The Small Council: What did we think of “The Wars to Come?”

After nine long months, the fifth season of Game of Thrones finally began this past Sunday with “The Wars to Come.” In this week’s edition of The Small Council, we talk about what we liked, what we didn’t, what the episode portends for the season, and anything else that comes to mind, so long as it relates back to the show. And…go.

The final entry in this post contains SPOILERS for A Dance with Dragons,

DAN: “The Wars to Come” is a set-up episode. As a season premiere, that’s to be expected, but “Wars” has to do more heavy lifting than any previous premiere save the very first episode of the show. Tywin is dead, leaving the power structure in King’s Landing in shambles. Tyrion has jumped continents, Daenerys is putting down roots in Meereen, and Stannis has finally arrived at the Wall. Because it had so many stories to navigate around turning points, the pace of the episode was slow, but I was happy with the way it allowed viewers to sink back into the experience. Hopefully, it laid the groundwork for what will be a very rich season.

Of the various threads explored in “The Wars to Come,” I was probably most involved with the stuff at the Wall. Stannis spent so much time languishing at Dragonstone during the past two seasons that it’s hard to think of him as a dynamic character, but he immediately shook things up by asking Jon Snow to convince Mance Rayder to bend the knee. That gave Jon a real dilemma to puzzle through and offered Ciarán Hinds a chance to show off his formidable acting chops. Even that brief scene between Jon and Melisandre in the elevator (or winch, or whatever it’s called) has me intrigued to see more interactions between Team Stannis and Team Wall.

So if I enjoyed the new dynamics at the Wall, why was I sort of bored by the dynamics in the new, dragon-challenged Meereen? Maybe it’s because the Wall featured familiar characters interacting with each other in new ways, while Meereen just featured familiar characters having the same interactions in a slightly different location. Also, there’s something of a personality deficit in Meereen, at least when compared to other story threads on the show. Missandei and Grey Worm remain ciphers, while Daario and Barristan Selmy have only been with Dany for a relatively short period of time.

Perhaps that’s why the prospect of Tyrion reaching Meereen is so exciting. He has the potential to shake up that story in the same way that Stannis and company have shaken up the one at the Wall. And if he’s a hilarious, sloppy drunk on the way there, all the better.

What did you guys think of the season premiere?

KATIE: I absolutely agree with Dan regarding the purpose and pace of the premiere. In a series like Game of Thrones, if you expect too much, you’ll always be disappointed–you have to let the show take its course, and “The Wars to Come” sets that course up perfectly. Most of what I’ve been looking forward to about this season ranged beyond what I expected to see in “Wars”–Dorne and the Sand Snakes, Tyrion’s seemingly imminent meeting with Daenerys, and most especially Sansa’s continual evolution. But we do get hints of these developments in “Wars,” and with nine episodes to go, I’m satisfied with that.

Now, though, I have even more to look forward to. As a non-book reader, I didn’t know too much about Cersei’s prophecy, so I’m interested to see what comes from that, if anything occurs as soon as this season. Maybe this is just my Sansa fangirl talking, but I’m betting that our little dove might be the younger queen Cersei has to fear (sure, Margaery’s a contender, but that seems too obvious a conclusion), so I’m on the edge of my seat to see how Sansa could get to that point. Even though that probably wouldn’t happen until next year or later, there’s a lot of character development to look forward to, all of which is set up here in Episode 1.  Dark Sansa is here, and she owns it, and I think we can expect just as much from the rest of the characters.

ANI: It’s funny Katie, because as a book reader, I have always dismissed Cersei’s “prophecy” memory as so much BS. There are a lot of prophecies and visions in the books, and many of them really do foreshadow the future. Maggy The Frogs prophecies–with the exception of one detail–feel underwhelming. “You’ll have kids. They’ll die (notice she doesn’t say they’ll die before Cersei! Just that they will.) You’ll rule! Then your rule will end!” The whole thing about the younger, prettier queen coming to take Cersei’s place is so generic it hurts. Of course Cersei can’t rule forever and of course her successor will be younger and therefore prettier, since that’s how youth works. If it weren’t for Maggy’s dead-on prediction regarding the number of children Robert and she will have–and the way she infers that they won’t have any together–I’d write it off completely.

