In an episode that was high on emotion, the thing that almost broke me was Rickon’s insistence that he had to protect his brother from harm. We got a nice bit of Bran exposition this week as his plotline dovetailed nicely with that of Jon Snow, the two brothers passing close to each other without initially realising the other was there. ‘I’m your brother and I have to protect you’ Maisie Williams is one of the strongest performers on this show and her brief scenes were quietly devastating, leaving you wondering just how much one child can be expected to endure. As for Talisa herself, I’ve never been the character’s biggest fan – although I think Oona Chaplin has done a lot with very little – but her gory, heartbreaking end was unbearable.Īnd poor Arya, so close to a reunion and present once again when members of her family died. The moment when Talisa had to warn him not to kiss her and insult the Freys still further was telling, particularly when contrasted with Roose Bolton’s cynical admission that he picked the fattest wife to gain the biggest dowry.
It was a mistake his honourable and pragmatic father would never have made and yet you sense that Robb never truly understood that in the game of thrones, politics should always trump love.
Similarly he chose Talisa over an important political alliance. Walder Frey would have us believe that Robb “threw away a kingdom for a pair of firm tits”, but the young Wolf King provided a more apt epitaph a few weeks ago when he ruefully noted: “I’ve won every battle but I’m losing the war.” On the field Robb’s maturity made him the equal of Tywin Lannister away from it he was still a boy, prone to making a boy’s mistakes – as he reminded us this week, he over-ruled his mother and sent Theon to negotiate with his father. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t also raise a glass to the late King in the North: a brave man, certainly, but one who lost first an alliance, then a cause, and ultimately his life – and all for love. Her Catelyn has always been fierce in her devotion and the episode’s final moment, in which she begged for her oldest son’s life before slitting the throat of an innocent woman as he died, was absolutely devastating. That those last desperate moments worked so well was largely down to the outstanding Michelle Fairley. That said, the Red Wedding itself was superbly judged, from Lord Frey’s lascivious leering at Talisa to the grimly desperate bedding of Roslin and Edmure, and the awful moment when Catelyn, hearing the opening strains of the Rains of Castamere, realises too late what is about to come. Similarly there was no real need for the brief scene between Sam and Gilly. While the battle for Yunkai was gorgeously staged, it felt out of place in what was, and should have stayed, a Stark-focused week. The blood-drenched wedding of Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey was the harrowing centrepiece of a strong episode, albeit an episode with the occasional misstep. The Freys (and the ever-slippery Roose Bolton) may hide under the Lannister name, but the dreadful crime of breaking guest right is theirs at heart. What was fascinating, and horrible, about Frey and his Red Wedding is that this man is no implacable Tywin Lannister but rather a petty tyrant dwelling on a perceived injustice until it consumes him. The host with the least is clearly Walder Frey, a man prepared to break the sacred vows of hospitality and bring down a great house merely to avenge a slight on his honour. ‘The wine will flow red and the music will play loud and we’ll put this mess behind us’įorget what I said about Lannister weddings. As ever, we are going to (hopefully) avoid book spoilers as well.Ĭlick here for Sarah Hughes’ season three, episode eight blog Do not read on unless you have watched episode nine (which airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Monday at 9pm). Spoiler alert: this blog is published after Game of Thrones airs on HBO in the US on Sunday.
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