The Great Gatsby (Film Review)

Fearless, sexy, creative, and yet more to be admired than loved, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a well-written, well-acted and gorgeous experience for the eyes that almost perfectly juxtaposes respect for a well-loved classic with the willingness to do new and interesting things with it. Sadly, it does lack that X-factor spark of the divine fire that makes great cinema, and tends to drag for perhaps twenty minutes too long.

Much of the film’s action is narrated by Tobey Maguire’s Nick Carraway, who, while seeking treatment for depression, writes of the doomed and ultimately tainted love affair between his cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) and the enigmatic, tragically optimistic Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose parties attract those seeking to indulge in non-stop, near bacchic revelry and to celebrate at the altar of alcohol. Gatsby’s parties merely reflect the general frenzy of a very frenzied, drunken and violently sexed-up era that is inevitably responsible for Nick’s seeking treatment on the grounds that he has been seized by a fierce disgust of everyone and everything. It only takes the film’s duration for the audience to end up feeling exactly the same way, perhaps because we’ve finally seen the suffering, the emptiness and the desperation that clings to this lifestyle, making the living of it a permanently claustrophobic experience.

Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy.

As far as acting goes, the film is miles away from being DiCaprio’s best performance, but he tackles Gatsby with his usual subtlety, insight and knowledge of character, blazing onto the screen like a firecracker, yet still leaving us wondering if we’ll ever find out who he is. Serene calm, flamboyant hospitability, hopeless love and hysterical desperation are vividly and, most importantly, believably, to be found in the same character at precisely the level of intensity we have come to expect from him. Carey Mulligan is as sweet, and eventually as punchable as her character Daisy; superficiality jostling against the desire for something more; superficiality winning the fight when ‘something more’ actually turns out to be difficult. Tobey Maguire’s performance as Nick is perhaps the most memorable despite his speaking voice being most inappropriate for extensive narration: he is perfectly balanced, his face more evocative than any amount of dialogue; he reaches lovingly for Gatsby’s light, but is never blinded by it; insightful enough both to tell Gatsby when he’s wrong and to continue to see Gatsby’s goodness when forgetting about it would have been much better for him. Joel Edgerton is utterly forgettable in his role as the utterly forgettable Tom Buchanan, and Elizabeth Debicki is mesmerising and magnetic as Jordan Baker, boasting a powerful screen presence that satisfyingly makes one constantly aware of her presence in a scene, even if her role in it is relatively unimportant.

Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker.

And now for some general issues. The 3D medium accomplishes almost nothing in this film, and those expecting Baz Luhrmann to have demonstrated the correct use of the medium, as Martin Scorsese did in Hugo, will be sorely disappointed. The Great Gatsby would have been a feast for the eyes at precisely the same level without being filmed in 3D. Apart from the obvious artistry of its party and high speed driving scenes, it also produces many wonderfully artistic and achingly visual moments that appeal gloriously to the senses, notably the scene in which we meet Daisy for the first time, lounging as she does on a couch as a strong wind blows each white curtain in the room inwards, creating a sea of fresh whiteness ushered in on a breeze so strong you almost feel it on your skin. The breathtaking costumes and makeup only add to the sprawling beauty of the film’s art direction, spectres that heighten in colour and in appeal with alcohol and with dance, increasing our willingness to ignore what lies beneath them.

While the film more than meets its visual obligations, the same cannot be said for its auditory ones, its much-hyped soundtrack not putting in much of a noticeable appearance beyond the over-using of Lana Del Rey and the under-using of Florence and the Machine.

I cannot vouch for the film’s accuracy as an adaptation from the book, the last time I tried to read it having alternated between snoozing, wincing and throwing it against the wall, but the script is beautiful and unusually well-structured, giving both the story and the actors room to breathe, and to be.

A film of sweeping and kaleidoscopic beauty, but by no means a great classic in the making, The Great Gatsby is a film with a hole in its heart. It might grab your attention, entertain you or impress you, but it will not move you. This, regrettably, is its ultimate weakness.

The Climb: Game of Thrones S03E06 (Review)

Westeros blows off steam following last week’s festival of constant high emotion and tears in this little intermezzo of an episode, many beautiful, tiny scenes circling the great central melody of the wildlings’ climb of the Wall like a double helix. In some of the highlights within this helix, Tywin Lannister continues to destroy happiness left right and center and goes up against Lady Olenna with surprising results, the Red Wedding is tantalisingly hinted at, Joffrey uses Ros for target practice and Gendry is torn from Arya’s side in a gut-wrenching, magnificent deviation from the books that stands as further proof that people who spend their lives complaining about the show’s every change to canon are incapable of appreciating how this exquisite thing that we all love is not set in stone, but set in flux, forever evolving and playing by no rules but its own. Episodes structured in this way are the devil to review because of the way they flit from one very short scene to the next, leaving you little to comment on except the content. Her Ladyship shall try her best not to be a bore.

A central theme of this episode is the condition of ‘foot soldiers in the great war,’ of people, soldiers or not, who are jostled about like pawns in the Game their masters play with no mind to what may happen to them. It is the curse of ordinary people that they are incapable of seeing the world in this way: they will always see people instead of pawns. The first to point this out is Ygritte. The chemistry between Jon and Ygritte has improved exponentially since last week from the moment we first see them preparing to climb the Wall. Their relationship begins to feel a lot more like fate as they openly and sincerely discuss loyalty and fear, Ygritte spicing things up with characteristic subtlety by threatening to chop Jon’s cock off and wear it around her neck if he deserts her, and expressing a seemingly casual wish to ‘see the world from up there’ that reminds us somewhat of Tyrion’s former desire to stand on top of the Wall and piss off the edge of the world. The climb itself, however, is not something to joke about. It’s terrifying to watch; a huge expanse of petrifying whiteness that makes you want to whisper ‘not today,’ under your breath, the wildlings tiny as ants on its rigid and unpredictable surface, the wind and the ice screaming into every part of their bodies, the Wall itself a living, breathing thing that casts off intruders as though they were flecks of dust.

Ygritte barely has time to quip ‘You staring at my ass, Jon Snow?’ before things start to go wrong, the first horrific accident bleeding straight into Jon and Ygritte themselves being cut loose. While we are treated to a few moments of hair-raising panic as Ygritte falls screaming into the empty air, both miraculously survive, embrace, and keep right on going, like true children of the North. And when they reach the top! Rose Leslie has not been given much time to shine beyond torturing Jon with her innuendo-laden wit and the odd ‘you think you’re better than me, crow!’ argument, but as we know from her work in Downton Abbey, moved to tears is something she does very well. When faced with the breathtaking view of the world from the top of the Wall, she has no words and doesn’t need any, the shivering rawness of her facial expressions bringing us right into Ygritte’s experience.

