The Longest Night — Game of Thrones: ‘Winter is Coming (1x01)’
“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.”
Writer(s): David Benioff & D.B. Weiss
Director: Tim Van Patten
Plot: Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark beheads a deserter from the Night’s Watch; King Robert Baratheon and the Lannisters arrive at Winterfell; Daenerys Targaryen is sold off to Dothraki horse lord Khal Drogo; ancient, mythical beasts rise beyond the Wall.
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SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FIRST SEVEN SEASONS OF HBO’S GAME OF THRONES.
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Seven seasons deep into Game of Thrones, returning to ‘Winter is Coming’ feels like entering a dream; a dream where the only people present are the people you love. They’re smiling broadly, holding glasses full with their favourite beverages, their laughter echoes into the distance. None of them are hurting, and they’re all safe. It’s beautiful.
The first scenes in Winterfell are spent walking through this dream: Robb, Catelyn and Ned have all made it home to Winterfell, and they’re reunited with their loved ones; Jon and Robb playfully tease Bran over his inability to wield a bow and arrow, and continue laughing heartily as Arya upstages him; Robb and Theon then tease Jon about girls and his hair-care routines; Sansa is sewing with an innocent grin on her face, impressing her tutor; and Catelyn warns Bran against climbing, like any protective, warm-hearted mother would. It’s truly lovely to be surrounded by so many comforting faces. As King Robert Baratheon might have said were he still here, embarking upon this re-watch with me, a goblet of wine clasped in his fist: “Gods, everyone was alive then!”
Even if all evil is banished from the realm in the grand climax of this series, and even if the gods chisel Jon Snow’s destiny in the image of his perfect arse, the sacrifices made to get there will perhaps be most keenly felt when Game of Thrones cuts to black forever.
Once Robert arrives from King’s Landing with the Lannisters in tow, the loved ones in this dream lose their colour, become translucent, and drift away on the wind. They’re lost to the grinding wheels of the plot, crushed by the mechanism. Because whilst ‘Winter is Coming’ does introduce a world that’s rich with character — Westeros feels so god damn real already, and while the characters might be interchangeable to new viewers at this stage, their nuances shine through the exposition when gazed upon with experienced eyes — it also brings us into a society that’s balanced fatefully on the performative notions of honour and duty.
To be sure, “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword” is more than a turn of phrase to Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark. They’re words that signify his unconditional devotion to honour and duty. He applies them to the importance of heritage in the upbringing of his children, and the responsibility they must take on if they are to fill his shoes one day. They’re the words upon which he’s built everything he has, from his reputation as the Honourable Ned Stark to his reluctant acceptance in the pilot of becoming Hand of the King — even if it’s a position which will take him a thousand miles from his home.
In the end, though, they’re the words he both lives and literally dies by, and they rip his family to pieces. An “honourable fool” indeed.
Honour and duty are valuable traits in any person, but they’re precarious things in such a place as Westeros. Where they stand proud, it’s dishonour and sinister cunning that lurk in the shadows and pull the strings. It’s not that Jaime Lannister and Ned are presented as polar opposites from the outset, but their individual decisions are rooted entirely in their differing perspectives on honour and duty. Ned’s honour is fixed on an obligation to preserve nobility and uphold the law, while Jaime’s duty is only to himself and Cersei. As he shoves Bran from the highest tower in Winterfell, he thinks nothing of either attribute beyond how long they can keep their incestuous relationship a secret. There’s a reason his family are where they are, and why Ned ends up decapitated.
By the end of this first season, Ned’s head rots on a spike in King’s Landing while Jaime is alive to taunt Catelyn Stark about his death. It might be from the confines of a mobile prison cell, but he’s breathing at least. What are honour and duty truly worth when they prop up a completely inadequate system?
As we know, Bran survives the fall and goes on to have Westeros’ entire history downloaded into his head via Three-Eyed Raven p2p file sharing. But here, he’s still one of the many children we meet whose future paths have been predetermined by their parents from the moment of birth. “You’ll be a soldier,” Robert says to him, even after we’ve seen his weedy arms fail to fire an arrow into a target from ten feet away. It’s ultimately curiosity, rather than courage, that’s always driven him. He might take daily climbs up the ramparts of Winterfell, but it’s not to show his strength — it’s simply to experience as much of the world as he can. And of course, while he will no longer be able to climb and explore his home, the spinal injuries he incurs from the fall enable him to reach his potential.
Across the Narrow Sea are two more children whose fates are presumably predetermined. They’re siblings, Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen. Within ten seconds of meeting Viserys, two things become abundantly clear: his sense of honour and duty is somehow more warped than Jaime’s, and every moment we spend with him is utterly insufferable. He inspects and humiliates Daenerys whilst glorifying a reign he is yet to start, and he sells her off against her will to Khal Drogo. He’s decided that’s her only function in his climb. How wrong he (thankfully) is: her influence over her new husband doesn’t quite emerge until the second episode, but Daenerys is silently knitting plans of her own, waiting to pull this series into fantasy territory by way of fire immunity, and mothering dragons the size of actual aeroplanes.
8.5
Stray ravens:
— It’s interesting to watch this pilot following the criticism of season 7’s pacing. The rules haven’t been set yet with regards to how long journeys should take in this series, but a month’s travel from King’s Landing to Winterfell is skipped entirely here. And how did Will, dressed in Night’s Watch gear so far south of the Wall, make it as far as Winterfell without anyone finding him earlier?
— “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” Tyrion’s dialogue in the scene he shares with Jon is superb. Words on Tyrion’s character from of FaceofMoe, a Reddit user, are incredibly touching.
— The episode is so pre-occupied with plot and exposition that it’s hard for Tim Van Patten to dash any kind of personal touches into the direction. The establishing shot out on the misty, northern hills, as Will’s head is brought to the chopping block, is perhaps the most visually memorable.
— “He swore an oath.” “The law is law, my lady.”
