Game of Thrones Roundup: The Watchers On The Wall (6/8/2014)

Eagle-eyed viewers will notice the absence of Peter Dinklage’s name from the opening credits (he normally receives top billing). In the wake of his champion having lost the trial by combat in the previous episode, our focus instead switches to the Wildling attack on Castle Black. This is not an episode about intrigue, suspense, or political machinations– though it has all of those things– but rather an Iliad-esque romp of violence. The battle between the Men of the Night’s Watch and the Wildling army straddles the whole episode, and combat is the language through which all of the elements of the story are told.

Love and DeathThe episode opens with Jon Snow and his faithful companion Samwell Tarly taking the undesirable nightshift on the top of the wall, which Ser Alliser shunted onto them in “Mockingbird” in response to Jon’s efforts to convince him to prepare for the coming attack. “It’s… there’s this person, this whole other person, and you’re wrapped up in them, and they’re wrapped up in you and you, for a little... for a little while you’re more than just you, you’re… oh I don’t know, I’m not a bleedin’ poet!” The bookish Tarly agrees: “You’re really not.” He is, though; anyone who’s tried to write about love will know the utter futility of trying to use technical or even flowery language, and Jon’s barrage of personal pronouns is a fine attempt.

Jon sends Samwell to bed, but as is his custom, he goes instead to the library to read about what the Wildlings will have done to Gilly, and bumps into Maester Aemon: elderly, infirm, and blind, but brimming with knowledge and experience. He dispenses a quick lesson on historical provenance– about the way the Night’s Watch view the Wildlings and how wrong that might be– before dropping some knowledge on the subject of love. Though Tarly struggles to understand the nonagenarian Maester feeling the same flames of passion he does, Aemon reminds him that he was to be King, before reminding him that although love can surpass reality, Samwell mustn’t let it get in the way of his commitment to the Night’s Watch: “Love is the death of duty.”

The Wildling HostThe Wildlings, by contrast, see sexual relations as a means to prove how freaky-powerful they are, rather than a pathway to the love which transcends the human spirit. We join the Wilding host as Tormund Giantsbane is boasting about a sexual conquest by the name of Sheila, though Sheila is a bear, not a human being. Ygritte calls him out plainly and simply: “I know you never fucked a bear”.

While Game of Thrones is justifiably renowned for its nuanced approach to morality, and refusal to depict characters and factions merely in black and white, but it’s hard to sympathize with a culture where boasting about bestiality is a way to get ahead. The term I’ve been using “Wildlings” is that of the Night’s Watch; Gilly, who scampers past the Wildling encampment on the way to Castle Black, refers to them as “Free Folk”, but they don’t seem to be making the best use of their freedom. Do the Wildlings need to the Night’s Watch to keep their barbaric practices in check? Does the Night’s Watch, and the rest of Westeros, need the Wildlings as a focus for their fear? George R. R. Martin has gone on record saying that the White Walkers are deeply misunderstood, and the relationships between the social groups are fascinating to watch as they develop.

Game of Thrones the show uses televisual magic (CGI) the same way Martin uses magic in the books: sparingly, and to great effect. The giants and their woolly mammoths (yes, their woolly mammoths) look just the right amount of uncanny as they stride up to The Wall. There’s been a lot of fun poked at the scant appearances of Daenerys’s dragons because the CGI costs so much, but if the books, and the general ethos in Westeros that magical beings are all extinct, are anything to go by, magical CGI beings should be rare– the cowardly Janos Slynt claims that giants aren’t real, and it makes seeing them all the more shocking.

The Life and Times of Samwell TarlyThis episode marks an important chapter in the sporadic but heart-warming development of Samwell Tarly. He successfully destroyed a White Walker back in season 3, but that always felt like a one off; he happened to have stumbled upon some dragonglass, kryptonite to White Walkers, and just took his chances.

In this episode, he gains some understanding of what love is from Jon, and what duty is from Aemon, then puts those things together: rather than a covert makeout session with Gilly, Samwell throws himself into a battle he (reasonably) thinks is lost, out of duty to his brothers. He actually proves quite effective on the battlefield, bringing the best out of Pyp (“Oh, is it over?”, as Pyp celebrated his first kill, was brilliantly done), and even managing to ice Thenn Warg with a crossbow. If you have a heart, you root for Samwell.

Individual BattlesThe Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Ser Alliser Thorne, does something honorable for once and seeks out the seemingly unstoppable Tormund Giantsbane in single combat. He loses and is wounded, though his brothers cart him to safety.

At the gate, six brothers are sent down by Jon to stop the giant who is threatening to break through and maraude his way around Castle Black. They succeed, at the cost of their own lives. In a technique that dates back all the way back to Ancient Greek tragedy, we see the men before they fight the giant, and after, but not during. They prepare by reciting the Night’s Watch oath in a humbling and powerful scene which reminds us of the fundamental iniquities in Westeros: the oath is terrible, stressing the loneliness and absence of a life in the Watch, but it binds the men together, almost as another religion; often, the ethos of institutions matters less than their ability to bind people together.

JonThen, of course, there is Jon Snow. After Janos Slynt is tricked into leaving the top of the wall, Jon is firmly and ably in command. He ventures down and leads by example, beating the previously unstoppable Giantsbane, and then beating him again by refusing to let him go out swinging– the decision comes naturally to the born-to-lead Jon, to whom Sun Tzu’s mantra “Know your enemy” is second nature.

His last venture north of the wall was much more eventful than it was successful, and nearly resulted in him abandoning his post on the Watch. The death of Ygritte is proof positive that love cannot conquer all, and it's one of the many parts of this episode that matures Jon. He emerges from the battle with the world-weary eyes and deliberate gait of a true commander. Somehow, we think his “poor plan” to save the wall will work.