Surfing Drama: Game of Thrones – “Fire and Blood”
I’ve killed spoilers for the first season finale of Game of Thrones. I’m good at killing spoilers… I like killing spoilers…
In the future when connoisseurs of great TV hand their DVDs of Game of Thrones‘ great first season to their friends, many of them will likely make sure to say, “It doesn’t end like you think it does.” Or maybe some of them will remain silent, hoping not to spoil the surprise. We spent much of the season ramping up to all-out war in Westeros, and we do eventually get a version of it, though the actual battles take place entirely off-screen. However, the combatants aren’t quite who we might expect, and there’s very little in the way of closure. On a lesser series, leaving so many plot threads hanging might drive the fan-base nuts, but the set-up here for Season 2 of the series is so great that few are complaining.
The last few episodes really brought the season and its themes into focus, climaxing with the sudden death of Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) at the hands of an impetuous boy king out to prove just how ruthless he really is. Most series don’t kill off the closest thing they have to a main character before the end of the first season, but Game of Thrones is not most series. One wonders if the writers would have been able to do something like they hadn’t been following a book series. As things are, they have the excuse they need to pull some truly unexpected plot twists. And it would seem that Ned Stark’s death has set a variety of very interesting threads in motion, most prominently his son Robb’s ascension to an army-leading, civil war-starting badass. Though the character faded into the background for some of moments in the midst of the season, Richard Madden is delivering a great performance and it would seem the forces of the North are in capable hands. He even seems heroic when agreeing to marry an ugly girl in order to cross a bridge.
The first season finale of "Game of Thrones" went out in a literal blaze of glory. See what I did there?
And when was the last time we met a character and an actor more perfect for each other than Tyrion Lannister and Peter Dinklage? In the final few episodes he brought greater depth to his role (and had more screen time) than ever before. The moment where his father finally acknowledges Tyrion as his son felt like a beautiful and cathartic end to the initial arc of the character, but at the same time it immediately opened up a path to a new and interesting Season 2 plot… Tyrion hanging out at trying to wrangle everyone as Hand of the King is full of awesome possibilities. Can you imagine Tyrion, Baelish, and Varys all hanging out in the same room? Not to mention Maester Pycelle, who is apparently faking being an old doddering man, though to what end is unclear.
Even more exciting are the two sequences the season chooses to end on. The first promises new developments in the increasing zombie threat going on in the frozen north, which returned with a vengeance the past few weeks after going missing from much of the season. The season opened with Rangers riding north from the wall, and it ends the same way, only one of the Rangers is Jon, having finally made the choice between duty and family, ready to face whatever horrors may come. The series spent much of its first season shying away from fantasy elements, but I have a feeling that based on the events of the final few episodes they will become more and more prominent as time goes on.
Which leads us to our final moment, the most fantastical of the series thus far. Daenarys Targaryen had, in my opinion, the most compelling and complete plot arc of the first season, and this was a season that had some good ones. Brilliantly portrayed by Emilia Clarke, she constructed the story of a completely powerless girl who first becomes queen of a barbarian tribe, grasps power, falls in love, and then, suddenly, has to watch all of it unravel through a couple of well-intentioned bad choices. Clarke was the final actor cast for this series, and she became the show’s most valuable player, never allowing viewers to question the fact that every one of her scenes for the entire year takes place on a different continent from the rest of the action.
So she places her husband on a funeral pyre (the witch whose tricks resulted in his death tied to one end), places her precious dragon eggs around his body, sets it all ablaze, and then, to Ser Jorah’s horror, walks into the flames herself. But she is the True Dragon, after all. When the flames dissipate, all is turned to ash except for Daenarys, her clothes burned away. She has three baby dragons crawling on her. This series caught a surprising amount of flack for featuring gratuitous nudity, some of it disturbingly puritanical in my opinion (oh, it’s okay that Khal Drogo ripped a guy’s tongue out through his neck wound, but not okay for people to have sex while delivering exposition?). But I doubt anyone would argue that the show made a bad move by ending on this particular image. The naked, dragon-covered Dany (one of them strategically covering her pubic area) is like some sort of medieval allegorical painting. The power of the visuals is elemental. It’s no wonder those present feel they no choice but to bow down to her.
Thus ends season one of “Game of Thrones,” which ended up being much, much better than I was expecting. Yes, there were moments where I wished we had the budget to actually see a few battles (I’d like the see the moment where they captured Jaime, for example, which seems like a pretty big deal). But that’s not really the series this is. This is about people making many small choices, choices that, good or bad, always have life or death consequences. Imagine a show that combines the best aspects of great, big, fun fantasy, historical drama, and classy HBO shows like The Wire, and you might have some idea what’s in store. Just keep in mind, it doesn’t end like you think it will.
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