Game Of Thrones – “Two Swords”
I have to wonder if the unmoored feeling some Game Of Thrones viewers had this year has anything to do with the season’s ever-fluid status quo. Arya sets sail for Braavos, looking for all the world that she’s going to pull a “I’m the king of the world”—not that that portending positive things for Leonardo DiCaprio.
For starters, author George R.R. Martin has planned seven books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, on which Game of Thrones is based, but the sixth and seventh books are not yet complete. The books could end up being very long and too difficult to adapt into one season each. Also, since it is known that Season 4 will only cover the second part of the third book, does that mean that Season 5 will combine the fourth and fifth books? Those books cover the same period of time, just with different characters, which is why it might make sense to put them together.
Joffrey uses his dying moments to implicate Tyrion. While he does have more than sufficient cause to kill his nephew, clues throughout the episode suggest that there’s more at play than the hatred amongst Lannisters. The most readily apparent is Ser Dontos, Joffrey’s fool who appeared last episode after almost two seasons off the map and gave Sansa the necklace she wore to the wedding. He also appears at Sansa’s side as the king begins to die, saying, “Come with me if you want to live.”
Why the show changed the scene and whether Martin's books havetheir own disturbing attitudes toward sex and violence arequestions for another time. Perhaps the show's critics downplay thepotential coerciveness of the book scene and exaggerate that of theTV version. But they also reveal more than they realize about theirown tacit understanding that when it comes to something as complexas human sexual behavior, gray areas are very real—in fiction andin fact.
But wait! Now that Tyrion is an actual murderer instead of just a wrongly accused/convicted one, why not go all in? He grabs Joffrey’s crossbow and finds Tywin on the chamber pot, where the older man coolly informs his son that Shae was nothing more than a whore. He suggests they go discuss the matter elsewhere; after all, The Hand claims, he was never really going to let one of his own sons march to a certain death. “I’d never let Illyn Payne take your head. You’re a Lannister. You’re my son,” the slick manipulator says. But the older man accidentally calls Shae a whore again – which Tyrion has made clear is a no-no – and gets an arrow shot into his chest for it.