S01.E06: A Golden Crown (Re-watch spoilers)

[Anothermi]

WARNING!!! This thread was created for an Unsullied RE-WATCH after the end of Season 6 and will contain SPOILERS.

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Episode Synopsis: (re-watch version)

Bran saddles up. Tyrion takes an ass and a honeycomb to a brothel (or so he says). Mord gets rich. Ned becomes King-for-a-Day and learns to put 2 & 2 together. Viserys gets crowned.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Anothermi
uniformity

[Anothermi]

This re-watch is planned for Sunday, July 24, 2016.

[Anothermi]

Well. I found this episode a whole lot more enjoyable than the 1st go round. It's got to be the lack of tension due to knowing what happened. Gingerella was remarking in the episode 5 thread on how the humour offset the blood and gore. This episode definitely brought that.  I think the Tyrion/Mord scenes would fit well in a Shakespearean comedy.

Annnnd we get another round of the now trope-like: "We'll talk when...." In this case it is when Robert returns from the hunt. Although they actually DO talk when he gets back, the rule still applies because he is a dead man from the moment he said the line.  So we've had Ned speak it to Jon (not dead this ep but we now know...), Benjen say it to Jon (MIA) and now Robert say it to Ned. If we didn't get the meaning of this phrase at this point, we sure as hell did by the end of the season.

Viserys. He is another one of those characters who I remember investing in (if not totally liking, but he had his charm) only to watch him die a horrible death early on. Him and Jory... and Benjen. They didn't get a lot of screen time, but somehow I ended up invested enough to be shocked! SHOCKED! I tell you, when they were killed. Or, in Benjen's case, disappeared. I'm thinking it is a testament to both the actors and the script that they stood out so much with so little screen time. We never gave up on Benjen and our faith was actually rewarded, kinda. I think I'd add Rakharo to this list, but I can't be sure my focus on him wasn't because I'd just seen him (briefly) in The Borgias. Still, I cared enough that his was also a painful loss.

All the scenes at the Eyrie are possibly even more entertaining that the 1st viewing. I really loved that set. (It wasn't as spectacular after Littlefinger moved in.) I noted that Tyrion didn't pay Bronn - who did the fighting, but actually volunteered - but he DID pay Mord. A Lannister always pays his debts.

Other random things I noticed:

- Dany's outfit in the egg warming scene - earth tones! I liked them. She's been silvery/bluey for so much of the later seasons. She looked much warmer/friendlier in these earth tones. (/my bias)

- time frame related... Viserys said he's had carried the weight of being the last hope for his entire lineage since he was 5 years old. Add that to his story about having to name all the Dragon skulls for his father to give him a sweet when he was 4 years old means it was just one year later that the Rebellion occurred. Rheagar would have to be dead - as well as his children - for Visarys to know that he was the "last hope". We knew that Ned left Winterfell to fight in the Rebellion 17 years earlier, so Viserys would be about 22 in show age and Dany would then be 16 or 17 years old, so yeah, about Robb/Jon's age. 

- I now understand why we couldn't figure out how Ros made it to King's Landing so fast..... poor diction. I had to replay the turnip cart scene a few times to finally realize she'd told Theon "I've found a ship heading south in White Harbour." This means his "How can you afford it?" makes a LOT more sense. She took a boat, and the harbour must have been reasonably close to Winterfell. Perhaps it was the same place that Sam, Sam and Gilly caught their boat south to the Citadel?

- I noticed, again, that on the Baratheon page of the Ponderous Tome that Ned was reading from, there was an entry for Lyonel Baratheon where the word Targaryen appears about where the name of his wife would go. The page was partially obscured, but the pattern of entry was standard, so that one married a Targ. I new I'd seen it before, but couldn't find where I had posted about it on TWoP.

- Berric Dondarion's 1st appearance. This Dondarion is not like the other... who is a lot more masculine looking... and is played by a different actor (checked this on IMDB).

- still love the scene where Arya and Ned share a smirk at Sansa not wanting "someone who's brave and gentle and strong", wanting Joffrey instead.

- Knifey WATCH: Still sitting benignly on Ned's desk.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Anothermi

[Llywela]

I feel really bad because I watched this episode days ago, and then this week became stupid and somehow I never quite managed to sit down and write up my thoughts, and now those thoughts have evaporated into a puff of mist.

