ned's dead, baby: s4 e2: the lion and the rose

So I continue my Game of Thrones mania with my second episode analysis. There's a bit less to write for this episode, as most of the scenes are pretty self-explanatory anyway and a huuuuge chunk of it revolves around the wedding. Plus I spent the day sunbathing in Hyde Park and I've just had two bottles of wine with Charlie & LD and eaten my weight in Ben and Jerrys so I'm sleepy so this'll be a quick one I'm afraid.

Also, I am going to warn anyone reading now that hasn't seen the episode yet that this blog post has spoilers.

big spoilers

BIG MASSIVE SPOILERS

LIKE, HUGE SPOILERS

SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE, OK? SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHO THEN DON'T READ ANY FURTHER

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

OK so now that's over and done with we can proceed.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Episode Two:
The Lion and The Rose

Scene 1: Ramsay Snow being a bastard

ramsay you bastard

Ramsay Snow (once known as creepy Simon from Misfits) and a girl are chasing another girl through the woods. These two girls are the same girls Ramsay used to torture Theon in season 3 before he cut Theon's nob off). Anyway, this scene is pretty self-explanatory. It's Ramsay/creepy Simon being a douche.

So who is Ramsay Snow? He's the guy that re-takes Winterfell from Theon in season 2 (though we don't see him or learn his identity until season 3). He then tortures Theon. He pretty much rivals Joffrey for nobbishness. Like Jon Snow, Ramsay Snow is a bastard. That's what the second name 'Snow' means; it's the second name given to illegitimate children born in the north. Ramsay happens to be the bastard son of Roose Bolton. Roose Bolton is the guy who was there at the Red Wedding with armor under his clothes, and he was the one who stabbed Robb Stark in the belly. He was once loyal to Ned Stark, but he betrayed Robb to the Lannisters so that he could take control of the North. We don't like Roose Bolton very much.

Anyway, these few scenes are pretty self-explanatory. It's just Ramsay being a dick and then having a conversation with his father about the fact that the two youngest Stark boys (Bran & Rickon, aka. Baby Stark/the one who never talks) are missing, and that the northerners will support them if they ever reappear.

Scene 2: Bran's vision

Bran is now on the other side of The Wall. Bran is a warg, which is essentially a skin-changer. His soul can enter the body of other living things (note how I say living things, not just other humans or animals).

He sees an interesting tree and touches it, and basically goes into the tree. The tree isn't just any old tree. It's a heart tree (recognisable by the white trunk and red leaves), which are a major part of the 'old religion' of Game of Thrones). I'll go into the different religions of Game of Thrones in the next section of this post, but for this part suffice to say that the tree is an integral part of the old religion, the one Ned followed. In season 1 we see Ned Stark in the woods amongst these trees, contemplating decisions. We see Ned again, in Bran's vision, and OK I welled up a bit.

OK so in Bran's vision we see:

a three eyed crow, repeated metaphor in the show

a crow flying in the crypts of Winterfell

Ned cleaning his sword in the wood, then in his cell in Kings Landing

snow, someone saying “look for me..'

the white walker girl from the very first ever episode

'....beneath the tree'

the iron throne with snow falling on it

Cersei saying “he saw us!”, followed by Bran falling from the tower

dragons flying over a city Kings Landing

There's something to be say about each of these snippets, but I'm going to focus on the two most important ones:

snow on the throne; we've seen this before, in season 2. Remember when someone steals Daenerys' dragons and she spends about three solid episodes just shouting "where are my dragons?" at people? She goes to that weird circular building ('The House of the Undying') where she has to pass through loads of trippy rooms to get to where the dragons are being held. She has visions, one of which is of the throne room in King's Landing, utterly destroyed, with snow drifing in through the savaged ceiling and landing on the throne. It's assumed that it may be a look into the future; the throne room after being destroyed by dragons, when winter sets in. It is also metaphorical, perhaps; snow on the throne. In my last post, I mentioned a popular theory that Jon is the bastard child of Prince Rhaegar, and therefore direct male descendant. Perhaps the vision is an allusion to Jon Snow on the throne

the dragon shadow; the guy who wrote the game of thrones books, George R.R Martin, wrote this episode. The dragon shadow over King's Landing is never mentioned in this scene in the book, suggesting Martin added this little foreshadowing in himself. It's like a little teaser for the next book, suggesting that Daenerys will make it to King's Landing at some point (she hasn't yet, in the books).

Scene 3: Grumpy Stannis is grumpy

Dragonstone. Stannis is being grumpy. Melisandre is burning people. This scene is a bit repetitive, admittedly, of many other scenes involving Stannis being grumpy and Melisandre burning people but it seems a good place to explain religion in Game of Thrones. There are 3 main religions:

the old gods; the gods of the north, sort of vikingy. very close to nature, all to do with trees and nature and so on and so forth.
the new gods; 'the seven'. the gods of the south, essentially one god with seven different aspects; the father, the warrior, the smith, the maiden, the mother, the crone, the stranger.
the lord of light; the god of stannis and melisandre, a sort of culty religion centered around darkness and fire. it's the closest thing to christianity in westeros, founded on a belief in two different deities, the lords of light and darkness, that are essentially god and satan.

Scene 4: The Purple Wedding

Is there anything to really say? I don't think there is. Goodbye Joffrey. Loved the cameo by Sigur Ros.