Dragons, Game of Thrones, and Episode 4

I get it, people get weirded the fuck out whenever “beyond-human” shit that challenges the laws of physics is introduced into any popular story. The concept of magic and the super natural is something you need to accept and keep in mind when entering the entertainment realm of fantasy. It is so easy with a show like Game of Thrones to suspend the fictional aspect for a moment and equate the story line to stuff we know has happened throughout our real history. It is the imagery of gothic castles, tall mast ships, medieval iron-clad knights, siege weaponry, whorish lady attire of the 1300’s. Even the goddamn soundtrack paints a picture more of reality than of ghosts, goblins, and giants.

George RR Martin’s #GoT storyline even tries to mask these magical undertones by writing it off as something that existed at time before “The First Men”. A time when the world was uncivilized and still a great mystic. Maesters often regale us with tales from the days of Giants and Dragons. But since it all happened 1,000’s of years ago, we get the feeling that on the surface, it can’t be true in a modern context.

In this Game of Thrones review, we are going to focus on three super natural phenomena that are in fact realities to the show’s plot and how this interlaces with Episode 4. Whether you like dragons, forest magic, or CGI zombies or not, the challenge to any story teller and its producers is how do you make something that is fictional, seem as real as possible.

The Children of the Forest & The White Walkers

The Children of the Forest are a super creepy looking, mysterious non-human type of tribe that is the original inhabitants of the continent of Westeros. They were already living in Westeros when the First Men landed on the continent, 12,000 years before Game of Thrones Seasons 1 starts.

“In the Dawn Age of Westeros, before the coming of man and the raising of castles and cities, there were only the Children of the Forest.” – right so, these people would represent the indigenous peoples of Westeros. And like most first nations people around the world, they contained a different kind of spiritual knowledge. They were conquered and marginalized, and finally were promised some form of an alliance in exchange for access to their land. In the end, they are hung out to dry and put behind walls, left to sort it out themselves, and are never invited back. The Children of the Forest are pretty much the same way and are referenced in this episode as such. When Jon Snow and Dragon Queenie take a seemingly romantic stroll through the caves of Dragonstone to discover some very poorly drawn “hieroglyphics”.

The Pictionary style wall art implies that there was a time when the Children of the Forest and the First Men, united together to fight the White Walkers and the Night King eons ago. And of course, this is what the King in the North wants from the Dragon Queen, or is it?

I remember when I first saw the Children of the Forest and the White Walkers (Army of the Night) battle it out at the end of Season 4. This was a sobering moment for me in the series as I was drunk on the false pretence that this story might be based on something realer then it is. The first scenes of Episode 1 Season 1 allude to an evil, supernatural, demonic spirt that is lurking just out of site in the shadows of the realm. That was purposely left there and not revisited until further seasons.

One would argue the creators didn’t want to scare away or turn off the more mainstream fantasy audience with too much “nerd folk lore”. It is no surprise that the producers of the show hooked us early with the Hollywood tricks of their trade, like the perfuse use of super gory violence and fantastic nudity!

However, HBO is at a point where they can no longer hide or sex off the fact that the story is in no way based on reality and it’s super nerdy to boot! Prior to the 4^th Season, all the epic battles and drawn out violence that had been witness remained for the most part, human on human. And even in that CGI battle sequence at the end of Season 4 and 5, the fantasy elements emerged slowly.

Watching the first battles of humans and Wildlings verse the Army of the Dead, it was clear that the hero’s journey was now going in a completely different direction. I don’t know about you but a CGI undead warrior knight with an army of zombie followers with shiny blue eyes, isn’t the scariest thing I could ever think of. It should be very interesting to see how the creators stage the “fear” of this enemy in a way that we aren’t totally underwhelmed with in respect to the realism of said fictional characters once they really drop the hammer.

