The best and worst part of a show whose moral is that there’s no such thing as traditional morals is that characters we’ve come to know as basically good (or at least complex) end up on opposite sides by circumstance alone. We’ve already seen this through Game of Thrones’ famous odd couples — Arya Stark and Tywin Lannister’s conversations at Harrenhal, for example, or the growing relationship between Jaime and Brienne. “Second Sons” brings this point home with its emotional centerpiece: Tyrion and Sansa’s wedding, which gathers together the King’s Landing power players in one unhappy mess of rivalries and disappointments. … Read More

In case you missed “The Rains of Castamere” playing over the closing credits, “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” shared an author with “Blackwater,” the extraordinary hour of television that concluded with The National’s mournful power ballad. That author happens to be George R.R. Martin, the man behind the magic — or rather, the original book series. Unfortunately, “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” is everything “Blackwater” was not: routine, uneventful, and worst of all, slowing down a season that just hit its stride after the sluggish pace of its early episodes. … Read More

When watching Game of Thrones, it’s all too easy to get caught up in each character’s strategies and fail to ask ourselves why they’re playing in the first place. The high point of “The Climb,” however, threw the motivations of the show’s many protagonists into sharp relief. Varys and Littlefinger’s conversation in front of the Iron Throne isn’t just another verbal tennis match; it’s a contrast that makes one of the central questions of Game of Thrones explicit. And because this is a show that ultimately deals with people in all their complexity, not quests or dragons or even kingdoms, it’s a question that applies to all of us: Why do we do what we do? … Read More