Sons of the Harpy is where the show deviates greatly from the source material. It offers a sense of reprieve for fans of the show who are tired of being spoiled by their bookish friends, on the other hand it leads the book readers into a realm of uncertainty. Budget restriction plays a hand in this – it’s easy to write hundreds of characters in a book, woe be the casting director who follows the source material to the letter.
We start off with Jaime and Bron sailing off to Dorne, the sand kingdom. As we learned earlier in the series, Dorne is not too fond of the Lannister. Something about raping and killing someone, Oberyn was very adamant that we know this several times during his tragic duel with Gregor Clegane. We begin to see Jaime coming to terms with what he has wrought. He has resigned himself to some form of holistic self-punishment for what happened to his father. Bron’s just brought in for laughs – He’s a fan favorite and the novel never really did him any justice so it was a treat to see more of him in the show.
Their mission is to rescue Myrcella, Jaime’s “niece”, but who are we kidding? Bron knows. There are good reasons to rescue her too. We learn elsewhere in Dorne that Oberyn’s widow is plotting with the Sand Snakes to harm Myrcella. These new characters were able to introduce their short back story through a short exposition. We know they’re Oberyn’s bastard daughters, Nymeria, Obara, and Tyene. They’re called the Sand Snakes because bastards in Dorne are called Sand, 5 less Sand Snakes than in the novel. To be fair, the casting director, 8 sand snakes is a bit too much. They learned of Jaime’s landing and is preparing to race to Myrcella in order to start a war with the Lannisters. The greatest book divergence in this episode occurs here. At this time in the book, Jaime Lannister is hundreds of miles away laying siege to Riverrun where Rob Stark’s great uncle, Bryden “The Black Fish” Tulley, is holding out. Whatever happened to The Black Fish in the show? Last we heard he escaped the Red Wedding in Season 3. The actor was never invited back to tie up loose ends. Additionally, the show runners completely did away with the Heiress of Dorne, Arianne Martell. Her part were small to say the least. We’re deprived of a few steamy sex scenes and failed coup attempt, but nothing of importance. How this arc plays out in the show is now anyone’s guess. If it’s anything like the novel, a King’s Guard gets slaughtered by an axe-wielding guard and Myrcella gets a scar in the process. When you think about it… Jaime is captain of the King’s Guard, could this spell the end of Jaime Lannister?
Back in King’s Landing, Cersei Lannister is quickly losing her mind. Her end game is a Kamikaze pilot. If the game of throne is a board game, Cersei is the petulant child who knocks the board over when she’s losing and then asks why everyone’s so upset. At first we thought she was all about her family, this episode reveals that she is more about herself. During a small council meeting Cersei sends Mace Tyrell to Braavos to strike a deal with the Iron Bank, sending her along with notorious henchmen/King’s Guard Meryn Trant. Guess who else is in Braavos? Guess who else is on some little girl’s special death list? Things aren’t looking too good for Ser Meryn Trant, beater of young girls. Something tells us Mace Tyrell might meet an untimely end on this journey as hinted by Cersei. To top off the crazy-bitch-who-doesn’t-know-what-she’s-doing streak, Cersei strikes a deal with the High Sparrow to create the Faith Militant. The Faith Militant are much like the inquisition of the old Holy Roman Empire. A real world social problem gets a spotlight here in the show as the religious zealot goes about attacking and killing anyone participating in sin, especially homosexuality. The highest profile homosexual, Loras Tyrell, is quickly imprisoned, taken in the name of the Gods while the city’s guards stood watch. Margaery is angry to say the least, how dare they imprison the king’s brother by law? She and demands Tommen do something about it. These militants answer to no one but the gods as we saw when boy king Tommen was refused an audience. The commoners taunted him, shouting, calling him bastard – they know about the incest. Could Cersei have predicted this when she sent her precious son to negotiate with the fanatics? In her attempt to consolidate power, she exposed her son to an even greater danger – a people who do not fear the power of kings. Fanatics who, if given enough reason, will turn on the queen if the learned of her sins. Tommen suffers not only the wrath of the commoners, but a lonely bed as Margaery moves away to be with her family.
Meanwhile at the Wall, longtime fans are treated to a confirmation of a popular theory. Every A Song of Ice and Fire forum is well aware of this theory: R+L=J. It stands for Rhaegar + Lyanna = Jon, a prediction on who Jon Snow’s parents truly are. This is one topic the show runners cannot deviate from – in fact, before Dave and DB won the rights for Game of Thrones, they had to guess who Jon Snow’s real mother was and according to RR Martin, they guessed right. And here’s the clues:
Hint #1: While Stannis Baratheon was admiring Jon, his wife Selyse comments on how his mother was probably a tavern whore. Stannis stopped her short, “That’s not Ned Stark’s way.”. Honorable Ned Stark would never sleep with a whore!
Hint #2: Melisandre continuously mentions seeing a “power” in Jon Snow that he does not know. If you’re a Melisandre groupie, and what hot-blooded man isn’t, you’d know her second favorite line in the show is “There is power in king’s blood”. She proved it by having sex with Stannis and producing a shadow assassin to kill Renly. She predicted the death of Robb Stark, Joffrey Baratheon and Balon Greyjoy by sacrificing leeches filled with the bastard king’s blood of Gendry. Melisandre tried to show Jon just how much power is in his blood, by stripping naked, and attempting to have sex with him. He refused, she was the wrong kind of redhead apparently. Back to the theme, how else would she be able to see the power within Jon Snow unless his true father is Rhagaer Targaryen?
Hint #4: To solidify this theory we get a little backstory from the conversation between Sansa and Littlefinger about Rhaegar Targaryan and Lyanna Stark. A little exposition goes a long way. Chekov’s gun at its best. Fan theorists rejoice.
Finally, we meet Danaerys back in Meereen. She’s doing politics which translates to boring stuff. That guy whose name we don’t care to pronounce wants a fighting arena. Yes, we know, we saw the trailer, there will be a fighting arena. But we’re not here to see some fallen noble complain. We watch Danaerys’ arc because we all want to see some dragon action. Having to deal with the politics is quickly losing her some hardcore fans. Nevertheless, something happens here that shocked even this author. The Sons of Harpy has proven more brazen and capable. They are killing Danaerys’ troop en masse and is ambushing them with the help of the same prostitute from episode one. The great Grey Worm is among them. You would think a capable commander like Grey Worm can fend them off but we find slowly getting kicked around by the Sons of Harpy. Ser Baristan Selmy, hearing the commotion nearby, rushes to his aid. Now, as a backstory, Ser Baristan Selmy is one of the greatest swordsmen to ever live. He trained Jaimie Lannister and single-handedly defeated a rebellion under the old Targaryen king. Unfortunately, he’s stabbed several times and falls to his knees before he's about to get his throat cut. Fortunately, Grey Worm kills the last Harpy just in time. We pan out to see a lifeless Baristan Selmy, dying inglorious in the dirt. This is the death RR Martin has warned us about. The script felt rushed. It looked like they wanted to get rid of Ser Baristan but they didn’t have enough time and need to make room in the budget by reducing the cast so they couldn’t find the time to give him a proper death. The man was a living legend in his own time and he was cut down so easily by a group of insurgent with no storied background. It was a very anti-climactic end to say the least. Let’s hope they make room in the budget for more dragons. They owe us that at least.
