Oliver Davis reviews the ninth episode of Game of Thrones Season Three (spoilers ahoy)….
The Rains of Castamere.
Directed by David Nutter.
Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
It’s number nine time, historically the most significant episode in each series so far. Season one had Ned’s execution. Season two staged the Battle of Blackwater Bay. In season three, it’s a nice day for a Red Wedding…
Bran
…but episode nine is newsworthy in more than just it’s main event. There was an unprecedented amount of “Hodors” uttered. 18 according to the Hodometer. He doesn’t much like thunder, and a storm raged over the abandoned castle where Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) and company hid.
Problem was, a bunch of wildlings were stalking around outside (more on them in a moment). To keep Hodor (Kristian Nairn) quiet, Bran took his warg skillz to the next level – inhabiting a human mind. A Hodor-human mind, maybe, but a non-direwolf one nonetheless.
Thing is, as Jojen (Thomas Brodie Sangster) so cheerfully pointed out, no warg has ever been able to use their abilities on a human. It’s too complex. They stick to wolves and birds and the like. Bran’s importance is slowly being revealed, and his character allowed to develop beyond spoiled, rich-kid cripple.
Jon
…standing outside the castle that sheltered Bran, those aforementioned wildlings included his half-brother, Jon ‘Knows Nothing’ Snow (Kit Harington). The episode is centred around such near misses, with various members of the Stark family coming so close to being reunited.
With Orell (Mackenzie Crook) still believing him a traitor, Jon is forced to execute an old man the wildlings had chased down. The echoes are subtle, yet Ned Stark’s ghost still haunts this scene. Remember years ago, back in the show’s very first episode, when Eddard beheaded a deserter from the Night’s Watch captured on his land? He told his boys that an honourable man delivers the sentences he declares. Here, Jon, a deserter from the Night’s Watch himself, holds a naked blade against another captive’s neck. Perhaps those echoes were enough to make Jon blow his cover. He refuses and rides off into the night, presumably to Castle Black, to warn what’s left of the Night’s Watch of the impending attack from wildlings.
He left Ygritte (Rose Leslie), his love, behind. You know what they say in Westeros: ‘crows before hoes’.
Arya
…Arya (Maisie Williams) is about to be traded back to her mother and older brother. That’s right – it’s Stark Near-Reunion No.2!
The trader is the Hound, Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann), who stole Arya from the Brotherhood a few episodes back. It’s not quite a buddy-com road trip, but there is an uneasy, underlying friendship brewing between the two. Arya might have threatened to stab Sandor through his skull, but he did keep her sister, Sansa, alive.
It seems Arya can have great scenes with anyone. Her duologues with Tywin Lannister in season two were last year’s highlights. In her latest exchange with the Hound, they talk fear – his of fire, hers of nothing. Oh, but she is afraid of something, Sandor points out. He saw it, the day Ser Ilyn Payne cut off her father’s head on the steps of Baelor’s Sept exactly two seasons ago. There’s Ned again, looming over ever other scene.
Their relationship develops further throughout the episode to the point where, at its climax, Sandor rescues Arya even though she’s no longer of value to him. He’ll make a habit of that, saving Stark girls.
Robb
…the reason Arya isn’t worth much anymore is because there’s nobody to pay her ransom. In bloodshed and shock not seen since the emotional blow of Ned’s beheading back in episode nine, Robb (Richard Madden), Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) and Talisa (Oona Chaplin), along with an army of Northmen, were slaughtered at the wedding of Edmure Tully (Tobias Menzies) to Walder Frey’s (David Bradley) daughter, Roslin. A lot to take in.
Those familiar with the books knew it was coming. For years we’ve had to smile and nod and keep out heartbreak to ourselves whenever someone got excited about the Starks beating the Lannisters, or how cool Robb was, or if Catelyn would ever get her kit off. Everyone’s in on the Red Wedding now…but it still doesn’t make it any less painful.
George R. R. Martin himself, the books’ author, left writing this chapter until A Storm of Swords was finished. He’d developed such strong bonds with his characters, he didn’t want to kill them. Martin once even joked he’ll “visit a country with no television when the episode goes on air”. A good idea. Perhaps without the distractions HE MIGHT ACTUALLY WRITE ANOTHER GOD DAMN BOOK.
It’s classic Martin, building up so much hope and expectation – Robb and Talisa’s baby (to be called Eddard after his grandfather), Edmure getting a pretty wife, joining forces with the Freys to humiliate the Lannisters at Casterly Rock – only to let Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton) slit the throat of optimism just a few scenes later.
Yet at the same time, it was all signposted. Bolton letting Jaime go free despite being a Stark bannerman, Catelyn constant warning of Walder’s pride, the Rains of Castamere being performed at the wedding*. Still, a pretty dick move on the Freys’ part.
The King in the North is dead. Long live King Joffrey!
Oliver Davis (@OliDavis)
*Flash Fact: one of the wedding band was Coldplay drummer Will Champion.
Originally published June 3, 2013. Updated November 28, 2022.
