Darkness battled the light both within and without in the Game of Thrones season 5 premiere.
Monsters and memories
On her way to Tywin’s funeral, Cersei remembers visiting a spiteful witch as a young girl. She had demanded to know her future, and learned the answers to three prophetic questions.
Young Cersei would marry a king, and be queen until “another, younger, more beautiful,” came “to cast you down and take all you hold dear.” She would have three children.
“Gold will be their crowns,” the witch said, Cersei’s blood on her tongue. “And gold their shrouds.”
Cersei joins Jamie at Tywin’s bier. The tension between the twins and lovers is more barbed than ever, especially Cersei correctly suspects that Jamie freed Tyrion.
“Tyrion may be a monster,” she says, “but at least he killed our father on purpose. You killed him by mistake.”
Drinking her way through Tywin’s funeral, Cersei runs into a radically changed Lancel Lannister. Lancel has found religion and joined an order called the Warrior’s Sons? Poor Fellows? Sparrows, who are flooding Kings Landing.
Lancel asks Cersei’s forgiveness for sexing, and the wine he provided King Robert before the fatal boar hunt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cersei lies.
After the funeral, Margaery interrupts Loras Tyrell’s tryst with Ros Olyvar. She encourages Loras to be a bit more discrete. He is unconcerned, and convinced that Cersei will call off their impending marriage; sadly, that leaves Margaery stuck in Kings Landing with Cersei.
“Perhaps,” Margaery allows. “Perhaps.”
Out of the box
Varys unboxes Tyrion at Illyrio’s estate in Pentos; Tyrion has been in the crate for the entire voyage across the Narrow Sea, and his demons have traveled with him. Varys tries to interest Tyrion in helping him save Westeros, but Tyrion is more of a mind to give up the game and drink himself to death.
Varys continues to work on Tyrion, asking him to help someone else climb to the Iron Throne.
“The Seven Kingdoms needs someone stronger than Tommen but gentler than Stannis,” Varys says. “A monarch who can intimidate the high lords and inspire the people. A ruler loved by millions with a powerful army and the right family name.”
“Good luck finding him,” Tyrion says.
“Who,” Varys asks, “said anything about him?”
Reluctantly, Tyrion agrees to meet Daenerys Targaryen in Meereen.
This should be fun.
Sons
But issues in Meereen are not as pristine as they might seen. Though the great Harpy of Ghis is torn down from its lofty pyramid perch, retribution is swift.
The Sons of the Harpy (an insurgent group of Meereenese loyalists who hide their identity under masks of the Harpy) murder one of Daenerys’ Unsullied. Dany is furious, and hopes to provoke the Sons into showing their hands — and faces.
An unnerved Missandei asks Grey Worm why the murdered Unsullied would have been in a brothel; Grey Worm says he doesn’t know.
Later, Daario Noharis and Hizdahr zo Loraq return from their successful negotiations in Yunkai. Hizdahr reports — and agrees with — the Wise Masters’ request to reopen the fighting pits; the fights will not be among slaves, but willing freedmen.
Dany is adamantly opposed to the idea, but to her surprise, Daario agrees with Hizdahr. She and Daario share a post-coital nightcap and Daario tells Dany that he learned to fight in the fighting pits. Sure, he was a slave, but there was also money and fame to be had — and eventually, freedom.
Daario urges Dany to show her strength in the face of her enemies. Unfortunately, Dany admits that she can no longer control her dragons.
“A dragon queen with no dragons? That’s not a queen,” her lover tells her.
Daario’s words prove true when Dany visits the chained Viseryon and Rhaegal. Her dragons scream at her, lashing out with fire, and Dany flees the vault in terror and grief.
Directionless
Littlefinger and Sansa leave the hapless Robin Arryn in the care of Nestor Royce. In the carriage, Sansa notes that they are not headed toward the Fingers, as Littlefinger said. Sansa asks where they are going, but Littlefinger remains coy.
“To a land so far from here, even Cersei Lannister can’t get her hands on you,” he says, as their retinue trundles past an oblivious and extremely dejected Brienne.
Chilly politics
Up at the Wall, Jon Snow “trains” Olly in the sword, though he’s partly taking out his anger on the kid for killing Ygritte.
Melisandre calls Jon to talk to Stannis. In the winch cage, she asks if he’s a virgin; he says no.
“Good,” she says. And while this exchange is creepy, Melisandre’s threshold for weird behavior is so high, it barely even registers.
Stannis plans to take Winterfell and the North back from the Boltons; the problem is, he needs more men. (The sellswords that Stannis’s entire storyline was devoted to acquiring last season must be on a very extended lunch-break.) He wants Jon to convince Mance Rayder to swear fealty to him, and enlist the wildlings to fight for him. The wildlings will then be naturalized and given land.
If not, Mance will be burned at nightfall.
Meanwhile, Sam and Gilly have their own political concerns. Ser Alliser is the prime candidate to be the new Lord Commander, and he will very likely expel the wildlings if elected. Gilly is terrified of being sent away, but Sam reasserts his promise — “Wherever you go, I go too.” Gilly points out that Sam is dead meat if he does that.
Choosing the light
Jon presents his case to Mance, simultaneously challenging and begging the King Beyond the Wall to kneel to Stannis. Mance flatly refuses, though he is visibly shaken at the idea of burning alive. He does not wish to be remembered “scorched and screaming,” but maintains that he cannot enlist his people in a foreigner’s war.
“I think you’re making a terrible mistake,” says Jon, furious and sad.
“The freedom to make my own mistakes was all I ever wanted,” Mance replies.
After nightfall, Mance is brought out to his pyre. “Kneel and live,” Stannis offers, one last time, but – as we scream at our televisions in frustration – Mance declines.
“I wish you good fortune in the wars to come,” he says.
As Mance is shackled to the stake, Melisandre gives a sermon. She tells the wildlings that Mance is a “king of lies.”
“Behold the fate of those who chose the darkness,” she says, and lights the pyre.
The fire creeps toward Mance as the crowd watches. Tormund Giantsbane can hardly restrain himself, the Night’s Watch shuffles uncomfortably, and little Shireen Baratheon closes her eyes beside her mother’s furvor. Jon watches Mance struggle against the heat and leaves the yard.
Caught up in flames, the King Beyond the Wall begins to scream – until an arrow lands directly in his heart. Jon has ended Mance’s suffering, for this night, and all the nights to come.