Finally, we’re getting inside these characters’ heads!
In the middle of last night’s of Game of Thrones, Tyrion — awaiting his trial-by-combat — tells Jaime a story about how, as boys, their brain-damaged cousin Orson would spend endless hours crushing beetles.
“Why was he smashing all of those beetles? What did he get out of it,” Tyrion wonders aloud. These questions have plagued him since childhood. While Orson’s obsession was smashing beetles, Tyrion’s obsession was finding out why.
He asked and never got an answer. He observed and never got an answer. Despite Tyrion being a genius and Orson being a “moron,” Orson still managed to go to his grave possessing some knowledge that Tyrion never will — and that’s why he loved crushing beetles so damn much.
Sometimes, no matter how smart or strong or relentless you are, you don’t get the answer that you want — that is, if any answer at all. That seemed to be the moral of last night’s episode “The Mountain and the Viper,” which saw the spectacularly brutal death of the beloved Oberyn Martell, Red Viper of Dorn, at the hands (quite literally) of much hated Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane.
As soon as Tyrion begins his story about Orson and the beetles, it becomes pretty clear that Oberyn, fighting for Tyrion, is not going to come out of the trial-by-combat alive. (The tale isn’t exactly what I’d call a subtle metaphor.) To solidify our dread, Oberyn enters the fray against the Mountain with an ostentatious combat style that, while thrilling to watch, can only mean a terrible end. The fates of the Seven Kingdoms aren’t exactly kind to the flashy. (They’re not too kind to the austere either, as any Stark can tell you. Welcome to Westeros: Either Way, You’re Fucked.)
For a moment, it almost looks like Oberyn is going to win. He’s knocked the Mountain to the ground — a seemingly impossible task — and stuck him with a spear, yet he refuses to deal the final death blow. Before the Mountain dies, Oberyn needs to hear him admit that he raped and murdered his sister, and killed her children as well. Drawing this out can’t end well. Tyrion knows it. We know it, too.
Still, Oberyn gets what he wants. Maybe not in the way that he wants, but he does get the Mountain to publicly confesses to his crimes against the Martells. Unfortunately, the confession comes with a final surge of tremendous strength and, using nothing but his giant meat mits, the Mountain squeezes Oberyn’s head until it literally explodes in a gory, brain-y mess. Was this the most vile death on Game of Thrones so far? Yes. Yes, indeed. Sorry, Ros: You’re still a close second.
(I wish I had more articulate thoughts on this, but to be honest, I’m feeling a little sloppy after a restless night full of nightmares about getting brained. WHO KNOWS WHERE THOSE CAME FROM. Thankfully, C.A. Pinkham has your thoughtful analysis right here.)
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