Last night , HBO ’s Game of Thrones took us to a charming realm . Really , Westeros is just like Disneyland : There are castles , there are supernatural beings , there are cute animal … okay , maybe not quite like Disneyland .
We were shocked and indignant and intrigued and thrilled by “ Winter is come ” … but actually what really jumped out at us is that this is a sept play . The first episode is all about the meeting between two family , the Starks and the Lannisters ( plus the Lannisters ’ shouty comrade - in - jurisprudence ) . Meanwhile , a third family lurks in the wilderness , have plans with barbarians .
Here ’s our accomplished rundown of Game of Thrones calendar week one . raider out front !
So as we say in our mollycoddler - free preview , the episode control stick pretty tight to the book .
In particular , “ Winter is make out ” pulls the same soiled trick that George R.R. Martin deplume at the start of A Game of Thrones — we ’re usher in to three characters who are adventure into a life-threatening atrocious situation , and then just as we ’re starting to identify with at least two of them , they ’re yanked aside . In the first scene , three member of the Night ’s Watch speculation past the Wall into the snowy wilderness beyond , and alternatively of some pestering wildlings , one of them finds a picture of frightening brutality . Snow Zombies ! Or something like that . He ’s the only subsister of a doomed expedition .
So we ’re all set to describe with this poor guy cable — and then we meet Ned Stark , who readily beheads him for deserting his obligation . hellhole of a way to meet the valet de chambre who ’s kick the bucket to be one of our primary viewpoint characters in this series . But we rapidly see that Ned Stark is a doting father , who had to behead that poor terrified guy rope because of his Code Of Honor .
A side greenback : The opening scenes with the huge snowy landscape , and a good deal of the late scenes too , do a great job of giving an amazing sense of scale . These are people who are dwarfed ( apologies to Tyrion ) by their environment . They are not in control over their surroundings , in any common sense that we as twenty-first century tellurian would translate — they have built a few megastructures to get by with thing like the terror of Snow Zombies and brutal warfare , but those were build up long ago , almost by a dissimilar civilization .
Even though the multitude we ’re meet include lords and king and kingslayers and so on , they ’re still tiny little people , at the clemency of their environment . It ’s in that linguistic context that we keep hearing the catchword “ Winter is coming , ” with its implications of horrible lifelike want that you ca n’t control or even train for — you’re able to only arouse yourself . HBO ’s lavish motion-picture photography and gorgeous CG - raise landscapes prompt me a scrap of seeing Lawrence of Arabia , in which the landscape painting really is one of the movie ’s stars , on the big projection screen for the first time .
Luckily the episode does a middling nice Book of Job of bring out a long ton of part in a rushing , with a ton of stenography . In just the first scene of the Starks at plate , we see Robb and Jon Snow being protective towards their younger brother Bran , whom they ’re teaching archery . We see how careful Jon Snow is to refer to Catelyn Stark as “ your mother ” when talking to the other Stark boy , and we see how much Catelyn hates Jon Snow from the way she looks at him . Sansa Stark is practiced at needlepoint embroidery and enjoys being a proper peeress , but Arya Stark is bored with it — and way better than Bran at archery . And Ned watches over the whole tribe like a dust mother biddy — but assert on making his ten - class - one-time Logos Bran watch an execution .
( Some of the other quality in that menage , like Theon Greyjoy , we do n’t really get a sense of at all . But that ’s okay — Theon can just be “ scowling consideration at the back ” for now . )
And then the Starks find a bedding of direwolf pups — direwolves being the animals on the Stark family line crest . There ’s one for each Stark nipper , plus a runt for the illegitimate child , Jon Snow . The direwolf pups are almost too cunning for words , and it ’s severely not to fall in love with lovely skirt chaser pups . ( Plus I could n’t help noticing the show invalidate one of the most frequently mock bits of dialogue in the novel : “ Direwolf pups , loose in the realm after so many years . I like it not . ” )
Then the King and all of his Lord go far from King ’s landing place , so that King Robert can necessitate Ned Stark to be the Hand of the King . I love all the little flake of job that Sean Bean puts in when Ned recognize the king , like when he ’s kneel but he ca n’t resist steal an upward glance at the man he serve put on the pot . And when the King approaches , scowling , and say Ned he ’s beat fat , and Ned convey , without any words , that the King has get fatter . You immediately get that these two men have a lot of history together , even if they have n’t seen each other in a recollective prison term .
