The Children - Game of Thrones - 4x10

Season Four
Season Four was probably the most difficult time time for the show.  It represented the largest change in the status quo.  With the destruction of the Starks and the Northern Army, not only had the protagonist died but the protagonists entire legion was gone and the rebellion had been summarily crushed.  And it happened fast, from episode nine and ten the landscape changed dramatically, while Season One and Two had changes take place more gradually, save for one or two characters.

It was also a time for the show to begin blending as many as three books plus a significant amount of original material, while previous seasons were largely transcribing a single book, sequentially, punctuated by a few semi-original scenes that were still drawn heavily from material in the books.

I think the best way to look at the show is not from the overall plot status but by tracking the change in the characters over the season.  The macro picture in Westeros, and in the East for that matter, is almost exactly how it ended in Season Three (Dany in Merereen, Lannisters in charge with the North defeated).  But when you look at where the characters traveled, it's a lot of change.  Specifically, the Stark children who spent the first episode together at Winterfell have stretched out so much they aren't even in the seven kingdoms anymore.

So we'll look at 1) the character's starting point 2) what happened to them 3) where they ended Season Four

Arya

1. Family's dead, oops.
2. Wandered about with the Hound, numb to killing, and getting good at it
3. With nothing keeping her in Westeros, hops a chip via Jaqen's coin, to Braavos to hopefully meet her number one assassin

Jon

1. Post-undercover job with Wildlings, stars in Horrible Bosses: The Wall
2. Leads men on a sortie to take out the mutineers, and plays a large part in the defense of Castle Black.
3. Selects himself to end the battle, willing to sacrifice himself to kill Mance, already in the good graces of Stannis

Sansa

1. Is a Lannister/wife to Tyrion/super sad and mopey just because her whole family got murdered.
2. Escapes to Eyrie
3. Gets in the game under the tutelage of Littlefinger. Wears black dress.

Bran

1. Goes past the Wall looking for Three Eyed Crow
2. Continues. Almost murdered.
3. Finds Three Eyed Crow. About to fly.

Dany

1. Frees Mereen
2. Decides to stay put and rule Mereen
3. Still in Mereen. President-ing is hard. Chainz Two dragons.  One is MIA.

Children of the Forest

1. Collects underpants
2. ...?...
3. Profit

Jaime

1. Sword-hand-less. Unable to fight. Spurned by Cersei.
2. Trains to fight. Not getting along great with Cersei.  Hangs out with Tyrion in dungeon.
3. Still not able to fight that well.  Ponders legacy.  Frees Tyrion.  Back with Cersei?

Tyrion

1. Unhappy marriage and still an object of Joffrey's torment, in the unsexy job of Master of Coin
2. Spends lots of time in dungeon for Joffrey's murder.  Curses everyone in Kings Landing.
3. Condemned.  Murders dad, whore.  Peaces out to the Free Cities.

Tywin

1. War victor.  Kingdom ruler
2. To Do: Estranging children
3. Arrowed!  Is an Ex-Tywin.

Stannis

1. Largely irrelevant
2. Gets a loan from Braavos.  Goes North
   
3. Has army, will travel.  Only person/king doing what the king should be doing.  Wears zero coats.

Catelyn Stark

1. Dead.
2. Is no more.
3. Ceased to be.

Hodor

1. Hodor.
2. Hodor.
3. Hodor.

Winter is Coming

What we always knew would happen is about to happen, we're about out of source material.  In order to tell a complete story next season for these characters, Benioff and Weiss would have to exhaust the final two books.  Bran and Dany have both poked into their stories in ADWD chapters.   The lack of a natural stopping point outside of the final chapters of each character means that B&W will have to augment with a decent amount of original material, or go into great detail of stories like Jon, Sam, Tyrion and Dany, as there simply are  not many chapters remaining of Arya and Sansa. 

This may be a case where Game of Thrones is not well served by a ten episode season.  Rather than extend the remaining material into two seasons, or cram it into one, they may wish instead to lengthen the hiatus until next season, but make it 15-16 episodes.  Or, to shorten the hiatuses and do two eight episode seasons.  With the scale involved in creating Game of Thrones, I'm sure there more logistical concerns than I can even imagine.  Shooting on multiple continents brings a host of problems.  But HBO has always been on the side of the story and may continue to go that way if Game of Thrones continues to have these earth shattering viewership numbers. Ultimately, I think it will become the Wall and Mereen show for a while.

Even if the Winds of Winter is not published between the end of next season and the start of Season Six, we can hope that GRRM will share more information with B&W about where to point the ship.

Now, the finale...


Westeros and Essos

• Jaqen giving the coin to Arya wins this week's Oldest Previously award
• Ned Starks shadow reaches to the Wall.  Imagine if he had been there, as originally planned, for the battle.
• Stannis don't need no overcoat.
• Happy Father's Day, Tywin!
• Cersei: Will it weaken him? Qyburn: No Cersei: Why are you even asking me about this?
• Cersei threatens to burn the House down.  The one redeeming thing they've written into her character is her love and concern for her children, and now she takes on the most powerful man in the seven kingdoms on that note.  Remember how Tywin kindly led Tommen away from his mother during their early discussion on what it takes to be a great king?  He's trying to finish the job by sending her to Highgarden. 
• The weirwood is the weirwood from Bran's vision.  I can't help but think of the empty, snowy thrown room in his and Dany's visions.  Is there even going to be an Iron Throne after all this?
• I predicted the Ironmen would get about three scenes this season
• Dany sure does micromanage.  She sees every single serf in her city individually, which is great, but probably really inefficient.  She has little in the way of grand vision beyond the No Slavery policy.  Where are the public works?  Education?  Publicly funded baseball stadiums?
• The Children are exactly as I pictured
• On that note, pretty sure I saw that scene on True Blood a few seasons ago where the fairies are throwing fireballs
• If there is something that you can't remember if it changed from the books then it probably doesn't matter. 
• The music was astounding this episode.  
• EDIT: I assumed Varys was sitting on the dock after Tyrion was loaded onto the ship.  Some report he was on the ship with Tyrion.  There does not seem to be a consensus. 
• Ultimately, this season only covered a few weeks, considering the wedding happened, then Tyrions trial in a fortnight or so after, and then the duel/sentencing.
• I don't think I was alone in thinking the last shot would be something else