Game of Thrones Review: Kissed by Fire
Usually an episode of Game of Thrones will end with a cliffhanger pertaining to someone apparently about to meet their end, or better yet, actually dying. It’s those “gasp” moments that make the show so great, though we usually have to wait a long time between them.
But last night there was a different sort of gasp moment. One that has naught to do with heads rolling or dragon broiling. One that didn’t need any sort of violence at all to cause shock and awe among the audience.
Tyrion is going to marry SANSA?
No, I can’t pretend my mind was exploded as I’m now a devotee of the book reading cult, but my face was melted all the same when I came across it in Storm of Swords. Tyrion has barely spoken two words to Sansa since the show began, and there’s at least a decade of an age gap there (probably two decades in the books), but it’s all part of Tywin’s plan to dick over the Tyrells.
The chain of events appears to be that Littlefinger got a gay hooker to seduce Loras and get the truth out of him that he was engaged. He then passed on the info to Cersei who gave it to Tywin. But I don’t think Littlefinger was expecting Tywin to marry Sansa to Tyrion as a solution, as he wanted her to sail away with him to the Vale. The same goes for Cersei, who didn’t realize her attempt to humiliate her brother would backfire with Tywin commanding her to marry Loras if Sansa wasn’t going to.
Again, this has been streamlined from the book. Loras is portrayed as the heir to Highgarden which isn’t supposed to be the case. He also has 300% more gay sex scenes on the show, with only implications of such things in the novel (a-la-Renly). Cersei was indeed set to be auctioned off by her father, but to the Martells I believe, a family all but unseen on the show.
But this change, like most changes the show makes, works fine, and I think Martin’s work could indeed use a bit of editing from time to time. Watching Cersei’s face when she’s told she has to marry Loras was delightful, but it’s going to be a true tragedy when Sansa figures out she has to marry Tyrion. And neither child has much love for Tywin at this point.
Traveling back in time to the beginning of the episode, we saw The Hound get his trial by combat with Beric Dondarrion, now a devotee of the Lord of Light. I get that trial by combat used to be a real thing, but I think it’s mostly a way for fantasy fiction to allow people to duel rather than have a boring court proceeding. The Hound cleaves Dondarrion practically in half, but yet another new magical power emerges. It’s not all just flaming swords and shadow demons when you serve the Lord of Light, you get a handful of get out of jail free cards from death.
I get that magic is returning to the world because of the dragons, but resurrection from death seems to be a bridge too far for me. Once you introduce the ability to resurrect major characters, everything sort of goes to hell. Even Arya questions the implications in a tearful conversation where she asks if the magic can reattach her father’s head. “I don’t think it works like that,” says Thoros. Then how does it work man? Can you run around a battlefield magically CPR-ing all your dead soldiers back to life? Screw dragons, this is the magic that’s the most significant development on the show. Or at least it should be.
The most powerful scene of the episode was Jaime’s bathtime interaction with Brienne, which sounds a lot more saucy than it was. Yes, we saw some bare asses and what I think was a Kingslaying nutsack, but the scene wasn’t sexual. Rather, it was the full explanation as to why Jaime isn’t the oathbreaking asshole we all think he is. Turns out Aerys Targaryen wanted to burn King’s Landing to the ground with wildfire before he let it fall, and Jaime killed him to stop it. It was a really incredibly telling of the tale, and is probably the final step in converting Jaime from a villain to a hero in our eyes (and Brienne’s). We’re practically about to forget he ever pushed Bran out that window. I did miss the Targaryen quote from the book however, “Let them rule over ashes!”
Jon Snow finally broke his final vow, having freaky wilding cave sex with Ygritte, whose name I finally learned how to properly pronounce this week. Does this mean Snow has gone full wilding on us? When he reaches the Wall, is he still being a super spy or actually bringing about his brothers’ downfall? In any case, whichever option allows him to keep having sex may be the best one.
Robb Stark has to deal with a particularly tricky situation when one of his best bannerman, Rickard Karstark executes two Lannister captives who happen to be kids. Robb shows that he’s too much like his father for his own good, choosing honor over half his army after he executes Karstark. He then hatches a new plan to get Walder Frey to commit the rest of his army to help him fight the Lannisters. You know, the guy he royally dicked over by marrying someone else instead of one of his daughters. Now how exactly is he going to convince him?
