Game of Thrones is back! We celebrate by choosing the five best moments of the season 5 premiere.
The wait is over, as HBO’s epic TV fantasy series Game of Thrones is back on screens worldwide. For all of season 5, we’ll be picking apart the latest episode to discern the five best moments of each offering. We start with the season premiere, which saw us drop back in on our favorite characters as many of them are steered in new directions.
“Gold will be their crowns, gold their shrouds.”
Game of Thrones has typically been a very linear show, choosing to focus on political intrigue rather than Westeros’s rich history and the back-story of its exhaustive character list. The cold open for the season 5 premiere broke its own tradition by giving us a glimpse into Cersei Lannister’s childhood. The first thing we learn is that the Queen Mother has always been a bitch.
But once young Cersei enters a witch’s den and demands to hear her future, we’re given a bit more information on what motivates her to be the manipulative villain she has become. It turns out she was always aware her children would be doomed, which goes some way to explain her paranoid suspicions of everyone who comes into contact with King Tommen and Princess Myrcella. The flashback also foreshadows a threat from Margaery Tyrell — something we look forward to seeing develop as the season goes on. Here’s hoping that we get some more historical insights into the world of Game of Thrones in the future.
Sexiest Scene
Loras’s steamy encounter with a mystery man — Game of Thrones doing its best to even the gender nudity disparity.
“A drunken dwarf will never be the savior of the Seven Kingdoms.”
Tyrion is a broken man when we catch up with him in the season 5 premiere. Having murdered his lover and father, the Imp has been smuggled across the Narrow Sea by Varys to start a new mission. But as it turns out, the only mission Tyrion wants to embark on is drinking himself to death. The character’s bitterness is expertly portrayed by Peter Dinklage, who only gets better with each season.
But like it or not, Tyrion will travel to Mereen to meet Daenerys Targaryen and use his diplomatic finesse to try and save Westeros from itself. Before he can do that though, he’ll need to save himself from himself. Tyrion’s self-loathing could easily have become tiresome (and it still could) but it was handled brilliantly by all involved. Let’s just hope the Lion of Lannister can get his act together before he gets to Dany’s seat of power, as from the looks of it she could do with some diplomatic assistance…
“A dragon queen with no dragons is not a queen.”
Season 4 of Game of Thrones began to show us that ruling wouldn’t all be plain sailing for Daenerys. This is taken one step further in the season 5 premiere, when a mysterious group known as The Sons of Harpy take revenge for the downing of the Harpy of Ghis by murdering one of the Unsullied. Dealing with this murder, as well as calls to re-open the fighting pits present the Breaker of Chains with some troubling situations.
She’s asked to demonstrate her power in order to assert her authority, and so decides to visit her two remaining dragons (Drogon is presumably still flying around the countryside eating an increasing number of goats). But her children aren’t happy to see her, and the enlarged creatures keep their mother at bay with pyrotechnic warnings. It seems it’s not just the faith of her human subjects Dany will have to deal with this season…
“Your father was a force to be reckoned with.”
Game of Thrones‘ season 5 premiere deals with the fallout of Tywin Lannister’s murder. Cersei’s flashback gave us a glimpse at her motivations, but her venomous reaction to Westerosi sympathizers shows us she’s not mellowing with older age. Convinced that the gathered Lords and Ladies have only come to tear apart her father’s empire, Cersei plots her next move.
Her deadpan reaction to the constant stream of well-wishes was hilarious, and Lena Headey is laying down her gauntlet for the Best Actress awards already — and we’re only 10% of the way through the season! Without her father to rein her in, Cersei’s schemes will only get more sinister…
Most Gruesome Death
Mance Rayder’s harrowing burning — it was hard to watch for viewers and characters alike. So much so that Jon killed the King Beyond The Wall out of mercy.
“The freedom to make my own mistakes was all I ever wanted”
Having liberated the Wall from the onslaught of the Wildlings, Stannis Baratheon now sets about building up an army to reclaim the North from the Boltons. And the rightful heir to the throne has a proposition for Jon Snow — convince Mance Rayder to bend the knee, or watch him burn for his crimes.
Despite his best efforts (during an expertly written and acted scene between Kit Harrington and Ciaran Hinds), Jon can’t convince the King Beyond the Wall to vow his allegiance to Stannis. His refusal leads to the nail-biting denouement of the season premiere — Mance’s public execution. Mance is burned at the stake as his conquerors and followers watch on. That is until Jon decides he can’t take anymore, and puts the man out of his misery with an arrow to the heart. We’re sure Stannis isn’t going to be too happy with the Stark bastard next week…
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