While Jon and Ygritte experience such searing joy and relief in their togetherness, Arya Stark, angel of death and all-round badass, must once again come to terms with aloneness; an archery lesson with Anguy resulting both in the soon-to-be immortal declaration ‘Face. Tits. Balls. I hit them right where I wanted to,’ and the Brotherhood running into Melisandre. Once I’d picked myself off the floor after falling off my chair, I watched, spellbound, but thoroughly confused, as Thoros and Melisandre debate religion and Lord Beric’s resurrections at Hollow Hill, before heading straight back to camp and seizing Gendry. As Arya cries ‘Let go of him!’ it hits us. Fuck. They’ve replaced Edric Storm with Gendry. It’s an awful moment. Arya is both merciless and fearless in her criticism, tearing right through Thoros’ gentle explanation that gold is required for their cause and through Lord Beric’s cold-blooded assertion that the boy is needed by the Lord of Light: ‘did the Lord of Light tell you that or did she?’ Gendry is in such a state of shock at this betrayal that he’s barely capable of anything but weak struggling and pitiful naivety in his protests. Arya is anything but, and we are unexpectedly gifted with a volcanic scene between two obscenely charismatic actresses that we never thought we’d see face to face. As Arya follows Melisandre and violently turns her around, almost pushing her into her own horse, the dialogue is blood-chilling.

Arya: You’re a witch. You’re going to hurt him.

Melisandre: (cups Arya’s chin) I see a darkness in you. And in that darkness, eyes staring back at me. Brown eyes…blue eyes, green eyes. Eyes you will shut forever. We will meet again.

The atmosphere between Carice van Houten and Maisie Williams is electrifying, Arya silenced by the undisguised horror on Melisandre’s face that resembles that on the face of Gaius Helen Mohiam contemplating Alia Atreides for the first time in Dune. For Arya fans, it’s both a thrilling and a deeply satisfying moment, pointing to Arya’s future among the Faceless Men. But then Arya turns around just in time to see Gendry being carted off; not a word of farewell having been exchanged between them. Williams’ face is devastating, mourning as another part of Arya turns to ice right before our eyes as Gendry is taken from her. From the point of view of Arya’s character, and of Gendry’s, this change is a truly exquisite idea. As for us, it changes everything and creates an infinite number of new questions. It would be relatively easy to transplant poor Gendry into Edric’s shoes and get him as far as Dragonstone, before Ser Davos ships him off to the Free Cities to stop Melisandre burning him alive. Then what? This gets us into post-A Dance With Dragons territory, and, considering that the last time we saw Gendry (in the books) he was a member of the Brotherhood, could bite everyone badly in the arse should Gendry eventually reappear, a prospect that appeals enormously to me as an ardent Arya/Gendry shipper (though I’d also jump for joy through hoops for a week if she hooked up with Jaqen). Whatever is going to come out of this brilliant idea, GRRM is in on it, so we should just sit back and let the great man do his thing. As for the divine Maisie Williams, if she is not nominated for an Emmy this year, I shall be most seriously displeased.

Meanwhile at Harrenhal, another great partnership is also breaking up, albeit temporarily, in a short but funny scene in which Jaime and Brienne dine with Roose Bolton. Brienne recites her courtesies through gritted teeth as Jaime stabs continually at his steak with his left hand, eventually provoking Brienne to impale it on her fork so he can cut it. Jaime is able to repay Brienne’s kindness seconds later by laying his hand on hers, thus saving her from the unpleasant repercussions that would no doubt result from her using her steak knife to decorate the room with Roose Bolton’s brains. The casualness of both gestures, and the fact that no word is exchanged between the two on either subject is delightful, the unspoken playing a greater role in Jaime and Brienne’s friendship than anything else. As for the scene, Jaime is back at his devastating, hot-blooded best in his conversation with Lord Bolton, the threat of Lord Tywin’s wrath saturating each crisply-annunciated syllable as Jaime protests Lord Bolton’s decision to send him ahead to King’s Landing and to keep Brienne at Harrenhal as a prisoner. As a very amusing precursor to the bear pit scene, it’s also a very revealing study both of Jaime and Brienne’s characters and a hint at their attitude to each other once the bear pit scene is over. Jaime is all tyrionesque (did I invent a word?) banter and open threats, Brienne is all smoldering looking daggers and icy courtesy, but their attitude to the world as regards each other will soon be exactly the same: threatening one of them provokes the wrath of the other.

Speaking of precursors. At Riverrun, Lord Frey has sent envoys regarding Edmure’s marriage to Roslyn Frey, and demands that the marriage take place in two weeks. Though those two weeks could easily drag on till the end of the season, this will no doubt send one half of fandom into complete hysteria that we’re going to see the Red Wedding so soon and the other half into feverish anticipation of the carnage. Season finale?

Apart from another torture scene, Bran chastising Osha and Meera for fighting before getting the life scared out of him by Jojen (again) and Sam adorably singing a song for Gilly’s baby, there is nothing much of interest going on in the North on either side of the Wall this week (all the action’s happening on it). In King’s Landing, however, Tywin Lannister duels deliciously with Lady Olenna over his proposed marriage of Cersei to Loras, eventually only getting her to agree to it by threatening to make Loras a member of the Kingsguard. Olenna doesn’t behave at all like someone who’s just been bested at a Game she’s terrific at. On the contrary, she seems exhilarated: ‘It’s a rare enough thing. A man who lives up to his reputation.’ Cersei and Tyrion have one of their rare heart to hearts while they spy on a radiant Sansa, who listens to Loras Tyrell discuss the material, colour and embroidery of her wedding gown and still, incredibly, fails to realise he’s gay. Tyrion finds himself in the awkward position of having to propose to Sansa with Shae in the room, his habitual sarcasm hiding the anguish he feels for being the cause of both women’s misery. We are happily spared from watching the carnage. Then we get to Varys and Littlefinger, once again alone before the Iron Throne, once again threatening each other in the softest tones imaginable.

Aidan Gillen is terrifying in this scene, the anger that we saw in his eyes last week reaching full fruition now as he reveals that he knows it was Varys who instigated the plot to marry Sansa to Loras Tyrell and that Ros has been handed over to a patron with exotic tastes to do with as he sees fit. While we’re reeling from this, they discuss the beautiful lies that people tell and that people believe for power, to get it, to keep it, to ignore it or to throw it away, the power that is the driving force behind the actions of most of the show’s characters: ‘Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse. They cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions! Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.’ As he speaks, we are granted a vision of Ros, tied to Joffrey’s bed, stone dead and peppered with quarrels, His Grace relishing the power of his new toy. And with that, the intermezzo comes to an end and the symphony begins again. Margaery Tyrell will never have full control of Joffrey; his lust for cruelty is impossible to control. Sansa Stark watches, distraught, as Littlefinger’s ship sails away, leaving her to a fate she thinks is worse than death. Jon and Ygritte reach the top of the Wall, two nobodies at the edge of the world, free, together, the monstrosity they have ascended together not even the first rung in the ladder that rules their world.