The entire scene with Stannis I don’t believe was actually in the book, or at least it was pieced together from a bunch of different scenes. We finally meet his wife who is totally cool with him making shadow babies with Melisandre, considering she reflects on her motherly failures every day staring at her dead fetuses. It’s also revealed Stannis has a daughter with an unfortunate skin disease, but is actually a sweet girl. She’s sneaking into the dungeon to teach the Onion Knight how to read. A is for Aegeon the Conquer. B is for Baelor the Blessed. C is for Cersei the C***.
Winter might not be coming yet, but other dark and cold things are. Stay tuned.
Good review. It’s nice being able to see what people think of the program without the risk of running into book spoilers. As i’ve only read the 1st book and am planning to read the rest in the long gap between seasons 3 and 4.
Excellent episode. Love it that while Tywinn hates Tyrion, he also dishes it out to Cersei just as hard.
It changes so much after you read the books, isn’t it? This recap felt short, less passionate than usual. It was a lesser episode, compared with last week’s but you can say so much about it, thou: I think Brienne and Jaime’s scene was way better than Jon and Ygritte’s (sexy is cool but mixed emotions are way cooler). Also, It seems rushed the scenes involving Robb and his clan. I do not know why they don’t putted the Black Fish on it, I thought they were putting the character (I can’t remember the actor’s name) foward. I think the show is giving up with these characters, which is bad, knowing what is comming.
I didn’t like the way they separate Aria and Gendry. First, they can’t know if they are getting appart or not, they know that both of them will remain together at least while she is with the Brotherhood of mutants without banners; and second, I can’t recall any scene when bouth of them became close enough to call themselves brothers. Without spoiling things, maybe in the next episode they’ll put certain scene and they need to put this goodbye already. But it was badly done.
Loved Cercei’s rage too, loved Tyrion’s surprised and extra loved Tywin’s rant: not many can break Cercei as he has done, so it is good to see her get some bad back for two weeks in a row.
And last but not least, I also worried when i learned in the books that characters could get resurrected, I remembered how Heroes was ruined when they allow the characters to survive dead by healing them with powered blood, it makes death less dramatic because you know that at some point, if a character will be brought back to life if a twist is necessary… for instance, I’m waiting a character to resurrect in the sixth book, so his aparent dead in book five is a lesser cliffhanger to me.
Please forgive my spelling mistakes, I’m not a english native and i’m in a rush, so I can’t pass it thou a diccionay. Keep on Paul, and get the passion back, this is why we follow you.
My opinion is that you now should mark your GoT reviews as “only for people who read the books”…. or even better; stop referring to them so I can continue to enjoy reading your reviews.
🙂 keioss
So Stannis’ daughter has a skin condition? I thought she was burned – I also haven’t read that far in the books yet so…skin condition. I don’t know why I was so fascinated by her, but I was.
I’m looking forward to seeing Shae’s reaction to the wedding news.
I got to meet Lena Heady and Peter Dinklage this weekend at our Comic Con and they are pretty awesome. People tried getting spoilers out of them at the panel but to no avail.
I think the point you are missing with the resurrection power is how much it takes away even as it revives. I haven’t seen the show that far yet but the implication of the resurrection is that it takes away as much as it gives.
Dondarrion barely remembers who he is nor why he is fighting, only that he must. Thoros of Myr is also drained and withered because of it. You can’t resurrect the long dead because it seems to rely on the body being (mostly) whole, so no return of Ned as he’s just bones.
Really, the resurrection power is the most dangerous of magic because you don’t know what or how much you will get back. It harms those that perform it as much as the person it returns is changed. Like most things in GoT everything has its drawback as well as a benefit.
Hi Paul, I’m a big fan of your site and reviews, but the ‘this didn’t happen in the book’ is kind of ruining the reviews for me.
I liked it better when you focused on the TV show as it is, the comparisons are a bit tiresome, also maybe some of us will actually read the books once the show is over, and you will spoil us the changes bit by bit.
Anyway keep up the good work and please spare us TV mortals from the book changes and stuff.
Okay, okay, I’ll tone down the book references.