The Three Eyed Raven

The three-eyed raven was the last Greenseer, a human living among the last of the Children of the Forest beyond the Wall. Under the guise of a three-eyed raven, he appears in Bran Stark’s vision-dreams, following his fall and injury, prompting his quest beyond the Wall and guiding him to the cave in which his real human body resides. There, Bran is trained in the magic of Greensight by the three-eyed raven. After his mentor is killed and expunged at the battle of the cave (this episode was CGI on fucking crack!),

Bran Stark assumes the new role as the so called “Greenseer”. Bran Stark is also a Warg, which isn’t the same thing but kind of ties into his whole character development. Wargs are people in the story with the ability to enter the minds of animals and perceive the world through their senses and even control their actions. Performing this act is called “Warging” – it’s like “Pegging” but with less bum stuff. Though Bran is a cripple, he is both a Warg and a Greenseer, so he can go into the past or future to determine what will happen, or take over someone’s mind and body if need be. Oh hey, “Hold the Door!”? LOL. Bran is the last true son of Ned Stark, but rejects any affinity to power in the north or the Stark family even.

Now that Bran is no longer a boy, he has emerged from his adolescence in true Plato Allegory of the Cave style. And this has def helped him drop his nuts. Nut dropping was most evident in episode 4 when telling his loyal frog girl to peace out. The amount of shade this lil’ homie throws her in Episode 4 was unreal! After all that she has done for him, he just says thanks and sends her off. Haha, what a G!

The Dragons

On that supernatural note, if forest children or the frozen walking undead aren’t your cup of tea, lucky for you there are Dragons. Dragons have been the forbidden cock tease fruit of this entire Game of Thrones saga. It took 2 seasons for them to show up on the scene, birthed from their eggs in a bed of fire with their naked ass mother – ya she unburnt!

Since then, we have seen them grow, become slightly more furious but not all that epic. Until Season 5, when Dragons like sex for people over 40, was only introduced on special occasions. Or in the case of this show, whenever HBO knew they needed to up the ante for an episode’s overall entertainment value. A bit of a, hey “just the tip, see how it feels” kind of thing. Well the audience and its creators clearly have been experiencing some serious blue balls. As now and in episode 4, the dragon fire spews across the screen like my spunk would on that Queen of Dragons face! Boom!

Dragon creation is undoubtedly the crème de la crème of the Game of Thrones special effects team. They owe a lot of their success to other fire trail blazing film crews such as the ones who produced Reign of Fire. For without their quantum move forward in CGI tech, tactics and creative design, Game of Thrones would probably never have been able to make the dragon sequence as epic as they have been. Dragons haven’t always fared well with mainstream fantasy audiences. It is not a surprise that Dragons have been very poorly underrepresented in modern pop culture until now. Probably because the word Dragon itself triggers that uber fantasy nerd type of vibe.

However, Game of Thrones (and mentioned Reign of Fire) take the dragon’s tale in a different direction. Given the history of the show and that one of the major character’s family is symbolized in the beast, it is interesting to observe the evaluation of the CGI and seeing if has helped make the story more or less epic. In my opinion, the creators have done a fantastic job of distracting us away from the fact that dragons that fly aren’t real. As for our reality, fuck off Komodo Dragon, you don’t scare me!

The mastery is in showcasing the destruction and unstableness that is involved with facing or handling these not at all that fairy tale dragons. I am glad that for the most expensive show ever produced, they didn’t cheap out on the CGI dragons. True, it has taken a fucking long time for us to get to this point. To the point where we can witness these dragons do some cool shit. Episode 4 took the destructive force of the dragon to the next level, barbecuing the Lannister army and all that dough they owed to the Iron Bank in a just a few passes by.

Final thoughts, the episode was a vast improvement from what we have seen so far this season. And being totally honest, it hasn’t been much so far. I cannot in sound mind give a perfect score to an episode when there was 0 effort made to show me even one titty! Ya ya, CGI fire and those things it burnt in its wake was great but come on! There wasn’t one scene where boobs could have worked? Screw the Iron Bank what about the Spank Bank?! Be sure to check out next weeks review of Episode 5!

4.1 / 5 score for the blood, dragon fire, and adding in another Dickon joke!

Related Game of Thrones Articles:

Episode1 Game of Thrones Review

Episode2 Game of Thrones Review 

Episode3 Game of Thrones Review