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Game of Thrones Review: “Fire and Blood”

Game of Thrones Review: “Fire and Blood” SE01 EP 10

The smoking season finale ends in a ball of fire!

“Fire and Blood”

In the aftermath of Ned’s execution, Arya and Sansa must fend for themselves amidst the chaos and pending war, Rob gets promoted, Dany makes a difficult decision, and Jon reaffirms his commitment to the Night’s Watch.

KING’S LANDING

“Save yourself some pain girl – give him what he wants” ~ The Hound

We get to sample the full feast of Joff’s cruelty and penchant for wanton violence in this episode. As a starter, he dislikes a minstrel’s song and has Ser Ilyn Payne, (ironically) cut out his tongue. Actually, Joff gives the bard a “choice” (if you can call it that), either lose his hands, or his tongue. The man chooses his tongue. Wow, you magnanimity knows no bounds Joff.

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For the main course – complete cruelty served with bastardly meanness, he forces Sansa to look at Ned’s and her Septa’s head on a spike. Not to be outdone, the icing on the cake, he goes one farther and also offers to give her Robb’s head on a spike, to which Sansa quips icily, “or maybe he’ll give me yours”. Joff won’t slap her, because it makes him look bad, so he has one of his knights belt Sansa across the face. If I knew I wouldn’t electrocute myself, I would’ve reached into the TV and bitched slapped Joff SO HARD he would’ve felt it on The Wall. At her limit, Sansa has a fleeting dark moment where she looks as if she’s going to push Joff off the bridge they’re standing on along the castle wall but the Hound senses her inclination and stops her before she does something stupid. Personally, I think it would’ve been great but she would be dead in a heartbeat so the Hound saved her to take revenge another day

Of all the nasty characters on this show, right down to Viserys and Jaime, I think Joff is the worst. He has no honour, he lies, he’s a coward, he enjoys inflicting pain and he’s unnecessarily cruel. He makes the Dothraki looked civilized; at least there’s a rhyme and reason behind their violence. I would take Khal Drogo over Joff any damn day of the week! It took her father’s death to FINALLY make her realize what a creep Joff is but nonetheless, she’s done with him and wants to go home to Winterfell. Like that’s going to happen – NOT.

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After the horror of witnessing Ned’s execution, Arya is grabbed by Yoren, the “recruiter” for the Night’sWatch and taken out of the crowd. He cuts off Arya’s hair to disguise her as “Harry the orphan boy” and bundles her into a cart full of recruits bound for The Wall, intending to drop her off at Winterfell en route. While she’s waiting around, Arya is picked on by some street urchins wanting to roll her for her sword. She holds her own thanks to Syrio Forel’s training and has a chance meeting with Gendry, King Robert’s bastard. This should prove an interesting development come next season!

Now that Ned is gone, Jon is on The Wall and Robb is tied up in a war, Sansa and Arya must fend for themselves. I can’t wait to see how they fare and what their ultimate fate will be. Sansa stuck in King’s Landing with spoiled brat Joff, and Arya hiding and on the run as a boy.

We also get another nice “Spy vs. Spy” scene with Varys and Littlefinger trading insults again. I love the banter between these two; they hate each other which makes for great reading and even better TV :) Littlefinger takes a nice jab at Varys, “You must be one of the few men in the city who isn’t a man” to which Varys retorts, “Do you spend a lot of time wondering what’s between my legs?”. HAHA! *slaps knee*. I love these two onscreen. I keep waiting to see who will poison whose drink first. Inevitably, one of these guys will win the title of supreme spy. Who will it be? I hope to see more between Varys and Littlefinger in season two. They’re both ambitious, evil and brilliant – my favourite kind of character ;)

ROBB

“I will kill you tonight, pack your head in a box, and send it to your sister” ~ Cat

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Meanwhile, Cat gets the devastating news about Ned. She goes into the forest to weep in private and finds Robb hitting a tree in rage. Robb wants to kill Jaime but they need to save Arya and Sansa first and must use Jaime as a bargaining chip. Once they have the girls, they vow to kill every last one of the Lannisters.

Later on, Robb’s men are discussing who should be rightful King after Robert’s death. Renly is trying to declare himself but Robb feels that Stannis should be King because he is older than Renly. To Robb’s surprise, Robb’s men don’t want to side with Stannis, or any Baratheon for that matter; one of the bannermen suddenly jumps up and yells, “There sits the only king I mean to bend my knee to – the King of the North!” and he’s pointing right at Robb! Robb’s men name him King of the North and bow down to him. It’s great to see him earn his father’s men’s respect. He’s the one person on this show who I think actually deserves the title and oddly enough, was the last one to expect it. All the self-proclaimed Kings, Viserys, Joff, Renly, don’t really deserve the title. Robb wasn’t expecting it, nor did he want it, but he definitely earned it.

Cat goes to see Jaime – tied to a post outside, bleeding and looking like he’s seen better days. In typical Jaime fashion, he’s being a prick and joking about Ned’s death. Cat slugs him good! POW! Love that scene! What follows is a very short, but interesting conversation… Jaime admits pushing Bran out the window but refuses to tell Cat why. He can’t come clean about the fact that he’s screwing his sister. What? No Targaryen excuse to save face? Cersei was willing to throw that out there but Jaime is not for some reason.

