CMI On TV -- Of Dragons, Deliverance, and Double-Dealing
Remarkably, Sunday’s episode of “Game of Thrones” featured no sex or nudity – a sad kind of praise, but praise nevertheless. It did, however, feature an epic twist – freeing slaves with dragons.
True, the episode had a disgusting scene with Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who wears his own severed hand and is forced to drink something …very unsavory, while being kicked into mud and muck.
Nevertheless, the intrigue of the rightful heir to the throne of Westeros, Danaerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) brings a redeeming feature to this lefty-inspired show.
Dany (for short) is off in a foreign country, and needs an army to take her throne. The foreign slave city of Astapor boasts the best soldiers in the world – the eunuch “Unsullied,” trained to fear neither death nor pain and to obey without question.
When Dany offers to buy all the Unsullied in Astapor, the slave masters laugh at her. All her goods can only buy about 100. But she offers a dragon – one of only three in the world.
When the master accepts the dragon and gives her the whip – the symbol of command over the 8,000 Unsullied – she stabs him in the back.
The master complains that her dragon will not come. Dany replies, “a dragon is not a slave.”
“Unsullied,” she commands, “Slay the masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who holds a whip. But harm no child. Strike the chains off every slave you see!”
With “dracarys,” the word for “fire” in High Valyrian, Dany commands her dragon to burn the master alive, as her soldiers go forth to free the slaves of Astapor.
Despite her double-dealing, Dany shows the triumph of freedom over slavery – with a flare only dragons can provide.
