Pathways of Communication in “Dark Wings, Dark Words”

by Tyler Davis

Much has been written about the creative choices showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have made when compressing, eliding or otherwise circumnavigating portions of Martin’s novels in order to successfully adapt them. I contend that the real difficulty of their task holds in the ill-defined, nebulous criteria we use to measure the show’s success in the first place, and what these criteria reveal about our expectations as viewers. Even so, it isn’t unreasonable to isolate touchstones the show should reach, including but not limited to an attempt at capturing Martin’s scope, maintaining broadly faithful character arcs, a commitment to superior production values and a promise to alter with purpose whenever alteration is necessary.

In my piece on the season three premiere, “Valar Dohaeris,” I argued that Thrones deeply honors its progenitor, A Song of Ice and Fire – thus arriving at these touchstones – despite claims that the series is (or was) “unadaptable.” Critical consensus mirrors this perspective, suggesting that even when Thrones deviates from its origins, it is effectively the best-filmed version of this material we could hope for.

Non-readers appreciate the gravity of this adaptation challenge in the abstract, but fans of AsoIaF, be they critic or commenter, occupy a privileged vantage point from which they can assess alterations through direct comparisons to the source material. When scenes are added, arcs rerouted, minor characters excised or delayed, ensuing discussions center on how these change contribute to or detract from achievements first made by Martin in prose. The presumption seems to be that the show is best measured against its literary originator, and not as an independent source of artistic value. This angle is understandably favored by many preexisting fans of the beloved novels, and this much is true: without Martin the show wouldn’t exist. But this line of thinking has a cost.

The book-centric lens presupposes that the ideal telling of the Westerosi story has been told, prompting the critical body to be less likely to assess the unique strengths of a filmed story and more likely to lament the losses incurred during translation. I’m inclined to fixate oppositely on how television provides a litany of new expressive modes for Martin’s tale to capitalize on. Some may argue that it is in the tension between source material and creative liberty that the show stumbles—that the show is at once too obligated to achieve fidelity (the roster of characters, locations, history, events) and too much in need of freedom from that obligation. A stark critic of the Starks might complain thusly: “Sure, The Wire was huge, but not this huge. It was written for television! Game of Thrones is an act of compensatory shoehorning; it’s too much novel to be good TV, and too little TV to be a good novel.” I’d reframe things: the show is only obligated to honor those ‘spirit-defining’ aspects of Martin’s novels which provide the show with a reason for existing (even when these aspects make it harder to create). This is another way of saying that what’s most important about adapting Martin’s story is capturing what sets it apart: not just the complication, but the richly interwoven world—not just the characters, but their modern moral complexities brushing away the dust of stagnant fantasy tropes. This is where the show succeeds.

While using the point of view chapter as a structuring apparatus allows Martin to freely navigate character headspaces, the show – outside of the rare dream sequence or mystical vision – sensibly eschews interior perspectives. This not only has implications for how Thrones must expose character details which would remain foreclosed to audiences, but also for how the show must organize itself from moment to moment. This is both a constraint and a source of liberation; while a given GoT scene must be far more economical than a chapter of Martin’s detailed writing, the objective distance allows the scene to function more broadly (as a window revealing a group of characters, as a thematic vehicle, as an instance of context setting, as a glimpse at Westerosi culture, and so on). Smaller roles feel weightier when they aren’t being so wholly colored by someone else’s perception, and even when they share screen time with more dominant performances. One might argue that this isn’t that dissimilar from minor characters being introduced within the point of view chapters that belong to more prominent characters, but because the show does not train its audience to anticipate interior (and thus privileged) perspectives, we’re less likely to interpret minor characters as essentially secondary. This flexibility results in such pleasures as entirely invented scenes shared between known characters (like Robert and Cersei in season one, or Cersei and Tommen in season two), or between known and invented characters (like Catelyn and Talisa in this week’s episode).

