S01.E01: Winter Is Coming

[Meredith Quill]

Episode Synopsis:

 

Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell learns that his mentor, Jon Arryn, has died and that King Robert is on his way north to offer Ned Arryn’s position as the King’s Hand. Across the Narrow Sea in Pentos, Viserys Targaryen plans to wed his sister Daenerys to the nomadic Dothraki warrior leader, Khal Drogo to forge an alliance to take the throne.

 

Reminder: There is open air book talk here. If you are just watching the TV show and you don't want to stumble into a potential spoiler you should leave now. Book Talk assumes you have read all the books to date. Any information from unpublished books, such as preview chapters should be in spoiler tags.

[FemmyV]

I'm sure we've all re-watched this a few times. I went back for the first time in a while, and here're the night's thoughts:

 

The first 15 minutes, alone, give us: one of the creepiest intros in TV history (the White Walkers); introduction to the Starks and their family dynamics; who's a Stark, who's not a Stark (Theon), who's half Stark (Jon), and who has a problem with that (Cat); a beheading, and a ridiculously large sword.

 

PUPPIES!

 

Theon establishes himself as a major asshole, while Jon establishes himself as a natural leader (funny, in retrospect, Kit has probably 4x as many lines as Richard Madden (Robb), and in KL, Cersei and Jamie establish They Have a Big Secret.

 

Gratuitous beefcake shot #1: Robb, Jon & Theon in for their shaves.

Gratuitous cheesecake shot #1: Tyrion at the whorehouse.

 

Sad foreshadowing: Bran climbing the rooftops.

 

Most unusual moment in any historical fiction I've ever seen or read: A king whose first demand on landing at a fief estate involves a visit to the crypt, so he can moon over the unrequited love he lost 15 years before. Just think about that. How many novels have you ever read where a King comes to visit a vassal, and the first thing he wants to do is lay a wreath for the chick he never got to bang?

 

Sansa: the funny thing about Sansa is, all the things we complain about from the latter seasons, she's doing! She's manipulating people to get exactly what she wants. Problem is, what she wants is Joffrey. Still, at this point, there's no indication about what he's about to become.

 

Jon/Tyrion: Kid, I've got a feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship. And man, Tyrion's hair is as light, possibly lighter than, that of his siblings this early in.

 

Surprisingly hot couple: Ned / Jaime. There, I said it. These two have major hard-ons for each other, but Jamie, especially, gives off the vibe he'd drop everything to mount Ned if he could. And Cat did one of her few smart things in this episode, but it was futile: she tried to talk Ned out of going to KL.

 

Finally for WF, isn't it funny that Bran was considered old enough to watch his father behead someone, but is not old enough to go hunting with the big boys?

 

Meanwhile, in the Free Cities, we meet exiled sibling royals, Dany & Viserys, who also appear to possibly have an inappropriate relationship. Certainly an abusive one. Dany's being sold by her bro, so that he can raise an army to invade Westeros and get the throne back.  What Dany's getting out of the deal is a few books, a few fossilized dragons' eggs, a gorgeous horse, and a massive husband to ride off into the sunset with, where the show's writers have changed what was a mutually consensual, charged, sex scene, into rape. That, too, may have been a foreshadowing.

 

One of the things that strikes me about the juxtaposition between Dany and Sansa: Dany was the dutiful, submissive one, while Sansa was everything opposite of what she's been since Ned's head came off: willful and working it to get what she wants. It's like the two of them changed places over the course of the show, since Dany got the far better outcome of the two.

Edited July 11, 2015 by FemmyV

[Audreythe2nd]

Kudos to you FemmyV; this was one of the most apt, funniest recaps I've read. Especially this:

Surprisingly hot couple: Ned / Jaime. There, I said it. These two have major hard-ons for each other, but Jamie, especially, gives off the vibe he'd drop everything to mount Ned if he could.

 

Had me snorting with laughter. Early foreshadowing that Jaime is secretly into the noble knights.

What Dany's getting out of the deal is a few books, a few fossilized dragons' eggs, a gorgeous horse, and a massive husband to ride off into the sunset with, where the show's writers have changed what was a mutually consensual, charged, sex scene, into rape. That, too, may have been a foreshadowing.

 

I've been telling people that Game of Thrones is a show that really lays all its cards on the table in the first episode, for better or for worse. There's really nothing that happens in five seasons that should be surprising if you paid attention to the first episode (in terms of what they're going to show us, and how they are going to tell the story). 

[Lady S.]

