The Children (S4x10)
Airdate: 15 June 2014
Written by: David Benioff & D.B. Weiss
Directed by: Alex Graves
Running Time: 66 minutes
When Season 4 of Game of Thrones drew to a close in June 2014, none of its millions of viewers—and, one suspects, not even the showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss—fully appreciated that the series had reached its narrative midpoint. With two more seasons originally planned and then two abbreviated final seasons to follow, the story of Westeros was in fact already tipping over the crest of its arc. Yet at that moment, the show appeared to be in remarkably good health. True, there had been hiccups: the messy teleportation of characters across the continent, the awkward handling of certain subplots, and the first faint stirrings of the showrunners’ questionable decision-making that would later cripple the final seasons. Nevertheless, the series had just delivered The Watchers on the Wall, arguably its finest episode to that date—a taut, brutal, and emotionally resonant siege that placed Jon Snow and the Night’s Watch at the centre of the action. The Children, the season finale that followed, had a great deal to live up to, and in many respects it succeeded admirably, delivering a dense, ambitious, and emotionally punishing piece of television that set the stage for the chaos to come.
The episode opens by resolving the cliffhanger left by the previous instalment. Jon Snow, having survived the wildling assault on Castle Black, knows that the only thing holding the disparate tribal army together is the leadership of Mance Rayder. In a desperate gambit, Jon rides out to the wildling camp under the pretence of parley, intending to assassinate their king. What follows is a surprisingly civil and reasonable discussion between the two men, during which Mance offers Jon a pragmatic deal: let his people pass through the Wall’s tunnel, and the Night’s Watch will be left alone to enjoy the protection of the Wall against the true horrors that lie beyond. It is a moment of rare intellectual honesty between enemies. Yet Mance soon perceives Jon’s true intent, and before he can act, the wildling camp is engulfed by what can only be described as the mother of all deus ex machinae: Stannis Baratheon’s armoured cavalry, launching a perfectly coordinated two-pronged assault. Though Stannis’s army is minuscule by the standards of the Seven Kingdoms, the wildlings—unarmoured, undisciplined, and exhausted—are no match for steel, training, and tactics. Mance, realising the futility of further slaughter, throws down his sword and surrenders. He is brought to Castle Black, where Melisandre spots Jon and takes an evident interest in him. After a brief exchange with the captured Tormund, Jon heads north to burn Ygritte’s body beneath a sacred heart tree, a sombre and elegiac close to his arc this season.
Far beyond the Wall, Bran, Hodor, and the Reeds are nearing the end of their endurance when they finally glimpse the object of their quest: a heart tree identical to the one in Bran’s visions. As they approach, skeletal wights burst from a frozen lake and attack. The ensuing fight is desperate, with Bran warging into Hodor to defend the party, but Jojen is mortally wounded. Just as all seems lost, a mysterious girl (Octavia Alexandru) appears, hurling fireballs at the wights, burning Jojen’s body, and leading the survivors to the safety of a cave. She identifies herself as a “Child of the Forest,” one of the mythical beings who preceded the First Men. Inside the cave, Bran finds the Three-Eyed Raven, embodied as an ancient man played by Struan Rodgers, who tells him that he will never walk again, but that he will fly. This sequence, while short, is among the most visually striking and tonally distinct in the episode, blending horror with mythic wonder.
In Meereen, Daenerys is confronted with yet another unpleasant aspect of rule. An elderly former slave named Fennesz (Trevor Allan Davies), petitions her, lamenting that he preferred the safe, predictable life of slavery in a wealthy household to the chaos and poverty of freedom. Worse, a man whose young daughter was burned to death by Drogon—Daenerys’s missing dragon—demands justice. Faced with the reality that her “children” are uncontrollable, she makes the heartbreaking decision to chain Rhaegal and Viserion in a sealed crypt. It is a moment that crystallises the central tension of her arc: the gulf between her ideals and the brutal compromises required to sustain power.
Meanwhile, in the Vale near the Bloody Gate, Brienne and Podrick finally encounter Arya, accompanied by the Hound. Brienne insists that Arya come with her as the sworn protector of the Starks, but the will of both Arya and the Hound is not so easily bent. What follows is an extremely brutal and bloody duel between two very different knights. The Hound fights with raw, savage strength; Brienne with discipline and honed technique. The fight ends with the Hound falling from a cliff, gravely wounded. Yet Arya refuses to join Brienne and hides. Later, she finds the Hound dying. Begging for a clean death, he asks her to finish him off. She refuses, taking only his bag of money and leaving him to his fate—a decision that speaks volumes about her hardening character and her refusal to grant the Hound the mercy of a quick end.
