Re-watching 'Game Of Thrones,' season 6: I choose violence

Who Played the Game Best?

Bye-bye, Boltons — your words will disappear, your House will disappear, your name will disappear. All memory of you will disappear (at least according to Sansa) — game over. House Stark, what a comeback! Welcome once again to Winterfell and congrats on the new title. House Lannister might seem solid after the wildfire plot — Cersei got the chair she’s always wanted, but she’s still isolated, with few friends (or armies) to support her.

House Targaryen is the winner this round, as Dany has friends galore (House Martell, House Tyrell, rebel Greyjoy, the Dothraki, the Unsullied, three dragons), giving her superior numbers plus air and naval support. She can either host an invasion or a really great party.

A Game of PR

Bran is astonished when he sees the confrontation at the Tower of Joy. Not because he is witnessing his father and his bannermen winning a fight against members of the Kingsguard, but because the incident is not happening the way he has heard that it did “a thousand times.”

The myth of the honorable Ned Stark is the foundation of Bran’s family, and part of why the Starks are the heroes of this story. But Ned left out some details, one of them being how Howland Reed stabbed Arthur Dayne in the back. Bran’s understanding, for all these years, was that his father beat “the best swordsman” and was perhaps the better man. Arya, too, gets a rude awakening and is forced to adjust her understanding of her father, her sister and the Lannisters after she sees a Braavosi play reconstructing the events of King’s Landing. Her father — her hero — is portrayed as a buffoon. “The past is already written,” the Three-Eyed Raven tells Bran. But it’s still open for interpretation, and that will always depend on how the story is told, and by whom.

Tyrion realizes this when he decides Dany needs to take credit for the (temporary) peace in Meereen, even though she has been absent from the city. After all, there are many who perceive Dany as an invader not a liberator, as a sex worker tells Varys. Tyrion recognizes that the Sons of the Harpy have “a good story,” so Dany needs a better one, perhaps as practice for when they go to Westeros, where once again, she could be perceived as a foreign invader. To that end, he enlists the Red Temple to help sell Dany as the Chosen One.

Dany is the ultimate example of the fungibility of stories. Considered one way, her story sounds a lot like Jon Snow’s hero arc:

Her mother dies in childbirth. She’s of noble birth, but an outsider. She joins up with an unusual group of warriors who give her the opportunity to lead. She finds purpose championing another group on the lower rungs of society against dark, insidious forces that would keep them in thrall. She tries to do the right thing, but her own people try to kill her. She experiences a mystical event that leaves others in awe, and goes on to save people in the direst straits.

But through a different lens, she’s Cersei:

She grows up without her mother; her father is killed by someone close to him. Her family is into incest. She’s haunted by a witch’s prophecy. She has no problem letting someone kill her brother on her behalf, because she perceives him as a threat to her child. She defines herself as a mother, but she can’t really control her savage offspring because they have more power than she does (especially that biggest one). When things don’t go her way, she threatens to burn cities to the ground, and she takes violent revenge against the men and women who’ve wronged her or confined her, even if they were not violent toward her. She confines people indefinitely. She executes others without due process. She takes control by incinerating her enemies inside their holy temple. She destabilizes. She destroys.

Which version of Dany will prevail? It will depend on how her story ends.

At times it seems like she could go either way. She could be on a triumphant journey, or she could be following in the path of her barmy father, the Mad King. At the very least, her tendencies should make us uneasy. She imagines herself to be a decent person. But as Edmure points out to Jaime Lannister during the siege of Riverrun, “all of us have to believe that we’re decent, don’t we? You have to sleep at night.” Everyone believes they are the hero of their own tale. But that also makes everyone the villain — or buffoon — of someone else’s story.

A Few Words From the Dearly Departed

Hodor, he of the large frame and small vocabulary, was a figure of fun, not much more than Bran Stark’s source of travel plus comic relief. But that was until his death “holding the door” revealed what he had lost long ago, via a time loop that made his service to Bran seem even more tragic. We talked to actor Kristian Nairn about filming one of the most poignant death scenes in Season 6. (Adapted from an earlier interview with Nairn.)

Q: How did you find out about your character’s death?

A: I actually found out from a fellow cast member. We get the scripts pretty much in order of our first appearance in that particular season. I called my friend Finn Jones, who plays Loras, and joked, as many of us do every year, “So, did I make it to the end?” I received an awkward silence in reply, so I knew that my number was up. A few days later, I received the call of doom from David Benioff and Dan Weiss that signals your character’s demise, and the rest is history.

Q: What’s your favorite memory from your last day on set?