North and South (2004): Review

‘I wish I could tell you, Edith, how lonely I am, how cold and harsh it is here. Everywhere there is conflict and unkindness. I think God has forsaken this place. I believe I have seen hell. And it’s white. It’s snow white.’

So ends the dazzling first episode of North and South, the BBC’s 2004 drama of love and social upheaval in the cotton mills of Victorian Northern England. Adapted from Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel of the same name by Sandy Welch, the genius who brought us the 2006 adaptation of Jane Eyre, it was immortally designated as ‘Pride and Prejudice with a social conscience’ by someone, somewhere, and this continues to be the way it is seen by many fans.

When southern clergyman and part-time classicist Mr. Hale unexpectedly decides to abandon the church rather than reaffirm his belief in the Book of Common Prayer, he uproots his wife Maria, his daughter Margaret and their outspoken servant Dixon to Milton, a miserable industrial town in the North of England that is famed for its cotton mills. All three suffer from violent culture shock, but it is Margaret, the series’ heroine, who finds their new home the hardest to deal with. Not only must she present an outward appearance of calm for the good of her parents, she is incapable of ignoring the misery of the town’s workers, who fight starvation on a daily basis, begin to work in the mills from an extremely young age, are treated cruelly by their masters, and stand a good chance of coughing themselves to death by the time they’re forty because of the strands of cotton fluff that stick to their lungs. Her own prejudices make it impossible for her to see that John Thornton, the owner of Marlborough Cotton Mill and her father’s pupil, does not fall into the same category as the masters she comes to despise, this despite his austere demeanor and apparent heartlessness. Their consequently rocky relationship simmers with sexual tension across the class divide, Margaret dealing increasingly more hurtful blows to the feelings of a man who does not deserve it, who is not afraid to hit back, and who falls more deeply in love with her each time they meet.

Daniela Denby-Ashe as Margaret Hale.

North and South’s ultimate strength is the way in which the problems of the opulent rich and of the abjectly poor are given equal attention and dealt with with equal pathos. Through Margaret’s friendship with Bessie Higgins, we are given a chilling and moving insight into the everyday lives of the Victorian working poor, Margaret and Bessie’s entire friendship played out in dank, lightless rooms with scarcely threadbare blankets keeping out the cold. The actors who play mill workers are powerful and charismatic; they give their class a voice, and when these different classes collide, the viewer is never seized by the idea that one class is superior to another. The same is true of the inevitable collision between North and South, symbolised by Mr. Thornton and by Margaret. In Northern Victorian England, we may indeed feel suffocated by the smog and the perpetual lack of colour, but we eventually realise that the South is just as suffocating and claustrophobic: northerners simply aren’t interested in hiding the truth.

Richard Armitage as John Thornton.

The series’ magnificent script relieves Gaskell’s unforgettable and too-often forgotten novel of some of its more overt sentimentality, choosing instead to emphasise the rougher, less dressed-up side of human emotion that she so successfully evokes in her prose. This is then brought to the screen by a dedicated and untouchably brilliant group of people cast with characteristic BBC brilliance from the top down.

Daniela Denby-Ashe makes an effortless transition from comedy to drama in her portrayal of one of the most important female protagonists in Victorian literature: a defier of gender roles, but extremely well-bred; a rebel against the class system but not quite revolutionary enough to escape panicking when she’s proposed to by a ‘tradesman’. Her journey is long and painful. She’s sometimes an angel; sometimes a brat; and grows to truly know herself, her world and what’s important, through love. It’s not an easy development to endure, or to portray, and Denby-Ashe pulls it off in a mesmerising performance that remains her best to date. Richard Armitage is subtle, charismatic and hypnotic in his breakout role as Mr. Thornton. Not only does he dethrone Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy, but succeeds in bringing out the many facets, light and dark, of Mr. Thornton’s complex personality: surly, stubborn and iron-willed, he is also lonely, doubtful of himself and a perfectly sincere wearer of his heart on his sleeve. The walls around him crumble more and more the deeper into the story you go, and Armitage is masterful at revealing the gradual bringing to light of his emotions and his humanity without losing the austerity that has become a part of him. Mr. Thornton’s own experiences with poverty have led him to a greater understanding of and sympathy with the nature of his workers’ daily lives, but have also caused a certain hardness in his attitude towards them when they do not treat the business with the respect he believes it deserves by going on strike. This attitude is shared by his formidable mother Mrs. Thornton, his partner in the business played by a volcanic Sinéad Cusack. Mrs. Thornton has been brutally hardened by the experience of being left destitute with two children by a bankrupt husband who committed suicide, and she can often give the impression of being completely without emotion. Cusack’s immensely expressive face and voice, however, enable us to get to know Mrs. Thornton better, and to appreciate that this is a woman of enormous integrity who is utterly devoted to her children’s happiness and cares little, if anything, for her own. There is a particularly strong bond between her and Mr. Thornton, with whom she shares the experience of their early poverty. Brendan Coyle is mercurial as union leader Nicholas Higgins: fearlessly devoted to improving the condition of the working man, he’s frightening when he’s angry, an inspiring leader and extremely intelligent with a good head for business; his loving, family-oriented side brought out by his relationship with his dying daughter Bessie (Anna Maxwell Martin). It is through Nicholas and Mr. Thornton’s working relationship and subsequent bromance that the divide between merchant class and working class begins to be breached: achieving the ultimate communication across class barriers by bringing the upper class to the table completely depends on Margaret.

Brendan Coyle as Nicholas Higgins.

Gritty and harshly psychological, North and South stands alone among period dramas: utterly lacking in Jane Austen’s delicate prettiness, its passion more grounded in cold reality than any of the Brontës; it’s Dickensian social misery without the quirks, but still has an aura of hopefulness about it through its two protagonists who set the rules for their changing world.

Kissed By Fire: Game of Thrones S03E05 (Review)

Maisie Williams rips our hearts out and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau gives the performance of his career in an episode that delivers three of A Song of Ice and Fire’s most titanic scenes (The bath scene, the cave scene and Sandor Clegane versus Beric Dondarrion), interspersed with beautifully-acted smaller scenes from the capital and from Essos; events at Dragonstone only prevented from boring us to death (no surprises there) by two new additions to an already considerable cast.

