A Man Without Honor

"A Man Without Honor" is the seventh episode of the second season of Game of Thrones. It is the seventeenth episode of the series overall. It will premiere on May 13, 2012. It was written by executive producers David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and directed by David Nutter.

In the Seven Kingdoms
At Winterfell, now held by the ironborn, Theon Greyjoy awakens to find that Osha is gone and she has helped Bran Stark and Rickon Stark escape along with Hodor and their direwolves. Theon berates a guard for allowing them to escape, and when the guard points out that Theon is also to blame for sleeping with Osha and letting his guard down, Theon furiously beats the guard. Theon leads the ironborn on horse to track down the boys. Theon is counting on that his sister Yara Greyjoy will soon send reinforcements to help hold the castle: Eddard Stark used to say that it was so strong that with 500 men manning the walls it could hold out against an army of 10,000. For the moment, however, Theon is only holding the castle with a skeleton force of raiders. While they don't need many reinforcements to hold the castle, they need to arrive before the inevitable Northern counter-attack, so Theon's position is perilous. Ultimately, Theon returns to Winterfell with two bodies burned beyond recognition, and he announces that he has killed Bran and Rickon.

At Harrenhal, Tywin Lannister is discussing the assassination of Amory Lorch with Ser Gregor Clegane. Tywin is convinced that it was an assasination attempt on himself, unaware that Jaqen H'ghar actually killed Lorch on the request of Arya Stark. As Arya eats in the background, Ser Gregory speculates that the "Brotherhood Without Banners" may have been responsible. Enraged, Tywin orders Gregor to burn out villages and farms in reprisal for this assassination attempt. Later as Tywin talks to Arya, he begins to suspect that she is actually a highborn noble, because she doesn't slur her speech the way commoners do and possesses an educated vocabulary. Arya at first tries to make the excuse that her mother taught her to speak well, then tries to cover it up by intentionally slurring her speech a bit more. However, she tries too hard and Tywin realizes she must be noble-born.

In King's Landing, Sansa Stark comes to thank Sandor "The Hound" Clegane for saving her life during the recent riot in the city. Sandor simply says that she doesn't need to thank him for killing her attackers, as killing is the sweetest thing there is. Sansa is perturbed by his "hateful speech", but Sandor cautions that a day will come when his cynical speech is all that stands between her and her "beloved" King Joffrey. Later in the night, Sansa awakens in her bed from a nightmare, only to find the sheets covered in blood...she has begun menstruating for the first time. Given that Joffrey essentially openly promised to rape Sansa to "put a son in you" as soon as she had her blood, she then frantically tries to get rid of the bloody sheets to remove the evidence. Shae tries to help Sansa hide the sheets but Sandor finds them.

Terrified of being brought to Joffrey, Sansa is instead brought before Queen Regent Cersei Lannister, who awkwardly tries to comfort her. Hardly a model for stable romantic relationships, Cersei presents Sansa with warped advice on Joffrey, bizarre counseling based on her bitter marriage with King Robert Baratheon. Blithely waving away her son's torment of Sansa and homicidal outbursts by nothing that "Joffrey's always been difficult", she says that her brother Jaime Lannister stayed by her side the whole time she was giving birth to Joffrey, but Sansa should never expect such devotion from Joffrey. However, Cersei firmly believes that Sansa and Joffrey not being in love is a good thing, because as she advises Sansa, "the more people you love, the weaker you are." In a warped way Cersei is honestly trying to comfort Sansa, assuring her that while she will be expected to bear Joffrey's children, no one is going to force her to actually love Joffrey.

Privately, Cersei meets with Tyrion and expresses some regret at having children with her own brother Jaime, and (belatedly) wonders if Joffrey's violent personality is the price of her and Jaime's sins. Tyrion earnestly points out that her other two children, Myrcella and Tommen, are not monsters, and for an odd moment Tyrion and Cersei have a moment of relative sympathy.

At King Robb Stark's army camp in the Westerlands, Alton Lannister returns as an envoy giving Queen Cersei's response to Robb's declaration of independence for the North, though its not too surprising that she rejected them. The nurse Talisa Maegyr discusses medical supplies she needs with Robb, who decides to attack a Lannister castle to take the supplies they need...

Meanwhile, Alton is put in the same cell with Jaime Lannister. Jaime kills Alton to distract the guard, Torrhen Karstark whom he kills when he comes to investigate. Jaime escapes the cell, but does not make it far before he is recaptured. Torrhen was the son of one of the major Northern lords, Rickard Karstark, and Catelyn fears that Lord Rickard will demand to kill Jaime in revenge, regardless of his protected status as both a prisoner of war and a valuable political hostage. Back in his cell, Catelyn confronts Jaime that he has no honor. Jaime doesn't outright deny his actions but bitterly points out that all the stories that knights must defend the innocent and serve the king, but in real life evil kings order their knights to slaughter the innocent, making concepts like "honor" and "loyalty" naive at best and hypocritical at worst. Catelyn swings a sword...