A: Isaac Hempstead Wright [who plays Bran] and I have grown very close over the years, and I dreaded the moment of leaving. Our little group — Isaac, Ellie Kendrick, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Natalia Tena, Art Parkinson and others — felt like a little odd family, so I knew I was going to miss it. They let Isaac be the one to wrap my last filming day, so that was definitely a special moment.

Q: Did you read any of the fan reaction to your character’s death?

A: I didn’t at the start. It took me a while to feel OK with it. It’s just a beautiful thing to see a character you worked hard on, and did your best to breathe life into mean so much to so many people. Particularly a character as unique as Hodor was. It’s a humbling experience watching people hurt and cry along to something you have done.

Q: How do you feel about how Bran approaches his powers and people now, post-Hodor? Did he learn his lesson?

A: I’m frustrated by that, as Bran’s ex-carer. He needs to take his studies more seriously. If anything comes from Hodor dying, it should be that Bran realizes he can affect things in a major way. By being bored, he killed Hodor, the Raven, Summer and a whole race of tree people. Think about what he’s doing! Like the Raven told him, the ink is dry. The past is not supposed to be tampered with.

Q: How did being on the show change your career?

A: Not only did it change my career in every conceivable way, but it changed my life! I was working as a club DJ when I took the role, and I was doing pretty well in my field, but “Game of Thrones” expanded the field into a planet. It shattered my horizons, even some of my self-imposed ones. No matter what happens in life, I will always be eternally grateful for the changes it brought, and the continuing opportunities.

Q: Who had your favorite death on the show and why?

A: Honestly, I would be biased to say my own, but I was such a fan of our story line. I enjoy a little magic, and ours was also steeped in mystery. The Red Wedding was painful to watch, though. Michelle Fairley [who plays Catelyn] gave a showstopping performance in that scene.

Where Are They Now?

Is it just us, or did an awful lot of characters die in Season 6? Fortunately, the many actors culled from the cast were able to find plenty of work elsewhere. (Although there’s no word yet on the baby who played Ramsay’s infant brother.) Here’s a memorial survey:

Alexander Siddig (Doran Martell) avoided violence as the Prince of Dorne but became one of its biggest advocates as the assassin-guild head Ra’s al Ghul on “Gotham.”

Ian McShane (Brother Ray) has ascended from Septon to actual god. He’s the All-Father Odin — otherwise known as Mr. Wednesday — in “American Gods.” And he’ll be back in the Gem Saloon on the upcoming “Deadwood” movie on HBO.

Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) played a more complex villain in the short-lived “Inhumans.” And recently took a turn as the most mature member (relatively speaking) of Mötley Crüe in “The Dirt.”

Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell) has gone from studying scripture with the Faith to raising hell as a shape-shifting demon in the upcoming series “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.”

Finn Jones (Loras Tyrell) bolted from the Sept of Baelor to get back into fighting shape as the lead of the since-canceled Netflix series “Iron Fist.”

Jonathan Pryce (High Sparrow) is capitalizing on both his experience playing religious figures and his resemblance to Pope Francis in the upcoming Netflix film “The Pope.”

The Biggest Departure from the Books

Magic is always mysterious, of course. But the show’s version and the books’ version are very different.

For one thing, the elemental magic in the books — which is subtle, unreliable and dangerous — has some set boundaries that keep unrealistic situations more realistic, without allowing them to become too concrete. The characters are messing with forces they don’t understand and so most use magic sparingly or accidentally. Because magic has a price, sometimes to be paid in blood. But Season 6 prefers to use magic in the story in a convenient, ad hoc manner. It wants magic that is free and boundless and available for deus ex machina duty. The show violates the rules set out in the books, and sometimes refuses to acknowledge they even exist.

That scene in the show in which Dany steps out of the temple, emerging from the flames naked and unburnt? That set off a firestorm with fans, because even though that scene hadn’t yet happened in the books, it went against what George R.R. Martin had said previously. Dany survives Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre (possibly aided by the witch Mirri Maz Duur), but even that fire burns the Khaleesi’s hair away. And when Dany is around a fire-breathing Drogon, it burns her hair yet again and gives her burns and blisters. Dany is also somewhat afraid of Drogon. “If I run from him, he will burn me and devour me,” she thinks, and with good reason. “TARGARYENS ARE NOT IMMUNE TO FIRE,” Martin once explained in a webchat (all-caps his). In another interview, he clarified further: “No Targaryens are immune to fire. The thing with Dany and the dragons, that was just a one-time magical event.”

