Fire and blood
In terms of the MVP for the Season 8 opener of Game of Thrones, there’s a very strong case to be made for John Bradley’s performance as the incredibly stoic and likeable Samwell Tarly.
Once again, if you haven’t seen the episode , or if you want to remain free of any information, spoilers are coming.
Simply put, without his magnificent performance in those two pivotal scenes, the emotional core of the episode is lost.
To begin with, Sam’s scene with Dany and Jorah Mormont in the Winterfell library was one of the more complex reunions in an episode that was brimming with reunions.
As you may remember, in Season 7, Randyll Tarly (Sam’s father) and his son pledged their allegiance to House Lannister. After Dany’s dragons destroyed the Lannister forces during the Loot Train attack, Daenerys gave both Tarlys a choice, bend the knee, or die.
Ultimately, they were burned alive by Dany’s dragons and to make things even more complicated, Sam saved Jorah’s life after he contracted greyscale.
After being cured of his life-threatening illness, Jorah returned to Daenerys’ service.
While Bran might be more regraded by fans as the main character that’s cold, robotic, and distant.
Well, John Bradley thinks that Daenerys isn’t a suitable candidate for the Iron Throne. In fact, Jon Snow’s best friend has described the Mother of Dragons as “psychopathic”.
Of course, madness is a trait that’s very closely associated with House Targaryen. Daenerys’ own father, King Aerys II Targaryen, commonly called “the Mad King”, threatened to burn king’s Landing to the ground and “burn them all”.
Ultimately, Jaime Lannister intervened and stabbed his own king in the back. In the next episode of Game of Thrones, the Kingslayer will come face-to-face with Daenerys.
Ser Barristan Selmy once said: “King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.”
When it comes to Daenerys, John Bradley told The Wrap that Dany has embraced some of the worst traits of the Targaryen.
“Sam is now very, very aware that Dany is very imbalanced and very volatile and in quite a dangerous state with people. He sees with his own eyes, and is kind of connecting this to his own set of emotions, just how cold she is and how sacrificial she is in other people’s lives. And he learns the lengths that she’ll go to if somebody decides to disobey her and how her quest for power seems to know no moral code when it comes to that”.
The concept of Daenerys flirting with Mad Queen status has been hinted at before – those scenes when Tyrion advised her not to burn Dickon come to mind – and while Jon Snow is clearly in love with his aunt, Sam did ask him a very pertinent question.
Jon gave up his crown to save his people. Will Daenerys do the same?
When it comes to compassion and empathy, John Bradley thinks that Dany is severely lacking in those departments.
“When she’s talking to him and she’s telling him about his own family, she’s telling him kind of without any sense of compassion at all,” Bradley said.
“She comes at it in a very clinical way, and a very cold and a very detached way. And it feels psychopathic, really, that she didn’t offer him any kind of comfort at all. She says, you know, ‘They refused to bend the knee.’ And that’s a very pragmatic way of dealing with it, ‘They disobeyed me, and so I killed them.’ And in that moment he sees what a dangerous figure she is and that’s what motivates him to tell Jon.”
Throughout the eight seasons, it’s arguable that no other character represents the viewer better than Samwell Tarly because his kindness, loyalty and compassion are evident to see. In many ways, he’s the only person that Jon would have trusted after hearing the news of his parents.
In another interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bradley states that Sam “definitely sees Daenerys as unstable, as a volatile character, as somebody who is determined to succeed without a real moral compass. She’ll kill people for a minor act of disobedience. I think Sam is very wary of her now and sees how dangerous she can be — not just for Jon Snow, but also in terms of the entire Seven Kingdoms. We could have a Mad Queen here”.
Will the Seven Kingdoms see a storm fire and blood?
We’ll have to wait and see. Dracarys!