TV Jaime really does have a fixation on Ned, between waiting for him in the throne room in ep 3 and the pilot's very telling feast flirting.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Lady S.

[John Potts]

FemmyV a massive husband to ride off into the sunset with, where the show's writers have changed what was a mutually consensual, charged, sex scene, into rape.

 

 

That change never bothered me. Not (I don't think, anyway) because I'm a guy, but because it just never made sense to me that a man who is so uber macho would ever consider her feelings when it came to exercising his "conjugal rights" (it's not like he does any other night). To Khal Drogo, his marriage to Danny is (at first, at any rate) purely to give him a claim to the Iron Throne.

 

Viserys shows what a charmer he is with his "I would let his whole Khalasar fuck you and their horses too if it would buy me the throne." Can't imagine why you've had trouble winning allies with an attitude like that!

[Avaleigh]

God, NCW looks young there. 

 

One scene from the pilot that I love is the added scene between Jaime and Cersei while they're talking in front of Jon Arryn's body. (Jaime and Cersei do get their share of scenes together in front of dead bodies, don't they? I almost want Myrcella's funeral to be at King's Landing just so that we can make this a thing, only, you know, without the rape.) Hints of Jaime's bravery/foolishness and Cersei running to tell their father on him, probably trying to make herself look better. Cersei telling Jaime that he should be Hand. This is something that hasn't been brought up by her since and it's interesting because it's later in the books when she really wants it to happen at one point. 

 

Arya throwing the fruit bothered me here. It's like it's supposed to be cute but to me she was just being obnoxious to Sansa for no particular reason. 

 

That change never bothered me. Not (I don't think, anyway) because I'm a guy, but because it just never made sense to me that a man who is so uber macho would ever consider her feelings when it came to exercising his "conjugal rights" (it's not like he does any other night). To Khal Drogo, his marriage to Danny is (at first, at any rate) purely to give him a claim to the Iron Throne.

 

Viserys shows what a charmer he is with his "I would let his whole Khalasar fuck you and their horses too if it would buy me the throne." Can't imagine why you've had trouble winning allies with an attitude like that!

The change didn't bother me either. 

 

In the books what's strange is how Drogo cares on the first night and then doesn't care for weeks/months how Dany feels after that first time. He either doesn't care or doesn't notice that he's hurting her each night and making her cry. He also ignores her the rest of the time and this makes it all the more lonely and sad for her. She gets to the point where she'd rather die than go on so to me it's better that the show didn't ignore how difficult of a transition it was for her and how she really did feel as though she was sold to Drogo to be used as a kind of slave and that this is a big part of where her empathy for slaves comes from. 

 

As screwed up as it sounds, I've always thought that Drogo's treatment of Dany on the first night was the way he'd treat and break in a fine and expensive horse. He's gentle and whispering, but is also firm, in control, and on top. In some ways I think there are still some residual effects from her sex life with Drogo. I can't recall where it is in ADWD but there's a point where she thinks to herself that Daario wouldn't stop having sex with her even if she asked him to and it's pretty apparent that thinking he's the type who is capable of rape is kind of a turn on to her. 

 

If the show had made the first encounter full consensual with Dany saying yes then I don't think the impact of her situation would have been the same. 

[SeanC]

Sansa: the funny thing about Sansa is, all the things we complain about from the latter seasons, she's doing! She's manipulating people to get exactly what she wants. Problem is, what she wants is Joffrey. Still, at this point, there's no indication about what he's about to become.

Jon/Tyrion: Kid, I've got a feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship. And man, Tyrion's hair is as light, possibly lighter than, that of his siblings this early in.

I wouldn't say what Sansa is doing is manipulation. She's asking openly and without any underhandedness.

I agree about Tyrion's hair. It's rather jarring, looking back. The darker colour used in later seasons works better for Dinklage, perhaps unsurprisingly since it's closer to his natural hair colour.

Edited August 7, 2015 by SeanC

[Lady S.]

Wow, Avaleigh, the breaking in an expensive horse comparison is actually a really fitting way to describe Dany/Drogo's first time in the book. It really doesn't make sense to me think of it in terms of tender romance or him truly understanding consent, since his subsequent treatment shows the foreplay was a one-time thing, but the book makes numerous references to how Dothraki life is centered around horses and how a Dothraki values his horse.

[toolazy]

But Drago and Dany end up loving each other - her marriage starts out badly but definitely gets better.  Remember how she got sex lessons from one of her handmaids?  And remember the scene where Dany basically turns the tables on Drogo?  That was the start of a sort of sad, doomed love story.