GOT 4.09: "The Watchers at The Wall"

I am behind in writing recaps, and will most likely merge 4.6-4.8, in a way that will still work. This is supposed to be Jon's episode, and it was not, which is a big deal to me. So, it has taken me a long time to figure out how to write the recap because I am going way into Jon's character, which is not for this post. I will save all of my complaining and explaining about my HBO Jon and Book Jon for another day. Okay...

This week's dedication:
Jon Snow

with an honorable mention to GHOST!

Let's get into it:

The Battle
Before we begin, did anyone see that little Wildling Spy, the Owl? I thought Jon might notice him, and kill him before he gave the Wildlings any intel.

The Owl: Master Spy for the Wildlings

I am not that into the big battle scenes in any book, but I try to understand the sequence of the events, every time. This was very different in the book, as not only had Sam and Gilly not returned to the Wall, there were different characters manning the Wall, and it's Jon who is running the show. Jon also had a leg injury, courtesy of Ygritte, that was not even close to being healed.  But he fought hard, while in massive pain for the entire battle (three days?). They also had people, untrained, fighting with them against the Wildlings.

Mance's: "The greatest fire the north has ever seen!"

Look there's a mammoth! It's the Wildlings Army!

The day has finally arrived, and the Wildlings army that Kassandra, aka Jon Snow, had been warning  the NW Council of Vipers and Weasals about has come to fruition. There are mammoths, giants, Thenn's and many, many others. The slaughter inside those stairs? The landings? They are not in the book, but necessary to film the battle, and the brutality of the Wildings was front and center. I loved the giants, the mammoths, and the use of the Scythe. The Scythe was really scary for the obvious reasons, like that bloody arm on the Wall, ick. But since they have been doing all this crazy stuff with things that should not be changed, I thought that they were going to put a hole in the Wall. The Wall is magical, as it is woven together with spells, so it is more than just a big icy wall protecting the south from the Others and the Wildlings. It would have been well, I have no words.

The camera continues panning around, from person to person, ie. Tormund, ploughing through the Brothers in an effort to take the castle. We also saw Ygritte, shooting through people with her bow and arrow, and also seemed to kill a few who looked like Jon.

There was also the battle on the ground, where we saw Alliser Thorne get injured by Tormund. I'm confused, Alliser is now a fighting man, who inspires men? I'll get into that later. Anyway per Sam's intel, Jon gave the Wall to Dolores Ed and goes down to the ground, with some of the men on the Wall. 

Jon says to Sam on the way down to the ground, "I need him, more than I need you", and gives Sam the keys, to free Ghost! This is small, but huge as it is telling us that Ghost is more than just his wolf, he is part of Jon. How? These words are those used when speaking of a person. Sam frees Ghost, & we see through Ghost's eyes, as we see through Summer's eyes, when Bran is in Summer. He attacks the Wildling using the direwolf preferred method of killing: ripping out his throat. I will live in hope that this means we will finally learn that yes, Jon is a warg, and an extremely powerful one, at that. 

Back to the battle: Jon is the first man out of the gate, throwing himself into the battle, and proved that he has become a killing machine. (those Pompeii guys trained him well). Oh, and being the first man out of the gate is also what inspires men to follow you, as a battle commander and leader. His fight with Styr Magnar of Thenn, was well choreographed as they were fighting and then he threw Jon over some fiery mess,and almost beat him. Jon's not dying anytime soon, so at the last minute, Jon stuck an axe in his head. 

As he's recovering from what happened, he looks up and sees Ygritte.

Ygritte staring at Jon, & you see a small light inside

Jon, happy to see Ygritte, even with an arrow pointed at him

Jon's horror at seeing Ygritte shot w/an arrow to the heart.

The scene with Ygritte dying in his arms is the same in the book, as are their last words...and I cried again. You no longer hear the battle around them, because he shut out the world, and yet.... still some people didn't care, but I did.

Jon Snow
It has been no secret that I find it profoundly disappointing how the series has managed Jon's character, and I am getting close to calling it character assassination. But I have been waiting for this battle since Season 2, because it is a major turning point for Jon. Yet, what a surprise! Jon's story jumped ship, and it became Sam's episode.

