Tag: Sean Bean

Episode Reviews, Game of Thrones, TV

GAME OF THRONES 1×09: ‘Baelor’ (TV Review)

A J. Black

Numerous precedents are set by Game of Thrones with Baelor. It is the first episode to be directed by Alan Taylor, who would make his name as one of the key, signature directors of the first two seasons. It is the first penultimate episode of the series to establish the show’s unique narrative style of delivering a blockbuster climactic tale just before the season finale. And it is the episode which killed off not only the biggest name actor in the series, but the character everyone began watching Game of Thrones convinced was the protagonist. By now we knew Game of Thrones had its own set of rules. Baelor confirms it.

As I’ve discussed in my breakdowns of the previous episodes this season, Ned Stark has been heading for the chopping block since the moment he arrived in Kings Landing, and there has always been a sense in Sean Bean’s weight-of-the-world performance that Ned knew it. This was a noble character in a world without nobility, a feudal system which may ostensibly be ridden with stories of dashing, daring, brave heroes, but is shot through with a realistic, cynical modern day sensibility in George R.R. Martin’s world-building which often heaps scorn on the kind of characters who would try and live by rules of courtly, honourable behaviour.

Cersei Lannister told Ned just a few episodes that you either win at “the game” or you die, but Ned never really knew how to play that game at all. He was a character straight out of a different world, which was precisely the point; the moment he concedes he may have to start playing, not to win but rather to survive, his life is quite ceremoniously cut short. It’s just one of the stark (pun intended) ironies of Game of Thrones.

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Episode Reviews, Game of Thrones, TV

GAME OF THRONES 1×08: ‘The Pointy End’ (TV Review)

A J. Black

One of the interesting aspects of You Win or You Die, which I failed to mention in my analysis of that episode, was how the children were completely eliminated from view, at least the younger children who will prove so crucial to the central narrative of Game of Thrones.

The Pointy End redresses this balance by re-framing the episode from the perspective of a future generation who will shape the future of Westeros, so it is perhaps quite appropriate this is the first script to be written by George R. R. Martin.

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Episode Reviews, Game of Thrones, TV

GAME OF THRONES 1×07: ‘You Win or You Die’ (TV Review)

A J. Black

If ever you wanted to point to an early episode of Game of Thrones which would serve as a mission statement for the iconic series to come, outside of Winter Is Coming, you could do worse than point to You Win or You Die. It is, in many senses of the word, a game-changer. The episode firmly establishes the key, central ideological concept at the very heart of George R.R. Martin’s opus, and it’s one we may already have strongly suspected: we are watching a very powerful and very deadly game in progress.

Though it contains a number of extra elements, You Win or You Die can be seen as a clearer successor to The Wolf and the Lion than A Golden Crown was to the developing narrative. It takes many of the political and Machiavellian ideas established in the fifth episode and builds on them, moving the season firmly toward what would constitute a climactic end game which will play out over the final three episodes, depicting in broad strokes the ending of the book A Game of Thrones and leading very clearly into the adaptation of sequel A Clash of Kings, which will form the basis of the second season.

Fates are sealed in this episode with more certainty than they have been for some time, yet the majority of what happens feels inevitable. David Benioff & D.B. Weiss’ script simply brings into focus many more thematic concepts that have been gestating since the season began.

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Episode Reviews, Game of Thrones, TV

GAME OF THRONES 1×01 – ‘Winter Is Coming’ (TV Review)

A J. Black

What strikes you about Winter Is Coming, the opening episode of Game of Thrones, is the children.

George R.R. Martin’s book saga, A Song of Ice and Fire, famously had the two central characters embodying the dual elements, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, as roughly around fifteen years old. For the purposes of producing a palatable, adult fantasy television show, HBO aged them up by around three or four years (though in casting terms near enough ten). The children we see, therefore, in the TV show adaptation are in some cases even younger than Martin’s original conception of these young Royal figures thrust into a story of war, magic, conquest and sexual misfortune. Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Sansa Stark, even Joffrey Baratheon, all are demonstrably children when the show begins.

The show very much begins reminding us children are the heart and soul of Martin’s epic.

The world of Westeros often feels like it is being seen through children’s eyes in Winter Is Coming. From the terrifying spectre of a blue-eyed Wildling wight girl beyond the Wall, to Arya & Bran witnessing the coming of the King into their home of Winterfell, all the way through to the climactic fate suffered by Bran upon witnessing a licentious act. Indeed it isn’t just the children of youth who provide the prism through which Martin’s story begins – Jon and Tyrion Lannister both frame themselves as ‘bastard’ children in different perspectives, Daenerys and her brother Viserys Targaryen are children displaced of a hereditary entitlement they believe is their due, and Jaime & Cersei Lannister of course are children embroiled in a bond that goes beyond nature.

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