Game of Thrones: The Climb

Writing about Game of Thrones from the perspective of a book reader – let’s be clear, a babbling, frothing fanboy – it’s tempting to start discussing episodes exclusively with regards to how they relate to their print equivalents. I try to avoid that, though; there are plenty of websites out there that already provide that analysis. An episode like “The Climb,” though, deviates pretty heavily from the text and there’s a case to be made that it might have been better with a little more print ink. But upon examination, one can also see where the deviations work well in service of the show, and aren’t as far from the books as it might appear.

“So enough of your blathering, Internet.”

Let’s start at the end, or close to it. Littlefinger’s monologue is excellently written, but it’s also borderline Bond villain-esque,  a sneering statement of carefully planned purposelessness from a man who, it must be said, seems to just want to watch the world burn. Aidan Gillen’s Littlefinger is certainly a departure from the friendly, apparently harmless mastermind portrayed in the books; in Thrones he’s an evident sociopath covered in a thin layer of slime. But given that characterization, his soliloquy is actually quite true to form – the book’s Petyr Baelish is given to freewheeling gloating as soon as he finds an appropriate audience (readers will know who I mean), so his screen equivalent is simply slightly less selective. (And of course, any excuse for Gillen to play off of Conleth Hill is welcomed.)

Conleth Hill Face, you complete me.

Of course, that monologue carried a casualty, and one not without controversy. It’s weird to think that Esme Bianco joined the cast as simply “Red-Headed Whore” (that’s what it said on her dressing room door!) in the pilot, given the prominence of the renamed Ros as the show went on – of course, she did have a few memorable scenes. Ros became sort of a lightning rod for book fans, a symbol for HBO’s tendency to rewrite, hack apart, and sex up; hell, she was basically the mascot for Sexposition.  But as the show went on, she found a level beyond “Get naked while someone else monologues” and had her own little rags-to-riches story going on, a fairly believable social ascension for someone born outside Westeros’s power structure. Ros wasn’t precisely an audience surrogate, but she was a sympathetic character without being cloying or outright heroic.

And now she’s dead, target practice for Joffrey. It was kind of a jarring decision by the showrunners, enough to make one wonder if there were contract disputes (or simply more tempting offers for Ms. Bianco) at play. I’ve seen a few book-first fans celebrating it, with a strangely self-congratulatory air, with comments like “Finally David & Dan recognized how much everyone hates this character!” I think there’s more than a bit of an echo chamber there due to Ros’s aforementioned status as a shibboleth for book-to-screen missteps, and really, I don’t know what to say about comments like “First time I found myself rooting for Joffrey!”* Myself, I just found it a bit of a shaggy-dog story, but then, that’s nothing new in Westeros. It’s good to remind the audience that nobody is safe, and if Esme Bianco deserved better than to be a memento mori, well, she certainly isn’t the only one.

(*Actually, I know exactly what to say. “What the fuck, bro.”)

To be fair, this episode was rife with motivational changes. There was Cersei admitting that Joffrey attempted to have his uncle killed (a mystery in the books, probably ascribed to Cersei); there was Beric & Thoros selling Gendry to Melisandre to fund their freedom fighting (besides the change in events, an out-of-character decision for the book’s damnably noble Dondarrion); there was Tyrion warning poor Sansa of their arranged marriage (whereas in print he wallowed in his own victimization and couldn’t bear to tell her). All of those are fairly well in-line with show characterization, and that’s not always exactly at odds with the books. For instance I think Joffrey as an out-and-out psychopath (and Cersei as a more introspective and cautious plotter) reflects the age-up of the show – imagine an extra four or five years of that shit, and you can see where there’s going. I find myself going back to the well with the age-up fairly often, but then, it’s often relevant. Really, the only conversion that grated was the continual toothlessness of Catelyn Stark, as all her ideas (good and bad) are given to other characters and she’s reduced more and more to a generic maternal figure. It’s a damn shame, given Michelle Fairley’s stellar performance.

We interrupt this review to BLOW YOUR MIND.

But hey, enough book-reader whining. How about that fuckin’ Wall? This episode was a little disconnected, but like most of the setup episodes, it had a big cool set piece holding the conversation collage together. And this time, it was a fantastic action sequence with a bit of added tension. I’m not thrilled with the relatively colorless portrayal of most of Mance Rayder’s horde (Why isn’t Tormund talking about his wang more?!), but the trade-off for that has been a more dynamic and interesting Ygritte. “Climb” did an excellent job deepening her relationship with Jon Snow with a mix of dialogue, action, and the occasional gormless facial expression. The ending scene was pretty cheesy in a way GoT rarely is – Makeouts at sunset! Swelling string section! – but everything leading up to it worked just fine, and was an example of just how cool this show can look when they cut loose.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

There was also a pair of invented scenes that ate up a good deal of time in the episode – one a battle of equals, the other, er, not. Let’s start with the latter, in which Theon Greyjoy’s life just gets worse & worse. It’s been hard to feel sorry for Westeros’s douchiest-bag, a stellar combination of Dartmouth frat boy and aggrieved pirate, but, well, nobody deserves this. Not much was accomplished by that scene except to up the psychopath cred of Theon’s yet-nameless tormentor, but if the show is going where I think it is, I think that’s a relevant use of time. As long as they don’t do it again. By comparison, the much-awaited battle of Olenna Tyrell and Tywin Lannister was just a delight, two of the cast’s finest actors playing two of the smartest, most ruthless characters, just going at it. Tywin got his way, but we might have to call this one a draw considering how well the Queen of Thorns managed to prick his skin – and I suspect she has something up her voluminous sleeves to boot to counter Tywin’s one-sided matchmaking. Whatever. Just put them in a room and have them verbally fence for an hour. About cheese and wine, even. I don’t care. Charles Dance and Diana Rigg for all the fucking Emmys that we’re not giving to Nikolaj “Failing at dinner” Coster-Waldau and Gwen Christie.

Thanks to a stellar casting job, even when GoT isn’t firing on all cylinders, it has a lot to fall back on. This was one of those episodes, where a couple big powerful scenes carried the loose bits of setup along, and otherwise it was just good actors having fun. Next week is “The Bear and the Maiden Fair,” penned by GRRM himself, and if you’ve read the books, you know exactly what’s coming and how frigging excellent it could well be. And if you haven’t? Well, trust me, you’re gonna wanna get butts in seats for this one, and not just for a catchy tune.