Read the previous entry in this series here.
Read the next entry in this series here.
Episode 1.2 – “The Kingsroad”
Read the next entry in this series here.
Episode 1.2 – “The Kingsroad”
Written by David
Benioff and D.B. Weiss
Directed by Tim Van
Patten
Commentary by Lena
Heady (Cersei Lannister), Mark Addy (Robert Baratheon), and Nikolaj
Coster-Waldeau (Jaime Lannister)
Episode 1.2, “The Kingsroad,” is an episode full of
partings, both literal and figurative.
People leave other people, people lose pieces of their identity, people
leave behind pieces of themselves they no longer have use for. This is a major theme of the whole series;
people (those who survive) are pared down to their essential essences, leaving
behind the parts they don’t need or want.
Sometimes this is a literal leaving-behind—of people or objects—and
sometimes it’s more figurative.
In this episode, much of the leaving-behind is literal. Ned, Arya, and Sansa leave Winterfell (and
Catelyn, Robb, Bran, and Rickon) to go south.
Jon leaves everyone to go north.
Tyrion and his siblings split up.
The episode is full of goodbyes, and just as with the small moment
between Ned and Bran in the last episode, readers and re-watchers know this is
the last time most of these people ever see each other.
The first goodbye of the episode is between Jon and Arya and
showcases their relationship. Although there have been only hints of how alike
they are in feeling like outsiders in their own family, the connection between
them is clear in this scene. Jon’s gift to Arya becomes the focal point of her
identity as she proceeds on her journey, the one thing she can’t give up at the
House of Black and White. Throughout the books, Arya wishes she could see Jon
again, and keeps trying to get to the Wall after Ned’s death, though she’s
constantly thwarted in that attempt. Of all the Starks, these two are easily
the closest and have the best relationship.
The Jon-Arya goodbye stands in immediate and sharp contrast
to Jon’s farewell to Bran. Bran, of
course, is unconscious, so the dramatic tension is between Jon and Catelyn, who
clearly loathes the very sight of Jon.
Jon, to his credit, doesn’t let that deter him from saying what he needs
to say to Bran, and he doesn’t complain to Robb later that his mother was less
than kind about Jon’s presence. (That
Robb asks about Cat’s behavior shows how aware everyone else is of Cat’s
loathing.) Robb and Jon’s goodbye uses
few words, but shows a deep respect and understanding between the two young
men.
Hard on the heels of Jon and Bran’s farewell is Cat and
Ned’s. Again, it’s tense and confrontational, and Cat finally puts into words
why she despises Jon so much—he’s living proof of Ned’s (supposed) infidelity. She
also expresses the frustration of women in this sort of society—men are always
going off and doing things in the name of duty, then claiming they had no
choice; “You had a choice,” she tells him, “and you’ve made it.” It’s pretty
clear that she doesn’t just mean his decision to leave right now, but every
decision he’s made in their relationship—leaving to fight with Robert,
(apparently) having sex with another woman, bringing the product of that union
back to Winterfell, raising him with her children, and now leaving again,
against her advice. All of this comes to a head, and she yells at him before he
leaves. (I don’t remember if she regrets this conversation when she finds out
about his death. We’ll see when I get there.)
The final Stark goodbye in this half of the episode is
between Ned and Jon at the cairn marking where the Kingsroad splits
north-south. This encounter continues a
so-far pretty subtle theme of Ned letting his honor and duty keep him from
doing the right thing (or at least the smart thing). Assuming that the R+L=J
theory is correct (as I do, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go
look it up), and the promise that Ned made to Lyanna on her deathbed was to
keep Jon secret and safe, it makes sense that Ned would keep the identity of
Jon’s mother from everyone, even Jon. After all, he was young, and who knew
when he might blurt it out where people could hear him. But Jon’s shown himself
to be diplomatic and careful with his words, and there is no excuse for Ned not
telling Jon right there who his mother is. Ned’s got all the foreshadowing
working against him—he’s going south at the summons of a king, which is the
same situation in which his father and brother died; the last person in his
position was murdered—and Jon’s heading into a demonstrably dangerous life as a
brother of the Night’s Watch, weeks after a deserter claimed the White Walkers
were a-walkin’. There’s absolutely no guarantee that he’s ever going to see Jon
again, and not giving him at least a little bit of information about his mother
is just plain irresponsible at this point.