I think this week’s episode was the 2nd best of the season, last week’s obviously being the #1 with Dany 🙂
I agree with a few of the commenters to some extent, I actually enjoyed the reviews before the book references, but also it’s been a while since I read the book so they also serve as little reminders of what’s different. But for the purpose of this editorial, for the people who love the show and haven’t gotten to the books yet, I would probably prefer only focusing only the show.
One thing about the review stuck out for me… There was a point made that Tyrion had barely said a word to Sansa in the show, and now they’re due to be married. I wouldn’t quite put it that way, because in season 2 Tyrion had been pretty much the only one in King’s Landing that had been civil towards her without a hidden motive. Ok, during the riot he wanted her to be found alive (also) because of her status as a bargaining chip, but also in the picture in the review he saved her from being further humiliated (or killed) by the little blonde sociopath that is Jeoffery. He does, after all, have a soft spot for cripples, bastards and broken things. Not saying that he would ever want to marry her, or vice versa, but I just think he’s been a lot nicer to her than anyone else since good ol’ Eddard got a head shorter.
Another thing I didn’t really like about the episode – although completely badass – was the whole thing with the battle (“it’s a battle because they both had armor on!”) between Beric and Clegane. Aside from the whole “get-out-of-death-free-card”, I didn’t think it made any sense with them turning around two seconds after Beric was split in half and have him stand there good as new. Ok, they did get into that later in the episode a bit, but it was a “wtf” moment for all the wrong reasons. Not only did it change the rules, but it changed the rules for a completely unexplicable reason at that time.
Ok this is turning into a super long comment 😛 so just going to say a quick thing about Robb. I loved the little crazy glare he had in his eyes when he got the idea about Casterly rock 🙂 It’s kind of hinting (or, hell, flat out saying) that he’s grasping at straws … straws whose daughter he was meant to marry and has since majorly pissed off…
After season 1, I thought Jaime was the worst acted character in the entire show. That changed about half-way through season 2, probably about the time he killed his cousin to escape. After last night, I am thoroughly convinced that Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is the best actor on the show. I actually felt his pain while he spoke. It was fantastic.
Meh, who cares if he talks about the books.
I never get these people who care so much about the series they come in for recaps and the like, but the idea of getting more information from something like a book just completely turns them off.
Also, if your worried about book overlap or spoilers and your commenting on the forum, seems like you’re playing with fire.
Anyone who considers themselves a GoT fan is doing themselves a disservice by not reading the books, which will allow you to enjoy the show even more.
The plan to marry Sansa to Tyrion was a jaw dropper in the book. I remember feeling so bad for Sansa, and saying “WHAT THE F*CK!” out loud.
The show can’t really convey that sense as well as the book, because we all love Dinklage; he’s charming and handsome. Tyrion in the book is a hideously deformed whore-mongering imp.
I don’t understand how dragons, giants, animal telepaths and zombies are cool with you, but selective resurrection is off the table. That just seems silly to me. I see the point in plot problems that it can cause, but if the priest could resurrect anybody, wouldn’t he have already brought Stark and Barretheon back and ended the war? “I don’t think it works that way”
I personally don’t have any issue with the book references, since they are done in a non spoilerish manner.
The only thing I didnt really get about this episode was the (seemingly) sudden decision by Lord Karstark to kill the Lannister kids. Because-
1) They’ve been prisoners for a while now have they not? Why now?
2) Lord Karstark knows Sansa is a hostage and hostages tend to get killed when you kill the ones you have. He would have known this would put Rob is a pretty pissed off state of mind. So again, why now, if not why at all?
Yes he wanted vengance on Lannisters but I would have thought defeating the Lannister army and perhaps capturing better hostages/sacking lannister lands would be a better option.
All in all, seemed like a plot device to put Rob in a weaker position.
^It seems to he have had a growing hatred of Rob, because he feels Rob is to blame for everything that has gone wrong. Also, he didn’t think they could defeat the Lannister army.
Shireen’s condition is known as Greyscale. It’s fatal to anyone who’s not a child when they catch it, and it’s implied in the books that Shireen is lucky to be alive, although badly scarred. Without spoiling anything, more references to Greyscale exist in Dance with Dragons.