Game of Thrones – Blackwater
by deerinthexenonarclights
Over the past few weeks I have made a big deal out of the admittedly ambiguous – to the point that some would say they’re meaningless – titles given to the episodes of Game of Thrones second season; discussing their potency as phrases, the way at they cast certain characters and the hint at the hidden themes inside that which they are used to name. I’ve discussed them even though none of those titles, hell not all of those titles combined are as big and as powerful and as utterly empty as this one, Blackwater. All season this has been the episode to look forward to, and not just because it was written by Game’s original author George R. R. Martin and directed by feature talent Neil Marshall but because the tale those two would be telling was to be a series defining one.
When the show was first picked up we all heard via osmosis – I did then and still do avoid all series spoilers, but that doesn’t stop information from flowing through – that there were two big moments in the first two books that would either sell you on the series or soil it for you; the death of Ned was one and Blackwater the other. The first of these came to me as a complete shock and succeeded most strongly in solidifying a show that I was already enjoying as something truly special; Blackwater comes at a time when I am questioning that belief and the quality of the show as a whole. For everyone watching this was a massively hyped moment, but for me it was also make or break: did the episode live up to those expectations? Did it redeem all of the wistful wheel spinning of the season to date? Could it ever?
Before I answer those questions I just asked I will address one that may be on your mind: what is Blackwater? Well, in the simplest sense it is the name given to a battle at King’s Landing, a conflict that casts Stannis Baratheon as the assaulter and the Lannister’s as those besieged; I imagine that if the show were to leap forward one hundred years there would be characters giving us history lessons about it as they did all those other unseen battles in the beginning of the show. This battle is the end result of the show’s slow season-long shuffle of match to fuse, but it’s also more than that right? I mean it has to be more than just a battle to be worthy of all these whispered words and wonderings.
Well it is and it isn’t. Though there have been many other massive battles over the course of the shows on-air history all of them have taken place of screen – sometimes the perspective character gets knocked out before the expensive stuff starts, other times the show simply skips ahead with excuse – and so this one, Blackwater, is the best by default. Though that isn’t all criticism, this is the first real battle scene that we’ve seen in the series and it was…well enough executed, I guess. By TV standards it was as gaudy as Matthew Weiner’s extravagant Beatles expense in Mad Men a few weeks back, but when you compare it to the likes of Two Towers or Kingdom of Heaven it just can’t compete, looking cheap in comparison. Though the battle scenes never really exceeded expectations of a cliche castle siege, besides those featuring some of the freakier kills, they did serve their purpose.
The real problem with this episode to my mind though -and yes I did feel that it was problematic and thus not a perfect hail mary save- was in its purpose, or rather the lack of. When you look at the season’s plot in the context of this climax you see just how pointless it has all been, that the battle is really just another way for the writers to spin their wheels and not, as expected, the moment when they would finally hit the road. The season started by introducing us briskly to these other two Baratheons, it then proceeded to kill one off almost instantly leaving us to assume that the other would then be the threat. Only now he too has been defeated and after all that effort the board remains the same, the pieces placed exactly as they were. Apparently Deer’s aren’t dangerous, who knew? To my mind those final minutes were among the weakest that the show has ever offered, in both a macro and micro sense. Even new music from Matt Berninger couldn’t save something so nefarious.
The worst part though is that I don’t hate the show, in fact I am sitting here in a Game of Thrones T-Shirt as I write this very review but this only makes the disappointment all the harder to bear. So out of respect for my fandom I want to end on what the episode did right. Firstly starting us of with those quiet moments before the battle was a good move, the ominousness pervading these scenes was some of the strongest mood material the show has yet shown. And although this fight proved to be narratively fruitless it still provided some particularly interesting thematic points. The way that the stories’ structure separated the men and the women into two distinct locations was telling of the way that these people, and of course ourselves, operate.
The males of Westeros are made to take life, they are all killers, while the work of women is to give it, whether they like it or not; but ultimately though, despite these differences, both die when battle comes. Everyone dies. Tyrion tells his troops that those on the other side of the gate are brave men and he means it sincerely, without any of his usual sarcasm; the soldiers on each side of the battle are more similar to each other than they are those they fight for or those that they left back at home (I would like to think that the two sides were so hard to differentiate during the episode in order to further this point, but I doubt it was that intentional) and yet they still kill one another en masse.
Such is the tragedy of war: this death is pointless and without reason, it is a waste. Such too is the tragedy of Blackwater. May we never forget its failings.
I always thought Deers were harmless little animals that we simply suffered as some sort of little joke from he who art in heaven but will wait for Filthy’s definitive rebuttal before deciding.