Do you know, I'd actually forgotten how much we saw of Ros in these early seasons. And my memory had written Viserys off as a dangerous fool, but at the time of his death who could have known how much worse others among the cast would prove to be? I'd forgotten how chilling it was to see Dany standing there impassively watching her brother's execution, such a complicated set-up with no absolutes anywhere to be seen. Viserys was right, in a sense - he was made certain promises as the price of his sister's marriage to Khal Drogo, and those promises were never delivered, instead Viserys himself was murdered and the debt forfeited. But on the other hand, Dany was right that her brother was not fit to rule, and could never have led an army or won a war. Drogo tolerated Viserys until his wife and child were threatened, and then took steps to eliminate that threat, swift and decisive justice. Everyone involved had both a valid point and a valid grievance, each in their own separate way.

I'm remembering vividly why Tyrion always stood out so strongly - there's not a lot of humour in this show, but what there is, Tyrion unfailingly brings. He also, increasingly as the season progresses, stands out as the voice of reason, while all around him are losing their heads. Already we see Cat's awareness that she has started something she cannot control - the downward spiral will only get worse from here, the kingdom a tinderbox that was just waiting for a spark to ignite, helped along both by those who hope to gain and by those who seek to prove something, like Theon, claiming loyalty to Robb while goading and prodding him to war, (and believing his argument to be right, who could foresee at this stage where actually going to war would lead them?) fuelled in the main by Theon's own sense of displacement and inadequacy and cognitive dissonance, the heir to his own father's tiny land raised as a hostage by a man his family once called enemy. The line between friend and foe is perilously narrow in this society, such a delicate balancing act, so easy to fall. How does someone like Theon decide where his loyalty should truly lie? He's been six seasons attempting to answer that question, with devastating consequences.

It's that richness of worldbuilding and characterisation that hooked us all, of course, back here in this first season when we could only guess what was to come but could already see the seeds being sown.

Well spotted that it's a different Berric Dondarion, anothermi! I did wonder when he was introduced, but didn't remember to look it up afterward.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Llywela

[Anothermi]

On 2016-07-29 at 6:01 AM, Llywela said:

I watched this episode days ago, and then this week became stupid and somehow I never quite managed to sit down and write up my thoughts, and now those thoughts have evaporated into a puff of mist.

Llywela, you did a very comprehensive capture of that puff of mist.

On 2016-07-29 at 6:01 AM, Llywela said:

I'd forgotten how chilling it was to see Dany standing there impassively watching her brother's execution, such a complicated set-up with no absolutes anywhere to be seen.

Yes, that scene is still chilling. It's funny that the characters who have stayed with us have had an almost glacially paced development, yet with 6 years between then and now, they have developed a great deal. Dany is just starting here. She's beginning to trust her own instincts and ability to survive. But she's headed into believing that is all she needs to understand (and the annoying phase of yelling about her titles and what is rightfully hers). Of course she has a long way to go.

Contrasting her with Viserys, and then thinking on all the stories we've heard about so many Targaryen Kings, it seems you had to BE a dragon to know you were one. (I'm speaking about being fire-proof.) The Targs who weren't - but were kings anyway - seemed to be singularly blind to what it meant to be "a dragon". Viserys was like the one (Aeryen "Bright-flame" Targaryen) who died drinking wildfire because he thought it would make him a dragon. I thought there were stories of a few - or at least one - other(s) who died in the pursuit of "becoming" a dragon, but I can't recall them at present. Why were they not taught what the difference was? And except for that fire-proofness, they were just ordinary, fallible beings. Prone to the same delusions of grandeur that Cersei filled Joffrey's head with. (See Aerys, the Mad King, who apparently was fire-proof.) Perhaps the term "Dragon" meant something different to them than to their subjects? Jorah used the term to describe Rheagar, and with respect.

I was looking for a scene where there was talk of the foolish Targ Kings and tried the one where Tywin talks to Tommen about what makes a "good" king. Tommen went through Holiness, Goodness and Strength. Tywin provided examples of Kings who failed due to each of those qualities (Baelor, Orys and Robert). When Tommen suggested Wisdom as the most important quality, Tywin laid out a scenario a King might face that would be difficult to decide and asked what Tommen knew about the important features of each choice. Tommen knew nothing and Tywin made the point : "A wise King knows what he knows; and what he doesn't." Tywin's best advice (to a point). The rest of his point, that Tommen should take counsel from those wiser than him until he came of age, was probably his own arrogance speaking as I don't doubt that is exactly what Tywin did.