As in The Wire, the novelistic approach to filmed drama means that payoffs aren’t neatly scheduled—they ripen of their own accord. It also means that moments or even entire arcs that book readers are familiar with may play out in different ways when filmed (examples might include the Dany and Drogo wedding night scene in season one, or Arya’s escape from Harrenhal in season two). Game of Thrones isn’t an exercise in fan-service; it’s novelized television, which I’d like readers to understand as something quite distinct from a televised novel. The difference is in purpose, intent, and focus. The show is more show than book. Rather than lifting ink from the page and enlarging it for the screen, television’s unique demands and strengths – particularly in the context of a multithreaded narrative structure – should be met and catered to. Characters which quickly morph into vengeful badasses in the novels may take longer in getting there, or start their journey from a more visibly weak place, simply because what is most evocative differs when we’re not processing page after page of their internal dialogue and are instead viewing their story in weekly and yearly installments.

Externalized dialogue of a decidedly more conversational sort, however, is the show’s beating heart. I explained elsewhere how Thrones – like its source novels – resists reductive thematic summation. What themes exist are the emergent confluences of character choices taken in context, and aren’t the byproducts of authorial commentary. These thematic currents are coherent not because characters are written to embody abstracted ideas, but because many-dimensioned characters operate authentically in the world of Westeros—a world where often overwhelming forces (social, cultural, familial, economic, military, supernatural) affect the strong and weak alike, and in so doing establish patterns in the narrative flow. The game of thrones is more than a descriptive reference to the war for the Iron Throne being waged by those who lay claim to it—it’s also a reference to the fact that survival through the acquisition or refusal of power, in all its manifestations, is something each character must face. When characters face up to their reality, they feed a blistering hot theme crucible; Thrones themes are forged with the blood and sweat of Westerosi personalities.

Where “Valar Dohaeris” provided an extended meditation on how freedom from, recluctant participation in, eager conquest of, or duty toward power formed a central axis around which these characters circled, “Dark Wings, Dark Words” is an exploration of the ways in which power can be shored up, dispersed, denied or claimed by those who usually lack physical means: communication, conversation, translation…language as a tool, language as a shield, language as a source of information, language as power. It’s also a uniquely female-centric episode, and there may be an underlying connection to be made between these two points. While some of the show’s most brilliant warriors are women, it is also the case that words are the only tool available to many Westerosi females who don’t rely on their bodies in other ways.

The episode’s focus on the potency of language is evident down to its connective tissue, where even scene transitions involve characters referencing others leagues away. When grim tidings from Winterfell and Riverrun reach Catelyn and Robb by way of ravens – the Westerosi equivalent of postal workers – Robb asks that the eerily calm Roose Bolton let him guess “which one is the good news.” As the episode title suggests, Robb’s is a miserable presumption. The King in the North exists in a world where information moves at the speed of winged flight, and this makes it all the more valuable. (As a brief aside: note Robb’s later conversation with Karstark—someone increasingly embittered by the war effort, and progressively more impatient for revenge. As Robb challenges his bannerman over an evident lack of faith, Karstark asks if he might openly speak his mind. Again, speech—the vocal encoding of information—is being framed as a source of power. Dark truths spoken and made real threaten to sabotage the Young Wolf’s momentum.)

After she’s informed that both Rickon and Bran may be dead, Catelyn asks Robb if he has heard demands from Theon. Cut to: Theon Greyjoy being tortured mercilessly by unknown men. Theon’s cries here – “WHERE AM I? WHO ARE YOU?” – and his pleas in a later scene set in the same torture chamber introduce a counterpoint to the conversational fluidity we’ll see elsewhere in the episode. Theon’s actions have led him to this deplorable state in which mysterious assailants demand the truth of him. He provides them with the truth, but their assault continues unabated. “I’ll tell you what you want!” As Theon proceeds to offer up every shade of truth he recognizes, we’re overwhelmed by his fear. Furthermore, until a servant boy comes to him with promise of escape (courtesy of Theon’s sister, Yara), we cannot help but note how Theon’s words fall on deaf ears. The lost Greyjoy is chanting at the void—his words give him no safety. We’re reminded of the season two scene in which he deliberately makes the decision to remove himself from his trusted network of allies, burning a letter he had written to Robb in anticipation of warning against Balon Greyjoy’s plans. The destruction of the written word represented an irrevocable moment of severance in Theon’s psychological continuity, and a final break in his communication with Robb. Where it was once the case that a piece of parchment would have saved him from this fate, Theon’s words are now impotent.