Bran’s greenseeing reveries also have a limit. Greenseeing is a kind of warging, except it’s linking into a network of tree consciousness. The heart trees — the trees with carved faces — are spiritual CCTV surveillance cameras all around Westeros, and the greenseers using the godswoods became gods, gaining a sort of omniscience. The trees don’t share the same sense of time as humans — their database covers past, present and future. But there are no trees available to help Bran see the vast majority of his visions in Season 6.

Bran’s visions in the books are augmented by becoming the tree — or rather, eating a white paste with red streaks that look like blood, said to come from weirwood seeds (and believed by some to actually be the blood of Jojen Reed). As in the show, Bran starts to discover that he can reach out to people in the past during these visions. When he says, “Winterfell,” Ned looks up. “Who’s there?” he asks. But Bran’s voice sounds like a whisper in the wind, a rustle in the leaves. Theon hears the wind whisper “Theon” when he’s in the godswood, and it’s therapeutic. (“Let me die as Theon, not as Reek,” he prays.) “Words are wind” is a common phrase in Westeros — so common Martin’s editor tried to get him to cut the number of times it’s used in the books. Martin refused, though, possibly because this connection between words and wind is foreshadowing a larger part of the story yet to come.

Bran isn’t the only Stark with magical abilities, but his are the most developed. Both Jon and Arya are able to warg into their direwolves, mostly though what they think of as “wolf dreams.” The direwolves also share a telepathic link of some sort, and this connection could benefit their humans, once the Stark kids learn to master their abilities. In the books, Arya gets a boost while blind in Braavos, which is much less about being attacked with sticks (as it is in the show) and more about developing her other senses. Instead of getting kicked out of the House of Black and White, Arya continues her classes. A cat follows her one night, and through its eyes, she is able to cheat on her midterm and earn her sight back.

Both Bran and Arya are taking beginner’s magic, of a sort. The more advanced Melisandre studied long ago, and she pays the price for using her powers in the form of physical pain. (The ruby at her throat burns her. Blood trickles down her thighs, black and smoking.) Euron Greyjoy, too, is a practitioner of dark magic in the books. He doesn’t merely seek a marriage alliance with Dany, as he wants to do in Season 6; he plans to bind her dragons to his will. He has a magical horn for this purpose, but it requires blood, too — whoever blows it will die.

Recipients of magic also suffer. Jon Snow’s resurrection hasn’t happened in the books yet, but Beric Dondarrion’s experience gives us a preview — being resurrected from the dead has consequences. Beric loses his memories and feels less himself each time. When it happens to Jon Snow in the books, he won’t recover as quickly as he does on the show.

“Magic can ruin things,” Martin said in an interview. “Magic should never be the solution. Magic can be part of the problem.” As one of his characters explains, “Sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.” The show is grasping it with both hands and trying to hide the blood.

How Did You Get Your ‘Game’ On?

This week, readers wanted to know more about the undead uncle, Benjen Stark.

“How has Benjen remained dead but free of the influence of the White Walkers?” — Carrie Leadingham

“Benjen is severely underused. He did not need to sacrifice his undead life to save Jon. There was room for two on that horse. But really, why didn’t the showrunners use White Walker Benjen more?” — Grace Green

Yes, Uncle Benjen was the Jack to Jon Snow’s Rose, and his horse was the raft. But sadly, like in “Titanic,” the powers-that-be decided that one life was more valuable — or more interesting? — than the other. If “alive” is even how we should describe the state of Benjen’s existence. (He’s still human, though, not a White Walker.) As Benjen explains it in the show, a White Walker stabbed him in the gut with a sword of ice, and left him there to die, to turn into a wight. The Children of the Forest “stopped the Walkers’ magic from taking hold” by shoving dragonglass in his heart. Dragonglass — which seems to be a magical cure-all — can create a White Walker, kill a White Walker, kill a wight and prevent someone from becoming a wight. Perhaps it’s like electricity: A little lights something up, a surge can make it explode? Either way, it left Benjen in this in-between state, both dead and not dead.

Benjen seems bound in service to the Three-Eyed Raven’s mission. How does Benjen know where to find everyone? There is a lot about Benjen we don’t know, but we can get a few more clues with Coldhands, a mysterious character in the books. (George R.R. Martin has claimed Benjen is not Coldhands, but the showrunners refer to Benjen as Coldhands in an “Inside the Episode” piece.) For instance, Coldhands is able to speak the True Tongue, the language of the Children. He also can speak with ravens, understanding their squawks and using them as scouts. Cool, huh? The showrunners decided, however, they didn’t have room to explore this. Uncle Benjen’s purpose, David Benioff said in another “Inside the Episode” piece, is to save Bran and Jon. In other words, he’s not a fully realized character.

Re-watching 'Game Of Thrones,' season 6: I choose violence

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