Surfing Drama: Game of Thrones – “A Golden Crown”

These Game of Thrones spoilers shall become the Khal of Khals. They will be known as “the Stallion that Mounts the World”…

 
I am a Game of Thrones neophyte, I’ll admit. I have never read the books by George R.R. Martin upon which HBO’s TVs series is based. Honestly, I’m glad I haven’t. I’d rather not have warning when the s*** starts going down on this show. Because when it wants to, Game of Thrones can knock your socks off. In my opinion each episode of the series has been more exciting and interesting than the last. After a little bit of a muted beginning, Thrones is taking over, at least on my Twitter feed. The ratings are also growing with each episode. The show features a huge cast of characters from at least four competing families. However, by three or four episodes in everyone’s relationship to each other was well-established and the characters sketched in highly effectively, so we could get down to brass tacks.

After last week’s episode (consisting mostly of a lot of very interesting exposition dumps, some of which occurred mid-sex scene), “ A Golden Crown” moved a bit quicker. From the very first scene, consisting of three smart, strong-willed characters having a strong-will-off, we’re aware what level this episode will be pitched at. Ned Stark has survived getting stabbed in the leg and is left in charge at King’s Landing when Robert goes off to hunt. He uses this power to make a rather rash play against the Lannisters, demanding the presence of their super-rich patriarch. Maybe next week? Meanwhile, his wife is slowly but surely losing control of her scheme to bring Tyrion Lannister to justice for the attack on Bran (it doesn’t help that he seems to be innocent). She hadn’t seen the Aerie in five years, and didn’t quite realize the extent of her sister’s madness or the insanity of her nephew. Fortunately, Tyrion can apparently talk his way out of anything, even if he has to convince a dimwit jailer that “sometimes the concept of ownership is abstract”.

Across the Narrow Sea in Dothraki-ville, realization is finally dawning on Viserys that he may have miscalculated his plan just a scosh. Marrying Daenarys off to Khal Drogo may have seemed like a good idea when she was a trembling violet he could control, but now she’s the freakin’ queen, carrying the king’s kid, and he’s nobody. There is a spectacular sequence where Daenarys has to eat the entire heart of a horse in front of everybody so that the child will be a boy (these people are really, really into horses). She keeps it down, and celebration ensues. Such jealousy rises in Viserys when he sees her treated like royalty that he decides to take drastic action. He strides into the feast later that day brandishing a sword, threatening his sister and demanding the Khal follow through on his promise to help Viserys take back his “golden crown”, gambling that the Khal will not break the sacred law that the Dothraki do not spill blood in their own capital.

But there is of course a loophole: Drogo agrees that Viserys will in fact get his crown. So he melts a bunch of gold in the fire, then pours the whole pot over Viserys’ head. No blood spilled, but that doesn’t make “the Dragon” any less dead. Daenarys appears unmoved: “He was no dragon. Dragons are not burned by fire.” Cut to black.

I have been loving this series, and each episode ratchets the tension up more and more. Game of Thrones combines the complex storylines of a great novel (or maybe The Wire) with the “what will they do next” crazytasticness of a show like True Blood, mixed together with great acting and writing. It’s not perfect (what was with those weird renfair-rejects up accosting Bran in the woods?) but it is already one of the best shows on TV.

 
Bits
-This week’s episode was co-written by Jane Espenson, who has written for Buffy, Battlestar Galactica, and Deep Space Nine, among many, many other series. She wrote at least three of the episodes of the upcoming season of Torchwood, as well.

-I am curious to see what was up with Daenarys not getting burned by the dragon egg. Does she possess some special power that her brother lacks? Is she really part-dragon? How would that even work?

-The Daenarys arc of this show, in which she starts as the ultimate powerless pawn but gradually finds herself and becomes maybe the single most important character in the whole freakin’ thing, is just breathtaking. I’ve been reading fantasy for a while but it feels like something I haven’t quite seen before, drastic yet somehow totally believable.

-There were a lot of lines in this one that I’ll remember. Think about this bit: “Have you prayed to the Gods?” “Old Gods and New.” “There is only one god, and his name is Death. We only say one thing to him: Not Today.”

-Sansa officially wins the award for Most Useless Character, if she hadn’t already. “I love him! I want to be his queen forever and have his babies!” Watch the look on Arya’s face as she realizes just how ridiculous her sister is.

-When they kill somebody on this show, they get creative. Nobody’s just kind of gotten stabbed and then fallen over. I’ve been shown a few things on this show I’ve never seen before.

-The Aerie is completely bad-ass. “The sky-cells never fail to break them.”

-Tyrion Lannister: “When I was 12, I milked my eel into a pot of turtle stew. I flogged the one eyed snake, I skinned my sausage – I made the bald man cry into the turtle stew, which I do believe my sister ate.”

 
What do you think about Game of Thrones so far? Let us know in the comments!

About Dan

Dan Joslyn grew up in Ohio but now lives in Las Vegas, NV with his lovely ginger girlfriend, Tiarra, where he works as an office monkey. He enjoys reviewing movies and television for the site, and over-analyzing such things. He may be the Chosen One… but he probably isn’t.

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