Hello my Beautiful Watchers and welcome back to a Dom of Ice and Fire, a comparison of
the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones to A Game of Thrones by George double R Martin.
This is Episode 9, Baelor.
Spoilers are coming. Fire and spoilers. Hear me Spoiler, Ours is the spoiler. Family Duty
Spoilers. If you’re not up to date with all books and seasons of the show and still
choose to watch this loose lipped review you have no one to blame but yourself. Let's do
this.
Varys talking Ned into accepting Cersei’s offer to let him join the Night's Watch in
exchange for making a false confession of treason and pretending that Joffrey is the
true heir to the Iron Throne by reminding him that they have Sansa hostage and have
no compelling reason not to kill her.
Robb and his newly formed army arriving at the Twins, a pair of keeps and a bridge that
cross the Trident River, ancestral home of House Frey, technically sworn bannerman to
the Tullys but currently headed by an elderly, grumpy, lecherous and historically very unreliable
Lord named Walder.
Fuck you Catelyn Stark getting sent to negotiate as it's the only way south that will allow
them to sneak around Tywin Lannister's army, and they can’t storm the castles before
the lions get to them.
The old geezer being bitter that he’s never been taken seriously by the other houses,
ignoring the fact that he’s never earned any respect from them through his behaviour.
Fuck you Catelyn Stark being able to get good results, full use of the bridge and the Frey
army, but at a high price. Robb taking a Frey as his squire, and Arya AND Robb marrying
Freys in the future.
Robb agreeing though very grumpily.
Lord Commander Mormont giving Jon Snow his family’s Valyrian steel hand and a half
sword called Long Claw in gratitude for him saving his life. Explaining that the original
bear themed handle had burned away in the fire so he’d had a white dire wolf pommel
installed.
Him also mentioning he’d sent Ser Alliser away to Kings Landing with the still twitching
dismembered wight’s hand to prove to them that the undead threat was real and to get
him away from Jon and Castle Black for a bit while the attempted stabbing blew over.
Sam, now in charge of looking after Maester Aemon’s ravens, sneaking Jon info about
Robb going to war.
Maester Aemon getting it out of Sam that Jon knows, and having a heart to heart with him
about staying in the watch. Revealing that he’s a Targaryen so he understands the temptation,
seeing as he had to live through the destruction of his house.
It’s also true that he never actually tries to talk Jon out of leaving, just explains
to him that his decision, whatever he chooses to do, will haunt him forever.
Random piece of trivia that Calluna noticed and pointed out to me, in this scene where
Jon converses with one of the last Targaryens in the world, Martin goes out of his way to
say that Snow’s left hand ends up covered in blood from the meat that he’s feeding
to the ravens, and his right is badly burned from the fire the night before. Fire on one
hand… Blood on the other.
If you like foreshadowing and symbolism like that she did this whole thing on the Starks
and the Seven Gods and a breakdown of book Dany’s experience in the House of the Undying.
I highly recommend watching both.
Khal Drogo, overcome with infection from his wound, falling off his horse mid-ride.
Dany, desperate to save him despite being told by everyone that he is as good as dead,
doubling down on her faith that Mirri Maz Duur would follow her oath to heal the sick
even if they are her tormentors.
Jorah advising they cheese it and head for the nearest port, explaining that the Dothraki
care more about strength than the line of succession so when Drogo dies her son will
be killed by the next potential Khal.
Daenerys rejecting this out of a love for Drogo and emploring Mirri Maz Duur to do anything
it takes, even dark magic to bring him back to her.
Mirri using Drogo's horse as a blood sacrifice and starting some crazy dark shit in the tent,
causing a brief fight outside as some of the Khalasar try to stop it and clash with people
loyal to Daenerys.
Tywin Lannister deciding that his son Tyrion should fight in the front lines in the coming
battle.
The tactics of the battle and Tyrion’s part in it were a bit more complicated in the book,
involving fake routes and flanking maneuvers. I’ll talk more about it in a second, the
show limiting itself to saying he’ll be in the vanguard is close enough though, probably
taking into account that not everyone is as into talking about battle tactics for hours
on end as nerds like me are.