But I digress. Let’s talk about the episode itself. I am perplexed by those who insist nothing happened. Sansa’s travelling, for instance. Cersei laid a guilt trip daggar in her brother’s heart. Tyrion’s storyline compressed so swiftly, it was like watching a magic trick.

And for heaven’s sake, a character nearly burned to death before being released from this mortal coil by an arrow so that he could just be cremated instead. How can anyone say nothing happened? Must we have weddings every week?

CAMERON: I feel like I’d have a stronger opinion on this episode if I felt like any of it was going to deviate much from the books, but other than the obvious compression of time in some stories and the fact that we’re already past Sansa’s book storyline, I didn’t really get that feeling. So, I dunno, it was fine. Conflicts were set up. Characters were revisited. Flashbacks were had. I do wonder about the Grey Worm/Missandei plot and its purpose. Is it just a way to extend the amount of time we spend in Meereen (Because let me tell you, you won’t need that this year…)? Or is there some non-plot motive for trying to craft material wholesale for these two characters? I didn’t really think about it last year, but it’s a bit more important this year for me due to Dany’s story finally wading into the nitty-gritty themes of A Dance With Dragons. So it’s something I’m keeping an eye on this season.

SPOILER TIME

David (Razor):  What I really liked about the season premiere was that, unlike previous season premieres, it confidently sat in the middle of the road. Usually, the first episode is either super slow and meandering or high-octane and fast-paced. “The Wars to Come” sat in that ambiguously grey area, and owned it. That’s not to say that the episode was boring or bad, but that it served as a solid foundation on which the rest of the season can be masterfully constructed.

The flashback was great, and young Cersei was very well-cast…like mother, like son. The dragons were cool to see, and Mance’s death shook me to my core, because I have not seen a more poignantly portrayed death on Game of Thrones. And yes, I know the Red Wedding was shocking, and Oberyen’s head getting squished was horrifying, but when Mance began to cook, and his moans began to escape his mouth despite his best effort to stifle them, my heart broke. Then, when Jon shot him, and Mance looked right into Jon’s eyes, as if to thank him, then rolled his head to the side, eyes wide open, I shed a tear.

My favorite part of the episode involves what I believe to be clever foreshadowing by the showrunners. Few people caught it, and fewer still drew the connection I did. The scene unfolds as Jon Snow is training with with young Olly in Castle Black’s training yard. In the bottom corner of the screen, Ghost (Jon’s direwolf) gnaws on a huge bone–a bone that looks to be from one of the giants killed in Season 4.

If you’ve somehow missed the huge spoiler warning above my part of the Small Council and you are Unsullied, then turn away now. No seriously, you won’t be able to unsee this.

I feel Ghost was shown eating a giant’s bone as a way to prepare us for the infamous “For the Watch” scene from the end of A Dance with Dragons. I’ve talked briefly about this in other articles, but allow me to expound on it.

Ghost, along with the other direwolves (Summer, Bran’s direwolf, being the exception), is rarely seen on screen. It was more than convenient for Jon to have to climb the Wall in the 6th episode of Season 3, which was incidentally the last time we saw Ghost until the deserters of The Night’s Watch at Craster’s Keep had him caged. Even then, his on-screen appearances were brief, and when Jon returns to Castle Black after burning down Craster’s Keep, he is forced to lock Ghost away in some room, only to be released by Sam when the Thenns attack.

So why show Ghost in the Season 5 premiere? Well, much like in Season 4, when Little Finger told Sweet Robin that some men die in their privies, I believe that Benioff and Weiss are setting us up for one of the biggest cliffhangers in literary history. We already know that D&D have stated that Season 5 began with a book scene, and will end with one. And, while there are a couple viable options for that ending scene–Dany flying away on Drogon, Kevan being killed by someone (not Varys since he is with Tyrion)–I feel like ending Season 5 ending with “For the Watch” would be a HUGE get for the show, as people would be talking about it right up until Season 6 premieres.

• Published on 04/17/2015 at 3:00 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:05 PM CDT