by C. A. Taylor
— costuming margaery —
The royal couple dressed in full regalia.
MICHELE CLAPTON (COSTUME DESIGNER): Margaery’s wedding dress is actually quite a traditional dress. Unlike Sansa, who is being forced into something and feels quite oppressed, this is a wedding Margaery wants. She knows the power she will gain despite the fact that she is marrying someone grotesque. It’s quite demure so as to appeal to people, but her sigil is all over the dress. I wanted to capture the idea of the twisting and strangling and taking over of the Lannisters. Even Joffrey’s wedding crown has elements of that, with the Baratheon elements being overtaken by the roses. It looks beautiful and soft from a distance; it’s only when you look at the details that you realize it is covered in thorns and is not at all what it seems.
The dress is made of silk linen printed with a beautiful pattern of leaves and a two-tone gray feel that gives it a steely edge. The embroidery was done by Michele [Carragher], who has a wonderful organic sensibility. At times it would get too heavy, so we would pull it back and remove elements, or it would go too far the other way and be too pretty. We adjusted until we found the right balance. I then decided that the roses should be added to the train. I really had no idea how many would be needed.
MICHELE CARRAGHER (EMBROIDERER): It all begins with Michele’s sketches. We discussed at length how it couldn’t just be pretty, it really needed to have this harder edge. For the dress I made over 350 individual roses by hand for the back of the skirt and train. I could do one in about ten minutes, which meant that it took about sixty hours in total to do them all. The stems were made from a metallic cord that was then covered in an Italian mesh wire to create the thickness needed. The thorns were a combination of Czech glass spikes and hand-folded leather that was painted silver to match the scheme. Some of the more delicate branches were also leather, braided and hand-finished in the same silver. Each of the leaves were made of velvet, cut and individually placed. From start to finish, the detailing on the dress took about ten days to complete.
The wedding dress complete with details reflecting the elegant power and vicious prick of the Tyrell sigil.
MICHELE CLAPTON (COSTUME DESIGNER): When I saw that there were steps in the shot, I was worried that the skirts would end up bouncing and looking too theatrical—the skirt was bowed slightly to give a lift to the design. But in the end it lay beautifully because of the weight in the train. Director Alex Graves said it was the only time he had ever changed a shot for a costume— to capture it as Margaery ascended.
SHAE
“Men only want one thing from a pretty girl.”
—Shae
A skilled and charming prostitute, Shae (Sibel Kekilli) does not share her secrets easily. She has learned the hard way to be careful of whom she trusts. The ambitious Shae becomes the singular companion of Tyrion Lannister, traveling with him to King’s Landing in secret when he is named Hand of the King. In order to protect her identity from Cersei Lannister, Tyrion arranges for Shae to become Sansa Stark’s handmaiden in the castle. Shae and Sansa become close, and Shae tries to protect her from both herself and her enemies. Shae is no stranger to the games that people like to play with innocent young girls.
Tyrion is deeply in love with Shae, but he constantly fears for her safety. Tyrion tries to send her away repeatedly, before the Battle of Blackwater and later when he realizes he will be trapped in a marriage to Sansa. Angered by Tyrion’s acquiescence to his father’s machinations, Shae becomes jealous of Sansa. Increasingly erratic and confrontational, Shae begins to doubt if Tyrion ever truly loved her at all.
There is nothing more dangerous than a woman with a broken heart.
SIBEL KEKILLI (SHAE): I love the character of Shae. She’s a very complicated young woman who hasn’t had an easy life, but she is smart. If she wasn’t clever, she would never have found herself as the companion to Tyrion. In the beginning, maybe there was a strategy to it; it was a job to be with Tyrion. She’s been hurt a lot, and it’s only when she begins to trust him that she begins to love him. She was prepared to risk her life to be with him. She never would have betrayed him the way she did at the trial if she didn’t have deep feelings. Hate and love are so close in so many ways. When he was so dishonest at the end, even though he was trying to protect her, she knows he is lying. When he calls her “whore,” I think it truly breaks her heart. That is the moment that she truly begins to hate.
