In its action-packed new episode, Game of Thrones’s meticulous rearrangement of friends, enemies and allies hits fever pitch even as all the essential backstories finally get milked. For far too long, the HBO show hasn’t delved into the events that led to the situation the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros find themselves in. Almost halfway into Season Five and the rust scratching begins. Why else would Rhaegar Targaryen, hardly mentioned in the first 43 hours of the show, be remembered in two separate story strands as far apart as Winterfell and Meereen?
Almost every drop of blood that has been shed in Game of Thrones traces back to that tourney day in Harrenhal when Prince Rhaegar, son of the then reigning Mad King, rode past his wife Elia Martell and “lay a crown of winter roses” on Lyanna Stark’s lap. Ned’s sister was already promised to Robert Baratheon and that one innocuous display of affection set the whole gory story into motion.
“How many tens of thousands had to die because Rhaegar chose your aunt,” Petyr Baelish tells Sansa down in the Stark family crypt in Winterfell. He himself is orchestrating a rebellion as raging as Robert’s. But not riding on the swords of the bloodthirsty father-son Bolton duo as it seemed in the last episode. Rather Littlefinger hopes that Stannis Baratheon would storm down from Castle Black, cut through Roose and Ramsay and pick Sansa as the Wardeness of the North. A little too optimistic, really.
Stannis seems quite happy lurking around The Wall and keeping an eye on the men of the Night’s Watch. There’s a very touching scene with his mostly-neglected daughter, where he calls her “Princess Shireen of House Baratheon”. At a time when bastard sons are ruling the roost –– from Winterfell to King’s Landing –– someone at least put a smile on the face of a legitimate daughter.
King Tommen, though, finally has a problem at hand: an angry Queen! The crafty Queen Mother is playing a dangerous game by activating the High Sparrow and reviving the ancient order of the Faith Militant. All Cersei wants is to hurt Margaery Tyrell and so her “sinner” brother Loras is picked up by the religious fanatics for “breaking the laws of gods and men”. Also her father Mace is packed off to Braavos to talk money with the Iron Bank.
Down south in Dorne we see the Sand Snakes for the first time. “Spear”headed by Ellaria Sand, the Oberyn bastard girls, come across as a bunch of powerpuff girls in burnt orange silk slips and leather breastplates having more than a little fight in them. They don’t have to wait too long it seems as Jaime Lannister and Bronn have reached their shores and already drawn blood. “It has to be me,” says the Kingslayer more than once, referring to the rescue programme of Myrcella Baratheon (Lannister).
As promised in the closing shot of the earlier episode, Jorah Mormont is taking the captive Tyrion Lannister on a boat to the Queen even as Varys seems to have disappeared into thin air. Which Queen? Tyrion thinks it must be Cersei. But when corrected, the sharp Little Lion figures out the entire history, geography and psychology of Jorah in a matter of moments. “What a waste of a good kidnapping,” quips The Imp. “It so happens I was heading there myself.”
But by the time Jorah and Tyrion reach Daenarys Targaryen, she might not remain the “Queen”. The Sons of the Harpy in their gold masks straight out of the prop trunks of Stanley Kubrick’s Split Wide Open have been creating havoc on the streets of Meereen and Dany’s two most trusted aides, Barristan Selmy and Grey Worm, are killed in a brilliantly choreographed action set-piece.
When there’s violence, there must be nudity! And it’s the Red Priestess again, baring her bosom and advising Jon Snow: “In our joining, there’s power.” The Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch got lost in there for a moment or two, maybe three, but eventually rejects the advances. Not just for the vows to the Old Gods but because he “still loves her (Ygritte)”.
And it is at this point that Melisandre utters a line which she couldn’t have possibly heard: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” How did she learn Ygritte’s favourite refrain? Even we need to know.
Catch episode 5 of GoT Season 5 on May 11, 6.30am on HBO Defined
