Noblesse Oblige
Being highborn is of course better than being born poor, but even for those of noble breeding there are expectations and responsibilities, much moreso than one who is of poor birth. In this section I'll be examining how the great and mighty in Game of Thrones are brought up to behave, what's expected, often demanded of them, and if, in general, they live up to these expectations.
You get a very clear idea of what's expected of even the youngest members of noble Houses very early on in this first episode. Here, in the opening scene at Winterfell, as Jon is showing little Bran how to shoot an arrow, he looks up and warns “Your father is watching”, making it obvious that it's important the boy perform well. You would think, at that age, such a thing would not matter, but no: a Stark must be at the top of his game all the time, and even if he would not show it, Lord Eddard would inwardly be disappointed if his son did not hit the target, even if he laughed it off, as he does here when Bran does miss. A tiny example, a microcosm of the world these people live in and the responsibilities that are placed on their shoulders, the burdens they are expected to carry, even from a very young age.
As Ned raises his sword to take the head off the deserter Will, Robb warns Bran not to look away - “Father will know if you do” - the implication clear: never show weakness or be unwilling to face the darkness in the world, for one day it may be you lifting this sword, and you must never show hesitation or fear.
As for Ned himself, even he is under an obligation, one of fealty to his lord and to the land he serves as Warden of the North for, so that though he knows there is danger attached to the offer – command – Robert makes him, he dare not refuse. It is his duty, and duty is a highly prized and very important part of any Stark's life. There is also, on a different level, his friendship with the King. As an old comrade-at-arms and almost a brother, Ned does not want to let his old friend down, and when he realises, reading Lysa's letter to her sister, that Robert's life may be in danger from the Lannisters, he knows he has to step in to help protect him and stop their machinations.
Catelyn, too, is bound by duty. She does not want her husband to go to King's Landing and leave her in Winterfell, but she will not try to stop him. She knows in her heart that he must do this, and though her heart turns cold inside her as she thinks of the trap Ned may be walking into, that same heart must swell, despite herself, with pride that the King would choose Ned as the only loyal retainer he could name as his Hand.
Sansa is also under an obligation, though this will not in fact happen for some time as she is yet too young to legally marry Joffrey, however unlike many of the girls in fantasy stories who are forced to marry someone they don't want to, Sansa is all for the idea. This fits in perfectly with her somewhat innocent worldview, and she sees all hearts and roses in her future. The fact that she will also one day be queen helps too. But if she didn't want to marry Cersei's son, and her father told her to, she knows she would have to obey. It's just, for her, lucky that she has already fallen in love with the golden-haired prince.
Let's not forget poor Daenerys, forced by her brother to wed (unlike Sansa) a man she has never seen, does not love and cannot even share a common language with. But though she does this partially in fear of her brother (his warning, "You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?" is a chilling indication that he will not be above hurting her if she refuses to comply) she also does it out of a sense of loyalty to her House, such as it is, and duty and responsibility. Like many young sisters in fantasy, her main role (she believes, and it would seem to be the case) is to provide her brother, who should be king, a way to regain his throne. If that means sacrificing her virginity, then so be it. No matter how terrified she is, she will do her duty for the honour of House Targaryen and the memory of parents she never even met.
Questions?
Was the death of Jon Arryn a natural one, or is there reason to suspect, and if the latter, how do Cersei and Jaime Lannister fit into that?
Did Will actually see white walkers? We saw him watch something behead his friend, but what?
Will Viserys Targaryen gets hi army? Will Khal Drogo lead his Dothraki across the Narrow Sea to help him retake his throne?
Will Jon Snow join the Night's Watch?
NSFW
The hard-hitting nature of this show is apparent from the first few minutes, when two men of the Night's Watch are brutally cut down, and we see the severed head of one thrown at Will's feet. The execution of Will himself is brutal too, though I would venture to say not too gory as it's quick and kind of filmed from a short distance away. There's a lot of violence in the show, and there's a lot of sex too. These come together in the scene where the two Dothraki are fighting over the same woman, but prior to that we see Viserys undress his sister and there's very little attempt at censorship or modesty, as nearly everything is on display. It's not necessarily full-frontal nudity, but you won't see anyone pulling sheets over themselves in bed, let's put it that way. The sex, at least in this first episode, is generally rough, with little or no love or romance involved, and to some extent that's fine, because I think we're all sick and tired of the coy way lovemaking is often represented in TV shows. Whether it's figures under a bedsheet, silhouettes, darkened rooms or just people who are quite clearly wearing underwear, it's never really been what you'd call authentic. The old novel idea of
“He took her in his arms, crushed her to him. She began to melt ... Next morning blah blah.”
Game of Thrones not only does away with this, it kicks it in the head. Lovers are exposed, literally, and lovemaking (or, let's be honest about it, sex) is dragged screaming from the bedchamber and the boudoir and out into the street, where people couple furtively in alleyways, gardens, and as we see here near the end, on a cliff by the sea. It's pretty brutal for the most part, somewhat pouring cold water (so to speak) on Sansa Stark's romantic ideas of making love, and in almost all cases so far as we can see here anyway, it's always male dominated, with the woman having little or no choice in the matter and reduced more or less to an object. It's not quite rape (not yet) but it's really often rather far from consensual sex.