When we return to Catelyn, she reveals a deeply personal story to Talisa, recounting how she once prayed for a young Jon Snow’s death only to then beg the gods to heal him in exchange for her promise of acceptance and love. Catelyn speaks with higher powers in order to better navigate the world. Alas, her promise was one she could never keep – she could never bring herself to love the pitiful bastard boy, the living wound—an ever-bleeding reminder of her husband’s infidelity – and she now interprets all that has befallen her family as a karmic reaping of what she sowed when failing to honor said promise. This scene’s words are more monologue than conversation; Talisa immediately detects the sobriety in Catelyn’s voice, offering complete attention. We’re given many shots of Talisa simply listening; here the editor reminds us that she is there, quietly participating, absorbing what she can, and this conversational dissimilarity serves to reinforce the power differential between the two women – Talisa, free, is dedicated to winning the imprisoned Catelyn’s favor, but is also sincerely moved by Cat’s story. As Catelyn speaks of Jon, the motherless child, we cut to: Jon, Mance, and other wildlings ranging north of the Wall.

The brief scene in which Mance explains how he unified the various northern clans provides a remarkable lesson in communicative efficacy. Mance informs Jon that “they speak seven different languages ” in his army and that he “told them they were all going to die” if they don’t get south, because “that’s the truth.” Words, then, have the capacity to quite literally reshape the sociopolitical reality of an entire geographic region, and it took only a dedicated, truthful man to unite an entire free people in a common endeavor.

This educational moment is quickly supplanted by a more surprising one, as we’re introduced to Orell—a warg. Presumably given this supernatural gift by way of luck at birth, Orell can quite literally introduce his consciousness into the minds of animals, controlling their bodies in order to gather information or perform special feats from afar. In Orell we see an example of someone communing with nature (not the gods, not an army) in order to garner power, but this gift comes at a price: a temporary detachment from the world of other men, eyes rolled back in the skull, voice gone mute. Local communication ceases when the soul wanders. And what does Orell see, his eagle soaring overhead? “Dead crows.” Cut to: the remaining members of the Night’s Watch struggling southward.

Sam and the other dying crows appear in a seemingly unremarkable scene which serves to remind us that they’re continuing desperately toward the Wall, but I’d like to touch on it for a few reasons. First, I find Dolorous Edd’s honesty hilariously refreshing: “Ay, we left you. You’re fat, you’re slow. We didn’t want to die.” Communicative honesty in friendship, if ever there was such a thing. More importantly, I was impressed with Commander Mormont’s order: “Tarly, I forbid you to die. Do you hear me?” Sam actually responds to this demand to be heard, having collapsed in the snow (suffering more under the weight of a broken will than an unprepared body), and carries on. In this moment I believe the show is making something of a statement about the power of command, especially as it influences the hearts of people like Sam. If Mance is able to stitch together a quilt of many colors by exposing the threat of a more permanent cold, Mormont is able to mend a broken will with his simple refusal to permit any other option.

Still to the north, Bran’s story presents a neat parallel to Orell’s introduction. The appearance of the Reed siblings, Jojen and Meera, finally provides Bran’s unique gift with explanatory voice. “You can get inside his head. See through his eyes.” Like Orell, Bran is a Warg. Bran’s gift is one of forecast and transference, but thus far the gift manifests in dreams alone. This necessitates an increasing isolation if he is to master it; one cannot speak and slumber simultaneously. Or can they? When Bran dreams of the three-eyed raven and Jojen appears beside it, one might think that Bran is merely foretelling Jojen’s arrival. When Jojen later makes a corporeal appearance and expresses knowledge of the raven, Bran asks “You’ve seen it?” to which Jojen replies “We saw it together. You haven’t forgotten?” For her part, Osha has no interest in hearing more about Bran’s dreams—they’re frightening. And so Jojen adopts the role of destined spiritual guide. Though he is perhaps the most physically removed character in the story, it may be that Bran has the most communicative potential of all characters—a kind of maximal fluidity and exchange of intersubjective content waiting for him on the horizon. How these powers will grow and what their implications will be for the game at large are questions without answers.

