Valar Dohaeris

"Valar Dohaeris" is the first episode of the third season of Game of Thrones. It is the twenty-first episode of the series overall.

Jon is brought before Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall, while the Night's Watch survivors retreat south. In King's Landing, Tyrion asks for his reward, Littlefinger offers Sansa a way out, and Cersei hosts a dinner for the royal family. Dany sails into Slaver's Bay.

Beyond the Wall
In a prologue scene, shouts and sword clashes are heard in the darkness as the White Walkers and their army of undead wights attack the men of the Night's Watch off-screen in the Battle of the Fist of the First Men. Samwell Tarly is then seen alive, wandering away through a blizzard in search of safety. He sees another man of the Night's Watch up ahead but then finds that he has been decapitated. Just then a wight approaches Sam and is about to attack him with an ax, when the direwolf Ghost knocks it down. Ghost continues to tear at its legs as it pulls itself forward inch by inch towards Sam. Finally, the wight is lit and fire and destroyed by a torch, revealed to belong to Lord Commander Jeor Mormont. Mormont has managed to rally the few dozen survivors out of his original three hundred men at the First of the First Men. Mormont is angry that Sam wasn't able to send off any messenger-ravens in the confusion of the attack (though Sam wasn't near the ravens when the White Walkers began their assault). Mormont announces that they must retreat back to the Wall, not simply to save their own lives but because Castle Black must be warned of the coming threat, otherwise everyone they've ever known will die.

Meanwhile, Jon Snow is led by Ygritte and the Lord of Bones into the main wildling camp in the Frostfangs mountains.

In the Seven Kingdoms
In King's Landing, King Joffrey Baratheon's forces stand victorious after the Battle of the Blackwater. House Lannister's new allies House Tyrell begin to settle into the capital. Tywin Lannister bluntly tells his son Tyrion that he intends to disinherit him. This comes as a shock, because his older brother Jaime gave up all right to inherit his father's lands when he joined the Kingsguard, and Tyrion is rightfully the next in line of succession. Meanwhile, rewards are handed out to others who participated in the Battle of the Blackwater: for his vital role in lighting the wildfire explosion that crippled Stannis' fleet and his continued fighting during the desperate hours when the battle seemed lost, the sellsword Bronn is knighted. He is now styled as "Ser Bronn of the Blackwater", and while possessing no lands, wealth, or title, this drastically elevates his social standing.

Meanwhile Margaery Tyrell, Joffrey's new betrothed as part of the proposed marriage-alliance between their two Houses, settles into the city as well. Since the beginning of the War of the Five Kings, the capital city has been inundated with refugees fleeing the war that Joffrey himself started. Cersei ignored the suffering of the refugees and starving smallfolk of the city, to the point that major food riots broke out weeks before, and Cersei bluntly told Tyrion that she doesn't care what "the people" think of her. In sharp contrast, one of Margaery's first actions on arriving in King's Landing is to visit local orphanages, with her servants handing out new food shipments brought from Highgarden in the Reach. While Cersei only knew how to gain power through fear, Margaery's calculated charitable efforts start to earn her not simply the support of the commoners, but their love. Even Joffrey proves relatively easy for Margaery to manipulate, even though things have reached the point where Cersei can't even stop him from killing peasants in public. Cersei hosts a dinner including Joffrey, Margaery, and her brother Loras Tyrell, and begins to feel outmaneuvered.

On Dragonstone, King Stannis Baratheon's shattered forces regroup after being almost totally destroyed in the Battle of the Blackwater. Davos Seaworth is rescued from the sea by Salladhor Saan after being thrown overboard by the wildfire blast in the battle. Forlorn over the death of his son Matthos, Davos feels that Melisandre has led Stannis to disaster, and is horrified to hear from Salladhor that she has begun to conduct human sacrifices. After the defeated remnant of Stannis' forces returned to the island, Melisandre ordered any who spoke out against her to be burned alive as offerings to the Lord of Light, and even sang to them as they burned. Davos convinces Salladhor to drop him off on Dragonstone, intending to kill the Red Priestess. He finds Stannis despondent, sitting in the chamber of the Painted Table alone with Melisandre. Stannis has become withdrawn after his defeat, refusing to meet with his generals or his wife, only with the Red Priestess. Davos openly calls Melisandre his enemy, condemns her for conducting human sacrifices, and says she is leading Stannis astray. She counters that Davos himself urged Stannis not to bring her to the battle, and insists that she may have been able to use her powers to predict or counteract the wildfire trap. Melisandre believes that it was thus actually Davos' fault that thousands of their men burned to death, including his own son. At the mention of his son Davos draws a knife on her in a fit of anger, but he is restrained by the guards, and Stannis orders him put in the dungeon

In the Riverlands, the morale of King Robb Stark's army is starting to wane. They have not had a significant victory since the Battle of Oxcross months ago, and the news of the Lannisters' victory over Stannis and new alliance with the Tyrells piles bad news upon bad news. Robb has won every battle he has ever fought, but the Lannisters finally realized it was too difficult to try to attack him head-on, so they have shifted to the new strategy of simply fleeing ahead of Robb's army. Robb's forces have won many small but also insignificant minor victories, as the Lannisters are now determined to simply wait Robb out and exhaust his army far from home while they slowly rebuild their own numbers and gain new allies. In frustration, Robb launches a new offensive to the east which takes the great castle of Harrenhal, which Tywin had been using it as the main Lannister forward base in the Riverlands during the first year of the war. However, Robb does not find the decisive victory he was hoping for: Tywin withdrew his garrison to King's Landing to counter the attack by Stannis, and didn't even bother wasting any men on a token defense of the castle. Robb and his forces are further demoralized to find that the Lannisters massacred two hundred Northern and Riverlands prisoners of war before they left, and the courtyards are choked with piles of bodies. They do find one survivor, a maester named Qyburn.

Across the Narrow Sea
Daenerys Targaryen's ship arrives in Slaver's Bay.

Appearances

 * Main: Valar Dohaeris/Appearances

First

 * Mance Rayder
 * Tormund Giantsbane
 * Jarl
 * Jaremy Mallister (dead)
 * Qyburn
 * Kraznys mo Nakloz
 * Missandei

In the books
See "Differences between books and TV series - Season 3"