at it.
- Ah, Brienne: so young and innocent back then.
- Episode 4: Joffrey is a sick fuck.
- Episode 5: Aaaand there goes Renly.
- I wish Theon didn’t suck so bad. [1]
- “No, my lord. Anyone can be killed.” —
Arya - Episode 6: “You’re brave. Stupid, but brave.” —
Ygritte - Episode 7: This Ironborn schmuck that keeps egging Theon on ... I’m starting to wonder if he works for Theon’s sister.
- Ah! there it is: the very first “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” First of many.
- “It’s better to be cruel than weak.” —
Theon (Dumber words were never spoken.) - From the perspective of later-seasons-Jaime, it is sometimes difficult to remember what an awful shit he is.
- Episode 8: How much easier would it have been if Arya had just named Cersei as one of her 3 deaths?
- Episode 9: Sansa should’ve gone with the Hound. Another in a long string of bad decisions.
- Episode 10: “My father is dead. And the only parent I have left has no right to call anyone reckless.” —
Robb (Zing!) - Aaaand there goes Maester Luwin.
- Aaaand there goes the first person to die from dragonfire in a thousand years. But definitely not the last.
- I’m still not entirely sure why the White Walkers didn’t just kill Sam ...
Season 3
- Episode 1: Holy shit! it’s Qyburn!! I had no recollection of him showing up this early.
- Tywin continues to demonstrate that he richly deserves his ultimate fate.
- Nobody listens to Davos. Sigh.
- Episode 2: Margaery appears to be the only person on the planet capable of controlling Joffrey.
- Episode 3: Aaaand there goes Jaime’s hand.
- Episode 4: There is but one person in the seven kingdoms who can give Joffrey a run for his money in the sick fuck department. Poor Theon. Still a jerk, but nobody deserves Ramsay.
- Aaaand there goes Lord Commander Mormont. (And Craster, too, but that’s no great loss.)
- Only the second person on the planet to die from dragonfire, but undoubtedly the most deserving. [2]
- Episode 5: Aaaand there goes Beric. No, wait ... never mind.
- Aaaand there goes Jon’s virginity.
- And this is the place where Jaime changes from mostly-bad-guy to sorta-kinda-hero. [3]
- Episode 6: Melisandre to Arya: “We’ll meet again.” Looking forward to that shit! [4]
- Aaaand there goes Ros.
- Episode 7: “I’m stupid. A stupid little girl with stupid dreams who never learns.” —
Sansa (Hey: she said it, not me.) - Man, people in this show make a lot of promises they’re not going to be able to keep ...
- Episode 8: “If you ever call me sister again I’ll have you strangled in your sleep.” —
Cersei [5] - I can’t decide whether Tyrion really is that drunk, or if he’s just faking it. [6]
- Aaaand there goes the first White Walker to die from dragonglass in a thousand years. But definitely not the last.
- Episode 9: Eek ... another wedding. This never ends well ... [7]
- Aaaand there goes Robb. And his wife. And their unborn child. And his wolf.
- And Catelyn.
- Episode 10: Tywin sending Joffrey to bed in the middle of the day is one of my favorite moments.
- Sam gives Meera some dragonglass arrowheads. I hadn’t remembered that.
- “It’s not easy being drunk all the time. Everyone would do it if it were easy.” —
Tyrion - Arya kill #2.
[1] Our culture has what I’ve always considered a curious custom: we do not speak ill of the dead. No matter how shitty a person is in life, once they’re dead, we’re supposed to pretend they were a saint. I’ve never really bought into it. An asshole is an asshole, alive or dead.
There’s a parallel situation with Sansa and Theon. Terrible things happen to them—
But that doesn’t change the fact that they make some truly idiotic choices. And that’s compounded by the fact that neither of them is particularly an idiot. At least if they were stupid, you could understand it. But they both have opportunities to make the right choices ... good choices. And they both flub it. Over and over. I easily remembered Sansa’s first worst choice: it’s right in episode #2, where she chooses Joffrey over her family. Raised to value honor over everything else, to value family over everyone else, she rejects both for a fantasy of a golden prince. We can argue that she’s only a little girl at the time, but both Arya and Bran are younger, and they consistently make better choices than Sansa. And, to make it worse, even after Cersei demonstrates to Sansa what terrible people she wants to marry into in a very painful way (remember: Sansa is the first to lose her wolf), Sansa continues to wail on about how much she loves Joffrey. Puh-lease.
