Game of Thrones ‘Garden of Bones’ [Review]

The first three episodes of the season featured a lot of exposition and spent time setting up where our characters are now following the events of season one, most notably the execution of Ned Stark, hand of the King and Lord of Winterfell. In episode four “Garden of Bones”, all the pieces that were being finely orchestrated in the previous episodes begin to come together.

Another battle is fought; blood is shed; Kings meet on the battlefield while Joffrey continues his reign of terror in King’s Landing. Daenerys, the mother of Dragons finds hope while Melisandre reveals an ominous darkness in a well executed cliffhanger at this critical point in the season.

Game of Thrones has always been about power, who holds it and how it is handled. The second series has focused on the younger generation and how they are growing into their roles as leaders and learning how to wield their power, how to take it, and how to hold onto it. Through Renly, Robb, Daenerys, Joffrey and to perhaps a lesser extent; Bran, Arya, Sansa, Theon and Margaery this season has found it’s strength in exploring how different people from different circumstances navigate their new found power.

Due to budget and time restraints a lot of action has taken place off screen, most notably the bloody battle against the Lannisters where Robb and his army emerged victorious. But the way the action developed at the end of this first act brings us to a place where it feels as though we’re on the cusp of complete chaos.

Robb, named King of the North at the end of last season, has spent this season acting in that role and learning how to grow into the complex role of leadership and responsibility, particularly in wartime. Refusing to torture or kill his prisoners of war, he remembers the rules of his father who outlawed flaying in the North he is reminded that “The high road is pretty, but you’ll have a hard time marching your army down it”. Robb continues to uphold the Stark family sense of honour, which notably, is also the fastest way to get killed. As a leader of men, Robb has to decide how long he can take the path of honour before it will kill him, and all the men who he is responsible for.

Of all the young Kings and leaders Robb shows the most promise to be a fair and strong leader. He feels responsible for his men and their families and does not take the carnage inflicted on his foes lightly. He is also the most sharply contrasted to Joffrey, the headstrong leader who believes he is entitled to everything and needs to learn nothing. Robb is not perfect and he is aware of that, he listens, not only to his mother, his friends and his advisors, but when a beautiful nurse sawing off the foot of a young man who fought on the Lannister side of the battle has strong words for him, he heeds her advice.

She puts his fight into perspective reminding him that this fight is not only for his father and his family, but he is representing all of the North who is counting on his strong leadership. She reminds him that this fight is bigger than a feud between families, most of the boys fighting in the Lannister army have never met a Lannister let along had a hand in killing Ned Stark. She asks what his grand plan is once he takes King’s Landing and kills Joffrey.  He has no designs on the Iron Throne but perhaps he should, if he doesn’t take it who knows who will. “You’re fighting to overthrow a king, and yet you have no plan for what comes after.” Is Robb being short-sighted or will is  his one step at a time approach a better strategy?

Daenerys,  is in a similar situation to Robb Stark, she is a young Queen, or Khaleesi, with a personal score to settle and a fierce devotion to her small yet faithful following. Backed into a corner the small khalasar has been wandering the Red Waste with no food or water. When she receives an invitation to be let into Quarth and realizes the invitation is not all that it seemed she if forced to choose wisely about how she proceeds. At the gates of the city she must comply with the wishes of the thirteen, to see her dragons, or be denied entry and she and her people will die. Daenerys chooses a third, riskier option, she denies the Thirteen a glimpse of her dragons but lets them see the dragon within her. She practically spits fire as she threatens to come back and destroy Quarth once her dragons are grown if they deny entry to her and her people. Daenerys took this risk to her own life because her people trust her and she is responsible for them, in addition, her fire is all she has left, if she backs down her power is significantly diminished. Luckily that fire was enough for one member of the Thirteen to vouch for her allowing them into the city

Renly Baratheon is on the cusp of battle, another young man calling himself King at the head of a very large army. He was thrust into leadership after his brother died and is still learning the meaning of what it means to be King. Renly is constantly boasting about the size of his army, the number of men who hold up his banner but he hasn’t quite wrapped his head around what it means to be responsible for all of their fates, especially heading into war.

When Renly meets his brother Stannis on a hilltop he is offered a deal, back down now and he will get a good place in Stannis’s court. Renly is willing to wager to lives of all the men holding the bolts of his sigil to call his brother’s bluff, or fight his army to further cement his place as King of the realm. Little does he know, Stannis has dark magic on his side, a secret darkness that crept into his camp at the end of the episode.  I wonder if he had been through a battle and witnessed the carnage that can result would he have handled this meeting with less arrogance. I would love to see Renly team up with Robb Stark, but only time will tell how these battles will unfold

Joffrey is the most terrifying leader we have met in Westeros. He is sociopathic with no sense of what is right or wrong except that anyone who defies him deserves to be punished violently. Tyrion ominously compares Joffrey to the mad king, a remark that only temporarily goes unpunished. Joffrey sees the death, and pain that his choices create and he luxuriates in the power of it all.

