You have the look of someone very evil. And very beautiful.
The waters begin to get even more muddy as we introduce a plethora completely new characters. Many times is Stannis Baratheon mentioned in the book as Robert’s true heir, but not once do we see him. It is mentioned once or twice that he lives in Dragonstone, but the first time we actually see where it is relative to the map of Westeros is in the new introduction. The transition to Dragonstone is subtle, only hinting at it with the splashing of waves on rocks, but we’re quickly taken to very burning scene. A woman in red talks about false gods and mentions ‘The 7’ a lot. For those who don’t know, The 7 is the most accepted religion of Westeros, and this scene of burning represents the forsaking of these gods in favor of a new one. Enter Stannis Baratheon, the rightful king of Westeros. The red priestess, named Melisandre, claims Stannis to be the prophesied ruler of the world and holds some sort of religious ritual which includes the pulling of a burning sword. The event is over, but some old man who we have no idea who he is seems to have a problem with it. In a quick scene that characterizes Stannis a heartless and direct man [he refuses to call his deceased brother beloved in a letter, but will still call incestuous knights ‘ser’], we see the priestess’s true power as the old man kamikaze drinks poisoned wine to get Melisandre to drink it as well. We then see the old man fall over in his own blood and Melisandre still standing even though she’s drinken every bit of the poisoned wine. Also, remember the third guy involved, he’s important. We didn’t even get his name yet, but he’s definately important [Davos Seaworthy].
Remember me!!!
What happens next is that we get a little war check up with Robb Stark. Majority of these scenes aren’t actually in the book, with Robb Stark getting very little screen booktime at all. The scenes is still powerful with the entering of the real Direwolf. In the first season, the Direwolf was only represented with small Siberian Huskies. The book however, describes them to be very big and almost the size of boars/horses. This was an idea I was very upset with. But we finally got to look at the true fearsome Direwolf, being as tall as the hips of a man. Grey Wind’s introduction made the entire show in my opinion and seeing the look on prisoner Jaime Lannister’s face was priceless. Direwolves I thought were an essential part of the series and I’m glad they’re making their due with both Bran’s dream and this scene. But after the moment of badassdom, we’re back to more complaining as we see Robb and his mother Catelyn complaining about priorities. We find out Catelyn is denied seeing her 9 and 4 year old sons again as she’s sent to see the late King Robert’s younger brother Renly who’s raised a host [army] of near 100,000 soldiers.
We now perhaps get to the most interesting part in my opinion. I’ll title this: The King Robert Basterd Massacre. After a brief, yet hostile conversation between the boy King and his mother, we see that Cersei has reason to fear her once cowardice son. On the orders of Cersei, she has commanded the city’s guard to go and find ALL of the late King Robert’s basterds and have them killed. We’re taken to a scene where the tv series exclusive Roz the Whore witnessing the killing of a baby. That’s right, a baby. This series is very gruesome in some of the bloodshed, but men killing men is something we’ve seen before. The death of babes and the children is something that literally had my mouth open in shock and awe. This graphic scene did NOT, I repeat did not happen in the books explicitly, and took me off my rocker. The montage was difficult to watch, but it drove in the point that they’re looking for King Robert’s basterds for a reason. Which leads us to one of the few that is alive: Gendry. He hasn’t had time yet to let it show, but he’s definitely one of the new characters to look forward to. He’s with Arya on their way to the wall. We get no dialogue at this point, but we get a pretty good sense of where they’re headed.
Give 'em hell son.
All in all, nothing much happened. It’s the truth, and it proved to be a lackluster episode. But I’m not losing hope. Like all beginnings, it’s slow, and the demanding challenge of making you care for THIS many characters starts to show. Especially in the position where I technically already know the characters, makes me biased in calling this a lackluster episode. But to everyone else, it’s a fair introduction to some of the major players. But don’t think we’re done introducing new characters. Tyrells, Briennes, Renlys, Ygrittes, and Balons are still to come. And along them, more swordfights, House drama, and death is sure to follow. If the series keeps up with the more jaw dropping moments, maybe it won’t be a bore to fight through these introductory episodes. Tune in next week.
A haunting image.
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