As Lord Beric and the Hound clash at each other with greater savagery than even the most imaginative fan could ever have conceived of, the former’s burning sword a kind of roaring, barely-contained wildness in comparison with the torches burning bright in the semi-subterranean setting, the little girl on the sidelines watches as intently as though she were the one wielding it. It goes deeper than that, however: that sword is her. She put it there. It’s her anger, and her will, a desire for revenge and for justice (more one than the other) and to see that for once, just once, an evil act is punished. In this scene, the bloodlust and tears in the eyes of Maisie Williams’ Arya as she screams ‘Kill him!’ are at once horrifying and beautiful, as is her reaction when the Hound wins and she has to be restrained by a lightning-quick Gendry before she tries to kill Sandor herself, her awful scream ‘Burn in hell!’ seeming to rend the air, before she’s a little girl again, mutinous, but powerless to do anything. It’s in her quieter moments, however, that Williams really excels in this episode, exemplified by a heartrending scene in which she learns that Gendry plans to join the Brotherhood rather than stay on with her when she eventually finds Robb and Cat. Joe Dempsey finally gets a chance to unleash his usually quiet but commanding screen presence in this scene, and this works symbiotically with Gendry’s character as we see things from his most basic emotional level for the very first time: ‘these men, they’re a family. I’ve never had a family.’ Arya’s reply of ‘I can be your family,’ almost made me weep. By the time ‘you wouldn’t be my family. You’d be m’lady,’ came along, I was bawling. The sadness and abandonment on Arya’s face in this scene is gorgeous; all the repression of affection and emotional ties that characterised her parting with Hot Pie shattered.

When she later speaks with Lord Beric about his six resurrections, it would be hard to imagine a person more alone and more horrifyingly convinced of the fact, and though she doesn’t meet his eyes, it’s a look of complete identification and understanding on her tear-stained face as Lord Beric asserts that each time you come back, bits of you keep getting left behind. This is Arya’s condition, and her tragedy. Everyone always leaves, and takes part of her away with them; what’s left of her dying again and again each time she takes a name or a life. Her question ‘could you bring back a man without a head? Not six times, but once,’ expresses her longing to go back to the family that was; to be a part of something; not to be drifting. This is Maisie Williams’ finest episode yet, and something tells me she’s going to keep getting better.

Something that definitely needs to get better is the state of affairs between Jon and Ygritte. The chemistry between Kit Harington and Rose Leslie has deflated considerably since last season, and is in dire need of a bit of rescuing. One would think that the cave scene, the sex scene of the saga, would be the ideal opportunity for this. It’s breathlessly racy, moving and adorable. It’s about two people from two different worlds who’ve slept together countless times, but who find some extremely primal common ground: the blood of the First Men, and each other’s bodies. Having sex in this way is important for their relationship. So why, WHY make it their first time (the whole reason it’s moving in the first place is because it isn’t their first time) and then show us next to nothing of the actual fucking? Modesty? Because fading to black makes it more personal? Dear me, Mr. Holmes, dear me. These possibilities do not convince us much. Furthermore, we simply haven’t seen enough of them together for us to be remotely convinced by Ygritte’s assertion that ‘I don’t ever want to leave this cave, Jon Snow.’ Where did that come from? Where have we ever been seized by the feeling that the Jon and Ygritte of the show are linked by something that binds them together so deeply that it almost transcends death, as the Jon and Ygritte of the books are? This whole absurd situation is simultaneously too much and too little, far too soon. Her Ladyship is not amused.

Fortunately, this imbecilic bungling of one great scene is repaid a thousand fold in the coin of greatness by Jaime and Brienne’s bath scene. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is exquisite, every inch the ‘half a corpse and half a god’ of the books. For much of the scene, he hardly seems to be present at all, his face and voice seeming to plunge deep into Jaime’s soul and to relive the fear and the horror that he froze inside himself during the Mad King’s reign. It’s soul-destroying to watch him, and impossible to tear your gaze away. The sense of injustice and bitterness that he feels at being called ‘Kingslayer’ when he should be a hero, and that he conceals beneath his habitual wisecracks and sarcasm runs raw and unchecked in all its pathos and razor-sharp humanity. Most of his armour is gone, taken from him in the cruelest way possible; and for reasons that he doesn’t understand himself, it’s for Brienne, as much as for himself, that he strips away the ruins that are left. And it hurts. In the space of those five minutes, Coster-Waldau transforms Jaime from a punchable overconfident snob that you almost feel guilty for pitying into one of the saga’s most complex and hurtfully misunderstood characters. As he collapses into Brienne’s arms and murmurs ‘Jaime. My name is Jaime,’ their relationship progresses beyond chemistry and becomes a connection that will mark them for the rest of their lives, each having seen and felt for the other at their most vulnerable.

At Riverrun, Lord Karstark has finally achieved ‘revenge’ for the murder of his son by murdering Tywin Lannister’s two little nephews, who were being held at Riverrun as hostages. Their murder is short, brutal and horribly to the point, and is not shown to be anything other than the atrocity it is, an effective if disturbing way of portraying it. Lord Karstark is subsequently sentenced to death, and is executed by Robb in the old manner, the scene not quite as reminiscent of the beheading scene in season 1 that it was no doubt meant to be. Richard Madden has managed to recover some of the kingly charisma that he lacked the last time we ran into him, but alas, this doesn’t achieve much. The role is too big for him. When the Karstarks predictably desert, and he sits desperately trying to think how to recover the loss of half of his forces, we don’t see an extremely young man, brilliant at what he does, facing defeat for the first time. We see the last act of Macbeth acted out by a seventeen year old who is in about the middle of his drama class. He is also seized by the stupendously dumb idea that his next move should be to attack Casterly Rock. Seriously. Seriously? Fortunately, both the book and our natural assumption that Robb isn’t a nutcase are not completely destroyed, as he realises that the only way to repair his broken army is to once again get into bed with House Frey, something that will send chills down the spines of fans, as this is the season’s first reference to the Red Wedding. Let us hope the build-up will be more spectacular than Richard Madden’s acting.

