 |
| The GoT Costume Contest at the Fox on March 29, 2015 |
I was lucky enough to see Episode 1 of Season 5 two weeks early at Atlanta's Fabulous Fox Theatre as part of the Atlanta Film Festival; so when I was watching as it aired last night, I'd had some time to chew on the events that transpired. I've also been reading some of what's been written about it, and a couple of things come to my mind that I haven't seen covered elsewhere.
There's been a lot of talk about the first use of flashback and a little about the use of foreshadowing. The showrunners were quick to point out that it's not really flashback if it's the first scene, so not flashing back from anything. But, c'mon, guys, splitting hairs are we now? What I was struck by when I watched last night (don't remember thinking this the first time through), was that Cersei's long slow march in mourning black up the steps to the Great Sept of Baelor might be foreshadowing. It turned the show's focus on life in King's Landing starkly towards Religion, especially in combination with her awkward meeting with her cousin and former, um, playmate (among other things), Lancel Lannister. Young Lancel has changed his appearance, his entire demeanor, significantly, bearing the clasped hands and terrifying smile that always and only mean the certainty of rectitude that comes from the most absolute form of fundamentalist religion. We also see it on Stannis' wife Selyse's face while Melisandre officiates at the faith-specific "justice" meted out at the end of the episode in the name of their deity, R'hilor. It's not the religion that's wrong so much as it is the fundamentalism, the absolute belief that one thing is Right and everything else is Wrong. These are very strong hints that this already prominent theme is expanding. It's certainly one that resonates in our little world today.
There were quite a few departures from the books last night; some of them were pretty big. Mance Rayder's story line was changed pretty radically, as was that of Littlefinger (Petyr Baelish) and Sansa Stark. Could we be leaving Alayne behind? And where in the world are they going? As the hints were strong that Tyrion and Varys may be heading to Meereen to meet up with our Mother of (very, very bad) Dragons, which is totally (and thankfully) off book storyline; could Littlefinger and Sansa be headed to such exotic locales, or is it rougher terrain ahead for them, like Winterfell? I have no idea and can't wait to find out. Is it next Sunday yet?
I'm sure there's so much I've missed, but those were the nagging thoughts I'd wanted to bring up elsewhere but decided to put here.
Valar morghulis, y'all, and, just between us, Jon Snow knows quite a lot.
I was surprised by the change in Mance's storyline, and it seems pretty clear that it IS a change--hard to see how they could back out of that.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed to me that the books had a similar shift toward religion at right about this time as well: as things get worse and worse in Westeros (or should that be Worsteros?), people turn pretty naturally to religion, particularly that of the fundamentalist kind. No doubt they've been living with a pretty casual, comfortable relationship to The Seven their whole lives, and see where it got them? We haven't seen quite as much of that yet as we get in the books, but I'm sure it will be there.
Having read the books, yes, I did see Cersei's march as foreshadowing.
Oh, and I liked your linkage of Selyse's face to the broader thread of fundamentalism. All questions of religion in GoT, however, are a bit complicated. The religion of The Seven seems pretty much what its adherents make of it, by which I mean that a lot depends on who's the High Septon and what his agenda is. It works very much through the actions of its people. But R'hillor, on the other hand, is apparently a god who DOES THINGS. Even though some of what Melisnadre does may be tricks and parlor magic, there seems to be real power there, AND that power seems to be set squarely against the power of the White Walkers and the winter magic north of the wall. So in that sense, it seems to be a "good" religion. Yet it's also a religion of blood sacrifice and murder. So... yeah. Kind of complicated and hard to ignore.
And I know I'm rambling now, so I'll just stop right there. :)
I'll be interested to see how off story Tyrion actually goes. I feel like there's a lot of room for that storyline to come back around. Ditto Littlefinger and Sansa, actually, but I'm excited to see. I felt like with Danaerys, we're getting better justification for her actions than we got in the books, where it seemed like she just kind of forgot about her dragons there. It's still disappointing that she basically runs away from them: girl, you've got to get those dragons figured out!
John, I'm such a ditz. Don't know how I missed this comment, but I found it, over a year later. Thanks! :)
ReplyDelete