Dragons, daggers and damsels intent on causing distress – it could only be the fifth season of Game of Thrones, which had its world premiere at the Tower of London on Wednesday night. Even the Iron Throne was flown in especially for the occasion.
Few settings are better suited to George R R Martin’s epic tale of familial betrayal and political skulduggery than the “Bloody Tower”, former home to vanished princes, incarcerated earls and beheaded Queens.
If the weight of history wasn’t enough, the show’s UK home, Sky, had pulled out all the stops with a set that took two weeks to build and included burning pyres, holograms of dragons and a constantly booming theme tune.
The fifth season has been the subject of a year’s worth of speculation, following the news that showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss would be deviating from Martin’s books, sending some characters on new plot trajectories and killing off others.
“Everybody better be on their toes. David and DB are even bloodier than I am,” Martin announced when news first broke of the prospective deaths. Certainly not everyone has been pleased with the news that no character, fan favourite or otherwise, is safe.
Die-hard fans went online to vent their disapproval but in reality the books and the television show have existed as two distinct entities for quite some time. Benioff and Weiss imbued their version of Game of Thrones with a dark despair about mankind’s follies that, whether intentionally or not, frequently recalls real-life atrocities both abroad and closer to home.
Yet that brutal honesty also comes at a cost. Last season Benioff and Weiss were criticised for some less than subtle treatment of rape as a subject matter.
Then there’s the issue of violence.
Game of Thrones has always been a show saturated in blood but season four in particular raised the bar on guts and gore; disembowellings, cut throats and an episode in which the dashing Prince Oberyn Martell met the grunting Gregor Clegane in a showdown that gave graphic new meaning to the phrase “an eye for an eye”.
The scenes were expertly shot and harshly realistic; they were also increasingly difficult to watch.
This, then, is the key question for Benioff and Weiss in season five: can they continue to present their audience with an accurate depiction of the true horrors of war or will fifty hours in a world without hope prove too much for many to bear?
A slow-burner of a first episode (in more ways than one) threw in flashbacks, prophesies foretold and sorrows drowned to suggest that this season will be one of new alliances and the settling of old scores with the show’s female characters very much to the fore.
There were hints too that fanaticism and faith will provide a major theme throughout the season with big questions asked about loyalty and belief and an interesting refusal to shy away from uncomfortable answers.
All the elements that have made Game of Thrones notorious, from copious nudity to moments of unexpected violence, were present but this was a notably confident series opener, one which mixed humour and pace to demonstrate how secure Benioff and Weiss now are in this world – and how happy they are to take risks.
The last word, however, should go to series newcomer Jonathan Pryce, who plays a new character, the High Sparrow, a role he described as “the nearest thing to Pope Francis that Game of Thrones has”.
“I didn’t know what to expect with it being the fifth series,” he said before the episode aired. “I thought people would be worn out and a little bit cynical but the reality was they were all very keen still on getting it right and I had a really, really good time.”
Based on this well-paced, intriguing opening episode, so will everybody else.