Further south, in King’s Landing, the Tyrells’ plan to marry Sansa to Loras has been blown wide-open (well, as wide-open as things can get in a city of whispers). Not only do we learn that Loras is fully aware of this plan, a notion that we briefly entertained last week, but that his new lover, with whom he mercifully boasts better chemistry than the limp-salmon-bonking-a-haddock texture that characterised his relationship with Renly, is a spy in Littlefinger’s employ. This puts Littlefinger into a quietly-volcanic rage, as it throws a spanner in the works of his intention to take Sansa with him when he leaves for the Vale, a position that Varys and Olenna believe he will exploit by marrying the girl and thereby securing her claim to Winterfell. This leads to a small but brilliantly-acted scene between Littlefinger and Sansa that smolders with emotional undercurrents, in which Sansa, sporting a most unbecoming hairstyle, sweetly informs Lord Baelish that she would rather not leave the capital at present for fear that something may happen to him if the plan were discovered. Littlefinger gracefully concedes, declaring himself touched by her concern, though one can’t help but be reminded of Varys’ assertion that ‘Littlefinger is the most dangerous man in Westeros’ by the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice that expresses both anger and barely-suppressed desire. It’s thrillingly creepy. Once Littlefinger has planted a gallant kiss on Sansa’s hand and left her, she exhales like someone who has just experienced a huge rush of adrenaline. Little Sansa is learning to play the Game. Early, and without Littlefinger’s help. This is a welcome change from the book, which requires Sansa to be shut up in the Eyrie for months before she begins to ‘understand the way this Game is played,’ and will hopefully encourage Sansa haters to be quiet for a little while at least. Regrettably, Sansa’s first foray into the Game is short-lived.  Littlefinger runs straight to Tywin Lannister, who calls Tyrion and Cersei together in the episode’s formidable final scene and orders the aversion of a complete Tyrell takeover by marrying Sansa to Tyrion and Cersei to Loras Tyrell (now there’s a weird change to the book for you. Hm). Peter Dinklage has been scandalously under-used this season, and let’s hope that this will allow us to see more of him. Tyrion reacts to the news by accusing Tywin of pitiless cruelty in allowing Joffrey to torment Sansa for years and then ‘giving her to me,’ just when she has seen a ray of hope on the horizon; a reaction that is so noble and self-abasing that you want to hit him, then hug him. Dinklage shows us that above all things, even his intelligence, Tyrion is a kind man, so compassionate that someday it might kill him, and Tywin’s callous responses to this only push Tyrion closer to the day he’ll take his father’s life.

Cersei is equally despicable, reveling in Tyrion’s misery until informed that she’ll be forced to share it. Tywin has put Cersei into a similar position to Sansa: crushing her just when she thought there was hope; in Cersei’s case, hope that she would able to live without being chained to a husband. It is perhaps for this reason that her initial anger wears off extremely quickly and she assumes the air of a scolded and sincerely terrified young girl: ‘Father. Don’t make me do this. Please.’ Lena Headey plays this rapid swing in the status quo both of power and of her family in an intensely sympathetic and intelligent way, and the mere fact that she is capable of making an audience feel sorry for Cersei at this point is proof of a great mastery of her craft. Charles Dance is extraordinary as always: chilling and unspeakably cruel, all the traces of humanity that Arya so successfully managed to bring out last season noticeably absent.

Meanwhile, in less intriguing scenes, Daenerys’ mesmerising first meeting with Grey Worm and the latter’s heartwarming decision to maintain his name because ‘Grey Worm is the name this one had the day Daenerys Stormborn set him free’ is spoilt by a lot of boring and over-long bickering between Ser Jorah and Ser Barristan that makes you want to tear your hair out. We also (regrettably) travel to Dragonstone, a castle whose very walls seem to possess a soporific effect, where we meet Stannis Baratheon’s wife Selyse (Tara Fitzgerald). Fitzgerald is perfect for the role, her eyes shining with all the mania and devotion of the religious fanatic, though I was displeased with her display of her stillborn babies in jars, a gratuitously disgusting deviation from the book that seems to serve no purpose other than to be gratuitously disgusting.

We also meet Shireen (Kerry Ingram), Stannis’ young daughter. Disfigured by greyscale at an early age, she is devastatingly sweet and compassionate, and the scene in the castle dungeons in which she attempts to teach the incarcerated Ser Davos to read is delightful; making us hope that Dragonstone may be a less tedious place to visit in the future.

This season of Game of Thrones continues to be incredibly strong in writing and in acting, despite the ever-present issue of there being too much to tell in too little time and the occasional inexplicable stuff-up.

What Arya would have done in Sansa’s place: being the ramblings of a young lady who adores both Stark girls and is rather sick of the above notion being used to favour one at the expense of the other.

Let us imagine for a moment that Arya hadn’t been so fortunate as to be picked up by Yoren at Ned Stark’s execution (well, how fortunate this event actually was is debatable). What if she’d been taken by the Hound instead, or denounced by someone in the crowd, or even recognised by Joffrey, who is unlikely to forget her face as long as he lives? She’d end up back in the Red Keep (she’d kick, scream and inflict multiple injuries, but she’d still be powerless and in a state of shock) and very likely be locked up on the other side of the castle from Sansa and kept apart from her, if we know Cersei at all. Once the door is bolted behind her, she would be in exactly the same situation as Sansa. True, she wouldn’t be engaged to marry dear King Joff, but as a Stark, she’d still be wide open to his ‘punishments’ every time Robb wins a battle; these would probably go worse for her since her awkwardly androgynous looks wouldn’t make Joffrey tell his Kingsguard to leave her face alone; and she’d eventually be condemned to marry Ramsay Bolton; and we all know what he did to poor Jeyne Poole.

‘If Arya were in Sansa’s situation, she’d handle it so much better,’ are frequent criticisms of Sansa that I’m just plain tired of, so the point of this post is to imagine what would happen if Arya were in Sansa’s situation and see what pops out at the other end. Of course, there will be things I don’t think of. There will be plotholes. But we may find that the two sisters aren’t really so different after all if you put them in the same boat.

Period immediately after Ned’s death

Catelyn observes to herself at one point that if Arya is still in King’s Landing, Cersei is very likely keeping her far away from the public eye; Arya not being the type to sit down and behave. This fact would also leave Arya wide open to deliberate, obvious attempts to get her to sit down and behave by breaking her; the first and most obvious being to lock her up. Arya is a deep brooder, and it takes a lot to make her cry. So brooding is probably what she would do locked up in whatever room she’s been put into. Escape would be her first thought, which she’d probably attempt almost immediately with something brave but hopeless, like trying to shove the guard over when he delivers her food. If you think of how little mind the Kingsguard pay to Sansa’s nobility when beating her, it isn’t hard to imagine that Arya would probably get a backhand for her trouble from an ordinary soldier. She might refuse to eat after that, but then it would occur to her that eating would keep her alive to take revenge, à la Jaime Lannister. Thoughts of revenge would then lead to the first draft of the List. She’d inevitably be dragged off to see Cersei for a pep talk and an ultimatum to behave or be chastised. The latter would most likely result in Arya spitting in Cersei’s face and attempting to smash her head in with the nearest heavy object. She’d be whipped at that point without being given the option of a whipping girl (which she’d turn down anyway). Cersei wouldn’t dare allow her to attend court, so she might be spared Sansa’s ordeal of being forced to look at Ned’s head on a spike: either that, or Joffrey would give himself the sadistic pleasure of reliving the torture a second time, with another Stark daughter. If the latter, Arya would very likely manage to break Joffrey’s nose before it could occur to the Kingsguard that she might attempt such a thing. They’d grab her soon enough, however, and she’d end up whipped again, and back in her room. Then she’d cry.