I would have accepted Jon taking a backseat to Sam, yet still manning the Wall, if his character had been fully fleshed out by this point in the series. Many people have still not connected with Jon, because he does not have a cohesive story. The writers took some key moments for Jon in the books, did not change the dialogue, strung them together with a string, mixed them with the scenes they either made up or changed for no reason, and we ended up with a story that made no sense.  If I had not read the books, I would not have invested too much into him either, because seriously, who is HBO Jon Snow?

The result was that people liked this episode mostly for the cool battles, and the fight scenes. But this was a game changing episode not only because of the battle, but for Jon. As I mentioned, he proved his mettle as a smart battle commander, and he lost Ygritte. These two things marked him forever, and a non book reader will never get that. They threw the scene in between Jon & Sam regarding sex  because apparently they knew viewers might not remember that Jon and Ygritte were in love. And you know what? With all the happenings in Kings Landing, and the amazing Oberyn Martell who eclipsed, well everyone, and Jon having not been written properly, the Battle for the Wall, was not seen as huge game changing event.

The Aftermath
Jon is not suicidal, yet at the end of this episode he is going on a suicide mission. It implies that losing Ygritte, and his need to maintain his last shred of  honor ( Jaime Lannister, anyone?), and save the Wall, is by killing Mance. This quote from Tormund to Jon reinforces it:

Tormund: "I should have thrown you from the top of the Wall, boy.
Jon: "Aye, you should have."
Also, not in the book.

In the book, Ser Alliser and Janos Slynt sent him out to treat with Mance, hoping that he would kill him. In fact, Jon always thinks that he is going to die, because he thought the Wildlings would discover the truth, and the NW believe that he's a traitor, so sending him out there to die, was not a revelation for him.  So when Ser Alliser  suddenly acts like a great leader,  giving some rousing speech, and conceding to Jon that he had been right about the tunnel, and then even worse, actually giving him some lame speech about being a leader, I pretended that he wasn't even there. In fact, neither he nor Janos were really there in the books. However, I was afraid that Janos Slynt would die on his way to hide ( much like King Sociopath's cowardice at the Blackwater, right?) because he has an awesome scene with Jon in ADWD.

Finally, we lost Grenn, who died a brutal death at the hand of the king of the giants. He had come so far from the boy in Seasons 1&2.  Grenn became a strong man, respected Ranger, and a leader who gave six boys the courage to keep the gate, by reciting their vows. Fantastic. Who will fill his role as part of Team Jon? I have no idea.

 RIP Team Grenn

"Love is the death of duty", Maester Aemon to Sam Tarly

I will end with Sam and how loving Gilly gave him the strength to believe in himself. Loving Ygritte gave Jon the chance to love someone, and in return, feel deeply loved for being himself, not the  bastard son of Ned Stark, not a traitor, just Jon Snow.

Now, although I was upset that this was Sam's episode, I understand that they were setting him up (he has POV's at the end of ASOS and FOC) for a larger role in Season 5. And I did like how he came to terms with his feelings for Gilly, and went for it, like a man.

Although this is a beautiful moment, I kept wondering where the hell is Jon? Why aren't we watching him shouting orders and shooting arrows? Irregardless, the scene when Sam is explaining to Pyp that he killed the wight to save Gilly and the baby, was why, to my chagrin, this became Sam's episode.

Sam: "I didn't know, I was going to kill it. If someone had asked me my name right then, I wouldn't know I wasn't Samwell Tarly anymore, I wasn't a steward in the Nights Watch, or son of Randall Tarly or any of that, I was nothing at all. And when you're nothing at all, there's no reason to be afraid."

Pyp: "But you're afraid now?"

Sam: "Well, I'm not nothing anymore."**

Although I was disappointed by this episode,  it doesn't take away that this:

be it good or bad, will change your life forever.

See you in the finale!


*All images and quotes are owned by HBO, "Game of Thrones" 4.9