With respect to other Stark children, this episode brings Arya, Gendry and the aptly-named Hot Pie back into our lives, and with them comes a charming moment in which reader and viewer thoughts are vocalized within the show: Gendry berates Arya for not having chosen more strategic targets with the three gifts of assassination Jaqen H’ghar offered in season two. “You could have ended the war!” This is an expression many fans have arrived at independently. When Gendry raises this reasonable complaint about Arya’s inefficient approach to contract killing, it effectively underscores an awareness the showrunners have about the ways in which their production is in conversation with its audience. I approve of moments like this which naturalistically exist within and without the show at once, reminding us that adaptations are wild, living things.

All this serves to establish that conversation – a visible, transpersonal communicative engagement – is the principal fuel sustaining the Thrones engine. Martin is able to situate us behind a character’s eyes, but insofar as unvoiced thoughts are inevitably experienced interiorly and are not accessible from without, conversation—talking—communicating openly is the show’s preferred method of creating a shared space between characters, and between audience and show. This is an intersubjective pipeline out of which the richest details of character are poured via the process of communicating reciprocally. In these terms, “voiced thoughts” should not be understood as merely those thoughts given audible, vocal expression, but rather any and all mental content packaged for transmission in some way (again—verbal, physical, via the logic of dreams or otherwise).  Conversation presupposes communication and yet extends it by demanding a constant, mutual communicative engagement which cannot be reduced to a single or one-sided instance of transmission in the way that a declaration or speech can. This is what makes Catelyn’s monologue to Talisa function so differently than the banter between Jaime and Brienne.

Though their relationship is that of captor and captured, Jaime and Brienne speak in unusually frank terms. I’m struck by how much I learn about both of them whenever they’re on screen together (compare with Catelyn and Talisa, or Mormont and Sam—these couplings involve more unidirectional, lopsided instances of characterization whereby one character’s presence is more clearly in service to the other). What’s most fascinating is what their language says about who they are: Jaime is forceful and arrogant, but he speaks to misdirect and amuse more than to reveal, as if conversation were just another form of sparring, and as if sparring were the only entertaining way to measure oneself. Brienne is stern and stoic, but when she speaks she speaks the truth. It’s only when Jaime is pressed that he reveals a startling honesty: “I don’t blame him. I don’t blame you either. We don’t get to choose who we love.” In this moment, Jaime’s vulnerability says volumes about what motivates him, and in consequence it’s difficult to not begin chipping away at the wall erected between the viewer and a reluctant realization that The Kingslayer may be something more than a villainous bastard (colloquially speaking).

The Jaime and Brienne Show is proud to present yet another theme lurking in the subtext of this episode: protection, especially by females, and especially of men. First, when Brienne and Jaime are confronted by a passing farmer, Brienne – ever the true knight – opts to let him pass despite Jaime’s protestations. The chance of innocence is enough to justify restraint, and this restraint effectively becomes a ticking timebomb when Jaime’s fears are made real in Locke—Roose Bolton’s “hunter” sent after the dynamic duo. Second, Brienne subdues rather than maims her captive once Jaime snags a sword and picks a fight with her—swordfighting being his language of choice (look at him light up once the blade is in his manacled hands!).

Despite their social vulnerability, women like Brienne (with Jaime), Arya (with Gendry and Hot Pie), Catelyn (constructing a protective talisman for Bran and Rickon), Cersei (with Joffrey), Osha (with Bran and Rickon), Meera (with Jojen), Shae, Margaery and Olenna (with Sansa) each attempt to defend others – usually men – through direct or indirect means. For most women in Westeros, swordplay isn’t an option. Some female warriors (or warriors-in-training)—Arya, Brienne, Osha, Meera—break this trend, but the treacherous waters of the political world necessitate more verbal means for others.