Artwork by revived-from-the-ashes on tumblr

Once the initial shock has worn off

I’m guessing Arya isn’t just going to change her mind and cooperate, so the only times she would see the light of day are very likely when the…let’s say monthly ritual of trying to get her to behave inevitably results in a beating, or Joffrey takes it into his head that someone needs to be punished for Robb’s victories. Something tells me he wouldn’t be averse to having both Stark girls stripped and beaten in front of him. The Kingsguard would learn quickly that Arya fights back instead of pleading; so whereas Sansa usually cries but takes her beatings like a good girl, Arya would have to be restrained (we know her well enough to perceive that she’d try anything from grabbing a poorly-placed dagger to simply running off, half naked or not). This means that her entire life would effectively alternate between long periods of isolation and vicious beatings. The problem here is when this way of living would eventually break her, the definition of ‘break’ being key here. Think of the horrors that Arya experiences, the torturing she witnesses and the killing that she sees, hears and does in the books. Do these things ‘break’ her? Think about the stereotypical image of a ‘broken’ person: ‘running on autopilot’, emotionally numb, not caring if they live or die. Yes, Arya definitely has a powerful survival instinct and does indeed care whether or not she lives or dies: she has a List of kills to do. But what about her emotions? Arya’s primary feelings when considering herself and her life are shame, fear and anger, which lead to a sort of lack of consciousness that she is human at all, and that dreadful pronouncement that she has a hole where her heart used to be. There’s a precarious, artificial calmness on the surface and in her mind that can be shattered at any moment, the ever-present fire inside losing none of its intensity. But because she fears being kicked out by the Faceless Men (and because she genuinely wants to join them), she’s no longer free to do anything she wants. She can’t be herself anymore, both literally and figuratively. So she’ll present an outward mirage of calm: inside, she’s terrified, alive, with no idea what to do about it and no idea how to find out except to keep on living, and learn. Sounds a lot like Sansa, doesn’t it?

Back in our imaginary universe, alternating between confinement and beatings may very well be a longer process than murder and torture in the books, but they would eventually have the same ultimate effect in turning her into an automaton that’s also a ticking bomb. At some point, Arya would realise that she stands a better chance of escaping and surviving by keeping her mouth shut, cooperating and observing. When this would actually occur is anyone’s guess, though after the Red Wedding seems most likely, for obvious reasons. And when Arya would eventually come to this decision, she would have to do what Sansa does every single day: smile, be polite to every Lannister she sees, participate in court life, pretend she’s a guest instead of a hostage and pray that she doesn’t get killed. A life of walking on broken shards of glass that would be a serious challenge to her already-tried nerves (remember she won’t have had the emotionally-hardening experiences of A Clash of Kings onwards and will also be suffering from cabin fever) and very likely turn her into a quivering wreck with an inexplicably strong survival instinct. In other words, it’d turn her into another version of Sansa.

Another thing Arya would certainly have done in Sansa’s place is attempt to escape. Since we should give her the credit of being able to hold out for at least a few months, if not longer, we should consider the possibility of Littlefinger’s scheme to spirit Sansa away after Joffrey’s wedding either including or excluding her. Both are possible. Littlefinger might only be interested in the eldest Stark girl for obvious reasons and therefore not pay much heed to leaving the youngest behind. But then he’d also have a considerable hand of cards in his pocket if he had both Stark girls under his control, so he might very well take them both (and hopefully put someone apart from Ser Dontos in charge). His decision to take Arya along would no doubt be motivated by how much he would stand to lose from her marriage to Ramsay Bolton. We’re never told if he knows about this, or if the idea had even been conceived of when he first started making his plans…nah. Even if he did know about the Bolton marriage, the temptations of the intrigues he could hatch with control of both Stark daughters would be too great to resist. So Arya goes along. Then what? While it’s impossible to answer this question without getting dangerously close to inventing instead of speculating, the point is still the same: we have both Stark sisters traumatised and emotionally-repressed, pawns in a game they don’t understand, both ‘handling’ their situation in the same way. Tiptoeing, swallowing fear and escaping.

So while our imagining of Arya’s journey to living as a ward of the Crown that executed her father may express greater stubbornness and courage than Sansa’s acceptance of her situation, it wouldn’t really qualify as ‘handling it better.’ ‘Handling it better’ seems to denote a greater strength of mind or a greater control of emotion, neither of which Arya possesses in greater quantity than Sansa, who has endured all the agony of her situation without snapping or going mad. Our imagining of what Arya would do in the Red Keep following Ned’s death is the long way round to the same result; a noble but pointless reaction that few characters but Brienne would applaud.

Featured image is by vici-mercedes on fanpop

And Now His Watch Is Ended: Game of Thrones S03E04 (Review)

‘The gods have seen fit to make it so,’ croons an insincere Cersei Lannister in And Now His Watch Is Ended, this week’s Game of Thrones that has much to say on the trials of being brilliant and female in Westeros, and how politically ambitious women like Cersei, Margaery and Lady Olenna are forced to shadow-rule through husbands and other male relatives of varying and sometimes non-existent intelligence. We also see development in the Jaime/Brienne dynamic and Theon’s awful progression towards Reek (it rhymes with freak); we meet Beric Dondarrion; Bran has another dream; the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch is assassinated and Daenerys finally sacks Astapor in a blaze of screaming fire and blood.

Everything about the sack of Astapor is spectacular: Drogon’s cries on the end of his chain as Daenerys walks away from him; the perversely gleeful slaver’s lack of attention to anything but the spectacle of possessing one of the last dragons in the world; Daenerys’ cry to the Unsullied in Valyrian (I’m obscenely happy that my prediction that she would start speaking Valyrian at this point came true, by the way) and her glorious words to the gibbering fool, ‘I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, of the blood of old Valyria. Valyrian is my mother tongue,’ before delivering a beautifully-intoned ‘dracarys’ to Drogon, who cheerfully obliges her by immolating him immediately. Valyrian rolls off Daenerys’ tongue like silk. In speaking this language, the language of her ancestors, she seems to speak with all their voices combined; as well as to see through their eyes, her face expressionless as her dragons breathe towers of flame and her army slaughters the slavers. She doesn’t stay emotionless for long, however. Her subsequent speech to the Unsullied, in which they are declared free, and agree to follow her as free men, rivals Viggo Mortensen’s spectacular oration before the gates of Mordor in The Return of the King in charisma and inspiration.

A titanic, passionate and perfectly-pitched performance by Emilia Clarke, and all her previous acting flops are henceforth forgiven tenfold.

In King’s Landing, current intrigues continue and new ones evolve. While getting our first peek inside the magnificent Great Sept of Baelor, arguably the most beautiful set ever seen on the show, we can see how Margaery’s influence over Joffrey grows, the little prick practically falling over himself to impress her with awful tales of agonies the Targaryens inflicted on each other centuries ago. Jack Gleeson’s skill seems to grow daily in his interpretation of Joffrey, this giggling enjoyment of horror a disturbing new side to his love of cruelty that we’ve never seen before.

