Here come the Sand Snakes

Season 5 of HBO’s Game of Thrones is premiering tomorrow.

April 10, 2015 08:18 pm | Updated 08:20 pm IST - Chennai

Sunday, April 12, is here finally. The grand gaping void that encapsulated lives like mine when the last episode of Season 4 of the HBO television series Game of Thrones , aired last year on June 15, comes to a long-awaited end today. Tomorrow — for those of you who have either lived under a rock or belong to a rapidly-diminishing minority that isn’t besotted with the series — marks the premiere of Season 5 of the fantasy drama.

Let me begin with the disclaimer that this preview requires from the reader a certain familiarity with the series and will contain spoilers from previous seasons (for, how else can you talk about the future, if not by referencing the past?). Diehard fanatics have, by now, already rewatched all the previous seasons to get into the mood, so to speak, and of course, to remember all the 19 million characters in the series and their respective plot lines. It is this very intricate detailing that justifies the epic status it is accorded with.

Though the TV series cannot hope to reproduce the detail contained in George Martin’s epic fantasy book series, A Song of Ice and Fire — can any TV series or movie ever? — it is a mark of quality of the screenplay that even the TV series seems so… labyrinthine. However, much to the chagrin of Martin’s reader base, the TV series has begun taking substantial creative liberties with the narratives, so much so that it’s starting to seem like a distinct entity by itself. This is in stark (pun intended) contrast to, say, the Harry Potter franchise, where the readers could accurately predict the sequence of events in the movies.

The books are verbose — A Storm of Swords , the third in the series, contains a whopping 4,24,000 words; compare this with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which altogether only has 4,73,000 words! For those of you who understandably haven’t been able to finish the books, here’s more good news: Season 5, even if it’s loosely based on the events of books four and five, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons , reportedly veers further away from the books than its predecessors have. Readers of the series do not — I repeat, do not — hold an advantage anymore.

Here’s a quick recap to get you up to scratch. Following the death of Lannister mastermind, Tywin, Cersei, his wily daughter, now assumes even more power. Rivalling her is the Tyrell beauty, Margaery, who has enamoured Cersei’s son, Tommen, who, for his part, is now king of Westeros, following the satisfying death of his not-so-kind elder brother, Joffrey. Meanwhile, Tyrion Lannister, the intelligent dwarf, escapes with the help of Varys, to the free cities, after committing patricide. Fan favourite (my favourite, anyway) Arya Stark has also left to the free cities — more specifically, Braavos — after numerous futile attempts to get back to her family ended disastrously and usually, in their death. Sansa, her sister, is now with a new protector, the megalomaniacal Petyr Baelish. Jon Snow and the rightful heir to the throne, following Robert Baratheon’s gory (or should I say boar-y?) death, Stannis Baratheon, could well be forging up a powerful bond near the Wall. Theon Greyjoy, meanwhile, has been broken by the sadistic Ramsay Snow. And finally, Daenarys Targaryen has to take back control over Meereen and Yunkai before unleashing her three dragons — of which the biggest, Drogon, is nowhere to be found — on King’s Landing. Phew.

What should you expect from the new season? The trailer has already shown that Oberyn Martell’s three daughters, the Sand Snakes, will look to avenge his death. The other big news is the significant absence of two characters — Hodor, the gentle giant, and Bran Stark, who’s busy training his skills with the three-eyed raven across the Wall. Executive producer David Benioff confirmed as much in a recent interview.

Game of Thrones is now among those rare TV series whose viewership has increased with each season. Its last season, with an average viewership of 18.6 million per episode, made it HBO’s most popular series ever, beating The Sopranos . All signs point to this trend continuing. And oh, here’s one final, admittedly safe, guess to make, considering George Martin’s penchant for gory murders. An important character or two may well kick the bucket again and send the internet wild, like the deaths of Ned Stark, Robb Stark, Oberyn Martell and Tywin Lannister all did. As Arya Stark says at the end of the last season, as if speaking the words of George Martin himself, “All men must die”. Or as it is said more fashionably in high Valyrian, “Valar morghulis.”

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