Sons of the Harpy (S5x04)
Airdate: 3 May 2015
Written by: Dave Hill
Directed by: Mark Mylod
Running Time: 50 minutes
The path taken by Game of Thrones in its fifth season, which began to significantly diverge the series’ plots from George R. R. Martin’s as-yet-unfinished literary source material, started to exert a palpable strain on the show’s internal logic and character integrity. While earlier seasons had taken liberties for the sake of adaptation, Season 5 marked a more aggressive restructuring, condensing and redirecting narratives to service a television finale Martin himself had not yet written. This shift began to affect even the fates of core characters, with some meeting ends very different from those suggested by the published novels. Sons of the Harpy (S5E04), a superficially solid piece of television, is a crucial inflection point where this new trajectory first draws significant blood, sacrificing a beloved character not for profound narrative necessity, but for a somewhat contrived thematic shorthand. The episode thus functions as a harbinger of the creative compromises that would later define the series’ contentious final chapters.
The episode’s primary dramatic weight lies in the political coup unfolding in King’s Landing—another quiet, ruthless realignment. The plot here is a meticulous chess game, moving pieces with cold efficiency. Cersei Lannister, increasingly isolated after her father’s death and her children’s alienation, makes her most audacious power play. By urging the pious but weak King Tommen to appoint the radical High Sparrow as the new High Septon, she forges an alliance with the grassroots fanaticism of the Faith. Her next move is breathtaking in its historical recklessness: convincing Tommen to restore the Faith Militant, a military order disbanded two centuries prior. Almost overnight, a small army of zealots begins purging the capital. Their targets—taverns, foreign idol vendors, and Littlefinger’s brothels—are symbolic, but their ire is particularly reserved for ‘sinners’ engaged in homosexual acts. This campaign culminates in the very public arrest of Ser Loras Tyrell, whose sexuality was the worst-kept secret in the city. Margaery’s furious demands for his release fall on the ears of a paralysed boy-king; Tommen’s desire to avoid conflict renders him useless, a pawn in his mother’s game. Simultaneously, Cersei deftly removes another Tyrell obstacle by dispatching Mace Tyrell to Braavos for ‘debt negotiations’ with the Iron Bank. In a single episode, Cersei dismantles her primary rival house with chilling precision, replacing the complex feudal politics of the novels with a swifter, more televisually direct seizure of power.
Meanwhile, the narrative expands geographically, dedicating considerable time to the new frontier of Dorne. While not the first episode set in the southern kingdom, Sons of the Harpy is the first to feature Dorne on the animated map of the opening credits, formally welcoming viewers to this new arena. The plot here, however, feels notably thinner. Jaime Lannister, accompanied by the ever-cynical Bronn, arrives on a covert mission to retrieve his daughter Myrcella from the Water Gardens. Their initial skirmish with a Dornish patrol offers a competent, if unremarkable, action beat, showcasing Jaime’s struggling swordsmanship with his left hand. Parallel to this, Ellaria Sand recruits Oberyn Martell’s bastard daughters, the Sand Snakes—Obara (Keisha Castle-Hughes), Nymeria (Jessica Hanwick), and Tyene (Rosabell Laurenti Sellers)—in a plot to murder Myrcella before she can be taken. The setup is functional, but it already hints at the simplified, almost pantomime portrayal of Dornish politics that would plague this storyline, reducing the nuanced scheming of Prince Doran and his court to a straightforward revenge quest.
In the North, the tone is one of grim foreshadowing. Sansa Stark’s arrival at Winterfell is punctuated by a visit to the family crypts, where she is met by Petyr Baelish. Their conversation weaves family history with cold political calculus. Littlefinger, soon to depart for the capital, analyses Stannis Baratheon’s impending campaign against the Boltons. He posits that whether Stannis wins or loses, Sansa, positioned as a Stark in Winterfell, can bide her time and ultimately rule the North. This scene reinforces Sansa’s transformation from pawn to potential player, though it also tethers her fate to the machinations of a man whose endgame remains inscrutable.
