The Battle Of The Blackwater From Game Of Thrones Season 2 Is The Best Action Scene Ever
(Welcome to Best Action Scene Ever, a column dedicated to breaking down the best, most effective action sequences throughout the genre. In this edition, we give some love to the first and, yes, the best of the battles staged in HBO's "Game of Thrones.")
We've somehow made it through nine editions of this column before expanding to include television, a medium that has grown exponentially in the last few decades to tell big-budget stories through a startlingly cinematic lens. As much as the previous era of "Prestige TV" helped pave the way for television shows to be taken much more seriously, it wasn't until "Game of Thrones" that global audiences could truly grasp what that meant. In its latter days, the flagship HBO series became known for ramping up the existential threat of its White Walker plotline, pouring millions of dollars of resources into staging blockbuster-sized set pieces with utterly convincing dragon VFX, and prioritizing spectacle above all else to keep audiences hooked and, essentially, keep feeding the beast.
But it wasn't always like that. Long before a divisive final season soured the reputation of the entire series in the minds of many, the early seasons of "Game of Thrones" took a very different tact. Without unlimited resources, creators and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had the benefit of "A Song of Ice and Fire" author George R.R. Martin's strongest works to adapt. As a result, they relied predominantly on making viewers invested in the ensemble cast of characters and their various motivations and loyalties, pitting them against each other in complex political scenarios, and forcing us to navigate these murky waters ourselves.
All these strengths are on display in the earliest (and my personal favorite) major battle in the show: the penultimate episode of season 2, "Blackwater."
The scene
Size, as it turns out, isn't always everything. No, season 2 episode 9 of "Game of Thrones" won't be mistaken for the scope and scale of "The Battle of the Bastards." There aren't any dragons or White Walker attacks to rival the likes of "Beyond the Wall" (which, to be fair, was a strong contender for this week's edition of the column). And in terms of eliciting reactions from viewers, it's easy to see why this wasn't brought up among fans nearly as often as "The Bells," aka the controversial episode where Daenerys Targaryen goes full Mad Queen on everyone.
Instead, what "Blackwater" lacks in spectacle (relatively speaking, of course), it more than makes up in doing what "Game of Thrones" once did best: crafting a battle sequence that pays off on the season-long arc, not just a spectacle for the sake of it.
For almost the entirety of season 2, the pieces are slowly put in place for an epic matchup between the Lannisters, who are currently in control of the Westerosi capital city King's Landing under King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), and the rebellious fleet led by would-be king Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), who seeks to claim the Iron Throne as his rightful inheritance. On both sides of this collision course, we have several characters that we've become attached to — the loyal sea captain Davos (Liam Cunningham), Sophie Turner's captive Sansa Stark, and Hand of the King Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) among them — who now face mortal peril regardless of the final result of the battle.
The setup is fairly simple: The port city is vulnerable to attack from the sea. With the bulk of the Lannister army distracted by war with the rebelling Robb Stark (Richard Madden), it's up to Tyrion to repel the invasion.
Why it works
It's always a nice bonus to have author George R.R. Martin on call to script an adaptation of his own work. Of course, that meant taking the much larger battle as he originally told in his book, "A Clash of Kings," and distilling it into a more budget-friendly version that could still get across the dire circumstances at play. The final result is a tight, no-frills script that, in the hands of director Neil Marshall, transcends its obvious limitations and still holds up to this day.
It's remarkable to look back and realize that nearly the entire first half of the episode is dedicated to quiet table-setting. While setting up all of the characters on both sides of the impending conflict, "Blackwater" builds the dread of the battle and establishes the stakes. Tyrion and Lord Varys (Conleth Hill) solemnly discuss the danger Stannis poses should he overthrow the city and come to power. Queen Cersei (Lena Headey) gathers Sansa together with the highborn women, passing the time with glasses of wine and insults. And the soldiers of the city, represented by Bronn (Jerome Flynn) and the severely scarred Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann), nearly come to blows over frayed nerves.
All that downtime sets the scene for the actual battle, which begins in earnest with Tyrion's opening move: sending a lone ship into the middle of Stannis' approaching fleet, leaking a trail of wildfire that Bronn ignites with a well-placed arrow in the most spectacular VFX sequence that "Game of Thrones" ever produced to that point. That's only the beginning, however, as this strong foundation lays the track for the carnage to come. The resulting combat is depicted in all its inglorious brutality, with no room for whitewashed storytelling or feel-good moments ... except for one.
The key moment
In the aftermath of Eddard Stark's (Sean Bean) shocking death in the previous season, the burden of the main protagonist — as far as an ensemble series like "Game of Thrones" ever really had one in the first place, of course — has largely fallen to Tyrion. Our complicated and immensely flawed "hero" taking charge of the defense of King's Landing isn't merely to fulfill the stock fantasy archetype but is meant as a culmination of his emotional journey throughout the season. Thrust into a leadership position in King's Landing at his father Tywin's (Charles Dance) command at the end of season 1, this marks the moment when all the skeptics surrounding him have no choice but to give up all hope ... or put their faith in him to save their city. When Stannis presses the attack and forces the defenders into one last stand, Tyrion steps up when he's needed most and delivers a show-stopping speech to motivate the men under him.
Until the end of the show's run, this scene (and the episode in general) is perhaps the closest "Game of Thrones" ever gets to aligning with much more traditional fantasy stories in the vein of "The Lord of the Rings." Tywin and his army of reinforcements charge in at the last moment to defeat Stannis and save the day, the body count among the main characters ultimately proves shockingly light, and Sansa manages to escape the siege unnoticed.
But in quintessential "Game of Thrones" fashion, even this is undercut because the victory is hardly so cut-and-dry for those we've become invested in. The fates of Tyrion, Davos, and Sansa all take a turn for the worse while the Lannisters' power only grows. "Blackwater" was our earliest indication that "Game of Thrones" could pull off an epic battle, but infused with all the moral complexity, uneasy allegiances, and unintended consequences that would go on to define this series.