"High Sparrow"[1] is the third episode of the fifth season of Game of Thrones. It is the forty-third episode of the series overall. It will premiere on April 26, 2015. It was directed by Mark Mylod.
Plot
Template:S05E03 Synopsis
Summary
In King's Landing
In the North
At the Wall
In the Free Cities
Notes
- The episode title is a reference to the High Sparrow, a new character introduced this season.
- Daenerys Targaryen and Meereen do not appear in this episode (though Tyrion and Varys do discuss her). Dorne and House Martell do not appear in this episode - nor do Jaime Lannister and Ser Bronn, currently en route to Dorne. House Greyjoy does not appear in this episode.
- Tommen's age in the TV continuity: Tommen is actually 7 years old at the beginning of the novels, and only 9 years old at this point in the narrative - the same age as Bran Stark. Most child characters such as Arya and Sansa were aged-up by 2 years in the TV continuity. Assuming this principle holds true for all child characters, it would make Tommen 9 years old in Season 1, making him 13 by Season 5. On the other hand, a few child characters were aged-up by more than two years. Bran himself states that he is actually 10 years old in Season 1, not 9 years old. If the TV series followed the principle that Tommen is around Bran's age, he would be around 13 to 14 in Season 5. There have even been a few instances in which a child from the books was made a young adult in the: Missandei is only 10 years old in the novels, and Podrick Payne is roughly the same age as Sansa Stark, making him only about 13 years old during the third novel (meaning he wasn't old enough to have sex with prostitutes as his TV counterpart did in Season 3). Moreover, Joffrey himself was aged-up in the TV series by 4 years, not only 2 years, to make him 16 years old in Season 1, instead of 12 years old as in the first novel (actor Jack Gleeson was actually 18 years old in Season 1; they cast an older and more experienced actor due to the narrative weight the role needed to carry). Four years have passed in-universe since Season 1, meaning Joffrey would have been around 20 years old this season. Tommen is the third of Cersei's children, meaning she had to have two nine month long pregnancies after giving birth to Joffrey - one for Myrcella, then one for Tommen. Therefore, Tommen can be physically no more than 18 years old in Season 5, without the TV series contradicting its own internal chronology.
- Tommen was originally played by Callum Wharry in Seasons 1 and 2, an actor around the same age as Bran's actor, in the range of 9 to 10 years old. However, the role of Tommen was recast in Season 4 with Dean-Charles Chapman, who was about three years older than then previous actor. Chapman turned 17 during filming on Season 5, but that doesn't necessarily reflect the age of the character he is portraying (within a year or so). Therefore it appears that in the TV version, when Chapman was cast as Tommen it retconned how old the character officially is, increasing it to about 18 years old in Season 5. By placing his birth as early as physically possible, Tommen's age could indeed be increased to about 18 in Season 5 without outright contradicting the established chronology. It is to be retroactively understood that he was closer to 14 years old back in Season 1, as if the older actor Chapman had been playing him at the time (though Tommen did not appear very prominently in the first two seasons anyway - to the point that he did not have a single speaking line in Season 1).
- The legal age of adulthood in Westeros is 16 - in the novels, though Samwell Tarly's comments in Season 1 implied that in the TV version it was changed to 18. Also consider that Robb Stark was around 16 years old in Season 1 (14 in the novels), but married Talisa at the end of Season 2 when he was himself also only around 17-18 (16 in the novels). In the TV version, Tommen might actually be a few months older at this point than Robb Stark was when he married Talisa.
- This episode marks the first on-screen appearance of Volantis, making it the third of the Free Cities to appear on-screen after Pentos and Braavos. Volantis was the first of the Free Cities, founded as colonies by the Valyrian Freehold. Volantis is by far the most populous, though it also has disproportionately the largest slave population compared to any of the other Free Cities.
- Volantis and Braavos are complete opposites: Volantis was the first colony built by the dragonlords of Valyria, while Braavos was actually founded by escaped slaves fleeing from the Valyrians (making it unique among the Free Cities, as the others were all Valyrian colonies). Braavos is the northernmost of the Free Cities, while Volantis is the southernmost. Braavos is a city of canals whose strength is at sea, while Volantis's vast population makes its greatest strength on land. Volantis and Braavos are bitter rivals: in the generations right after the Doom of Valyria, Volantis tried to rebuild the empire by conquering the other Free Cities in a series of conflicts known as the Century of Blood - but Volantis was eventually defeated by an alliance of the other Free Cities, and over time it was edged out as the most powerful Free City by Braavos (though Volantis is still one of the more formidable Free Cities).