At the Wall, Stannis prepares his departure for Winterfell. Jon Snow, now Lord Commander, again refuses the king’s offer of legitimacy and Winterfell, honouring his Night’s Watch vows. More intriguing is the visit from Melisandre, who attempts to seduce Jon in the firelight, a scene that provided the episode’s obligatory (and by now routine) fan service via Carice van Houten’s bare breasts. Jon’s refusal, citing fidelity to the dead Ygritte, is met with Melisandre’s ominous echo of Ygritte’s catchphrase: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” The line is a potent piece of foreshadowing, linking Jon’s lineage and destiny to the Red Priestess’s magic in a way the books had only hinted at, demonstrating the show’s occasional skill at condensing prophetic elements.
The episode also tidies up a dangling thread from High Sparrow, revealing that Jorah Mormont, having captured Tyrion Lannister, is taking him eastwards to Meereen in a desperate bid to win back Daenerys’s favour. This sets in motion one of the season’s strongest narrative mergers, pairing two of the show’s finest wits.
All these manoeuvres, however, are but a prelude to the episode’s controversial centrepiece: the events in Meereen. After a touching scene where Ser Barristan Selmy shares memories of her brother Rhaegar with Daenerys—a rare moment of personal history for the often-mythic Targaryens—the city’s unrest boils over. Daenerys again refuses Hizdahr zo Loraq’s plea to reopen the fighting pits, a refusal that frames her as inflexible. The Sons of the Harpy, aided by a prostitute named Vara, launch a coordinated attack. They first slaughter a group of the sellsword Second Sons, then use the commotion to lure a large Unsullied patrol into a narrow alleyway trap. The ensuing massacre is brutally efficient, shot with claustrophobic intensity within the cavernous Diocletian’s Palace in Croatia. Ser Barristan, hearing the conflict, intervenes. In a valiant last stand, he helps save the life of the gravely wounded Grey Worm but is himself surrounded and mortally stabbed. It is a spectacular, well-choreographed fight, and a seemingly heroic end for a legendary knight.
Yet herein lies the episode’s—and arguably the season’s—most consequential and criticised narrative decision. In George R. R. Martin’s published works, Ser Barristan the Bold is very much alive, acting as Daenerys’s steadfast Hand in Meereen. His death in Sons of the Harpy constitutes the first major, irreversible departure of a primary character’s fate from the source material. The showrunners, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, later explained the choice was made to underline Daenerys’s growing isolation in Meereen by removing her most trusted and honourable advisor. To say this explanation did not sit well among the fandom is a profound understatement. Barristan Selmy, portrayed with dignified grace by Ian McElhinney, was one of the last true embodiments of Westerosi chivalry—a living link to the era of Aerys II and a moral compass in a murky world. His death felt less like a natural culmination of his arc and more like a pragmatic, even disposable, plot device to streamline Daenerys’s descent into harder-edged rule. While the action sequence itself was commendable, the decision left a bitter taste for many book readers and show fans alike, who often cite it as the series’ first significant ‘fumble’—a moment where expediency seemed to trump narrative richness. The visceral violence of the Faith Militant’s attack on a prostitute named Merei was reportedly subdued from initial plans, yet the narrative violence done to Selmy’s story resonated far more deeply.
Written by Dave Hill in his debut script for the series, Sons of the Harpy is, on a technical level, a competent piece of television. It advances multiple plotlines with efficiency, features strong production values and decent action, and continues the season’s work of condensing Martin’s sprawling narrative. However, it also embodies the emerging double-edged sword of this adaptation strategy. The King’s Landing plot is a taut, thrilling political thriller, but the Dorne plot feels undercooked and generic. The thematic beats at the Wall and Winterfell are effective, but the core event in Meereen—the death of Ser Barristan—exposes a troubling precedent. It signals a willingness to sacrifice deeply embedded character integrity and fan investment for the sake of a simplified emotional beat and narrative convenience. In this sense, Sons of the Harpy is not merely an episode about a masked insurgency in Slaver’s Bay; it is the episode where the show’s own insurgent departure from its source material first struck down a knight in earnest, revealing that from this point forward, no character’s fate was sacred to the original text, for better or for worse. The consequences of that choice would echo far beyond the streets of Meereen.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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