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A Song of Ice and Fire, the fantasy series that HBO’s Game of Thrones is based on, runs into trouble in the fourth and fifth volumes. Originally intended as a single publication until the massive size required splitting up, the story begins to drag while the number of characters and locations sprawls out of control. The fifth season of the TV adaptation addresses the issue by cutting a lot of that material out and condensing or recontextualizing the rest, in order to get past it as quickly as possible. While not all of these storylines work, the new approach does keep things moving while positioning the show to chart its own course as it outpaces the novels.
The season begins with the cast scattered in multiple directions. After killing his domineering father, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) has fled across the sea to Essos, leaving his sister, Cersei (Lena Headey), essentially in charge of the seven kingdoms, where she must contend with a fundamentalist religious cult as well as rising public unrest. In an attempt to alleviate her burden, her brother/lover, Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), has gone to the southern nation of Dorne—whose rulers are still more than a little upset about the death of one of their own in King’s Landing last season—to bring back their daughter, who’d been placed there a couple of years earlier as a political hostage.
In the north, Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) tries to unite bitter enemies–the Night’s Watch and the Wildlings–against the supernatural threat of the White Walkers, while his half-sister, Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), finds herself once again a pawn in the power games of ruthless men.
Across the Narrow Sea, their sister, Arya (Maisie Williams), trains to be an assassin in Braavos. Nearby, now-queen Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) tries to maintain control of the newly conquered city of Mereen in preparation for her return to Westeros. And that’s just checking in with around half of the current characters.
Even with so many plot threads competing for attention, a unifying theme throughout the season is how difficult power can be to wield and how easily it can backfire. Both Cersei and Daenerys prove to be spectacularly inept rulers, making decisions that will not only land them in a heap of trouble but also completely destabilize the very kingdoms they’re trying to hold together. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Arya struggles to use her new skills responsibly, while Tyrion attempts to chart a new rise for himself free of his family’s bitter legacy.
The show’s own power fails in the Dorne subplot, where a mess of poorly developed characters and imprecise plotting derail what could have been an exciting addition. It goes from bad to worse in a midseason episode where a primary character known mostly for having awful things happen to her is made the victim of a sexual assault—material the show has visited before. That controversy focused fan outrage and critical attention on the show’s overall tone, as well as its treatment of sexual violence, and it’ll be interesting to see how it adjusts moving forward.
Despite a couple massive missteps, though, Game of Thrones continues to be a dramatic powerhouse, especially as it deviates further and further from the source material. This season’s highlight, an epic battle between the Night’s Watch and the White Walker’s zombie army, only garnered a brief mention in the books. It’s now reached the edge of the map provided by A Song of Ice and Fire, and while we can’t say for sure where it’s headed, one we can be fairly certain of: there will be dragons.
Blu-ray Review:
HBO continues its run of excellent home releases with Game of Thrones: The Complete Fifth Season. The ten episodes are spread over four discs. Most episodes include at least one commentary, along with the continually impressive optional in-episode guides. Special features are plentiful, with the highlights being an animated retelling of a key moment in Westeros’ history and a two-part guide to the series’ historical inspirations.