While Margaery pushes him deeper and deeper into her gold-lined pockets by expressing the deepest interest in everything he says, even persuading him, to the point of showing himself to the crowd outside, that the people’s love for her is also love for him, Cersei and Lady Olenna find themselves to be kindred spirits in shadow-ruling. While this shadow-ruling doesn’t go so well for Cersei in this episode despite a small, revealing scene with Tywin that shows a great deal of who she is and who she’ll become, it is a great success for Lady Olenna, who unexpectedly finds herself in the same sparklingly witty boat as Varys. Diana Rigg and Conleth Hill: what a duo! Their chemistry is perfect, and they’re hilarious together. This could very well turn out to be another change to the book that is a gift rather than a disaster; a replacement for Arya and Tywin that’s comic rather than dramatic.

The two do a fair amount of delicious scheming about how to ensure that when Littlefinger leaves King’s Landing, he doesn’t take Sansa with him and marry her, this probability having been revealed to Varys by his most recently acquired little bird. While we are not told what their proposed solution to this problem is, it’s fairly obvious for those that have read the book that they’re referring to Tyrion and Sansa’s wedding, which was rather tantalisingly hinted at in the trailer. While I certainly agree with Varys’ assertion that Littlefinger is ‘the most dangerous man in Westeros,’ I was a little hurt, as a proud Sansa fan, at Lady Olenna’s having shown Sansa such kindness in the previous episode, only to call her an uninteresting person with an interesting life in this one. How cruel. One would think Lady Olenna had lived in King’s Landing all her life. But let’s not get me started on Sansa and the injustices visited on her by characters and fans alike. We’ll be here all day.

One Tyrell lady whose feelings towards Sansa remain impossible to read clearly is Margaery. There is a beautiful scene shot right by the sea during which Margaery happens upon Sansa praying in the presence of her guards. Margaery sends them away and expresses her wish to become friends, something that Sansa welcomes with all the half-tearful warmth of a desperately lonely person unaccustomed to kindness. In the book, the friendship between the two girls progresses to Sansa desperately blurting out an entreaty that Margaery not marry Joffrey, something that Margaery barely pays attention to, declaring that she has her brother to protect her. After that, the friendship becomes something of a plothole and is never mentioned again. It’s for this reason that it’s impossible to tell if Margaery’s wish for a friendship is a sincere one, or if she’s as good a liar as her grandmother.

Perhaps it’s a bit of both, as Margaery then drops the bombshell of asking Sansa if she would like to marry Loras, a deviation from the book that puts Margaery into the position of someone using others for the gain of her House. In the book, and in the series, Sansa is not averse to marrying Loras, but there’s an important difference between these two. In the book, Sansa is quickly pounced upon by Lady Olenna, who points out that Loras is Kingsguard and therefore cannot marry. In the series, Loras isn’t Kingsguard. This opens another can of worms. Does Loras know of this plan? Is he willing to marry Sansa, despite his being gay, so that he can marry her title and her claim to Winterfell? Or is he completely unaware of this? It seems unlikely. If Loras knows about this, then he and Margaery are willingly condemning both him and Sansa to a lifetime of misery that it isn’t difficult to imagine. If Loras does not know, then Margaery is using her own brother, who is still mourning his lover, and using friendship to seduce an exasperatingly innocent girl into a decision she’ll regret for the rest of her life. In the meantime, let’s sit back and watch the enigma that is Margaery unravel.

Turning to less flowery matters (pardon the symbolism), we go to the Riverlands, where a badly-beaten-up Brienne is now goading a semi-catatonic Jaime with accusations of cowardice and effeminacy in the hope that they will convince him to eat and stay alive. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s performance is heartbreaking: so weak he can’t even keep himself on his horse, his attempt to fight off his captors with his left hand when he’s barely capable of standing up is far more upsetting than any of the series’ bloodiest moments. While Gwendoline Christie still cleaves to the dead-pan dourness of the castle walls Brienne has built around herself, grains of emotion and pity are beginning to escape through the arrow slits, something that is exemplified by her dismounting (tied up and all) and attempting to run to Jaime’s aid when the Brave Companions indulge in a bit of rubbing the Kingslayer’s head in the mud. The scene in which she bitterly accuses Jaime of thinking he’s the only person to have lost something that meant everything to them and asks why he lied to save her from being raped, leaves you waiting for a resolution that doesn’t come.

She gets him to eat, but not to answer her; a state of affairs that I hope is a precursor to the bath scene.

Staying in the Riverlands, we inch closer and closer to Sandor Clegane versus Beric Dondarrion, getting as far as Arya’s accusation of the Hound regarding Mycah’s death. Short as it is, Maisie Williams’ performance in this scene shines with pathos and makes you watch the tears in her eyes that she always tries to blink back with admiration and compassion as it is declared that she may be the bravest person in the room for speaking out. A performance that doesn’t quite shine with pathos is that of Richard Dormer as Beric Dondarrion, who gets the shit acted out of him by young Miss Williams. True, he doesn’t get an awful lot of screen time, but he doesn’t seem to possess the screen presence necessary for a commanding figure like Lord Beric: if he did, screen time wouldn’t matter. I’m sure the situation will improve when he starts waving a burning sword around.

Turning North, we rejoin the detestable Theon Greyjoy, who finally seems to have realised how detestable he actually is. Alfie Allen is sorrowful and reflective, two things he didn’t really have much time to be in the previous season, and blurs audience reaction with great skill: part sympathy, part hatred. He does this so well that when his rescuer turns out to be an accessory to a form of psychological torture, and has only succeeded in bringing him round in a circle straight back to the rack where he started, it is impossible to rejoice.

In other Northern matters, the Night’s Watch finally gets round to assassinating its Lord Commander at Craster’s keep, a spectacular if disgraceful brawl following the moving funeral of one of their own. We’ve seen the Lord Commander so intermittently since season 1 that it’s almost impossible to mourn his passing with seriousness, or to remember his touching mentorship of Jon Snow. Though his death does give us an opportunity to reflect on how difficult it must be to keep all these storylines going and to maintain our attachment to all the characters, it also gives Sam, Gilly and her baby a chance to escape into the wild, the hellish darkness swallowing up both them and the light, a constant reminder of the ‘darkness that will swallow the dawn.’

Staying in the North, there is also a very brief scene featuring Bran chasing the ever-evasive three-eyed crow of his dreams. Joy seems to pour out of every pore in Isaac Hempstead-Wright’s body as he sprints through the forest and climbs to the top of a huge tree, his unconscious self reveling in something he knows his conscious self will never experience again. Both Jojen and Bran’s own past once again intrude on the dream; but while Jojen is a largely silent, observant guide, Bran’s past takes the form of Catelyn, who he barely has time to run towards before she’s shaking him and beseeching him ever more violently, ‘No more climbing! Promise me!’ Bran plunges to the ground and wakes up drenched in sweat to find Jojen watching him, barely looking affected by what they’ve just shared. Both Hempstead-Wright and Thomas Brodie-Sangster are exceptionally mature actors for their respective delicate ages, and this largely wordless communication between them is pitched just right; the all-over-the-place, unchannelled emotion of Bran’s dream world contrasted with the powerful, constant presence of Jojen, wide open to everything, yet closed as well. More, please!

