—- GAME OF THRONES SPOILERS —-

Έλα ρε Μάρτιν, γαμώτο δηλαδή.

So… where where we? I haven’t written anything about the previous episodes of Game of Thrones and to be honest, they felt mostly like setup for this episode. Oberyn is ready to fight and kill the Mountain,on paper because he is defending Tyrion, in reality because he wants to avenge his sister that met a gruesome end in the hands of the Mountain.

The duel was a brief but very well executed fight scene, Oberyn literally danced circles around the Mountain, poking him and taunting him with his spear but ,alas, Bronn put it wisely “I can dance around that beast, but as soon as I make one mistake, I am dead”. One mistake is what Oberyn made. He stood a little too close close to a nearly defeated Mountain, got knocked down and then proceeded to redecorate the place with teeth, brain matter and bits of scull.

Pictured: The audience

Well… fuck.

The scene itself was exquisitely made. With reaction shots of Tyrion, Ellaria and the other three Lanisters matching perfectly with the ups and downs of the fight. It was also not very long, lasting a few minutes, something that also helped increase the impact of its punch. It wasn’t so much beating the audience over and over (like the Red Wedding), it was more like a perfectly executed kick in the balls. Short, painful and you are curled up on the floor before you realize something painful is going to happen.

So… this scene was gut-wrenching but was it was also very effective. Martin once again shatters any preconceptions we might have about things like “protagonist immunity”. Killing off people before the audience finishes saying “Oh, I like this guy…never mind” might be extremely cruel, but what it does is that it puts back tension in Fantasy, a genre that had forgotten what tension is.I mean, Lord of the Rings is all sorts of amazing, but you never really worry that Frodo will die by the goblins of Moria or that Aragorn will just get a random arrow in the face during the battle of Helm’s Deep.
Fantasy had gotten so cozy in its structure its cliches, that stories like Game of Thrones are effectively a deconstruction of the genre, even if the only thing they do is not follow the herd.

If this were any other fantasy story, I would be certain that Tyrion would survive the next few episodes.

As it is now… I am seriously worried for the little guy.

~Garret