My feelings are complicated.
I love the actress who plays the role. I think she does a great job. And I am glad they have at least some character in the North who supports the Starks just because they are the Starks.
One of the things that I hate about the show is the fact that questions of principle and honor are completely thrown out of the window and everything is boiled down to the win-or-you-die principle. What this does to the characters in the book is disturbing.
- it makes Ned Stark look stupider than he is.
- it makes Jon Snow look like a goddamn fool.
- it turns the Northerners into a bunch of dirty, smelly beardos scrabbling after mere existence.
- it means that no character has any other possible ending to their story other than a violent death…or, er, victory, I guess.
It is the third point that bothers me, in respect to this Lyanna Mormont question.
“Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling over me.” The fat man’s fingers coiled into a fist, and all his chins trembled. “My son Wendel came to the Twins a guest. He ate Lord Walder’s bread and salt, and hung his sword upon the wall to feast with his friends. And they murdered him. Murdered, I say, and may the Freys choke upon their fables. I drink with Jared, jape with Symond, promise Rhaegar the hand of my own beloved granddaughter…but never think that means I have forgotten. The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”
Wyman Manderly, A Dance with Dragons
The North Remembers monologue , as told by Manderly to Davos, with Glover standing at his side, is one of the most stirring bits of the series to date; it really brought a tear to my eye and a chill to my bones. I gasped in pleasant surprise and pumped my fist in the air when I read it. Eddard Stark’s death on the steps of Baelor’s Sept was not in vain! You realize that the Starks’ brand of tough-headed no-bullshit honor and strength is something that wins them loyalty: in the context of the culture of the North it is wise,it is smart. To the point where the entire North will gladly betray the Iron Throne and its southron appointees to protect and raise up the Starks(and, of course, in doing so, gain a little more political might for their own house.)
Because you know it goes beyond Manderly and Glover. Indeed book!Lyanna Mormont does give the first inkling that something is going on underneath the surface of Northern politics with her letter to Stannis professing no loyalty but to “the King in the North, whose name is Stark.” And the rest of the Northerners who are marching with Stannis…what do they know? How loyal are they? We know a Liddle has helped Bran and his companions, so the Mountain Clans with Stannis presumably know about Bran, right? What about Robb’s will legitimizing and making Jon his heir? How many people know that in the North? Are the Umbers, whose loyalties are split in the books between the Boltons and Stannis playing a complex game of deception? And so on.
The fact that the North is covertly supporting the reinstitution of the Stark line is a revelation as shocking in its way as the Red Wedding...only it is shocking in a good way.
Plus Frey pies. Never has cannibalism tasted so good.
(I mean, I know the show did Frey pies too. But the way they did it frankly sucked, it felt like a cheesy made-for-TV horror movie straight out of the seventies and made Arya look like an evil psycho rather than a traumatized child going for self-empowerment.)
Now, it is not like it is not possible for intrigues and politics this complex to be shown on screen. The Godfather I and II are excellent examplea of a highly intricate, complex political situation among the gang families of New York and the USA, the US government and so on jostling against each other, all portrayed on screen.
But the show ditched that bit. Maybe they felt they didn’t have time to show these depths in a ten episode season. Or maybe it doesn’t fit the series’ overall themes of brutality and strength always winning the day or death being the absolute worst fate for anyone.
But I think it is mostly that the show writers just don’t have the chops to pull it off. So instead we have a bunch of Northerners who blindly follow the Boltons, despite the fact that it makes no sense: why would anybody follow a psychopath who cruelly kills the babies of his House’s allies, who slays his own people —for no reason!-- and displays them for all the world to see, who viciously raped the daughter of the man who headed the House that ruled them wisely for a thousand years*. Ramsay Bolton is so politically incompetent that you can’t imagine him holding on to power for more than a year or so….I mean, how cowardly and pussified are the show! Northerners!?
Except for one ten year old girl. I mean, think about it.
It takes a ten year old girl to make them all feel bad.
Because, you know, children are fools who still have ideals. Adults don’t — shouldn’t — have ideals. Honor and honesty is for bedtime stories, not real life.
Yuck.
No, the character is fine. The actress is adorable and kicks ass.
But her place in the story really, really bothers me.
*a thousand years is stated in the show. I know in the books it is supposedly 3000-8000 years. (Depending on which maester you believe, of course. Like the Reader and Samwell, I’m inclined to go with the lower number.)
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