Joffrey puts Sansa aside for Margaery Tyrell. Robb marries Talisa Maegyr. Jon prepares to meet Mance Rayder. Arya says farewell to Jaqen H'ghar. Daenerys tries to rescue her dragons.Joffrey puts Sansa aside for Margaery Tyrell. Robb marries Talisa Maegyr. Jon prepares to meet Mance Rayder. Arya says farewell to Jaqen H'ghar. Daenerys tries to rescue her dragons.Joffrey puts Sansa aside for Margaery Tyrell. Robb marries Talisa Maegyr. Jon prepares to meet Mance Rayder. Arya says farewell to Jaqen H'ghar. Daenerys tries to rescue her dragons.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe title, "Valar Morghulis", means "all men must die" in High Valyrian. It is a customary saying in Essos, and is traditionally answered with "Valar Dohaeris" ("all men must serve"), which is also the title of the next episode (Valar Dohaeris (2013)).
- GoofsPycell gives Tyrion a piece of silver and says "For your trouble", repeating the gesture Tyrion made to the prostitute Daisy when he had Pycelle arrested (What Is Dead May Never Die (2012)). However, by the time Tyrion gave the prostitute the silver, Pycell was no longer in the room, thus he could not know Tyrion did that.
- Quotes
[Theon is brooding in his chambers at Winterfell while a Northman incessantly blows a horn outside the walls]
Theon Greyjoy: I WILL kill that man. I don't care how many arrows they feather me with, how many spears they run through me, I will kill that horn-blowing cunt before I fall.
Maester Luwin: They want you to know you're surrounded.
Theon Greyjoy: I know I'm surrounded. I know that because I stood on the battlements and saw I was surrounded.
Maester Luwin: They don't want you to sleep. They want to sap your spirit before they...
Theon Greyjoy: [sarcastically] Thank you, wise bald man! Thank you for explaining siege tactics to me.
[pause]
Theon Greyjoy: No word from my father?
Maester Luwin: No.
Theon Greyjoy: Send more ravens.
Maester Luwin: You killed all the ravens.
Theon Greyjoy: The first time I saw Winterfell...
[the horn blows again; Theon waits for it to finish with an irritated look on his face]
Theon Greyjoy: The first time I saw Winterfell, it looked like something that had been here for thousands of years, and would be here for thousands of years after I was dead. I saw it, and I thought, "Of course Ned Stark crushed our rebellion and killed my brothers. We never stood a chance against a man who lives here."
Maester Luwin: Lord Stark went out of his way to make it your home.
Theon Greyjoy: Yes, my captors were so very kind to me, you love reminding me of that. Everyone in this frozen pile of shit has always loved reminding me of that. You know what it's like to be told how lucky you are to be someone's prisoner? To be told how much YOU owe THEM? And then to go back home to your real father...
[the horn blows again; Theon jumps up in fury]
Theon Greyjoy: I will kill that man! I swear to the Drowned God, the old gods, the new gods, to every fucking god in every fucking heaven, I will kill that man!
Maester Luwin: Theon, listen to me. I serve Winterfell. Now Winterfell is yours. I'm bound by oath to serve you.
Theon Greyjoy: And what's your counsel, trusted friend?
Maester Luwin: Run. Five hundred Northmen wait outside the walls. You have twenty men. You can't win. Wait for nightfall and run.
Theon Greyjoy: There's nowhere to run. I'd never make it back to the Iron Islands. And even if I did, even if by some miracle I slipped through the lines and made it home, I'd be a coward. "The Greyjoy who ran." The shame of the family.
Maester Luwin: Don't go home. Join the Night's Watch. Once a man has taken the black, he's beyond reach of the law. All his past crimes are forgiven.
Theon Greyjoy: I won't make it to the Wall. I won't make it ten feet past the Winterfell gates.
Maester Luwin: There are ways. Hidden passageways, built so the lords of Winterfell could escape. The road will be dangerous, but with a little luck... the Night's Watch is an ancient, honorable order. You'll have opportunities there.
Theon Greyjoy: The opportunity for Jon Snow to cut my throat in my sleep!
Maester Luwin: The opportunity to make amends for what you've done.
Theon Greyjoy: I've done a lot, haven't I? Things I never imagined myself doing.
Maester Luwin: I've known you many years, Theon Greyjoy. You're not the man you're pretending to be.
[Luwin puts a comforting hand on Theon's shoulder]
Maester Luwin: Not yet.
Theon Greyjoy: [in despair] You may be right. But I've gone too far to pretend to be anything else.
- ConnectionsFeatured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Game of Thrones Quotes (2016)
With the first season I felt it took me a minute or two to get into the tone of the show and also understand the basic characters enough to be able to get caught up in what was happening; with the second I had no such time and I was keen to get back into the battle as various armies marched across the land while small threats build overseas and political betrayal is embedded in every conversation of those seeking power for themselves. The war means that the second season has a much larger and perhaps simpler agenda but at the same time there are plenty of smaller moments and manoeuvring of characters that I continued to find as enjoyable as I did unpredictable. Not having read the book and being keen to avoid spoilers, all the various twists and turns of the plot was news to me, whether it be the turn of the war or the specifics of an individual character, and each story arch held me easily with no one thread being of more interest than another. The only obvious downside of having so much to squeeze in is that occasionally there are gaps in threads that are just left to save time – this is best seen in the final episode where several characters go from one situation to a different location without it really being clear how they did this. I imagine this "squeeze" effect is much harder for those coming from the books to the show.
That said, the season is impressive in how well it does this with relatively little time on each thread. Every second and every line of dialogue is important and are therefore mostly used very well to deliver character, motivation and also plot. The cast respond to this well and even the smaller characters are played in such a way that you are interested in them, which helps the nature of the telling where one cannot be sure who will live and who will die considering that characters who appear to be "main" can quickly be dispatched and forgotten within a few episodes if the plot turns in that direction. Generally I was impressed a lot more this season as characters grew and developed. Dinklage continues to give a great performance and is my favourite in terms of colour, although only marginally more than Gleeson, who delivers a monstrous c*** who is as arrogant as he is ill-suited for this role as King. Headey has grown on me more this season, as has Coleraine-girl Fairley. Likewise Allen, Harington, Gillen, Madden, Glen, Clarke and others all do strong work across their characters – too many to mention in fact, it is a real boon of the show that there are so many characters and yet I am interested in all of them and all of their threads.
The production looks great as well. I'm sure those who know the books inside out will complain about the presentation of some of the larger battles but for me nothing here felt limited by budget – it all felt like they did it that way because this was the way that worked best. Costumes, sets and locations all continue to be great and I got a nice kick out of this season being the first time I recognised somewhere they had used (Pyke being the nearby Ballintoy harbour in Northern Ireland). The gore and the nudity are excessive but they work because they fit with the excessive and colourful nature of the telling and the grand, gaudy sweep of the bloody tales.
Season 2 of this show doesn't disappoint. It delivers an engaging overall story with loads of threads and seeds for future threads and does it in a way that makes it all look easy. So much going on could easily have seen the show have weaker threads that annoy for taking up time but this doesn't happen and even though some characters and threads have lesser time, I was interested in all of them and in their threads. Not knowing the books really helps as well since no character are pushed to the fore or seem immune to the bloody and cruel twists of fate that are common here. Great show – a year will be a very long wait for the third season.
- bob the moo
- Jun 5, 2012
Details
- Runtime1 hour 4 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1