But that's one of the great things about this series: it really (pardon the pun) doesn't give a f
uck. Fair play to HBO for not editing out the more graphic scenes (so far as I know), whether sex or violence, and as the show goes on you'll see just how down and dirty it can, and will get. Shocks aplenty, and if you're watching it for the first time don't kid yourself you can guess what's coming next, because you can't. Even the end scene here – a literal cliffhanger – takes us all by surprise the first time we see it, the moreso because we're talking about the murder of a child here. But this will be nothing compared to where the show will go in later episodes, and seasons, so make sure you've a strong stomach and an open mind, because you're going to need them!
So far, apart from obvious expansion on characters and history, which is a much slower process on the screen, unless you want to be either really boring or unimaginative, the first episode seems to follow the first chapter of the first book. I see that what Will refers to as white walkers are described simply as the Others in the novel – whether Martin had not decided what to call them, thought this sounded better or whether HBO decided they wanted a more descriptive name for the evil denizens beyond the Wall I don't know, but white walkers are not mentioned in the book. Eddard Stark's sword, called
Ice, is not mentioned in the series at all, it's just a sword, and even the fact that it is made of Valyrian steel is not mentioned. When he beheads Will, Theon kicks the head around playfully. Not sure whether this was regarded as bad taste, or they wanted to portray Theon as a little more sensitive and less callous, or what, but that bit was cut right out. Old Nan, who is a central, if peripheral figure in Bran's childhood, and whose stories seem to form much of the basis of what he knows, or thinks he knows, about the world, is completely absent, not mentioned at all, at least in this first episode. When they come across the dead direwolf and her pups, Jon Snow only says there are five, in the book he goes further: three male, two female. This of course is a much stronger omen to Ned Stark, and it would only have taken a moment to have Jon say, yet they left it out. Not sure why.
The godswood, again a very important place in the books, is not mentioned, though this is where Catelyn finds her husband after he has executed Will. I think they may be mentioned later, possibly in connection with the Night's Watch, but here in the first episode the one at Winterfell is not imparted any additional significance. In the book, the bark of the trees are carved into faces, faces of the gods. This is not mentioned at all. Nor indeed is his wife's House, Tully, which I believe we only find out about later. In the book, Ned talks about Benjen, saying that he has been discussing with him the declining numbers of the Night's Watch, but this is not even (yet) alluded to in this episode, nor is the fact that Will is the fourth man this year that Ned has had to execute, though the book does not make it clear whether the other three had all been deserters too. The Children of the Forest, mentioned here in the book in passing, will come into the story later but are not spoken of here at all.
Naturally, you can put a lot more exposition into a novel, so Martin is better able to give us a sense of who and what Jon Arryn was than he can in the short periods of this first episode in which he is mentioned. When he hears the news of Arryn's death in the novel, Ned urges Catelyn to go to the Eyrie, to comfort her sister, but here he says nothing beyond a quick enquiry as to their health. As for Daenerys, we're told she and her brother have been sheltered by Magister Mopatis for a year now, but the book makes it clear that her mother was still pregnant with her, and Viserys a boy of only eight, when they fled the victorious Robert's vengeance. It also tells us that both the Lannisters and the Starks – who even here we can tell are at best uneasy allies and at worst sworn enemies who barely hold themselves in check, as evidenced by both Ned's dislike for Cersei and his exchange with Jaime at the feast – have good reason to fear and hate the Targaryens, as it was Ned and Robert, with the eventual help of the Lannisters, who defeated Daenerys and Viserys's father, whom we're told was called The Mad King. We also find out that their mother died bearing Daenerys, which may go some way towards explaining Viserys's cruel and cold attitude towards his sister.
More interesting still, and allowing some doubt to rise about the relationship between Cersei and Jaime, is the fact that Targaryens, rather than frown upon it, have for centuries encouraged incest: brothers marry sisters, in order to keep the line pure, and so until she was told she would be basically sold to Khal Drogo as his bride, Daenerys had always assumed she would marry her brother when she came of age. When she meets Drogo in the book they are in a room, and the Khal is on his feet, whereas here he sits astride his horse out in the open, which I think works better. Back at Winterfell, the Imp is with the King's retinue when they arrive, whereas here he has to be dragged from a brothel by his brother; again I think this works better, given Tyrion's lack of interest in social etiquette. In the novel we learn that the “him” Robert refers to when he tells Ned “I kill him every night in my dreams” is Rhaegar Targaryen, son of the Mad King, who was responsible for his wife, Lyanna's death, and that Lysa's son, also called Robert, is to be fostered to Tywin Lannister, something that does not sit well with Ned, for obvious reasons.