It looks cheap compared to Two Towers or Kingdom of Heaven? I’m surprised that you would bother comparing a battle on a tv show to 2 big budget blockbusters. I’d rather know how it compared to battles on other tv shows. I haven’t seen too many of them, but have heard there was a pretty big one on the show ‘Rome’.
PS, you’ve listed the wrong director.
Good point on the PS, for some reason I had the Borgias on my mind.
As for the battle scenes they were mostly very good and on an intellectual level, when I step back, I can see just how good they are for a TV show; however in the moment I didn’t feel particularly excited by any of them, the scope, stakes and execution all just felt a little less than ideal to me. Sure it may not be fair to compare the two, but since TV has stood up and said that it is just as serious a medium I don’t think that it’s wrong to hold both to the same set of standards. We wouldn’t praise a show’s script for being ‘good by a television standard.’
So yeah, you may well enjoy the episode more when seen from your perspective (Did you enjoy it?) but unfortunately that wasn’t how I got to see it. In a way I’m jealous.
Thanks for stopping by.
QUOTE- I don’t think that it’s wrong to hold both to the same set of standards. We wouldn’t praise a show’s script for being ‘good by a television standard.’ ENDQUOTE
That’s because it doesn’t cost an unattainable amount of money for a show’s script to be as good as a film’s one. But I suspect be financially impossible for Game of Thrones to have done a battle as impressive as something in The Lord of the Rings. It’s really as simple as that, isn’t it? If the episode didn’t work for you then that’s fine, but this whole line of comparison with Lord of the Rings really isn’t making much sense to me.
Where that line of thinking falls apart for me is in the fact that there are an innumerable amount of action scenes out there that were better than this one and made for much, much less money. I understand that TV has a lower budget than a blockbuster, but I can’t accept that this is reason enough to ignore all flaws.
I’m not a director or choreographer so I can’t say how exactly, but I’m sure that there were ways that these scenes could have been more compelling without costing more cash. If not then I have to question HBO’s decision to declare this the most important expenditure of the season; if you can’t match the quality of film with this enlarged budget then why bother? It’s a half measure and they would have been better off splitting it back up evenly and allowing all the episodes some scope, or making more of them.
Really I don’t see that money should ever enter our minds, we shouldn’t know nor care about what a scene costs just whether it works for us in the moment and for me these were only ok and so I said as much.
Well, that’s the essence of where we really disagree- I thought the action scenes in this were largely fantastic, and you obviously didn’t. I still think your point would’ve been clearer and fairer if you had just initially said “These scenes weren’t as good as they could’ve been” without bringing The Two Towers into it. But it’s okay, I still love you *wink*,
Judging Season 2 overall, I do agree that the whole may have worked better if all the episodes had been given an equal share of the scope, rather than this one having all of it. But if you look at Blackwater purely as its own episode, I personally thought it was mostly pretty great. And I’ve gotta say, I hope I’m not the odd one out for the third week in a row.
By the way, Deer, since we’re talking about action scenes, may I awkwardly use that as a transition to once again recommend Max Payne 3 to you? *wink*
Well stop worrying, the episode has been receiving universal acclaim; people singling outfits awesome action in particular.
You’re probably right about my point being better minus the money shot, but I didn’t make those comparisons solely on the basis of scope and scale. There was something about those sieges that this one was missing for me, and it wasn’t just the five hundred extra on-screen soldiers. There was something about the pacing, coherence and evocation of those that spoiled me just as much.
They are like professional sports teams, playing at the peak of possibility. You watch them and you can see the two sides, their strategies, maneuvers and the way they work the ball clearly from the stands because their movements are streamlined. You can look at the scoreboard and see just how well these teams are working and look at the clock to see just how long they have left to play and because you can comprehend you are compelled.
In comparison this episode simply seemed like a bunch of kids on the street assigned to teams at random without training and with no real referee to maintain the rules. They still manage to make some killer moves and score some great goals but if you’re sitting on the sideline it’s not going to make much sense to you. And no one is keeping score and then all of a sudden a car comes around the corner and the rest of the game is cancelled, the kids going off to do something else, somewhere else.
Those are pretty fair comments. You’ve managed to find yourself a position that I feel I can now understand, even if I still don’t completely agree with it. For me it was only the last five minutes that lacked coherency. But who knows, maybe without my knowledge of the book to fall back on I would’ve had more trouble. I find that hard to guess.
In any case, I hope we will finally find ourselves in agreement about next week’s finale!
Well the comparison to Two Towers is valid to me simply because I has a very similar look as opposed to kingdom. It was fine to me although a little dark at times which may just be my copy. I don’t get your money comment about scripts though Filthy – action scenes may vary with money spent but a good script comes from the mind not the bank.
Actually just re read your script comment and realise I mis interpreted first time round:)
That’s fair, the sentence was admittedly pretty awkwardly written.