Viserys still thought he should have his throne handed to him on a silver platter. There's not a huge difference between him and Joffrey. Both were taught they would be kings and that what they thought was the way it was, what they said must be done and that they were all powerful. Joffrey had one moment (which we saw briefly) of knowing what he didn't know, I doubt Viserys even had that. He would have been as capricious and mean spirited a King as Joffrey (IMHO). We've only seen one Targ who seemed to "know what he knew and what he didn't" - Maester Aemon; and we've heard from others that Rhaegar may have also been wise - except for that part were Lyanna Stark was concerned - but we don't really know much about that still.

Dany has had to learn the hard way. Her journey was to learn 1st hand that she needed to have wise counsel around her always, not just until she came of age and not just those who told her what she wanted to hear. We can see she learned the bombast from Viserys example, but she also learned it was useless and that it was not leadership.

On 2016-07-29 at 6:01 AM, Llywela said:

It's that richness of worldbuilding and characterisation that hooked us all, of course, back here in this first season when we could only guess what was to come but could already see the seeds being sown.

So glad I decided to remain Unsullied. This has been a rewarding journey for us. And the re-watch is proving it was worth the effort.

Edited August 1, 2016 by Anothermi

[gingerella]

Ahhhh, th three eyed raven makes an appearance, and Bran rides again.

Osha! She looks so, uhhhh, rough in this episode, whoa!

Those holding cells at the Eyrie are so amazingly horrid aren't they? Even down to the dripping whatever it is, yo can smell the stench there despite the abundance of 'fresh air'.

Syrios: "You're not here! You're with your trouble. If you're with your trouble when fighting happens...more trouble for you...How can you be quick as a snake, and as quiet as a shadow, when you are somewhere else...there is only one God, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death, Not Today."

Wow, this really hit me this go round. Despite Arya's short sojourn with Syrios as her dance teacher, I think this one thing is what we see her take with her clear through to S6E10. She always seems to have a laser like focus when she is fighting, and it came from this episode. Funny how I did not remember these words until I heard them again, they were fortuitous for the rest of Arya's journey...as much as we have wanted her to find Syrios again, and have even gone so far as to suggest that A Man is Syrios, I think Syrios has been within Arya the entire time we've been watching A Show.

Shit, the horse heart eating scene...aka, Dorthraki foreplay...God that was a fucked up scene. This was the first scene that my husband said, this show is fucked up, how can you watch this shit?! Hahahaha...

Viserys is such a tool. That is all.

The moon door! I was sooooo creeped out by Robyn Aryn then and again now. What a creepy little turd. 

Lancel is such a weirdo, and Renley really told off Robert, I forgot about that, he wasn't afraid to stand up to the King.

I totally didn't realize that Ned calls Berrick Dondarrion to avenge the raid on Tully lands by The Mountain. I also didn't realize Dondarrion was a Lord. I mean, he is the same LoL dude, yes?  Too bad they couldn't bring down the Mountain then. I also didn't remember how harass Ned was about calling Tywin to KL to stand trial for the crimes of the mountain. That was an eye opener.

Bronn was so much more nimble than that other guy, wasn't he? This was weirdly fun to watch again. The beginnings of the Tyrion/Bronn "On the Road to..." adventure (Hope/Crosby style)! 

Wow, Joffrey is a piece of shit, I mean of piece of work. "I will never disrespect you again...I will never hurt you..." God, knowing what is to come, made that really difficult to hear, didn't it?!? And then to hear Sansa go on and on about how great he is when Ned said he was sending the girls back to Winterfell...Oy vey...

It was more obvious this time around when Sansa said he was a Golden Lion and Arya reminds her he is a Stag and Sansa says he is nothing like the fat old King and Ned gets this look...And then....the Big Book of Houses, and the Baratheons's, all black of hair...except Joffrey...I think in that moment he is sure that Joffs is not Roberts heir...one more nail in Ned's coffin of fate, eh?

Poor, stupid Ros, she should have stayed in the North...Poor thing.

The Khaleesi realizes that it is she who is the Dragon...it is the beginning of everything else...

