S3·E1 — Valar Dohaeris

The hour retold

Valar dohaeris — all men must serve — and the premiere is a tour of service and its humiliations. The survivors of the Fist stagger back to Craster’s with the news that ends the world, if anyone would hear it; Mormont’s orders to Sam are blunt: the Watch must reach the Wall alive, because a warning that dies in the snow is no warning at all. South of the ice, Jon is marched through the free folk’s camp — giants, cookfires, a people rather than a horde — and lies his way into Mance Rayder’s service with the one truth that sells it: he saw where Craster’s sons go, and the Watch looked away. The lie works because it is barely a lie.

The hour’s centerpiece is a chair and a father. Tyrion, scarred and demoted, comes to Tywin to ask for what is his by every law of the realm — Casterly Rock — and receives instead the most complete demolition a parent ever performed on a child: the next whore caught in his bed hangs, and the Rock will go to him never. It is a speech about inheritance that explains three seasons of Lannister behavior in four minutes. Counterweights arrive elsewhere: Margaery Tyrell stops her litter in Flea Bottom to feed orphans, conquering the capital with soup while Cersei watches from a window, and in Astapor Daenerys inspects an army that feels no pain, priced in a currency — cruelty — she has not yet agreed to pay. All men must serve; the question the season asks is whom.

What happens

• The survivors of the Fist stagger back to Craster's; Sam saw the dead — the Watch must warn the realm.
• Jon is brought before Mance Rayder and lies his way into the free folk.
• Tywin refuses Tyrion Casterly Rock in the cruelest speech a father ever gave.
• Margaery Tyrell feeds orphans in Flea Bottom and the city notices the difference.
• In Astapor, Dany inspects the Unsullied while a warlock's child nearly kills her.

The people of the episode