- The reason that Tyrion is going to take a ship from Volantis to Meereen instead of going by land is explained more fully in the novels: the overland route is widely considered to be unsafe because it passes through the ruins of the Valyrian Peninsula, and it is little used. The "Demon Road" between the Free Cities and Slaver's Bay passes through the city Mantarys, and is considered perilous. Therefore most west-east travel is regularly done by ship, making a long voyage around the shattered Valyrian Peninsula - making sure to put a large distance between their sea route and the smoking ruins of Old Valyria, still burning on the horizon. Ships making the journey therefore spend a long time at sea without taking on new provisions from the coast, and because Volantis is the closest of the Free Cities to Slaver's Bay, any ships that are going to make the voyage east launch from Volantis, to make the journey as short as possible with as many provisions as they can carry. Incidentally, this is also one of the reasons that Volantis has such a large slave population - it is the main hub for slave-traders traveling west from Slaver's Bay itself, who then sell slaves in Volantis's markets to slave-masters from the other Free Cities.
Sansa Stark's storyline
- Littlefinger makes no attempt in the novels to make a marriage-alliance between Sansa Stark and Ramsay Bolton, this is a massive departure from the novels.
- In the novels, Sansa remains at Littlefinger's side in the Vale, becoming his protege of sorts as he engages in various subplots to tighten his initially weak hold over the major Vale lords. Sansa has become so hardened at this point that she is willing to stand by and do nothing even as she knows Littlefinger is plotting to kill innocent Vale lords to make way for his own allies, but she has learned to play the game of politics and that she must bide her time. Eventually, at the end of the most current novels, Littlefinger explains that his plan for Sansa is indeed to enter her into a marriage alliance - to Harrold Hardyng, the closest living relative of Sweetrobin Arryn (his first cousin once removed). Unlike the sickly runt Sweetrobin, whose presence crippled the Vale during the War of the Five Kings, "Harry the Heir" is every inch a handsome and honorable young lord and warrior. Littlefinger's plan was to trick the Starks and Lannisters into fighting each other, until both sides were either dead or nearly exhausted, while keeping the Vale itself out of the war and its armies at full strength. Littlefinger explains to Sansa that he plans to gradually poison Sweetrobin to death, at which Harry will be the new Lord of the Vale, and she will marry him. At the wedding ceremony, he plans for her to finally reveal herself as not his own bastard daughter "Alayne", but as Sansa Stark, by wearing a stunning gown emblazoned with a Stark direwolf and making an emotional plea to the honorable knights of the Vale to lead their armies to retake the North from the terrible Boltons.
- The Boltons' storyline also involves a wedding: to secure their claim over the North, Tywin Lannister granted them a marriage-alliance between Ramsay Bolton and the captive Arya Stark - except that Arya was never the Lannisters' captive. Both the Lannisters and the Boltons think Arya is dead, but they plan to publicly pretend that the Lannisters captured her when Sansa was captured, and just pass off a servant girl claiming to be Arya. Brienne was even going to charge in and try to rescue Arya when she first arrived in King's Landing and found out that the girl was heading north, only for Jaime to pull her aside and explain that it can't be Arya (he met her once during the feast at Winterfell, but some girl that Tywin is passing off as her.
- In the fifth and current novel, it is revealed that "Fake Arya" is none other than Jeyne Poole - Sansa's best friend from Winterfell. Jeyne actually does exist in the TV continuity but only appeared in the feast scene at Winterfell in the first episode of the TV series. Sansa assumed Jeyne was dead after the massacre of Eddard Stark's household servants when Joffrey seized power, during which Jeyne's father Vayon Poole (Eddard's household steward) was killed (Vayon actually did appear in the TV series and had a few speaking lines before he was killed). Jeyne is the best replacement for Arya, because she grew up alongside the Stark girls and can easily pass off as one of them due to her knowledge of the castle - enough time has passed that she could plausibly be an older Arya, and when Northern lords quiz her knowledge on things like who the Starks' blacksmith was, she knows the answer is "Mikken" because she grew up in Winterfell alongside the Stark girls.
- The fifth novel not only revealed that Jeyne Poole was alive, but where she had been for the past three years. After the massacre of Eddard's household servants and Sansa's capture, the Lannisters secretly handed Jeyne Poole over to Littlefinger to keep prisoner. For no apparent reason other than abject cruelty, Littlefinger then had the eleven year old Jeyne sexually enslaved in one of his brothels. She spent the next three years being repeatedly beaten and raped (she was more valuable if her virginity was intact, but they forced her to please men with oral sex, etc.) It isn't even clear if Littlefinger ever had future plans for Jeyne, or simply did this because he could. Much later on, Jeyne arrives back in Winterfell along with Roose Bolton, where she is forced to marry Ramsay. "Reek" (the broken thing formerly known as Theon Greyjoy) is made to walk her down the aisle, to "prove" that she is the real Arya, because as a ward of the Starks he grew up alongside Eddard's children and would presumably recognize her. Reek realizes that she is actually Jeyne Poole but dares not help her - as Fake Arya she has value to the Boltons, but if she is exposed as a fraud she is useless to them and will kill her without a moment's hesitation.