These farewells are poignant, but also speak to new
beginnings and moving forward. The farewells in the second half of the episode
are harder and tend more toward the symbolic. There are two literal farewells
between Starks, though—Cat leaving Bran and Arya driving away Nymeria.
The assassination attempt on Bran is what shocks Cat out of
her stupor and refusal to do anything besides sit next to Bran’s bed—anything, even things that, as lady of
Winterfell, she’s duty-bound to take care of. She neglects her guests and other
children for weeks, refuses to handle the affairs of the house (Robb has to
take over for her), and is not present to see off her lord-husband and her
guests. I think the sheer magnitude of her faux pas get lost in both the books
and the show; Martin doesn’t do a lot with the responsibilities of women in
running a household, and the show doesn’t have time to instruct the viewer on
the finer points of medieval courtly etiquette and household responsibilities.
But the attempt on Bran’s life and her realization that this is the second attempt on Bran’s life give Cat a
purpose again, and she finally gets up, dresses, and leaves in order to warn
Ned that everything is so much worse than they thought.
Arya, too, learns that everything is worse than previously
thought when she’s forced to send Nymeria away. Again, this is somewhere that
the show loses some nuance in the visual rather than written medium. The show
doesn’t really establish the wolves as much beyond special pets; the depth of
the Stark children’s relationships to their wolves and how the wolves represent
their identities as Starks and/or Northerners is completely lost in the show
(at least as far as I remember; if the re-watch turns up evidence to the
contrary I’ll point it out). Arya has to
drive Nymeria away to save her from being executed, but that puts Lady in
danger—which Arya of course never anticipated. Thus, Sansa, too, loses her
wolf, though she never gets to say goodbye to Lady.
Which brings us to the figurative farewells; among the
Starks it’s mostly their sense of justice. Ned begins to realize how incapable
Robert is of ruling. Sansa gets a glimpse of Joffrey and Cersei’s true natures.
Arya realizes that nothing is fair and loses her trust in just about everyone
(except maybe Ned). It’s a loss of innocence on a wide scale—all in these two
or three scenes. Jon, too, is losing his innocence, realizing that what he
signed up for isn’t as grand and respectable as he tried to convince Jaime it
was at the beginning of the episode. These farewells and losses aren’t complete
yet, but the groundwork is being laid for the catastrophic end of the season.
In the Dothraki Sea, Daenerys is also losing parts of
herself. She begins the episode miserable, in pain, and being raped (again). But
something about the dragon eggs seems to awake something in her, and she
voluntarily recruits Doreah to teach her how to “make the Khal happy.” This is
a slight shift in agency from the books; in A
Game of Thrones, Doreah is a wedding gift from Viserys, given specifically
so that Doreah can teach Dany how to please a man. These lessons are never
shown. Instead, there is a brief mention that Dany and Doreah stay up late
talking before Dany takes charge and seduces Drogo. In this episode, Dany is
losing her fear and timidness and gaining agency. She has been sold to Drogo
like a slave, but when Doreah asks if she is a slave, she shakes her head. She
demands equality in her next sexual encounter with Drogo and begins to gain the
confidence of a khaleesi. Obviously,
there are still problematic elements here; Nikolaj Coster-Waldeau points out
that this is very Stockholm-Syndrome-y: “because if you see in episode one, she
is basically just given to this man who is just raping her, and now she falls
for him.” This is continued fallout from the issue I mentioned in the last
post, that changing that one scene and Dany’s early dynamic with Drogo will
have far-reaching consequences for their relationship and its implications.
RIP: Mycah the Butcher's Boy, unnamed would-be assassin, Lady
Next week: Jon grows up. Dany gets pregnant. Littlefinger
smarms his way onto the screen. Arya's dancing lessons begin.