While it is true that much of the dialogue in Thrones fails the Bechdel test, I don’t think it’s fair to see this as a failing; the show is set in a quasi-medieval, overtly patriarchal society where power is concentrated in the fists of few men, and in which life is exceptionally precarious for women. Martin’s story strikes me as post-feminist even if his world in desperate need of feminism, and by this I mean that he writes women of all sorts—competent or foolish, pliant or intransigent, altruistic or selfish—and provides psychologically intelligible motivations for each in plainly human (read: not female caricature) terms. Benioff and Weiss continue in this vein. The lack of authorial commentary on the bleak reality of gender politics in Westeros is a sign of the morally neutral egalitarianism which underpins the writing, if not its inhabitants. Martin’s women are capable of everything his men are, but the rules of their game are more numerous.

Cersei’s attempt at warning Joffrey against Margaery’s wiles is another such instance of attempted protection, though it’s an attempt Joffrey could do without. “This is becoming one of the most boring conversations I’ve ever had,” says Joffrey, and in his words we detect the echo of a threat lurking in some ruined place inside him. Here, baldly, he defines and rejects his mother’s assistance as being distinctly conversational, and emphatically intolerable. Words can undo you just as quickly as they can save you.

Though he scoffs at his mother’s admonition, Joffrey is vaguely unsettled by Cersei’s advice. That, or he’s just sociopathic enough to use it as a justification to launch a thoroughly menacing questioning of Margaery’s loyalties (by this point Margaery has already been informed that Joffrey is “a monster,” though I’ll touch on this more in a moment). Up until now, Joffrey has been something of an inscrutable nightmare for everyone in the show (recall Tyrion and Bronn in their misguided season two attempts at ‘draining’ Joffrey of his malice with the help of prostitutes). Margaery, however, proves an able translator and immediately gets a grip on Joffrey’s eroticized violent tendencies; an exchange which begins with her framed against a pillar while he levels a crossbow in her direction – as if she were a bound target – ends with her caressing his weapon as he cradles her arm in a kind of dark teenage reverie. As a malevolent sadist, the key to Joffrey’s heart swims deep within his bloodlust. To quell the beast, Margaery sates its hunger for pain, feigning an interest in death and destruction and thus lowering Joffrey’s guard with the rare promise of emotional reciprocity. Margaery’s acting appears effortless, and in a single exchange she moves from a position of vulnerability to one in which she wields the weapon herself (or at least takes effective control of the easy boy who wields the weapon). Such is the power of speaking someone’s language. “I imagine it must be so exciting to squeeze your finger here and watch something die over there.” Joffrey gets played like one significantly discordant piano.

Earlier, Margaery figured prominently in what I consider the episode’s strongest scene: Sansa is accompanied by Loras to a garden meeting with the Tyrell matriarch, Lady Olenna. Nowhere is the power of language more evident than in this exchange. Of all the characters in Game of Thrones, Sansa is arguably the least prepared and thus the most manipulable. Consider the roster of characters who have taken or do take an interest in her: Joffrey, Cersei, Sandor Clegane, Tyrion, Shae, Littlefinger, Margaery, Olenna. Fed on a naive girl’s diet of courtly dreams and rose-hued fantasies, Sansa’s departure from Winterfell’s protective walls has been a harsh one, and there is little to nourish her outside its walls. Lemoncakes are offered, and Sansa is tested: the Tyrells seem capable of offering Sansa some measure of protection, but at what cost? For starters, they want information.

Olenna lives up to her title as the Queen of Thorns, wittily subverting every expectation we might have with incisive commentary on the court and her family. Before too long, however, she deftly maneuvers into position with the question she came to ask: what is Joffrey really like? Margaery listens on, attentively waiting to hear about what sort of mess she’s been thrust into. At first Sansa nervously twitters praise about the king and his court, and when pressed she begins to prevaricate and stumble, chirping unevenly. It’s only when Olenna invokes Ned Stark – Sansa’s honorable father beheaded for treason at Joffrey’s command – that Sansa’s cacophonous facade becomes a clarion call. Centrally framed across the table and between Olenna and Margaery’s backs (as if they were like us—onlookers), Sansa sits in trembling resolution as the camera slowly tracks in. Cut: A close-up. She speaks. “He’s a monster.” While a sighing Olenna refers to this truth as a “pity” and Margaery merely rolls her eyes as if to suggest “great, and now I’ve gotta deal with this shit,” it is clear that Sansa’s defiant claim against the king is a momentous first note in the song of her defiance.

