She also has her first taste of real swordplay, as she (accidentally?) slips Needle through a repulsive stable boy who tries to collar her for the Queen. Meanwhile Arya makes good her escape-no fool she, since I doubt the new King would be particularly inclined towards mercy where she is concerned. Syrio's last lesson to Arya is about seeing, however-about trusting your eyes, not what you hear-and so it would not surprise me to see the First Sword of Braavos turn up again.
This includes, presumably, Septa Mordane (Susan Brown)-the color of whose hair, alas, must now forever remain a mystery-and Syrio Forel (Miltos Yorolemou), who appears to sacrifice himself defending Arya (Maisie Williams) with a wooden sword. "I trust you know you're a dead man," he says, and I fear he might be right.Ĭertainly there does not seem to be a lot of mercy on offer from the Lannisters, who slaughter Ned's household staff throughout the halls of King's Landing. "It was your mercy that killed the King," he tells Ned, before breaking the news that Catelyn no longer holds Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) for leverage. (Even the unimpugnable Ser Barristan has been stripped of his duties.) As Varys (Conleth Kill) says, however, Ned's real crime was mercy: Ned tried to spare Cersei's children, and thus gave the Queen enough warning to stage her coup. Literally and figuratively, Robert's rule is over, and the fragile peace he maintained has been broken. Ned was the Hand of the King-the symbol and implementor of King Robert's law-and he has been thrown in the dungeon and charged with treason following his betrayal by Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen) last episode. The slender threads that held this world together have all snapped, and Westeros is quickly falling back into chaos. The Stark and Lannister houses are at war, and new threats are gathering from the North (the White Walkers) and the East (the Dothraki). King Robert-who held the realm together, however clumsily-is dead, and Ned (Sean Bean)-our moral compass-has been imprisoned. It should be: the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros have been shattered. (I'm not reading ahead in the novels, but I've read enough of the early chapters to know that Game of Thrones writers-while very faithful-often move events around and add additional scenes to give each episode a more cohesive structure.)Īnd while I still think this is true-and though I enjoyed this episode less than some others-I've now had a chance to think about it, and I've realized that it's appropriate that this episode is a little chaotic, a little disjointed.
While there is a general theme of "mercy" running throughout "The Pointy End," it doesn't hold together as well as others, and my initial thought was that Martin had perhaps failed to make his episode quite episode-shaped. (Not bad, mind you, just slightly weaker.) "The Pointy End" suffers slightly from a lack of cohesion if you've read my previous reviews, you know I usually try to find the overall theme that helps tie each installment together and gives a stronger sense of what the episode is actually about.
#Game of thrones s1e8 streaming series
Martin-was the weakest of the series thus far. My first reaction was that this episode-written by the man himself, George R. I've had a little more time to think about "The Pointy End" than I'd otherwise have taken, and my opinion has changed slightly. This is used to define what the post is about, and to what level of discussion is allowable in the comments.įor more info see the guide and policy.I'm writing this review a little later than I normally would-sometimes real life gets in the way of more important things-but it may turn out for the best.
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#Game of thrones s1e8 streaming tv
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