“The House of Black and White”
April 19, 2015
As noted last week, my reviews of Game of Thrones have shifted to The A.V. Club, but I will continue to link them here for regular readers. Warning: These are reviews intended for book readers, so if you want to know absolutely no small details about the story as told in the books, you may want to steer clear.
Game of Thrones – “The House of Black and White” [The A.V. Club]
Game of Thrones has always been interested in identity, being as character-focused as it is, but “The House Of Black And White” is particularly invested in the crisis of identity at this point in the story. The changes in Brienne’s storyline emphasize a theme common across most of the show’s characters at this point in Martin’s books, and which plays out in nearly all storylines investigated here. As Tyrion and Varys travel to Meereen—by way of Volantis—the conversation turns to Tyrion’s leadership as the Hand of the King, and Tyrion’s complicated relationship with power; when Selyse interrupts Shireen and Gilly’s conversation about the former’s greyscale, it’s a conversation between a girl defined by her disease and a girl defined by being a “wildling,” regardless of how they might self-identify. Given how much of the show is—for better or worse—characters talking, identity conflict is a key way for the show to draw meaning from those conversations.
Cultural Learnings 