But consider how the final shot of the scene is framed: Sansa sits alone, troubled, buffeted on all sides by beautiful foliage and marble and finery—still a trapped bird in a gilded cage. In speaking the truth she took a risk, extending herself in hope of help, but her realization that she’s merely being mined for information to help the Tyrells gain a political edge over the Lannisters serves to underscore her isolation and exposure within the court.

There’s a real cinematic power in this moment, and it calls attention to how confidently filmic the show has become. In fact, my first viewing of this episode left me with this impression more than any other: the show finally seems to know what it’s about, and how it’s going to be about it. An appreciation for subtextual undercurrents I’ve been discussing only really bubbled to the surface after a second viewing, whereas the show’s steadily advancing visual maturity was instantly recognizable throughout my first. Examples: the hauntingly moving camera during Catelyn’s monologue, the ever-strengthening associations of certain characters with tonal variations on particular musical themes, the directorial willingness to rely on an actor’s subtle responses and not just exposition when characterizing (Jaime’s trembling voice when he speaks of love, Margaery’s momentary narrowing of the eyes when Joffrey threatens death for homosexuals), and more deliberately evocative compositions within the frame (Margaery ‘trapped’ against the pillar, Sam in black shrouded in snow).

These are not insignificant changes. Exploiting the chief strength of telling a story in visual and aural terms requires an embrace of distinctly visual and aural languages. Consider the missed opportunity that was Arya’s first kill in season one’s “The Pointy End.” In this scene, Arya drives Needle through a stableboy preventing her from fleeing to the city proper. Across a span of about six seconds, we’re treated to nine cuts and seven disorienting perspective shifts. A truly amateurish digital zoom is thrown into the blender midway through because—hey, why not? This editing room travesty is slightly redeemed by Maisie Williams turning out a great reaction to the damage she’s inflicted, but what should have been a truly defining moment in Arya’s arc was robbed of pathos in the very medium which could have most magnificently visualized that pathos. Luckily, Thrones hasn’t made this sort of misstep very often, and has – for two seasons – maintained a very respectable “pretty damn good” rating when taking advantage of the unique strengths of filmed drama. What I’m arguing here is that Thrones is now beginning to move beyond merely recording its characters and production design in an adequate way, and has begun using the language of cinema to imbue its scenes with additional import and significance. The show’s artistry grows by the season.

“Dark Wings, Dark Words” sees the characters of Thrones occupying wildly divergent positions at this stage of the game. Catelyn’s role hangs precariously, and her choice to confide in Talisa exemplifies the depth of her justifiable but improperly sourced guilt. Sansa remains trapped, but her choice to speak may quicken her fate—be it extrication or death. The more Jon listens to the citizens of the true north, the more thoroughly his convictions are tested. Bran distances himself from the voices of his youth, and opens himself to strange words unknown.

While the episode’s thematic through-line lacks the neat bookending of “Valar Dohaeris,” it remains strongly focused, conflating concepts of power through communication with a broad focus on female strategies for survival, redemption, protection and acquisition. It is arguably the more filmically impressive episode of the two, and what it lacks in visual spectacle (fewer giants and dragons), it makes up for with more potent visual strategies for capturing the show’s drama. The episode also exposes the ways a show like Thrones challenges audience conceptions of narrative momentum. Here no slaves are bought. No battles are fought. No kings are met. And while we learn the unexpected truths behind dark dreams, while dark tidings are carried by dark wings, while captors are caught by dark men, and fallen men wear dark masks, I am convinced that the greatest moment of narrative movement occurs when a true song is sung by a bright bird in a garden far darker than it seems, the weight of the world invoked by her short, deadly notes.

• Published on 04/11/2013 at 11:54 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 12:02 PM CDT