Stark Departures: Thrones Season Four Veers Off the Map!

So if you didn’t catch Game of Thrones last night, STOP READING. Here there be Spoilers… So my advice would be, books or no books, if you haven’t seen the episode, CLOSE YOUR BROWSER. 

I try to stay clear of reveals for the most part, but recent events are simply too fascinating not to consider…

In a season that has already had more than its fair share of seismic moments, last night will go down in the annals of the show as an extremely pivotal, milestone episode, in that never before in the entire history of Game of Thrones has the plot for the series veered so wildly off on its own course and taken such a major series of departures from the book:

Burn Gorman and Bran – the addition of Pacific Rim actor Burn Gorman as Karl, leader of the mutineers at Craster’s Keep, escaped my notice last season. Gorman is a terrific presence (he was also in Dark Knight Rises), and it turns out his character was in a previous episode in season 3, but I clearly didn’t recognize him at the time. Now we don’t just have the “mutineers” holed up at Craster’s, but Karl has been elevated to Richard III awfulness, drinking out of Mormont’s empty skull, overseeing the all-too graphic abuse of Craster’s remaining daughters. So that’s one thing – but now we have Bran, Hodor and the Reeds captured by Karl and his cronies – in the books thus far, Bran and company were still just wondering about. As for their encounter with spectral horseman Coldhands, we haven’t even seen him yet. He joins the ranks of GOT characters such as Lady Stoneheart who have yet to make an appearance on the series. Who knows if they even will? Fan favorite book characters have been omitted from the series before, as was the case with Strong Belwas and Vargo Hoat.

Locke – and thpeaking of Hoat, the villain who cut off Jaime’s hand has infiltrated the Night’s Watch at the behest of the Boltons, and is on his way with Jon Snow to Craster’s, to deal with the mutineers! This raises a fascinating question, and one of the potentially biggest departures from the books – is Bran going to be reunited with his half-brother Jon?!? Will Jon rescue his little brother? Admittedly, Bran’s lengthy meanderings with the Reeds have always been some of the slower, less engaging parts of the books. So I really find the idea of putting Bran, Hodor et al in some actually jeopardy and more woven into the actual plot, a satisfying choice – but Karl and the mutineers are turning into mustache-twirling cartoons at this point. Enough with the raping, already… Let’s not forget that similarly (though more compressed than it feels in the books) we now have both Sansa and Arya heading for the Eyrie – could this be another Stark sibling reunion, potentially occurring before we read about it in the next book?

The Night’s King – whatever he’s called, we saw a crowned White Walker transform a human baby into one of their own! This is major. Not one of the Wight/zombies, but an Other. We’ve never seen anything like this in the books yet – is it a leap-ahead that the showrunners have gleaned from Martin? This was a really fascinating reveal and opens up the entire mythology more than we’ve seen from any source thus far. In fact, HBO may have let the cat out of the bag a little early. Briefly after the episode aired, the HBO synopsis identified this being as the Night’s King: “A White Walker claims the baby and rides to a city of ice. The child is presented at an alter, where the Night’s King greets the infant and lays a finger on its cheek. The baby’s eyes turn White Walker blue.” Evidently realizing the inadvertent slip, HBO quickly changed the synopsis from Night’s King to “Walker.” 

For all these elements, this has to be considered a major episode, given how it was practically an outright declaration on the part of the show that they’re willing to play fast-and-loose, serving notice to readers that just like winter, surprises and differences are coming.