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THE WALL

“I’ll only ask you once Lord Snow, are you a brother of the Night’s watch or a bastard that wants to play at war?” ~ Ser Mormont

Jon tries leaving the Wall and Sam tries desperately to stop him so he doesn’t lose his head. Desertion is death and most deserters are caught. Jon makes it outside of the Wall and is pursued by his bumbling friends one of whom gets whacked by a tree branch and falls off his horse. Jon feels bad for him and returns to see if he’s OK. Sam, and the other boys begin to recite the Oath they took to Jon and tell him he’s duty bound to stay and keep his vows. For some reason, this gets through to him and he returns to The Wall. He speaks to Lord Commander Mormont later on and he knows Jon tried to escape but he doesn’t punish him for it saying that if they punished every boy who took a moonlight ride there would only be ghosts manning The Wall. Jon tries to explain why and the Lord Commander sets him straight – leaving The Wall won’t bring Ned back. He also clues him into the dire reality of what’s going on north of The Wall – dead men are walking, Wildlings are fleeing south and united in some secret struggle, blue-eyed corpses were discovered and burned and villages have been abandoned. He asks Jon if his brother’s war is worth more than the dead men coming after them. He also tells him they are riding out beyond The Wall in the morning to find out just exactly what is going on out there and to find his Uncle Benjen. This is going to be a creepy venture and exciting to watch come next season!

TYRION

“There’s your peace – Joffrey saw to that when he removed Ned Stark’s head” ~ Tyrion

Tywin hears about Jaime’s capture and wants to do everything in his power to save his son but any hope for a peaceful exchange was dashed when Joff impulsively ordered Ned’s execution. Tyrion has an interesting conversation with Tywin and Tywin admits Tyrion is smart and that he was right about Ned. He sees Tyrion in a new light and decides to send Tyrion to King’s Landing to be the new Hand of the King. He wants Joff and Cersei kept in line to avoid any more boneheaded moves. Tyrion is astounded and asks Tywin why he chose him? He tells him simply that he chooses him because he’s his son. Family – even at its most evil is still family apparently. The Lannisters may be cruel hearted bastards, but they look out for their own. Unfortunately, Tywin also tells him he can’t take Shae with him to court. He won’t have Tyrion gallivanting around with a common whore at court. Shae is pissed that Tyrion can’t take her with him but he invites her anyway.

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It looks like a new chapter is unfolding for Tyrion and the tides have turned in his favour. He’s no longer a prisoner and he’s got a snazzy new title and he gets to finally go home. He was by far, one of my favourite characters on the show this season and I’m looking forward to watching him onscreen next season. He’s got the best lines and he’s involved in some of the craziest circumstances making him a very fun character to watch.

DANY

“I warned you that only death can pay for life” ~ Mirri Maz Duur

“Show me what I bought with my son’s life!” ~ Dany

By far, the most dramatic of all scenes have to be Dany’s this episode. Dany wakes to find she has lost the baby. The women said he was scaled like a lizard and died right away. Most of the the Khalasar have left. The Dothraki only follow the strong and because Khal Drogo cannot ride, they abandoned him. As for Khal Drogo…he’s alive, but well…more like “Walking Dead”, a vacant staring zombie – and Dany is told by Mirri Maz Duur he will never be the same. Some of the craziest moments happen here: Mirri reveals she purposely killed Dany’s baby to prevent him from ruling!!! WTF?! Dany feels betrayed. She feels she saved Mirri’s life from rape and abuse at the hands of the Khalasar. Mirri counters by saying the Dothraki burned her temple and she had already been raped three times before Dany “saved her”. She isn’t grateful at all for Dany’s help. She lost everything and life means nothing to her so she purposely ruined Dany’s life. The cruel part is in trying to do good, as so many of Martin’s characters find out, Dany fails and ends up paying for it dearly. It would have been better if Dany had let Khal’s Bloodrider’s have their way with Mirri Maz Duur.

Dany takes care of Khal Drogo – but he remains a shell. After realising Mirri is right, he    will never be as he once was, Dany smothers him to death. This was a horrific, disturbing and sad scene. You’re in shock that she could go through with this because you know how much she loves Khal Drogo. However,  it’s because she loves him that she can’t let him languish on this way, alive, but only a vegetable.

Dany holds a funeral for Khal Drogo; she burns his body on a massive pyre with the Dragons’ eggs. The crazy part is that she plans to enter the flames and stand in the fire! Ser Jorah begs her not to – but she’s determined. Before she enters the flames, she frees the Khalasar that remained with her, if they choose to stay, they are free to come and go and are no longer slaves. Dany burns the Mirri Maz Durr alive by tying her to the funeral pyre. Here comes the craziest part – Dany walks into the fire, and does NOT burn!!! The next morning, the Khalasar awaken to find Dany unharmed, naked and holding newborn Dragons!!!!!!!!!! HOLY CRAP! The Khalasar, including Ser Jorah bow down to her and….the series ends!

The CGI for the dragons is pretty decent. I liked how this season ended with one crazy scene after another. I can’t wait to see what kind of Chaos Dany and her dragons cause in season two!

Tune in with me next season to catch another exciting run through Westeros, see dragons, witness the war, see what lies beyond The Wall and find out who finally wins the Game of Thrones!

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