In King’s Landing, two major developments unfold as consequences of the vicious trial by combat between the Mountain and Prince Oberyn. The Mountain has won, but is so grievously injured that Cersei authorises the disgraced former maester Qyburn to use his banned experimental knowledge to save his life. Qyburn warns Cersei that her champion, when he recovers, “won’t be the same.” The implication of necromancy and the creation of Gregor Clegane’s monstrous undead form hangs over this scene, foreshadowing the horror to come.
Even more momentous is the night before Tyrion’s execution. Jaime frees him from the Black Cells, explaining that he has arranged his escape via ship to the Free Cities, with Varys’s help. As they move through the Red Keep, Tyrion notices a secret passage leading to the Tower of the Hand. He cannot resist. Infiltrating his father’s private chamber, he is aghast to find Shae in Tywin’s bed. Partly to silence her, partly consumed by rage, he strangles her. Then, knowing Tywin is in his privy, he takes a crossbow and bolts. Tywin, seated on the privy, dismissively refers to Shae as a “whore,” and Tyrion, in a fury, kills him. He later meets Varys, who immediately suspects that something violent has occurred and hides Tyrion in a crate on a departing ship. When the bells toll the death of the Hand of the King, Varys knows his career as Master of Whispers is likely finished. He decides to join Tyrion in exile—a decision that propels both characters into entirely new trajectories.
The episode ends with Arya arriving at Saltpants, a small coastal village with a single docked ship. She meets the captain (Gary Oliver), and tries to charter a voyage north to rejoin Jon Snow. When the captain explains that he is Braavosi and his ship is homeward bound, she remembers Jaqen H’ghar’s iron coin and speaks the words “Valar morghulis.” The captain accepts, and Arya sails east, setting off to train with the Faceless Men. It is a quietly powerful ending, opening a new chapter for both the character and the series.
As a grand finale written by Benioff and Weiss and directed by Alex Graves, The Children earns its title in more ways than one. The episode’s title resonates symbolically and literally: Arya struggles not to be treated as a child; Daenerys chains her “children”; Tyrion kills his father—a profoundly Freudian act—and the episode introduces the Children of the Forest, previously only a myth. The episode is, at 66 minutes, the longest of the series to that point, continuing the established practice of using season finales to wrap up storylines and establish cliffhangers.
In doing so, The Children reconfigures the geopolitical landscape of Westeros in two major ways. First, Stannis’s timely and nearly miraculous rescue transforms him from a loser who suffered apocalyptic defeat at the Battle of the Blackwater into a heroic leader who did the right thing, saving the realm from the wildling horde. Yet the pragmatic alliance between Stannis’s diminished faction and the remnants of the Night’s Watch, observed by Melisandre and her sinister magical agenda, bears the hallmarks of alliances in Game of Thrones that rarely last.
Second, Tyrion’s patricide not only decapitates the most powerful faction in Westeros—the Lannister regime is now a headless beast—but also burns Tyrion’s bridges with whatever remained of his family. This event, resembling Jacobean tragedy in its violence and melodramatic detail, reshuffles the balance of power. King’s Landing is left in the hands of an increasingly bitter Cersei, who now has only Jaime to rely upon. The political vacuum will have consequences that echo through the remaining seasons.
The final killings in the Tower of the Hand are less emotional and visceral than they might have been. HBO, departing from its trademark insistence on nudity, allows Sibel Kekilli’s Shae to wear a nightgown, unlike the book version where she wears only a necklace. In the literary version, Shae begs for mercy and is killed by Tyrion in cold blood. Here, she tries to kill him with a knife. This change was clearly an attempt to make Tyrion—one of the series’ most beloved characters—less morally compromised. Despite this bowdlerisation, the scene still works, carrying genuine dramatic weight.
Alex Graves directs competently, providing two great combat scenes—the supernatural horror of the wights and the naturalistic, brutal duel between Brienne and the Hound. The episode’s visual endings are also strong, though some scenes are more effective than others. For the author of this review, who grew up in Split, Croatia, the catacombs scene is less immersive because the cellars of Diocletian’s Palace are too readily recognisable. The final scene, with Arya sailing eastwards with Arya, is much more powerful, opening a new horizon.
None of this means the episode is perfect. Due to time constraints, it is never properly explained how Stannis’s army arrived just in time or how it managed to surprise skilled wildling scouts. The books mention Stannis landing near Eastwatch and using that fort’s tunnel to approach from the east, but the episode never bothers with such detail, leaving a plot development that feels too convenient. It is a flaw that would become endemic in later seasons: a willingness to sacrifice logical coherence for dramatic impact. Still, “The Children” stands as a strong finale, one that closed Season 4 on a note of transition and uncertainty, reminding us that in Westeros, the price of power is always paid in flesh and blood.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
==
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
InLeo blog @drax.leo
LeoDex: https://leodex.io/?ref=drax
InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9