PETER DINKLAGE (TYRION LANNISTER): He’s fallen in love with Shae, and that’s his vulnerability. I don’t think Tyrion had ever truly been vulnerable until he met this woman. I love that David and Dan expanded on her character because I think it shows a different side to him when he is with her. Everyone needs to have their own kryptonite. She needs constant protection to hide her identity and their relationship, and he goes to great lengths to do that. I don’t think he would do that for much else, other than to perhaps protect his own life. It’s made him weak in a way, and he hates it.
JAIME LANNISTER RETURNS
“My bloody honor is beyond repair. But the answer is still no. I don’t want Casterly Rock. I don’t want a wife. I don’t want children.”
—Jaime Lannister
Jaime must get to grips with having a new, inferior sword hand.
Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) returns to King’s Landing a changed man. Everything—being captured twice, the loss of his hand, his time on the road with Brienne (Gwendoline Christie)—has affected Jaime. Having always been known as the Kingslayer, a great warrior, and a Lannister, Jaime is reluctantly questioning what he believes about himself. While Brienne confronts him over the promises he’s made, which represent who he’s become, Jaime really only has one goal in mind—to reunite with his sister the way they once were.
Yet Cersei (Lena Headey) has changed as well. Her feelings for Jaime are conflicted; she feels deserted by him, and now he’s returned wounded, in her mind a lesser man than before. Further, Tywin wants Jaime to quit the Kingsguard and take up control of Casterly Rock, the Lannister stronghold, to continue the family legacy. Instead Jaime refuses, deciding to remain in the Kingsguard, and in King’s Landing, in order to be close to Cersei and in doing so faces a new reality: disowned by his father, repulsive to his lover, a one-handed warrior with no claim to his old skill as a fighter. Who is he now?
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU (JAIME LANNISTER): I think there is part of Jaime that wants to pretend that nothing has changed, and that when he returns to King’s Landing, it will go back to the way it was. There is a moment with Brienne when she confronts him about his promises, and he just wants her to leave him to return to his life, but he knows he can’t.
GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE (BRIENNE OF TARTH): There is this thing in Shakespeare that when people go into the woods, it’s often symbolic of confusion. This to me feels like that—they go off together to find themselves. I think it’s very brave of Brienne to remind Jaime of his promises, but she’s also reminding him of their relationship, this friendship they developed. It’s a hard thing to be that open, but his acknowledgment of his promises and then endowing them with physical form [her armor] is incredibly symbolic. It shows his acceptance of who she is as a woman and the trust he has in her as a warrior.
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU (JAIME LANNISTER): Sometimes you hear these stories of great trauma, or in this case the loss of his mastery of swords, and the loss of his hand. I think that forced him to find who he is. I think his understanding of people and morality has been there all along, but the situation is dragging it out of him. He also knows that his sister is not how he wants her to be—it’s like she’s revolted by him, and the gift of the gold hand is an attempt to make him whole again. There’s something quite wrong in that. Her outrage at his leaving shows their relationship is very one-sided. It’s about her needs, about when she can fit him into her life. I think he finds it unfair, but accepts it. It’s how they’ve always been.
LENA HEADEY (CERSEI LANNISTER): I know Jaime loves Cersei. I question if
she loves him, or if she finds a safety in him. I have always maintained that she really would like to be him, to have the freedom to fight. She believes she is smarter, but she is confined by being a woman. I think that, missing the part that she probably admired most in terms of what his sword hand represented—his sexuality, his strength—that is where envy lay, and now it’s gone. She doesn’t like his vulnerability.
Cersei and Jaime try and relearn each other.
TYRION ON TRIAL
“I didn’t kill Joffrey, but I wish I had. Watching your vicious bastard die gave me more relief than a thousand lying whores.”
—Tyrion Lannister
Tyrion Lannister has always known his father hated him, but even he is surprised to be accused of Joffrey’s murder by his own sister and put on public trial for a crime he did not commit. However, Cersei, seemingly mad with grief, is intent on destroying her brother for murdering her son.
