by Andy Lyons
Fans of “Game of Thrones” know to expect the brutal climax of each season of the HBO series in the ninth episode. It was Ned Stark’s beheading in the first season, the Battle of Blackwater in the second, and the Red Wedding a year ago. Fans have been gearing up for a battle at the Wall for most of the season, following Mance Rayder’s promise to “light the biggest fire the North has ever seen” and the less-than-loving scene where Jon Snow’s lover, Ygritte, shot him with three arrows after a confrontation with the Wildlings.
This episode, “The Watchers of the Wall,” provides an hour-long battle scene and includes all sorts of cool sights, including giants attacking the gates to Castle Black. We finally see perennial pushover Sam Tarly stand up for himself and discover the fates of most of Jon’s friends at the Wall. While there is no clear line of good and bad guys when looking at Westeros, it’s the Night’s Watch vs. the Wildlings at the Wall. This episode showed the hatred between the two.
The episode begins with Jon and Sam talking about Ygritte in relation to their vows as members of the Watch. Sam knows every gap in the vows and tells Jon that physical relations aren’t blatantly listed, as long as he doesn’t take a wife and doesn’t father a child he’s in the clear. As Sam prods into Jon’s former sex life, Jon gives the response any man would – “I don’t know, I’m not a bleeding poet!”
South of the Wall, Ygritte’s Wildling band is having an almost identical conversation. Styr calls Ygritte out for leaving Jon alive and then makes some attempt to intimidate the Wildling archer, who is indomitable. She proclaims that anyone who tries to kill Jon before she can will feel the wrath of her bow.
After a conversation with Maester Aemon Targaryen – yes, Targaryen – Sam finds Gilly shouting at the gate, alive and well after Ygritte spared her life at Mole’s Town. In a scene almost as ironic as the “I’ll never let go” scene in “Titanic,” Sam locks her in a cupboard and assures her he’ll never leave her again. He pulls her in for a quick kiss and leaves after promising her he won’t die.
The men of the Night’s Watch fortify Castle Black as much as they can, gathering with bows at the top of the wall as the forest to the north burns in the fulfillment of Mance’s promise. We finally see some humanity from Ser Alliser Thorne, the guy that’s had it out for Jon since the Stark bastard arrived at the Wall. He admits to Jon it was a good idea to seal the tunnel and tells Jon they’ll win so Jon can go back to hating him and he can go back to wishing the Wildling whore finished the job.
As the siege commences, thousands of Wildlings come through the tree line north of the Wall. There are a handful of giants, including one atop a mammoth. The Night’s Watch unleashes a couple volleys of arrows, but the Wildlings are mainly out of range of the archers, and the band from Mole’s Town comes over the walls of the keep to the south.
As the battle rages, one of the giants shoots a spear-sized arrow that knocks a member of the Watch into the main keep – from the top of the wall! Inside Castle Black, the Thenns are killing everyone. Ygritte looses an arrow and hits Pip in the neck, who dies in Sam’s arms. As Sam moves for a better position he nails a Thenn in the face with a crossbow.
The giants hook a mammoth up to the gate and begin pulling it down. Jon sends Grenn to hold the inner gate. As the giant breaches the gate and it slams behind him, Grenn begins chanting the oath of the Night’s Watch as the giant charges them.
In the courtyard, Ser Alliser is wounded while fighting Tormund, which leaves Jon in charge. In the major confrontation of the courtyard, Jon and Styr face-off in what looks like it could be Jon’s last fight. As he maneuvers, Jon ends up losing his sword but comes out on top, bashing the Thenn’s head with a blacksmith’s hammer.
Through the fighting, viewers are treated to deaths featuring eyes being gouged out, butcher’s cleavers ravaging bodies, and weaponized boiling water. It all leads to a really anti-climactic face-off between Ygritte and Jon. Ygritte has her bow knocked and ready to fire, but doesn’t kill Jon. However, the little boy who has been living at the wall since the Thenn’s killed his parents has picked up a bow at Sam’s bidding and shoots Ygritte right in the heart.
As she fades away in Jon’s arms during a raging courtyard fight, she asks Jon, “Remember that cave? We should go back there.” She fades and the fighting finishes. Tormund is taken prisoner and defenders of Castle Black start piling the bodies.
While the celebration is brief, Jon reminds the men they are still outnumbered 1,000 to 1 and that Mance was just testing their defenses. Sam and Jon head to the tunnel to find Grenn and the men with him all dead, but they held the gate. Jon heads off to kill Mance and Sam returns to Gilly.
While this battle wasn’t as tragic or as plot-altering as former episode nines, it set the groundwork for a lot to happen in the next couple of seasons. There is still plenty more that can happen at the Wall, and I’m looking forward to it. More battles – do the Wildlings break through? How far behind them are the White Walkers?
The next episode teaser showed a little bit of everyone. Bran and his gang are still somewhere north of the Wall, Arya and the Hound run into some trouble, and Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons even made the teaser.
But there are more pressing questions: what happens to Tyrion? Does Tywin let his son die? And what ever happened to Brienne and Podrick? The final episode of the last three seasons was more like a bridge episode to the next, but with so many possibilities I would be surprised if there weren’t some major cliffhangers.
Marchion of Chaos 