![]() He parses the words he used, then invokes his duty as a man of the Night’s Watch before smooching Gilly right on the lips and promising he won’t die. ![]() When he attempts to leave, she is floored by the idea that he’s so quickly ready to abandon her again. Meanwhile, Sam is hiding Gilly and the infant in the meat cellar. It’s the second conversation atop the wall that affirms his character and is punctuated with assurance that this is not the end for the watchers of The Wall. That’s right: a man of authority just told Jon Snow that being stubborn is the mark of a leader. ![]() The old hard ass in command admits to Snow that they should have sealed the tunnel, but that leadership requires that he not second guess himself. “It’s time,” says the warg with the pet owl, and the big episode nine battle sequence on which everything else is draped begins.Ītop the wall, Ser Alliser and Jon are given the view Mance Rayder promised: the biggest fire the North has ever seen. Sam takes another vow, to go wherever she goes. Sam swears at his brother, and the woman and child enter just as the horns start to blast. Pyp is on guard duty and is holding fast against her seige of pleas. In fact, she is actually at the South Gate as Sam passes. We, of course, know that all of Sam’s fretting and guilt is unnecessary: Gilly and her child having been spared by a generous Ygritte during the raid on Mole’s Town. He talks about the first woman he fell in love with, settling on the idea that, to him, this woman of the past is more real than this Night’s Watchman hiding away in the library worrying about what might have happened. Maester Aemon talks about his days as a young Targaryen, back when his eyes worked and he was more or less like Sam. Sam has two things on his mind, his possibly dead girlfriend and his likely impending death, so he wants to know what it’s like to have sex. Samwell Tarly and Jon Snow are atop the wall, where they have been sentenced to the night watch of the Night’s Watch. The episode begins with two scenes about sex and arrows. It’s as close as Game of Thrones gets to a bottle episode and about as symbolically touching as anything you’ll find on TV that also regularly features zombies and dragons. Cannibals, barbarians, and giants riding woolly mammoths rally behind the largest fire the North has ever seen, ready to take on 102 of the loneliest boy scouts in Westeros. Running a full ten minutes shorter than the average episode, “Watchers” finally pits the men of the Night’s Watch against the bowel-voidingly massive wildling horde led by Mance Rayder. Weiss and David Benioff have managed with the Song of Ice and Fire source material. It can’t stand alone in greatness, since the bleak outlook of every preceding episode is necessary for it to be truly cathartic, but it most certainly is the tightest, most affecting piece of storytelling showrunners D.B. It’s at least the best of season four and is certainly a thematic milestone. I am tempted to say that, for this reason, “The Watchers On The Wall” is actually the best episode of the series. It subverts the bleak message of past episodes showing us that yes: when you’re alone, all you can count on is yourself, but in the company of family, love, and duty can hold incredible power. This week, at Castle Black, loyalty and brotherhood defeated the lumbering giant of wild chaos. The power of “The Watchers On The Wall” is that, after 38 episodes of being told again and again that good people are weak because of their codes, we are finally shown hope in the most unlikely of places. The most shocking deaths that have made this show so ubiquitous all come as a surprise because in our hearts we want things like honour, faith, and justice to have mass. If there is a message underneath the unforgiving brutality of Game of Thrones it is that a moral code has no power outside of those who believe it. And when you’re nothing at all, there’s no more reason to be afraid.” – Samwell Tarly on killing a White Walker I wasn’t a steward of the Night’s Watch or a son of Randyll Tarly or any of that. “If someone had asked me my name right then I wouldn’t have known.
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