Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.
Nothing at The Wall this time, so from the top:
Winterfell: Bran has another dream of the three-eyed raven which we saw in the previous episode. Obviously this means something, but it’s not at all clear what yet. Awake, his special saddle is ready and he can ride a horse again, with his crippled legs strapped in. He goes riding with his brother, whose name I finally catch, Robb Stark, and a squire who isn’t related to them. (I’d thought before that this squire was the other Stark brother whose name I don’t know yet, but apparently not, because there is a specific conversation here where Robb says the other guy is from a different family.) Bran rides off while Robb and the squire have a petty argument about Robb taking charge and getting justice against the Lannisters for trying to kill Bran.
A group of four scruffy itinerants surrounds Bran and demands his silver pin and the horse, cutting his leg (which Bran doesn’t feel because of his paralysis). Robb appears and kills two with his sword, but enters a standoff with one remaining one holding Bran with a dagger to his throat. Robb drops his sword, and the squire shoots an arrow into the ruffian’s back, triggering another argument with Robb saying he could have killed Bran. The remaining female ruffian begs for mercy and says she will be in Robb’s service; he lets her live.
The Eyrie: Tyrion manages to make the thick-headed prison guard understand that he’ll pay him gold to take him to confess his crimes to Lysa and Cat. Tyrion plays this up, confessing to various vulgar pranks from the age of 7. When Lysa loses patience and demands he confess to plotting to kill Bran, Tyrion pleads ignorance. She is about to have him tossed through a hole in the floor, which opens to reveal the room must be overhanging a high cliff, when Tyrion demands trial by combat. There are several eager champions against him, but Tyrion demands a champion of his own since he is a dwarf, and names his brother Jaime. WHen this is laughed off, another man offers to be Tyrion’s champion – I don’t know who this man is, but I think it might be Tyrion’s servant or something like that. He certainly seems to know Tyrion. Anyway, they fight and Tyrion’s champion wounds, then kills the other champion, and pushes him down the hole. Lysa’s son seems simple-minded and maladjusted, and cheers the horrible death and demands to see more. Apparently bound by the laws of trial by combat, Lysa and Cat let Tyrion go. Tyrion reclaims his gold purse, and tosses it to the guard, stating “A Lannister always repays his debts.”
King’s Landing: Ned wakes up in a bed, with King Robert and Queen Cersei present. Ned wants justice against Jaime Lannister – who has fled King’s Landing – and also Tyrion. Cersei supports her brothers and sees things differently. Robert gets mad and slaps Cersei, then dismisses her, and she slinks off, looking in a dangerous mood. Robert orders Ned to (a) settle things peacefully with the Lannisters, because the kingdoms can’t afford a war, (b) take back the post of Hand of the King, and (c) no arguing on either. Ned fumes internally, but accedes.
Arya has another training session with Syrio, her swordmaster. She’s upset about Bran and her dad being hurt and doesn’t want to fight, but Syrio says you need to be able to fight when upset, and they spar with wooden swords.
Joffrey meanwhile visits Sansa and offers her a necklace, and words of reconciliation and promise that he’ll treat her well in the future and that they will be married and she will be queen. Sansa is too starry eyed to realise Joffrey is just a git and almost certainly lying through his teeth.
While Robert goes out hunting. Ned sits on the throne made of swords – the first time I can recall seeing anyone actually sit on the throne – and hears petitions from the people. A villager describes an attack by bandits, who destroyed his village and left a bag of fish. Ned’s advisors point out fish are the symbol of House Tully, Ned’s wife’s house. However the villager describes one of the attackers as a huge man, a foot taller than anyone he’s ever seen, and immediately Ned knows it is “The Mountain”, Sir Gregor Clegane, that must have set up things falsely implicate House Tully. Ned orders a knight to take a hundred men, attack Gregor’s castle, and bring him in to face justice, stripping him of his title and declaring him persona non grata. The advisors say this is a… bold move. Ned looks like he’s taking the gloves off now.
And later we see Ned opening that book of the histories of the Houses that he found earlier. He reads the line of House Baratheon, in which everyone has black hair, down to King Robert. The final entry is Prince Joffrey… golden haired. You can see the gears working in Ned’s mind as he thinks Joffrey might not be Robert’s son…
The Dothraki settlement, Vaes Dothrak: A lot of good stuff here this time! Daenerys ponders the dragon eggs, and gets a sudden urge to stick one into a hot brazier full of coals. After a while, she picks up the egg, and a handmaiden rushes over in fear and takes the egg off her, burning her hands in the process, but Daenerys’s hands are fine. Sticking a dragon egg in fire, by the way? Perfect for hatching the thing.
There is a ritual in which Daenerys needs to eat an entire horse’s heart, raw and bloody. She almost gags, but succeeds, to the cheers of the Dothraki. She declares she is carrying Drogo’s son, who will be a prince of the Dothraki. Viserys sulks off and tries to steal the three dragon eggs from Daenerys’s tent to go buy a ship and a huge army, but Jorah Mormont stops him and says Viserys can leave, but the eggs stay. Viserys, like the coward he is, leaves the eggs and storms off.
Later, there is a feast. Viserys enters and draws his sword, knowing the Dothraki consider their city sacred and will not shed blood in it. He pokes his sister in the stomach with the sword and threatens to kill her unless he gets the golden crown that he was promised in exchange for letting Drogo marry her. Drogo, via an interpreter, says Viserys can have his crown, a fabulous golden crown that will leave everyone in awe. Viserys says, well good then, that’s all he wanted, and lowers his sword. The Dothraki jump and grab him. Drogo throws a bunch of gold into a cauldron over the fire, melting it, then tips the molten gold over Viserys’s head…
He falls to the ground dead. Daenerys says he wasn’t really a dragon – the symbol of House Targaryen. Because dragons aren’t hurt by fire…
And if that isn’t an ending full of significance, I don’t know what is. I’m glad my prediction that Viserys wouldn’t last long has come to pass. He was so annoying.