- Once Jeyne is married to Ramsay, her suffering truly begins. He tortures her in several violent and sadistic ways, bizarre even by his own standards. Even as the wedding guests remain in the castle, her crying and wails of terror echo through the castle halls - Ramsay simply doesn't care that the assembled lords of the North can hear what he is doing, though his indiscretion in this regard angers his father. At one point Ramsay apparently forced Reek to "warm up" Jeyne by performing oral sex on her, for his own enjoyment at their suffering (Reek complied because he knew Ramsay would severely torture both of them further if he resisted). Jeyne also heavily implied that at one point Ramsay forced her to have sex with one of his hunting dogs for his own sadistic amusement, seriously threatening to cut off her feet one at a time until she gave in.
- The general point is held in the TV version that "Littlefinger wants Sansa to enter into a marriage-alliance which will directly lead to her retaking the North from the Boltons". The TV show didn't entirely invent this storyline whole-cloth - it drastically condensed together two subplots which were related to each other in the novels. In the book version, it was to marry the handsome heir to the Vale, to lead an army of Vale lords against the Boltons. In the TV version, this was heavily condensed so that Sansa's marriage-alliance is instead to Ramsay Bolton himself, in order to destroy the Boltons from within (much as Margaery Tyrell is doing to the Lannisters). The general point also stands that "Ramsay marries a Stark girl" to secure his hold on the North - but instead of Jeyne Poole posing as Arya as in the novels, he is actually marrying the real Stark daughter Sansa.
- Littlefinger's reasoning is slightly different in the TV version: in the novels, he actually didn't know that Stannis and his remaining army were at the Wall (or thought they were nearly defeated), while in the TV version, Littlefinger is quite aware that Stannis is at the Wall, and this has altered his plans. Littlefinger goes on to explain (as revealed in previews from next episode) that he thinks that Stannis will ultimately defeat the Boltons: Stannis is one of the best military commanders in all of Westeros, and his core army might be small but if he rallies the remnants of the other Northern Houses the Boltons will be unable to hold Winterfell against all of them. However, on the off-chance that Stannis randomly dies in battle, he had to have a contingency plan. The Boltons are wary of marrying the Sansa Stark, because when Cersei realizes Sansa escaped to them she will be enraged - but Stannis's presence has made them desperate. If Littlefinger waited until after the assault on Winterfell, and if Stannis happened to die in the attempt, the Boltons wouldn't be open to making such a marriage alliance anymore. Therefore it only made sense to marry Sansa to Ramsay Bolton before Stannis arrived: she can help undermine the Boltons from within to aid Stannis, if Stannis wins (as Baelish thinks he probably will) she will be made ruler of the North (as Littlefinger's puppet, he hopes), and if Stannis dies, Ramsay will have already married Sansa, at least leaving her in a position to undermine them from within in future plots.
- While this internal logic generally holds in the TV version, there are two unanswered questions:
- In the novels, Stannis Baratheon hates Littlefinger, and by this point in the novels it seems probable that he would execute him if he encounters him again. Stannis and Littlefinger were both on Robert's Small Council, and a lawful man like Stannis loathed a corrupt whore-monger like Littlefinger who kept bribing all of the court officials. In the TV version, Littlefinger might just hope that Stannis's situation is desperate enough that he cannot afford to oppose Littlefinger's rule in the Vale (given that he doesn't even have the North yet).
- It isn't clear how this will fit with Sansa Stark's character arc across the entire TV series, in which she grew from an innocent girl-turned-victim, to a hardened and cunning player of the political game. If Ramsay tortures Sansa as he tortured Jeyne Poole in the novels, it would simply be reversing Sansa's entire character arc. Then again, on the few occasions when his father absolutely forbids him to harm someone, Ramsay has been known to torture people they care about like a whipping boy, perhaps one of the servants girls at Winterfell. Sansa would then be left to stand back and not intervene as Ramsay tortures innocent people, biding her time - which is actually not that far removed from how her storyline in the most recent novel involved her standing back and doing nothing as Littlefinger had innocent people killed in order to bide her time - particularly that a key part of Littlefinger's plan is to gradually poison Sweetrobin Arryn, a young boy crippled with seizures and Sansa's own first cousin. This is therefore a drastic condensation from the novels, but there is still some chance that it may thematically remain relatively close to the general points that happened to these characters in the novels.
Production
Cast
Cast notes
- 18 of the 29 main cast members appeared in this episode.