Beyond the Wall
Jon Snow is still separated from the Night's Watch scouting group led by Qhorin Halfhand, along with the Wildling girl he has taken prisoner, Ygritte. She argues with Jon, explaining some of the backstory of the Wildlings. In particular, she criticizes that the Wildlings and the inhabitants of the Stark-held North are both descended from the same group of people, the First Men. She feels that the animosity of the Northerners to the Wildlings is arbitrary, given that they are basically just the First Men who were unlucky enough to be living north of the Wall when it was constructed. She mocks Jon that he hasn't seen a girl in a while and the Night's Watch probably have poor options, then surmises that Jon is actually a virgin. She taunts him by offering that she could teach him how to have sex, and Jon claims he knows what to do, to which she responds "you know nothing, Jon Snow". While he's distracted she tries to escape again, and he recaptures her, only to find that she led him back to where the other Wildlings can find them and they are now surrounded by her companions. Ygritte says that Jon should have taken her when he had the chance, referring to their intial meet when Jon had the chance to kill her.

Across the Narrow Sea
In Qarth, Daenerys Targaryen is desperate to find her stolen dragons and orders Ser Jorah Mormont to find them. Xaro Xhoan Daxos says that he is quite distressed and wants to help her find them, because if he cannot protect a woman he had sworn to provide safe haven for, his word will be publicly seen as worthless, and a man is only worth his word. Jorah encounters the mysterious masked woman Quaithe of Asshai again, searching for answers. Quaithe somehow knows that Jorah was secretly working as a spy for Varys and Robert Baratheon, and even received a royal pardon for his services, but then threw the pardon away by choosing to save Daenerys' life from an assassin. However, Quaithe doesn't seem to particularly care about this, but warns Jorah that the man who stole the dragons is already with Daenerys. Jorah finds Daenerys pleading before the council of The Thirteen to find her dragons, when the warlock Pyat Pree confesses to stealing the dragons and joins Xaro. Doubles of the warlock then magically appear behind each of the other members of the Thirteen and slit their throats, leaving only Pyat Pree and Xaro. Xaro intends to declare himself king of Qarth, and secretly entered into an alliance with Pyat Pree to do so. They urge Daenerys to come find her dragons at the House of the Undying, the headquarters of the warlocks. They kidnapped the dragons to have leverage over Daenerys so they can ultimately use the dragons to solidify Xaro's rule.

Appearances

 * Main: A Man Without Honor/Appearances

First Appearances

 * Rickard Karstark
 * Torrhen Karstark
 * Billy

Deaths

 * Ser Alton Lannister
 * Torrhen Karstark
 * Brandon Stark
 * Rickon Stark
 * The Thirteen
 * Spice King
 * Silk King
 * Copper King

Promotional video
File:Game Of Thrones Season 2 Episode 17 Preview|Episode 17 Preview File:Game Of Thrones Season 2 The Story So Far (Episodes 11-16)|The Story So Far (Episodes 11-16) File:Game of Thrones Season 2 Recap 16|Episode 16 Recap

In the books

 * The entire Qarth subplot is an invention of the TV series. The Thirteen are not killed in the books, nor are the dragons stolen.
 * Jaime Lannister actually killed Torrhen Karstark during the Battle of the Whispering Wood. His death does indeed anger his father Rickard. This isn't an outright invention of the TV series but it is a condensation of longer plot threads in the books.
 * Jaime Lannister doesn't kill "Alton Lannister" (named Cleos Frey in the books; as he is the son of Tywin's sister, he doesn't use the Lannister name). Jaime is stated to have killed several guards "offscreen" during escape attempts, demonstrating his immense skill and dangerous status as a warrior: even shackled and weakened from imprisonment, he is a mortally dangerous opponent. This makes the Starks put him under even heavier guard and constant watch.
 * Catelyn Stark shares much more of the blame/responsibility for wanting to free Jaime Lannister in the books than in the TV series. While many in Robb's army do want to kill Jaime, while he's in the limbo-state of being used as a political hostage and their prisoner no one was going to outright defy Robb's orders not to kill Jaime. In the books, it is only after Catelyn frees Jaime that some of Robb's men begin to question his leadership. In this TV episode, Catelyn wants to quickly free Jaime before the enraged Stark army can kill him, essentially forcing her hand and removing her agency from the decision.