I’ve thought long and hard about this one. I say this because a lot of you had him up at top tier – some even at #1 – so maybe you were seeing things I didn’t see. I re-watched pretty much all of his scenes, and indeed, I did miss a few things, and this is why I’ve raised Glen a tier from where he was given the excellent work he’s done all season – you can blame that on me not liking S2 Dany scenes and skipping most of them. That said, this is about as high as I can rank him, given the rather limited material he has and the quality of the rest of the pool.
This will be a bit of a frustrating write-up for non-book readers, as I can’t really go into great depth about what precisely I didn’t like (or what I thought could be done better) without hinting at potential plot points. Which is why, as you’ve surely noticed by now, part of the post has been put into spoiler brackets.
Spoiler-free territory: I really liked Glen’s portrayal of Jorah. Mormont’s a bit of a bland character in the books – not that I consider him bland (he’s not), but he certainly appears that way as first: the exiled knight who finds love in the form of young Daenerys. Glen makes a very convincing case about that: as someone – can’t recall who – has said in a previous post, I can’t believe that Jorah is anything but in love. Thing is: he doesn’t overplay it either, and my gut tells me it must be very hard to be “very much in love” without overplaying it (to be fair, my gut doesn’t have much experience in the matter, aside from a twisted affair with my stomach that ended in a knot).
Glen sells the thing rather well, though – you can see him struggle to maintain composure, knowing that he’s really not highborn enough to even deserve such a lady/queen, yet still hinting (or rather plainly showing, tbh) all the adoration/worship/love he has for her when the scene calls for it. I also like that he’s seemingly in pain at times, which I partly attribute to him knowing he can’t be with her, yet still coveting/lusting with every fibre of his being.
A STORM OF SWORDS SPOILER TERRITORY (very mild, though – I’m mostly emphasizing some past plot points that the series zigzagged on, although non-book readers should ideally not read that): That said, as much as I like his Jorah, there’s one detail that bothers me. If you’ll recall, Jorah actually sold information about Dany to Varys back in Season 1 (such as her being with child), in the hopes of being allowed back to Westeros. It’s later shown [in the books] that he was still selling secrets up ‘til Qarth – hence why Varys knew in EP8 she was in Qarth with Dragons. There should be conflict in there, and I’m just not seeing it. Well, I’m seeing hints of it with his pained look – which could be construed as guilt – but it’s much too subtle.
The scene with Quaithe was ideal (“You won’t betray her again, will you?”) for that – that scene was a powerful one for Glen, and he brought a lot of intensity to the table, but I’m not sure where that intensity is targeted. I would’ve liked for more hints of inner turmoil – Jorah’s really not good with keeping secrets, so his turmoil should be somewhat apparent to a keen eye. I’ll grant him that this turmoil would be ridiculously hard to portray on screen, but Glen definitely has the potential to turn that into a success, so that was a bit of a disappointed.
That said, he still played Jorah very, very convincingly, and thus earns the #6 spot on my rankings.
Best scene: Will settle for “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re real.” A hard scene to portray effectively without making it sound cheesy, and making it sound cheesy he did not. Very powerful performance – and a lot of screen presence there. Hopefully, he gets more material next season, although I wouldn’t bank on it.
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When you have nothing to say, quote yourself ~ Solfadore