[gingerella]

I am trying to not read other comments before I post my own, then I go back and read your comments and I wanted to say that even though we are very few doing this re watch, the comments are really so rich this episode, thank you to both of you! 

And AHA! to you Anothermi, for catching that this Berrick Dondarrion is not like the other...!!! When Ned calls him forward I was like, "huh?! That's not THE Berrick Dondarrion" of BWoB fame....is it?!.  So another actor they switched out on us. I would say our BWoB version is more robust and real, yes? eye patch and all.

ETA: where is Pallas?

Edited August 1, 2016 by gingerella

[Anothermi]

14 hours ago, gingerella said:

Ahhhh, th three eyed raven makes an appearance

Yes. This is relatively early - given that we didn't get to know what it meant until... was it E10 of S03? And that only briefly. We really just got the information this past season (S06). This story/show is nothing if not well planned out in advance!

14 hours ago, gingerella said:

Syrios: "You're not here! You're with your trouble. If you're with your trouble when fighting happens...more trouble for you...How can you be quick as a snake, and as quiet as a shadow, when you are somewhere else...there is only one God, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death, Not Today."

I did remember this 1st reference to the God of Death and "Not Today". The preamble (that you've recorded, thanks) did not stick at the time and yet we get to see Jaqen demonstrate exactly that in the Harrenhal episode (S02). I agree that Syrio gave Arya her most profound training. She only had that to rely on during her House of Black and White training. But, it took her a while for the lesson to sink in. When she was with the Hound and went after those men joking about Robb & his Wolf's head (I think that was what they were talking about) she wasn't thinking about that training. She was with her trouble. She'd have said "yes" to death if the Hound wasn't there and willing to keep her alive!

14 hours ago, gingerella said:

Poor, stupid Ros, she should have stayed in the North...Poor thing.

This re-watch, besides actually understanding what Ros said to Theon about how she was getting to Kings Landing, I started to think that Ros may have been Littlefinger's spy at Winterfell. She was strategically placed to hear a lot of insider info, and when it was clear there would be a war, she headed to (was recalled to?) Kings Landing where we next see her working for Littlefinger. She definitely was safer as a spy out in the wilds of Winterfell.

Edited August 1, 2016 by Anothermi
spelling

[Pallas]

Back from a week of Philadelphia-in-my-living-room and August 1st deadlines. From the Glass Ceiling to the Moon Door!  

Harry Lloyd was amazing as Viscerys etched his doom with his own sword. Viscerys attends the naming ritual alongside Jorah, and instead of heckling, stands quietly -- an involved observer at someone else's court, as he was until the age of five. Alive to the present moment on which his future rests, and is going on without him. Not posturing, not desperately playing at what he is not: he finds himself compelled to comprehend. "They love her." I love how Lloyd and Viscerys choose against the pathos in that line, against the temptation to self-pity. Instead we see a watchful and discerning onlooker: the Viscerys who for 17 years did survive among strangers waiting to make use of him, the Viscerys who also kept his sister alive and with him.

He get the gist of it. He doesn't like what he sees but he doesn't let that get in the way of seeing it: Salieri listening to Mozart. But that quiet intuition doesn't last -- he gets manic again, stealing the eggs before stealing away. He tells Jorah he'll sell the eggs to buy a ship and a large army but that's not it; he already know that even a mercenary army needs a leader. He isn't Sam taking the Tarley sword because it's exactly the right weapon for a war he knows is coming. He isn't Sam because while both men are claiming a symbol of their birthright, Sam finally feels that he's earned it at the same time he finally knows it's nonsense: that birthrights are bullshit; that things belong to those who need them most. Viscerys never made it that far out of his childhood. 

But Lloyd's so good at playing more than one thing. Caught making off with the eggs like a kid filching love from a parent's wallet, he calms down again. Bitter more than stoic now (the insight's had time to fester) he still has some dignity when he tells Mormont, "No one's ever given me what they gave her. Not one piece of it." He's also not the kind of fool who's blind to other people's follies. "I've seen how you look at my sister," he tells Jorah, and not like a kid to his stepfather. A little malicious but more worldly: a Westerosi Gallic shrug. Of course his exit's more high dudgeon meets low comedy -- and that's great too; it points to how he won't even be able to make it out of the camp, let alone, across the Narrow Sea. He's no dragon; he's a Season 1 Dothraki horse. 