Ok so Shae…. Shae…. Shae Shae Shae…… Hmm… Umm… Errr…. awww...ahhh...Ok No
I can’t do it, I’m sorry, my current format of episode by episode reviews is just not
going to work for Shae. She’s going to be one of the first people who gets a whole episode
to herself as soon as I’m done with Season One.
For now? It’s plot accurate that Tyrion sent Bronn to find him an attractive whore
from the camp followers and he took her from a minor knight that she was already working
for. They seemed to hit it off, she having no issues with his stature, and they spend
the night together before the battle.
Tywin winning the battle but getting word right after that he’s been bamboozled by
Robb, who snuck around behind him and ambushed Jamie’s second Lannister army that was besieging
Riverrun, taking the Kingslayer hostage.
Again, there were more tactical breakdowns in the book. Jamie was lured away from his
main force by the Blackfish, who predicted that Jamie would be bored and impatient with
overseeing a slow siege so pretended to be a leftover Tully raiding party that he could
ride after and destroy, leading him right into Robb’s ambush in the Whispering Wood.
But again, in my opinion it's close enough. I’m not going to gripe over the lack of
clunky exposition it would take to make it clear that’s what happened here.
Arya, post escape from the Red Keep living on the streets of King’s Landing eating
pigeons to survive. Failing to negotiate food from a vendor and getting word that her father
is being brought out for public trial.
Her watching Ned make his entirely fictitious confession from the shadow of a statue of
Baelor the Blessed.
Joffrey going back on the deal made with Eddard and… and….. having him beheaded by Ilyn
Payne with his own Valyrian steel greatsword Ice.
Arya making a move to save her dad but getting grabbed by the Night’s Watch recruiter Yoren.
Aghhh! No! No! No! No! NO! It’s still not ok!
Ahem, Varys only made one visit to Ned in the book, but the chapter breaks didn't quite
mesh up with the episode breaks this time around so they had him coming back later to
finish off their conversation.
As mentioned in episodes past, Tyrion's story about his first wife was originally confided
to Bronn on the high road. The version he tells to Shae is mostly accurate aside from
the omission that Tywin, after forcing the girl to sleep with all of his guards, forced
Tyrion to rape her as well and paid her with a gold coin for it because Lannisters are
worth more.
This is doubly dark when Tyrion finds out the “real” real truth of the matter a
few books later.
A large and mostly uncommented on change between the book and the show is the army that Robb
fielded against Tywin. In the show it's a paltry 2000 men. A decoy army sent on a suicide
mission to allow the rest of the army to get around him and ultimately not a huge loss
for the north.
In the book it was no such pawn sacrifice. Robb assigned a huge percentage of his army,
almost all of his foot soldiers, to the command of Lord Bolton with orders to stop Tywin from
getting north enough to endanger Winterfell.
Heeding fuck you Catelyn Stark's admittedly pretty good advice, he chose Bolton specifically
because he was known for being a cautious commander.
Roose entered battle, presumably because he thought he might be able to catch Tywin off
guard by sneaking up on him overnight. This proved incorrect but he didn’t fall for
a deadly trap that Tywin set up involving an intentionally weak left flank which meant
he could retreat with most of his army intact when he realised he was going to lose the
battle.
In the show’s version of events it seems at first glance super clever that Robb sacrificed
a small part of his force to destroy a huge part of the Lannisters’, but if you understand
the geography of Westeros, you realise that the north is now basically undefended because
its entire army is now south of the enemy in the Riverlands.
One has to assume that Robb left a garrison at Moat Cailin but that wouldn’t be enough
to hold Tywin forever. Tywin doesn't take advantage of this opening by sending raiding
parties into the north that Robb has to deal with because… it would be inconvenient for
the showrunners I guess.
Even though he was aware of how much more there was to do, book Robb did not make a
gloomy speech to his men about how little they’d actually achieved right after the
battle presumably because he knew better than his show counterpart that it would be a dick
move to demoralise his men just after they finally had something to celebrate.
Several other Dothraki were involved in the fight outside Drogo's tent in the book as
Drogo's bloodriders clashed with Mormont and the bodyguards sworn to Dany. One actually
gets a knife to Danny's throat but is killed with an arrow before he can use it.
In the show Qotho died due to an apparent lack of understanding of armor, whereas originally
Jorah took the arak in his leg and it got stick in his hip bone, allowing for his fatal
counter attack.
