Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and you are cordially invited to the wedding of Joffrey Baratheon
and Margaery Tyrell.
So what I wanted to do for this week’s bonus video was dive deep into the Purple Wedding
itself, what’s going on around it, catch up with all the running plot threads and some
important things that are going on off to the side of this epic party they’re throwing.
My video tonight will be my regular episode review, if you’re finding me for the first
time be sure to subscribe to get it.
Every week I do episode videos as well as a couple bonus videos and a weekly giveaway.
So just to avoid mega spoilers for people who haven’t read the books, please be nice
in the comments until after the episode airs.
Let’s get going.
There’s so much to talk about including the production itself, the actual wedding
and banquet and all the side stories happening around it.
I’m going to start with some context, WTF is it called the purple wedding if it was
never called that in the books.
The answer is because of the show and the Red Wedding last year.
The color purple was chosen because of the color of the macguffin.
Which I will not utter here.
Essentially there’s this small thing that goes overlooked and ends up being really important.
And it just happens to be purple.
The term is never used in the books, but because the Red Wedding episode last year became so
popular, colored weddings became a thing.
Almost like any new marriage in a song of ice and fire is doomed.
So if you ever found yourself in Westeros, just avoid marriage all together.
It hasn’t worked out for any of the main characters so far.
Just ask Sansa how happy she is being married to Tyrion.
Now we know why it’s called the purple wedding, but there’s so much more going on besides
the wedding and the banquet.
It’s easy to get distracted with all the shinyness in the trailers.
As epic is the wedding is, remember it almost didn’t happen.
One of the biggest threats against the crown in the last few seasons has been bankruptcy.
Remember Littlefinger revealed to Catelyn that he had gone to Great Gatsby lengths to
destabilize the crown using debt so that chaos would erupt and he might be able to be with
her.
Freaking crazy, I know right.
If you didn’t think he was nuts before all the Sansa creeping and brothel scenes, the
Chaos Is A Ladder speech really sealed the door on him.
Even Varys was a little disgusted by him.
And he was keeping someone locked in a box.
So for all intents and purposes.
The Crown or the Monarchy is broke.
The Baratheons might still have some money, but Stannis pretty much burnt it all when
all those ships blew up in the Battle of Blackwater.
And even he was borrowing them on credit.
We haven’t seen him yet, but Mark Gatiss is playing a character from the Iron Bank
of Braavos.
I can only imagine what they’ll do if they don’t get their money.
Ever since Tywin has been in power though, the crown has borrowed money from the Lannisters.
At a pretty stiff interest rate and the rich get richer.
Once Joffrey took the throne he forgave all that debt.
But they still owe millions of gold coins to the Iron Bank.
So not only is the Iron Bank going to come for Stannis eventually, it will come for King’s
Landing.
Or it’s possible that they could turn around and fund their enemies, which really is just
Danaerys.
That’s really one big way to win a war.
Cut off your enemies supply of money and fund their enemies.
This is why we saw that scene between Tywin and The Queen of Thorns last season where
they haggled over who would pay for Joffrey and Margaerys wedding.
Because the crown itself could not.
Think about the war of the five kings this way now.
Anyone who becomes king next, will inherit all that debt.
So ask yourself, how bad do you really want the Iron Throne.
Now that we understand the shitstorm of debt and the Iron Bank brewing around King’s
Landing, let’s talk about them shooting the actual episode itself.
The way the actors talked about it made it seem like it was designed to be the most epic
wedding in the history of Westeros.
I can’t imagine all the Targaryen’s went too crazy with their weddings since they were
sisterwiving so much.
So that’s why in all the clips we’ve seen, the wedding itself looks really garish.
Like putting gold rims on an old car when you don’t have any money.
Charles Dance actually said that the wedding and the banquet felt like a short film because
the production was so elaborate.
They ended up having more extras and people on set those days than any episode since the
premiere.
I think the season 1 premiere is still technically the largest episode in terms of characters
on screen.
But if you look at these behind the scenes pictures.
You can almost see every single character associated with King’s Landing, every character
that has appeared on screen in King’s Landing.
That’s a lot of people.
So one of the things I’m most looking forward to is just how crazy everything looks with
all the people, the huge sets and props.
Game Of Thrones has some of the best sets and costumes.
Just look at the amount of detail that went into Jaime’s golden hand.
I loved when they just casually dismissed it, as if Cersei just found it in a dime store
in Fleabottom.
But now let’s talk about Sansa.
Surprisingly, in all this, she has a real reason to be happy.
It’s implied, or she thinks it’s implied that once Joffrey marries Margaery, his attention
span for torturing her will just fade away.
And he’ll just start devoting himself to being horrible to Margaery.
During her wedding to Tyrion last year he did kind of say he’d never be completely
“done” tormenting her.
But if it’s so easy for Tyrion to make him froth at the mouth, I think Margaery would
be able to handle him.
Last week in the premiere we also got to see a really nice scene with The Queen
of Thorns.
She’s so formidable, I think of her as a female Tywin.
They are pretty evenly matched.
And she has been learning all about Joffrey’s true nature.
So just because Margaery is willing to jump into bed with the monster, doesn’t mean
her family isn’t taking steps to protect her.
That being said, I think the people I’ll be watching most closely during the episode
are Joffrey and Margaery of course.
Sansa and Tyrion and The Queen of Thorns.
There’s so many more crazy things that will happen in the episode and at the wedding it’s
really hard to just pick a few characters to follow.
Bran is going to have few new scenes on his journey to find the three eyed raven beyond
the wall.
I’m really interested to see how those scenes work against the wedding scenes.
All that being said, let me know what you’re
looking forward to most.
The wedding itself, Bran’s scenes.
Or do you think there will be some surprise Stannis moments.
Like I said, I’ll dive way deeper into specific moments in my episode review and explain a
lot more about the purple macguffin.
And remember, round 2 of the giveaway starts as soon as I post that video.
All you have to do is be a subscriber and leave a comment.
You can click here for that video.
I’ll add the annotation when I post it tonight.
And click here for last week’s episode.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight.
High Fives!