While the game of thrones could be sum up as a series of unhappy stories with very brutal endings, as a watcher of
the show and not a reader of the books, I was totally caught off guard by the
events that took place at end of this episode.
While brilliantly shot. Written
and acted, it was clearly sad to see Catelyn and Robb Stark fall foul of the
less honourable members of Westerosi
high society with only Catelyn reading the tone of events to come from the only
exit available bolted shut once Edmure and his bride where whisked off by well-wishers
for ‘bedding’ to the cruel played
rendition of the chilling ‘rains of castamere’ confirming her suspicions of
betrayal and the brutal death of her, her son, daughter in law and her yet to
be born grandson.
Upon reflection and thinking in
terms of strategy, it was quite clear
that any visit or marriage to the Freys with Lord Roose Bolton in attendance,
was not going to end well for the Starks. In truth, Robb might as well have
signed his death in blood the moment he married Talisa and denied one of Frey’s
many female offspring his hand in marriage which Frey saw as a slight and may
well have forced him to find new alliances.
And find new alliances he did
as he and house Bolton sided with Lannisters. All the families and houses in
game of thrones are clearly cursed and the curse of the Starks has always been
their honour. They have paid handsomely in blood and misery for their honour
from Ned losing his head largely for sticking rigidly to his moral code (forgive
the rhyme), their kids either kept captive or stranded, the sacking of winterfell,
to the grisly deaths of his wife and first born son.
While there are a number of
likeable characters in the Game of Thrones, they are really far and few
between. Most of them are Starks as from the outset, we see that house stark is
the only family that while they are fully aware of the rules that govern the
game of thrones, they do their best not to lose themselves by sticking to them
unlike just about every house in the seven kingdoms.
While there were other storylines
in this episode such as Jon Snow escaping the wildings after failing a crude
acid test of where his loyalties lie and Bran making use powers as a Worg when
he helps Jon out by getting his wolves to attack and kill wildlings ordered to
kill him, It was clear what would dominate reviews of the episode even though
many who watched the show saw it coming and those who read the book couldn’t
shut up about it.
While the murder of Catelyn and
Robb was shocking and sad, the real emotional tug of the betrayal sequence was
Arya finding out by the murder of a direwolf she recognized she the same had
fell on her mother and big brother with the hound saved her the emotional
trauma by hitting her over the head to knock her out.
In sum, Game of Thrones episode
9 was a barnstormer of an episode from start to finish after a number of slow
and meandering (yet still good) episodes and will be hard to top but if Game of Thrones episode 10 should match this
week’s instalment, we are all in for a treat.
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