Game of Thrones A-Z (23 page)

Joffrey rewards those who helped him in need, and agrees to wed Margaery, relieving Sansa of her duties.

Thinking she is free, Littlefinger warns her that he will still have plenty of use for her.

At Winterfell, Theon is surrounded and he knows it’s over. Luwin tells him to escape through the tunnels and join the Night’s Watch, as, once you take your oath, your sins are forgotten. But Theon thinks it’s too late, and he decides to meet the army. He performs a rousing cry to arms, but, after he’s finished his speech encouraging men to follow him into battle, his own men knock him out, leaving him for dead. Luwin tries to help him, but is stabbed in the chest and later dies.

Daenerys arrives at the House of the Undying in a bid to get her dragons back. The Warlock tries to trick her into meeting Drogo in her fantasy world, but she shows her toughness by walking away from him and fights the
Warlock with her dragons, burning him alive.

Jon Snow is left to defend the Wall and his brothers on the Night’s Watch by pretending to be a turned cloak after being captured by the Others. This means he has to convince Mance Rayder and the Others that he is now one of them, in order to work out their future plans.

The final scene sees the White Walkers and the wights walk through the frozen landscape. Jon Snow is captured by the Others.

TRIVIA

The term Valar Morghulis is a common greeting in the Free City of Braavos, and roughly translates to ‘all men must die’. A response often uttered back is Memento Mori, which means ‘all men must serve’.

This episode was 10 minutes longer than the other episodes to allow time to move on from the events of the Battle of the Blackwater, while also setting up the events for the eagerly awaited third season.

POST-ANALYSIS

This episode, which pulled in 4.2 million viewers when it debuted, proved the previous episode’s low ratings was a blip. It was a series high and put 
Game of Thrones
 back on course. It also pulled in a further million when it was shown again later that night.

IGN
 said about the final episode, ‘“Valar Morghulis” nicely set us up for next season – Jon Snow, now “The Man who killed Qhorin Halfhand”, seeing Mance Rayder’s enormous army; Littlefinger vowing to help Sansa escape; Brienne and Jaime headed to King’s Landing; Bran and Rickon headed to the Wall. But it also gave us a cliff-hanger with a certain amount of immediacy – the zombie attack on the Night’s Watch. And because of that, I believe, the long wait until next spring will be even more excruciating than it was after last year’s finale.’

Looking to Season Three

Talking about future seasons, Benioff said, ‘It looks better. I think the cast is taking it to another level. I think the directors did an incredible job. [But] I don’t have any distance from it, so it’s impossible to know. I didn’t know last year if anything worked. I really didn’t know if people were gonna understand what was going on. I was generally terrified that people would watch it and be like, “Wait.

Who’s brothers with who?” From the beginning, we’d always prayed we’d get to season three at least because, you know, two of our favourite scenes from the entire saga are in season three.’