Tywin Lannister sees this as an opportunity to rid himself of the son he despises. Meanwhile, Tywin also uses Tyrion’s life as a way to control Jaime and force him to accept the role of Lord of Casterly Rock. Jaime Lannister is caught between loyalty to a brother he knows to be innocent and feelings for a sister whom he still loves beyond reason. Since he can’t stop the proceedings, he agrees to Tywin’s terms in exchange for a promise of Tyrion’s safety.
During the trial, in a court full of sycophants and secret agendas, witness after false witness stands to accuse Tyrion of malevolent intent, and he begins to realize his life is in true danger. Worst of all, the woman he truly adores— Shae—betrays him and lies to the court. Her testimony sends Tyrion over the edge, and in a moment of pure rage, he throws away the deal that would see him banished to the Wall and leaves his fate in the hands of the gods.
This contest would be unwinnable, except that Oberyn Martell agrees to fight on Tyrion’s behalf. Oberyn is less interested in saving Tyrion than in fulfilling his own desire—to learn the truth about the murder of his sister and to kill the Mountain. In this, Oberyn succeeds just before the Mountain returns the favor.
The judges sit for the trial of Tyrion Lannister.
DAVID BENIOFF AND D. B. WEISS (CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS AND WRITERS): Tyrion is watching all the contempt of his father and sister—and all the anger he’s thrown back at them in turn—come home to roost. For something he didn’t do. On some level, he’s too worldly to dwell much on the fact that he’s innocent. But on a deeper level, the fact that his own family wants to have him executed for something he didn’t do . . . it cuts him deep, as the end of the season proves.
BRYAN COGMAN (CO-PRODUCER AND WRITER): Writing the trial sequence was a lot of fun and hugely challenging. I got to play with all the tropes of the classic “courtroom drama,” but I had to be careful it didn’t seem anachronistic or turn into a spoof. The trap was creating Law and Order: Westeros. We made the decision to make the case against Tyrion largely based on actual events that happened on the show (with one or two exceptions), albeit distorted by Cersei to make Tyrion seem guilty of Joffrey’s murder. But, in the end, the trial theatrics and plot are secondary to the fact that this long sequence is essentially a scene between the Lannister kids and their father—a scene that exists almost entirely in the looks and reactions between them and the family history boiling under the surface. Director Alik Sakharov was particularly mindful of this—getting tons of reaction shots from Peter, Nikolaj, Lena, and Charles that really end up being the spine of the sequence. Peter is extraordinary in that scene—he finally can’t take it anymore and lets his father and the people of King’s Landing know what he really thinks of them. “I am guilty of being a dwarf!” is such a powerful statement—a terrific line of George’s taken directly from the book.
CHARLES DANCE (TYWIN LANNISTER): I’ve gotten quite used to the way Tywin behaves now. What I’ve realized is that he will genuinely stop at nothing to reach his goals. As time has gone on I have wondered if there is a tiny moment of regret in that, but that little element is just a color. That’s all. The people he recruits for the trial to sit in judgment are those he has chosen as puppets. He doesn’t think Tyrion is guilty, but he wants him out, and this is convenient.
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU (JAIME LANNISTER): In my mind, it’s quite simple. If Jaime thought Tyrion had killed Joffrey, he might understand his sister’s utter obsession with killing their brother, but he knows Tyrion didn’t do it. He thinks she’s playing two games at the same time—she’s hurt and grief stricken, but I’m not sure he really thinks she truly believes it. He suspects it’s about control of the kingdom by getting Tyrion out completely, leaving only Jaime and her father.
LENA HEADEY (CERSEI LANNISTER): In that moment when Joffrey dies, there is no question at all in my mind that Cersei believes Tyrion is guilty. If she were able to open herself up to the reality of how others saw Joffrey, it might be different, but in her mind it’s completely logical. The trial is her only point of sanity now. If she can lynch him, if she can cause him pain, she might find some peace again. She’s taken everything she has left and is focused on one single goal. To destroy Tyrion, she’s prepared to even destroy herself. She holds him responsible for everything, the death of her mother and sending Myrcella away, and she wants to hurt him. The fact that Jaime, the man she trusts the most, will not take her side is a betrayal that leaves her completely alone in King’s Landing.
PETER DINKLAGE (TYRION LANNISTER): Everything up until the moment in which Shae arrives is fully expected by Tyrion. He knows exactly how everyone is going to behave. He’s smarter than them.