Further, and rather oddly, in the novel Sansa Stark is said to be eleven years old at the time of Robert's arrival, yet here she says she is thirteen. Perhaps eleven was seen as too young to convince television viewers she might marry? Or maybe the age was changed to suit the actress, who certainly in this episode does not look eleven or anything like it, especially given that Bran is supposed to be ten, though again in the novel he's said to be only seven. At the feast given in the King's honour, it's Benjen who suggests to Jon Snow that he would be a good man to have in the Night's Watch, whereas here Jon makes the request and Benjen has to consider it. There's a line Tyrion speaks to Jon, which I think would have been good to have been left in, but it's not: he says “All dwarfs are bastards, but not all bastards need be dwarfs.” It's a very telling line, and I wish they had left it in. Anyway, Catelyn reveals in the book that she was originally promised to Ned's brother, Brandon (after whom we must assume he named his second son) but when he died Ned took her as was the custom. She also convinces him, or tries to sway his mind towards being the Hand, whereas here she is against it in just about every way.
The enmity she bears Jon Snow, though in the episode only alluded to by an icy look from her to him, is expanded upon in the novel. Catelyn doesn't blame her husband for fathering a bastard. What she does hate is that he brought him back to Winterfell and treated him as his own son. This is something she cannot forgive him for. A name is ascribed to Jon Snow's mother – Ashara Dayne – which is not mentioned in this episode or at any time since. When she hears that all of her chidren, save the youngest, Rickon, are to accompany Ned to King's Landing, Catelyn declares that Jon Snow may not remain behind, which is something that works to push Ned in the direction of agreeing to allow him to go back with Benjen to the Wall. Finally, when Bran climbs the wall in the final scene of the episode, there's a lot more conversation going on between Cersei and Jaime.
Family
Obviously, family connections, not only within each House but between Houses and other powerful families play a huge part in Game of Thrones, so as in most of my other series writeups in The Couch Potato, here I'll be looking deeply into the ties that bind, and that perhaps even sometimes blind.
(Note: like every other section here bar the above, what I write here will only be based on the TV series, not the novels)
House Lannister
Although we're only introduced briefly to the Lannisters, as compared to the Starks, we can already see a gulf between the two. House Stark (discussed later) seem to be bonded by a sense of honour and duty, and there seems to be genuine love and respect for and by each family member. This does not seem to be a house which is too concerned with intrigue and plotting, but the same cannot be said of the Lannisters, who seem to figure in some pretty major plots. Cersei and Jaime seem to be behind, or have knowledge of the real reasons behind the death of John Arynn, and Jaime has already been referred to as Kingslayer, so we have to wonder how loyal he actually is to the king he now guards? His affection for his brother seems to be genuine on the face of it, but could be informed more by a sense of pity mixed with scorn, as it does not look as if they are too close. The same can't be said for Cersei, in the case of either brother. She may love Jaime, or it may just be sex (though you would have to assume that if that was all it was she could easily have any man she wished) or even the idea of the taboo, the unattainable man. But she hates Tyrion with a passion. Is this because he is a dwarf? Possibly: it seems that Cersei is not one to favour the weak or make any allowances for them.
House Lannister is allied to House Baratheon, the royal House, through Cersei's marriage to Robert, but it's clearly a marriage of strategy and politics, as Robert despises her and she hates him (typical royal couple!) while at the same time realising the safety her marriage to the king affords her, to say nothing of the position. She must have overcome her revulsion to him though, as she has children by him. She intends for her son, Joffrey, to take the Iron Throne when Robert passes away, and will no doubt be the power behind the throne until the boy comes of age, or possibly even after that time. Where Jaime will fit in when that happens is anyone's guess, though you would have to assume she would expect/tell Joffrey to name him as his Hand, taking the position from Ned Stark, who can expect none of the loyalty and friendship from the king's son and his mother as he now enjoys from Robert.
Tyrion is something of an enigma. I think I originally mistakenly wrote he was a bastard. This is not true: he's a trueborn son of Tywin Lannister, as are both Jaime and Cersei, but he remarks to Jon Snow that “to fathers, all dwarfs are bastards.” We're not told at this point exactly why his father seems to hate him, though it's probably a fair bet that he's seen as an embarrassment to House Lannister. In all likelihood, were he a bastard he might not be treated as badly as he is. But Tyrion seems to have woven a shield around him to deflect the disappointment, scorn and rejection he gets from his father, and indeed from his sister. He cloaks his feelings by surrounding himself with meaningless sex, wine and other pursuits, perhaps in an attempt to prove himself a real man. He has sympathy with Snow, who he sees as a fellow outsider, and possibly wonders if life at the Wall might not be so bad after all. He's hardly happy at home.
Tyrion also has an acerbic, cutting wit, which most times is not to most people's taste, given that it is a sardonic, sarcastic style that tends to either lampoon or insult those he does not like (which is about everyone), everyone who looks down on him. He does seem to have a very keen mind, and were it not for the fact that he's a dwarf and despised by him, he could be a real asset to his father's House. As it is, he's barely tolerated.