I didn’t even remember the corresponding scene for Theon until this rewatch, but it comes in S2E3. Theon was so looking forward to this grand homecoming and it goes so badly. And, sure, his father is a crushing asshole, and his sister is an even bigger dick than he is, and he brings a lot of it on himself with his bad decisions. But he knows what the right course of action is. He actually writes a letter to Robb (this is the part I’d forgotten), and he’s ready to ... I don’t know, exactly—
So, while I do sympathize with Sansa, and with Theon, that doesn’t mean I have to like them. They do stupid things, despite not being stupid, they choose dishonorable paths, despite being raised by what is essentially the only honorable family on the continent, and they choose to go along instead of running away over and over even though it always works out badly for them. I will never claim that they deserve the awfulness that is visited upon them. But I’m also not going to pretend they’re anything other than terrible people.
[2] I’m still not sure how I feel about this scene. Daenerys is a serious bad-ass, and there’s a lot of “fuck yeah!” going on here. But, at the same time, Dany is always an honourable person, and this transaction feels like cheating. I can’t find any statement she made that was an actual lie, but it certainly is breaking the spirit of the agreement to pay for an army with something that will murder the seller. She’s getting something for nothing here. And, yes, I know: she’s freeing an entire city full of slaves, and the guy had no right to be selling people in the first place. But it still feels wrong, somehow.
On the other hand, I was looking forward to this scene the entire season. One of my all-time favorites. Fuck yeah!
[3] To be clear, I realize that Jaime was never completely evil (certainly not in the way that Joffrey is, or Ramsay), and I also realize that he never really becomes noble (the way that Jon and Dany do). But Jaime is the closest to what I would refer to as a “heel turn”. Technically (as that link will tell you), a heel turn is only when someone goes from being a good guy to being a bad guy. But I’m happy enough to use it for the opposite situation as well. Some ongoing stories (be they novels or TV shows) radically overuse the heel turn; my favorite example is Heroes, where, if you watch for enough seasons (hint: don’t do that), pretty much every single character undergoes at least one heel turn, and several characters (the most obvious one being Sylar, although Claire’s father Noah is nearly as bad) flip-flop back and forth so much it makes your head spin trying to keep up. GoT has surprisingly few heel turns for a show that eschews black and white this hard (and, for more pointless meandering on that topic, see my post on shades of gray in fantasy.) You could try to argue Tyrion, but he was never that bad a guy: his worst sins were decadence and a touch of laziness. You could try to argue Varys, but he was never a bad guy either: you just couldn’t tell which side he was on. Maybe the Hound? Well, he may undergo some sort of redemptive arc before the story’s done, but I doubt we’ll ever think of him as an actual good guy.
No, I think Jaime is actually the only character who starts out as unquestionably bad (e.g. pushing Bran out the window, right in S1E1), and then then ends up, I would argue, unquestionably good. First, he performs his little deception to keep Brienne from being raped, then he takes a bit more active role by going back to save her life after he was already free, then he sends her off to track down Sansa and Arya to try to fulfill his oath to poor, dead Catelyn, then his kindness to Tyrion in the dungeons, then the whole trip to Dorn to rescue Myrcella, and I honestly think that, at the end, he will be the only thing keeping Cersei from destroying the whole world, much the same way he kept the Mad King from destroying all of King’s Landing (the story of which was the impetus for my comment, which led to this long digression). I hate to make predictions about a show which works so very very hard to be unpredictable, but let’s just say that, if Jaime dies while killing Cersei to keep her from carrying out some devastating scheme, I’ll be busy patting myself on the back.
So I think Jaime’s arc is a proper heel turn, and I think it may well be the only one in the whole story. Which I’m fine with, and I’m mostly on board with it. It is really hard to forget that image of him pushing Bran (and the whole smirk, and the little quip—
[4] I’d completely forgotten this line. One of several times during the rewatch that I was surprised by something I hadn’t remembered. Which is, of course, really the whole point of the exercise.
[5] The way that Cersei looks at Margaery when Margaery takes her arm is utterly brilliant. The amount of scorn that Lena Headey can invest in a single look is astonishing: it’s more than you would think humanly possible. While Cersei is one of my least favorite characters, I postively adore Headey. If you want to see her in something where you’ll hate her character a bit less, I recommend The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
[6] This is on his wedding night, to Sansa. He does seem very drunk. But he also makes some very canny decisions while supposedly falling over pissed.
[7] Were I dispensing advice, I would suggest 2 rules for common-sense survival in Westeros:
- If anyone tries to promise you they’ll tell you more about a topic when they see you again, tie them down and do not let them leave until they spill it.
- Under no circumstances attend any weddings.
Part 2 ⇒