Season 3-Episode 05

Unbowed and Unbent

You are the Queen of Dragons. Your strength is your legitimancy

King Consort Daemon Targaryen

Major Plot Points: Rhaenyra tries to get King’s Landing under control while avoiding her son. Daeron plays board games with Ormund. Daemon plays guard. Aegon and Larys continue their adventures together. Aemond is trapped in Harrenhal. Criston Cole finally goes full nihilist.

Observations from a Book Reader

1. Sabitha Frey never made the journey to King’s Landing. She was promised Harrenhal, and moved into the great castle as soon as Criston Cole left it abandoned. However, once Aemond made his return, she escaped his wrath by hiding in a bathroom as he and Vhagar attacked. She then returned to The Twin, and unfortunately continued giving birth to the line that would eventually produce Walder Frey.
2. Alicent and Helaena did not attempt to flee King’s Landing while Rhaenyra held it. But at this point Helaena’s two remaining children had fled.
3. Tyland Lannister had a completely different plot line, to the point it’s almost impossible to compare the two. I made the mistake of thinking him killed in episode 1 when he was pushed overboard during the Battle of the Gullet. In Fire and Blood, he remained at King’s Landing when Rhaenyra captured it, and he was blinded, and gelded during torture in attempts to make him reveal the location of the crown’s gold. He gave up nothing and somehow survived his occupation, but did not go on to lead armies or make large moves in the remaining war.
4. Fun history lesson from Ormund about the Yellow Toad of Dorne, Meria Martell. Meria was arguably the only successful enemy of Aegon the Conqueror, and her method of yielding castles to the Targaryen forces before retaking them stealthily proved to be a devastating thorne in the side of Aegon and his sisters. Largely due to her efforts, the Targaryen’s could never control Dorne, and at the time of this show Dorne still declares itself independent.
5. Ormund never declared Daeron to be king, and certainly did not mint him his own gold. The riots and killings of gold cloaks in King’s Landing seemed to occur more naturally due to the peasants lack of money, food, and justice. Luthor Largent was not targeted to be assassinated in a strange “Last Supper” tableau, but he was killed in a peasant riot.

Other Points to Notice

1. The tea that Orwyle delivers to Alicent is of course Moon Tea, which we have seen used time and time again on both this show, and Game of Thrones. Made from the tansy flower, it seems to have a 100% abortion success rate in Westeros. Helaena of course does not agree to consuming it.
2. The “chess” game that Ormund and Daeron play together is actually a game called Cyvasse. It originated in Essos, Volantis specifically, and eventually made its way to Westeros. A few interesting points about it is that GRRM never actually bothered making rules for the game, other than the dragon was the most powerful piece, and that its supposedly more complex than chess. Interestingly enough we never saw or heard of this game in Game of Thrones, but in canon cyvasse only made its way to Westeros sometime during the events of that show, so Daeron and Ormund playing it here would technically go against the book. But that feels needlessly nitpicky.
   • I mentioned in a previous entry that with Daeron and the hair dye plotline, it seems that the show is using him to cover an unused plot-line from Game of Thrones where the son of Rhaegar, Aegon Targaryen, was raised in Essos by a Targaryen Loyalist general Jon Connington. Connington planned on invading Westeros with the Golden Company and putting Aegon on the throne. He also spent many years teaching him military strategy and playing cyvasse with him. All of this parallels Ormund and Daeron, and now we even see Ormund declaring Daeron the King of Westeros, just as Jon Connington did for Aegon in the books. But the fact that we have never seen Cyvasse on either show before, until now, when it was such a major point of the Jon Connington/Aegon storyline in the books, makes me believe this is the writers being intentionally clever and giving easter eggs to book readers.
3. Larys seems to be planning to take Aegon to Bravos, where he will hide “in a manor befitting his station”. Aegon at this point was an unknown factor in the book, so while this could have been the plan of Larys, I instead think it is more of a callback to a different Targaryen we all know who was sent to Braavos to live in a manor while biding their time for a comeback. It is too coincidental to not intentionally be a reference to Viserys and Daenerys.
4. Criston Cole talks about being remembered as the greatest warrior in Westeros, about whom songs will be written. His legacy was nothing like that, and by the time of Game of Thrones he is mostly remembered as “Kingmaker” since he was the one to crown Aegon II. This of course led to the deaths of thousands and the fall of the dragons. At best some like Jaime Lannister remembered him as embodying both the “best and the worst” of the kingsguard.

Stray Observations:

1. Surprised Daemon ever walked into a Sept, even if it was to talk conspiratorially with Rhaenyra in High Valyrian
2. Both Aegon and Aemond seem to resent each other for different reasons over their childhood. I blame their father mostly.
3. Daemon has gone full conqueror, and begins calling Westeros the New Valyria to his gold cloak cronies.
4. If you didn’t already know, the episode title, Unbowed and Unbent, reflect the words of House Martell of Dorne (Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken). Several times we heard these words referenced this episode, with even Criston remarking he would die “Unbowed”

RIP: Ser Luthor Largent, and the self appointed common lord of Rook’s Rest.

NOTE: Shorter than normal this week. Best I could do!