So when Viscerys turns up to play The Ghost at a Feast ("It could be worse, Jon Snow...At least you had a feast; at least you had a family.."), he's very convincing. One last moment of odd clarity: when he goads Dany into addressing him, turns and states, "There she is." Not sarcastic, not "There she is!" not playing the dragon or the villain or the ass. The "There she is" in the expression of a kid who threw a tantrum that finally brought his mother to confront him. There she is: I did that. Now I pay.

I don't think he came back because Drogo welched on the deal, and Vicerys wants to reclaim Dany as forfeit, any more than he had a real plan to turns eggs into ships. He came back because she's what makes him real. She's the mirror that makes him more than a mirage. She's his last Targareyn. Viscerys is a tool, as gingerella said, but that's what people used him for since he was five. He wasn't made of more than what people made of him. Inside Viscerys, there was nothing to awaken.  

An episode about what it means to be a king. Two golden crowns, both fakes: Viscerys's last wish and Joffrey's hair. Robert allows how wife-beating isn't regal, then tells Ned that being king means people do what he wants. Then flees his own court. But first he throws lame Ned the Hand onto the throne like Ned threw young Jaime the Kingslayer off of it. Viscerys asks, "Who can rule without wealth or fear or love."  Of them all, only one victor: Tyrion says, "Not this little man. This little man is going home." 

[Anothermi]

DAYUM! You have such a way with words, Pallas. I'm just going to bask in them for a while.

[Pallas]

On 7/25/2016 at 5:03 AM, Anothermi said:

Viserys. He is another one of those characters who I remember investing in (if not totally liking, but he had his charm) only to watch him die a horrible death early on. Him and Jory... and Benjen. They didn't get a lot of screen time, but somehow I ended up invested enough to be shocked! SHOCKED! I tell you, when they were killed. Or, in Benjen's case, disappeared. I'm thinking it is a testament to both the actors and the script that they stood out so much with so little screen time.

So true that all three characters/actors leapt out again, and not only because we know how little time we'll have to renew our acquaintance. Viscerys especially, to me, because now we can see him as a victim of history as well as his own nature. He was the second of the pre-Rebellion generation -- and by far, the youngest and least able -- to be forced out for the next. Jon Arryn, Vicerys, Robert, Ned and Drogo gone by the end of season 1.  

On 7/29/2016 at 9:01 AM, Llywela said:

the kingdom a tinderbox that was just waiting for a spark to ignite, helped along both by those who hope to gain and by those who seek to prove something, like Theon, claiming loyalty to Robb while goading and prodding him to war, (and believing his argument to be right, who could foresee at this stage where actually going to war would lead them?) fuelled in the main by Theon's own sense of displacement and inadequacy and cognitive dissonance, the heir to his own father's tiny land raised as a hostage by a man his family once called enemy.

Beautifully put, and so true and clear that even Robert in his cups can see it: "There's a war coming, Ned." Hell, the thought of it sobers him up, when he lets it. Theon another victim of history, with a bit more inner resources (and his youth among the upstanding Starks at bracing Winterfell) to tell history to shove it and survive, while languid Viscerys has none and cannot. He may be the youngest of the pre-Rebellion generation, but he's also the one who lives only in the past: the Rebellion that brought the others to power overthrew his kind, and those Targaryens had already degenerated, like their dragons, after centuries in Westeros. Rhaegar seems to have been both a throwback ("a real dragon," said Selmy), a populist and a radical, marrying and fathering children outside his bloodline...then fucking it up royally.

But some men are born lucky even in their faults! No Rhaegar's fall from grace, no Jon Snow to save the world. Then there's Viscerys, born a spare, about 15 years too late. As if the Mad King woke up sane for one day near the end of two decades and said, "Hold on...where's the other one?" Viscerys who blusters and bathes and saves his most gracious smile for the thought of reviving slavery in Westeros. (Harry Lloyd again -- his "You and me, pal: we get it" grin at Jorah is charming, even princely, and appalling.) Skinny Viscerys who brazenly blasphemes, drawing his sword among a hundred warriors, only to inspire Drogo to a positively Jesuitical interpretation of the proscription against drawing blood in Doth Raes. Suicide by Khal: Viscerys gets poached. An end worse than Rhaego, worse than Ned Stark, worse than Ned's sword, even.

In the game of thrones, all feasts are a Dothraki wedding.