We’ve seen his cruelty and short-sightedness as he ordered Ned Stark’s death triggering a chaotic power struggle in Westeros that is being realized this season. In “The North Remembers” it is by Joffrey’s command that all of Robert Baratheon’s bastards (a numerous brood) were murdered in cold blood. In “Garden of Bones” he has another Stark, his future Queen, Sansa on her knees with a cross-bow aimed at her in a throne room full of people.  His cruelty knows no bounds, Tyrion points out that she is to be his wife some day, if he doesn’t care about her he should at least care about her honour, something Joffrey knows little about.

Sansa is struggling not to crack under the pressure of pretending to love her King to stay alive. She is clinging to the only power she has left; her engagement to the King and Cersei’s demands that she remain alive, though we know Joffrey isn’t one to heed his mother’s wishes if they conflict with his own. “Lady Stark, you just might survive us yet”, says Tyrion. He knows very well the power of carefully chosen words as Sansa sticks to her story even after being threatened with death, the king is her one true love.

I thought “Garden of Bones” was an excellent episode, and I’ve been really enjoying this season for the most part,  but my concerns that the ten hours allotted will not be enough still stand.  Episodes that only focus on a few characters have proven to be the strongest, however there are many characters and stories that do need to be told and with only 6 hours left I worry that there wont be time to give each, or any of these complex stories the justice they deserve.  Between the mess in King’s Landing, little Bran up in Winterfell, the Night’s Watch and the mysteries beyond the wall, Dany in the Red Waste, and the other Kings vying for power and the magic that is returning to Westeros there is so much material and so little time. I’ll be very interested to see how the show reconciles these issues through the end of this season and into the next.

A Few Other Thoughts on “Garden of Bones”:

. This week Tyrion ceded the spotlight to Robb after being featured so heavily in the first part of the season. He has got himself a new spy, and made a very well timed rescue of Lady Sansa Stark for the newest mad King.

. The shot towards the beginning of the episode where Robb’s face is matched up with his Direwolf as he sits atop the hill prior to the attack was absolutely gorgeous. Capturing Robb’s strong profile with his men all in a row behind him presented Robb as more of a leader than ever, no longer the boy playing King.

. I can’t not mention the terrifying scene in which Joffrey receives his gift from his uncle Tyrion. It is one of those scenes that is so hard to watch, but was so essential in communicating exactly the kind of person Joffrey is. I don’t want to imagine what came next in that room once the camera left, my mind went to some pretty awful places before I tried to refocus on more happy things in Game of Thrones, like Robb Stark’s blue, blue eyes.

. Catelyn Stark’s scene with Lord Baelish was both beautiful and sad. The pair of them always produce such a strange mix of emotions and this scene was no different. He’s always loved Catelyn, I believe that is the most honest and consistent thing that exists about Lord Baelish, and the fact that he does care for her so completely makes it seem strangely appropriate that he brings her the remains of her husband.

. No Pretty Jon Snow this week but we did get Loras Tyrell who is more beautiful than the Queen… though he hovered in the background of most scenes

. As usual for Game of Thrones the world building is not reserved for character development. In “Garden of Bones” there were some beautiful sweeping landscapes particularly over the Red Waste as the Khalasar approached Quarth, and across Harrenhall where Arya and Gendry are being kept prisoner by the Lannisters

. Cersei does seem to have a penchant for sleeping with her relatives and it continues to get her into trouble

. “Loras Tyrell, he’s prettier than the Queen.”

“I don’t care about pretty, he’s better with a sword than any of them”

“How good can he be? He’s been stabbing Renly Baratheon for years and Renly ain’t dead”

. It was only a brief check in with Arya and Gendry this week. Arya has yet to find the rest she so badly needs spending her nights reciting the names of the people who have wronged her. Now she’s been discovered as a girl and will be playing cup bearer to Tywin Lannister, but has her identity as a Stark been found out?

. The smoke monster makes a very, very eerie return. I didn’t realize the Island also had a passageway to Westeros through Melisandre’s nether regions. That was a cliffhanger I’ll be on the edge of my seat for.

What did you think of “Garden of Bones”? What were your favourite moments?