Before the trial began, Tyrion tried to save Shae by sending her away and making her believe that he did not care. He was prepared to sacrifice his own happiness to save her. As the season went on, I thought a lot about people who feel entitled to certain things, and Tyrion certainly feels entitled to his birthright as a Lannister, but I’m not sure he feels like he’s entitled to be loved. It’s incredibly sad, but I just don’t think he knows how to fight for her.
When Shae stands before him and betrays everything, lying to the court, it’s a game changer. He didn’t think she was capable of it. When it comes down to it, that’s the moment when it all becomes a nightmare for Tyrion. When he starts to talk about what he’s really on trial for, it’s because of Shae. He has nothing to lose; he’s screwed either way, so there is a release there. It’s interesting, though, because no one seems to think it’s anything other than the little man ranting, apart from Oberyn. He’s the only one who leans in to take notice.
PEDRO PASCAL (OBERYN MARTELL): My first scene ever on Game of Thrones was in a cell with Peter Dinklage, agreeing to fight for Tyrion in the trial by combat against the Mountain. It was very much a baptism of fire. Oberyn shouldn’t really be standing for a Lannister, but there is something in Tyrion that Oberyn respects. Despite his name, Tyrion is a man who was born with nothing in his favor, and Oberyn sees something of a kindred spirit in him. Ultimately, though, what this choice comes down to is a chance to get to the Mountain, who for Oberyn has always been the target. He’s completely driven by hate, but unlike Cersei, he’s not blinded by it. He can see that Tyrion is someone who transcends his family name, or social convention, and despite his disadvantages is more courageous than everyone around him. Being able to save a man like Tyrion is an added bonus to him.
PETER DINKLAGE (TYRION LANNISTER): When the Mountain finds the strength to kill Oberyn, it looks very much like all hope is lost. It’s the end in many ways. For sure it is the darkest moment in his life so far, but Tyrion hasn’t lived so long without finding a glimmer of hope. I wonder if even in that moment he knows that Jaime will come through for him.
PEDRO PASCAL (OBERYN MARTELL): Dying was different for me on Game of Thrones. I’ve been killed before, and I think it’s kind of cool, but with this I couldn’t disassociate from what it meant in the narrative, which has never happened to me before. I couldn’t let go of Oberyn being on this journey to avenge his sister and her children
—how emotionally brutal it was for someone so elegant and good to go down like that. It was horrifying to listen to Ellaria scream the way she did. It’s the absolute embodiment of the pain of that moment.
— escape of tyrion lannister —
episode 410: “the children”
“Trust me, my friend. I’ve brought you this far.”
—Varys
Jaime leads Tyrion to his escape.
* * *
Nothing goes according to plan during Tyrion’s trial by combat. The Mountain, near death and made to confess to the heinous crimes that Oberyn Martell accuses him of, still manages to kill Oberyn. As the last echoes of Ellaria Sand’s screams fade in the arena, Tywin Lannister sentences his own son to death, and Tyrion is returned to the cells to await execution.
Jaime Lannister, however, is unable to stomach the thought of his own brother being put to death for a crime he had no part in. Jaime arranges with Varys to smuggle Tyrion out of the country and over the Narrow Sea to Essos. Rather than fleeing immediately, though, Tyrion seeks out his father’s chambers first. There, he finds Shae, whose presence makes clear that her betrayal of Tyrion is complete. They fight, and in their struggle, Tyrion kills Shae. Shocked at what he’s done, and boiling over with emotion, Tyrion next finds and kills Tywin in a way, and place, each least expects.
* * *
Tyrion finds himself at a crossroads.
The most powerful man in Westeros is brought to an undignified end.
ALEX GRAVES (DIRECTOR): We had a long rehearsal before shooting Tyrion and Shae because I didn’t want anyone getting hurt. I also hadn’t found the way of expressing the awfulness of this situation for them both. It started with Tyrion on top of Shae and choking her, but then I came up with the idea of Tyrion falling off the bed and not letting go. It was incredible, with Sibel finding the perfect way to be pulled back. It just came together into something perfectly terrible.