It's a very minor thing but it was Jon, not Mormont who suggested keeping the name Longclaw
in the book, seeing as wolves had claws as well as bears.
I think it’s another tiny example of the show stripping away Jon’s agency wherever
possible in the first season.
It looks like they might have edited the Targaryen family tree slightly, skipping a generation
and making Aemon the mad king's uncle instead of his great uncle. I can’t really think
of a reason why aside from simplicity I guess? Due to all the incest and them repeating the
same 7 names over and over again deciphering the lineage of House Targaryen makes the eyes
water just a bit.
Because we’re denied Dany’s internal monologue in the show you don’t necessarily know just
how badly she did NOT want to be taken into the tent but was in far too much pain to tell
Jorah.
I think she probably knew on some level that it would spell doom for her son.
There's nothing in the book to suggest that Ned saw Arya in the crowd and directed Yoren
to her, besides the fact that the old crow, despite hardly knowing her was the only person
who ever recognised her while she was dressed in her sword practice tunic and covered in
filth.
There's nothing that definitively proves it DIDN’T happen though so I guess we should
put this in the maybe pile.
Another part of the deal that Catelyn negotiated with Walder Frey was that two of his descendants
would be fostered at Winterfell. They were both also called Walder and feature more in
the next book though ultimately have no great effect on the plot which explains their total
omission.
Podrick Payne was supposed to make his debut in this part of the story, held off until
Season 2. In case you were wondering, yes in the book it is confirmed that he is related
to Ilyn Payne the King's Justice.
Sir Gregor Clegane, the Mountain that rides was in command of the Lannister forces that
fought alongside Tyrion’s clansmen in the book.
Arya went to the docks in the book and noticed that the ship that Eddard had hired to take
her back to the north was still there. There were men in grey guarding it but fortunately
Arya remembered Syrio’s advice about seeing what’s really there, not what she wanted
to see, and realised they were a Lannister trap.
Charles Dance’s Tywin is saved from some humiliation that book Tywin suffered due to
him proclaiming that Robb Stark would be easy to defeat because he would be brave but inexperienced…
Right before he finds out that he’s been outfoxed by him strategically.
One of the most disappointing parts of the episode is when the showrunners pulled a Tolkien
on us and knocked out the POV character just before a battle and had him come to just after
it was over.
This is mean to the audience AND to Tyrion as he actually fought pretty well in the battle.
Killing several foot soldiers and capturing a knight.
Heck, he kills an enemy horse by stabbing his spiked helm into it like he’s a freaking
narwhal.
The battle of the Whispering Woods on the other hand is told from fuck you Catelyn Stark’s
sideline perspective so it also technically happens off screen in the book saving it from
this section.
Left out of the show completely was Robb's only female bodyguard who rode with him into
battle: Dacey Mormont, yeah the Mormonts are fucking everywhere in this story.
In relation to the known Mormont’s she's niece, cousin, older sister.
She’d apparently been training with a morningstar since childhood and was mad sick with it.
Some of the menfolk objected to her fighting but fuck you Catelyn Stark overruled them
on the grounds that her son’s safety was more important than their fragile egos.
Huh. I’ve been saying quite a few nice things about fuck you Catelyn Stark this episode.
Don’t worry, I’ll be back to hating her soon.
In case you were wondering, Dacey was unfortunately a guest at Edmure’s wedding.
The Dom’s Final Thoughts:
The universal limitations of a TV show compared to a book when it comes to things like battles
becomes super obvious in this episode.
I know I’m stating the bloody obvious here but it doesn’t cost George R mother fucking
R Martin a blessed penny to write about tens of thousands of armed men clashing in the
field but that takes SO much moolah to make happen in live action, even with the help
of modern computer generated imagery.
Blockbuster Hollywood films can sometimes pull it off it they’re willing to devote
an ungodly amount of their ungodly budget to it but a TV show? Forget about it.
Aside from that this is still satisfyingly…. And at times heartbreakingly... book accurate.
Everyone is still making their way along their G to the RR Martin created character arcs.
Sigh... Looking back at season one now is almost melancholy after seeing the show and
books diverging so far apart in later seasons, and do not even get me started on all the
post book stuff.
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