Apart from its focusing so admirably on the formidable ladies of Westeros and Essos, this episode’s strength is the contrasting of the longer, grander scenes of the capital with small, powerful scenes focusing on character. Apart from the sack of Astapor, it does, however, share last week’s peculiarity of planting a lot of strong, beautiful seeds that will lead to great moments. It’s about time we saw more great moments and less planting of seeds.

The Belgariad and the Malloreon: The Dream Cast

Last month her Ladyship attempted to cast The Moonstone; this month she’ll be following a tribute to David and Leigh Eddings with some imagine-casting of The Belgariad and The Malloreon. Though it was the wish of David and Leigh that their work never be adapted, many fans find it hard to resist fooling around like this at least once. Her Ladyship sets herself the additional challenge of having only one sentence in which to defend each proposed cast member.

Garion.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster.

If the producers want to avoid jolting the audience around with multiple actors playing Garion at the different stages of his life, Brodie-Sangster is the actor they should pick: he’s capable of being sweepingly charismatic, adorable and everything in between, which should be of considerable help both with portraying Garion’s destiny and his eminently practical personality.

Asa Butterfield.

He’s been taking on simultaneously complex and movingly simplistic roles since he was nine, from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas to Hugo, making this already-eminent soon-to-be former child actor a formidable potential Garion.

Belgarath.

Gary Oldman.

Yes, he really is that old now: Oldman’s done a lifetime of powerful flamboyance and weirdness mixed up with career-defining and moving performances in Immortal Beloved and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which, together with his expressive face and quietly dominant presence, would have no trouble in showing us how Belgarath effortlessly commands simply by slumping down a flight of stairs.

Rupert Graves.

Having played every mood from hyperactive in A Room with a View to paranoid schizophrenic in Law and Order: UK, the naturally charismatic Graves would easily capture Belgarath’s wit, cheek and sarcasm as well as his power, wisdom and grief.

Polgara.

Eva Green.

Apart from being almost supernaturally beautiful, her allure and acting style are both very mature and very youthful, two contradictions that embody Polgara’s condition as an immortal.

Emilia Fox.

A brilliant and endearingly lovely actress, her work on Silent Witness was highly psychological (indispensable when playing an immortal character) and she has experience playing a mother figure thanks to her work on Merlin.

Lara Pulver.

One of the most effortlessly photogenic and inexplicably alluring actresses out there, she’s brilliantly played a dominatrix concealing sentimental tendencies in Sherlock and a single mother juggling parenthood with MI5 in Spooks; both of these representing aspects of Polgara’s personality.

Durnik.

Kevin McKidd.

While he perfectly embodies Durnik’s ‘look’ as an unexceptional, ordinary person, McKidd is also blessed with great acting skills, subtlety and a vivid mastery of facial expression that could only succeed in bringing to life Durnik’s journey.

Barak.

John Rhys Davies.

Through his work on The Lord of the Rings and the Indiana Jones movies, we know that he can play tough and battle-hardened extremely well, together with the surprising gentleness and sentimentality that crops up in Barak’s character – suits Barak’s look, but might be too old.

Silk.

Emun Elliott.

A relatively unknown actor gifted with charisma that makes the corners of your mouth turn up, his work on The Paradise and his brief appearance on Game of Thrones have shown us that he can do flamboyant sarcasm as well as profound grief: too good-looking for the part, but that can easily be rectified.

Hettar.

Rupert Friend.

His work on Chéri has proved that he’s capable of doing cruel, his work on The Young Victoria that he can also act the lover: these would both be indispensable in Hettar’s bloodlust for Murgos and relationship (or whatever it was before they got married) with Adara.

Ce’Nedra.

Georgie Henley.

The Narnia films and her striking cameo in Jane Eyre have proved to us that this is a dazzling, expressive actress who acts straight from the soul; the fact that we haven’t seen her since either of these productions may have blinded us to the fact that she is now a gorgeous young woman who could play Ce’Nedra in her sleep.

Lucy Boynton.

Her delightful and funny performance as feisty tomboy Margaret Dashwood in 2008’s Sense and Sensibility, together with her elven features, suggest that she’d be able to portray both Ce’Nedra’s charm and her many annoyances.

Beldin.

Toby Jones.

In addition to having the right look and the approximate right height, Creation and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy reveal Jones’ skills at playing intensely angry and crotchety, Titanic (2012) his ability to be heartbreakingly human: perfect!

Mandorallen.

Rupert Penry-Jones.

Despite being a great actor, Penry-Jones has a kind of natural gravity about him no matter which role he plays: the former would lend weight to Mandorallen’s exasperating chivalric philosophy, the latter would be useful when the greater subtleties of the character begin to be exposed.

Lelldorin.

Lee Williams.

Something tells me Williams would do well as an enthusiastic young idiot, and the moving expressiveness of his performance in The Forsyte Saga means that he could easily cream the awful moment when Lelldorin loses his cousin Torasin in battle.

Relg.

Adrien Brody.

An actor of astounding versatility, it’s mainly Brody’s role in The Brother’s Bloom that made me imagine him as Relg: sullen, melancholy and with huge eyes, you can easily imagine him crapping on about sin and portraying Relg’s (slow) psychological transformation once he meets Taiba.

Sadi.

Timothy Spall.

Spall has spent a lifetime playing slightly odd, eccentric characters that are also human beings: this makes him perfect for Sadi’s transformation from perpetually-high and powdered eunuch to clear-minded joker and master poisoner.

Zakath.

Nathaniel Parker.

We’ve seen from Merlin that Parker, who suits the physical description of Zakath almost perfectly, is more than capable of playing ruthless, bloody and frightening; we’ve also seen from Stardust that he’s equally good at playing soft-hearted and vulnerable, and packing a big emotional punch in a short space of time.

Cyradis.

Adelaide Clemens.

A brilliant young actress starting to come into her own after Parade’s End, Clemens is excellent at being sweet and innocent, but also at taking no shit, something that comes in handy for Cyradis on many occasions, however polite she may be.

Liselle.

Karen Gillan.

In Doctor Who, Gillan is endlessly entertaining at being charming, cheeky and sexy, which should provide hours of fun in her many exchanges with Silk and her fewer, though equally naughty ones with Zakath.

Salmissra.

Fanny Ardant.

While not as young-looking as the Salmissra of the books, Madame Ardant is brilliant at playing the sultry temptress: I also think Garion being tempted by a sexy older woman would be very refreshing.