It ’s not until midway through the episode , though , that we get to encounter Tyrion Lannister , the Imp , who pretty much steal the whole show with the blood line , “ The gods collapse me one blessing . ” Ah , Tyrion .
So there ’s the King who ’s jolly and ribald but not - so - in secret miserable and still mourning for Ned ’s sister , who he want to marry . He insists on going to visit her grave first thing , right after a month of riding . And Sarah Connor herself , Lena Headey , is Queen Cersei , who ’s sort of disgusted by everything that does n’t ask her devastatingly giving twin brother Jaime Lannister . I have to say , Nikolaj Coster - Waldau really sells the idea that Jaime is a frighten off knight whom everybody loves , something I seldom got from his enactment in the books .
The first episode is really the first refinement clash between the Starks and the Lannisters — the Starks are paradoxically both more serious and more unworried than the Lannisters . On the one hired man , the Starks are obsessed with honour and duty and guarding the north , and probably would n’t commit twincest right under their husbands ’ noses . On the other manus , the Starks are perhaps a bit less obsessed with status and their own importance than the Lannisters . The King is trip up in the middle , between these two poles .
But then there ’s a third sept whom we encounter in the opening installment — the Targaryens , who were depose from the Iron Throne of Westeros long ago and are now in deportation . There ’s Daenerys , who is an barren redden young beauty , and her scheming comrade Viserys — who looks rather a flock like Julian Assange , and indeed we started call him that almost immediately as we watched this episode . So Julian Assange wants to raise an army so he can retake the commode , and to do it , he ’s willing to betray his sister in marriage to a savage warlord named Drogo , who ’s sort of a faux Mongolian . And he ’s not above ogling his sister and quasi - grope her while he prepares to sell her off in a seethru gown . ( Drogo , though , spend most of his fourth dimension proving that he has a more awing chest than his wife . )
“ I would allow his whole tribe fuck you , all 40,000 men and their horse too , if that ’s what it took , ” enounce Viserys . The Dothraki wedding ceremony is like a giant splurge , with Snake River and world beat music and the great unwashed trip the light fantastic - bloody , and centre with flies all over it , and mosh - cavity - killing . secure times ! And then Daenerys catch an amazing present tense : three material dragon eggs ! And Daenerys gets a gorgeous lily-white sawbuck , just like on the natural covering of Prince ’s ego - titled second record album .
Back in Winterfell , there ’s a vast banquet and everybody ’s stewing and scheming . Ned ’s by-blow Jon Snow is chafing because he was n’t permit to go to the banquet , which leads him to need his uncle to get him get together the Night ’s Watch . ( And he has that not bad scene with Tyrion , who devote him some advice on deal with public scorn . )
Meanwhile , Sansa is so dire to wed the handsome , charming Prince Joffrey , it ’s coming off her in wave — lead to some squirm - stimulate scenes with the Queen and with Arya , who lob food at her . And Ned is agonizing over whether to become the king ’s right - hand man , the Hand of the King , which Catelyn definitely does not want him to do .
And then everything changes , when Catelyn bugger off a word of advice from her sister that the previous Hand of the King was mutilate by the Lannisters , and the King himself is in danger . So Ned says yes — and then we get the dead sicken scene where immature Bran , who promised he would n’t go climbing any more , ascends to the top of Winterfell , where he sees something he really was n’t say to : the Queen and her buddy in flagrente delecto . Jaime smirk and says “ The thing I do for love , ” before tossing poor Bran off a tower . Noooo !
All in all , a really powerful episode , with the story of three home feel heartbreak and culture clash — and the veridical scheming has yet to commence .
That said , this gap instalment is emphatically not double-dyed — there are some expository scene , some of which are n’t in the original novel . Like the first scene between Queen Cersei and her brother Jaime Lannister , in which they seem over the remains of Jon Arryn and dispense patch data to each other . A few other odd little scene feel out of place , too — like the conversation between Ned Stark and Jaime about tournament , in which they engage in a random bit of dick - measure that feels weirdly un - Ned - like . But those are really just minor quibble .
As long as you ’re able to cope with voluminous amounts of savagery , explicit sexuality , nastiness , and a rather Hobbesian persuasion of the human subspecies , then this was a really unbelievable get-go to the series . What did you guys call up ?
Game of ThronesGeorge R.R. MartinJulian Assange
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