Game of Thrones begins....

[Siege]

Well....that was dissapointing.

• No battle? WTF? I mean no fighting whatsoever! Gah! Should have at least had bits of some battles. I mean, Sharpe managed it, hardly gonna blow the budget.
  

They didn't really show the battle in the books either.

What are you talking about?
Tyrion charged leading his mountain clansmen. Gregore Clagane broke the northmen's spear wall by charging home and losing his horse in the process. Tyrion captured a northern knight by stabbing the dude's horse using the spike on top of his helmet. Tywin's plan, which expected the left flank deployed alongside the Red Fork to collapse since it was made of irregulars and sellswords, was for Ser Kevan Lannister, commanding the center of the Lannister formation, to wheel left and pin the northmen against the river, while Lord Tywin would bring the reserve up from the rear completing the encircle against the river. But the Left flank didn't collapse, and the northmen that didn't die in the clash were able to break contact and head back north towards the Twins.

The battle of Whispiring Woods is told from Catelyn's point of view, who mostly heard rather than see the battle. It was a night battle after all. I have always wondered how well can cavalry charge at night time.
I guess it depends of the illum from the moon.

[Josquius]

They didn't really show the battle in the books either.

IIRC the battle in the forest is just talked about afterwards yeah, but we do see Tyrion in battle.

• A book point really but...why on Earth doesn't Ned shout 'I take it back, I lied. Stannis is the king.' or the like there at the end?
  

Ned doesn't take it back because he only "confessed" to save his daughters.  To recant after the change to his fate would serve even less of a purpose.  Now he would be a liar, an oath breaker, a traitor, and his daughters would be dead as well probably.

Forgot about that, makes sense.

[Queequeg]

When Jory Mormont was fighting, he used his armor to win the fight. I liked that they made it clear that yeah, having a shitload of armor really is a lot better than not having a shitload of armor.

This is something that really pissed me off about the Dothraki. The peoples of the steppe were some of the best metallurgists in the world.  Tribes that didn't know anything about agriculture would outfit a few warriors in near-total armor.  Any people that adopted some stupid cultural taboo against armor would pretty quickly be slaughtered by people in armor.

The Dothraki generally appear to be living at some point in the Bronze Age.  I don't know how they are expected to conquer Westeros.   

[Josquius]

They outnumber knights greatly, most Westeros troops aren't so armoured.

Maybe they historically had some sort of non-armour magical protection?
Also they totally dominate the steppe so theres no room for an armour using competitor to arise, any horde tries that and the other hordes will come down on them I guess.

[Queequeg]

One tribe would start using armor, and !surprise! start slaughtering the others.  Pretty soon, that tribe dominates, and the rest are copying them. 

That's how the steppe worked in reality.  Anything else is absurd.  Life was hard.  War was constant.  Stupidity got you slaughtered, and your women and flocks stolen.

[Josquius]

That one tribe would be outnumbered greatly, theres a unity with the Dothraki not seen in real world steppe peoples. The herectics would be squished. Especially since most of their number would likely defect and its unlikely they'd be able to armour more than a handfull of their men.

[HVC]

One tribe would start using armor, and !surprise! start slaughtering the others.  Pretty soon, that tribe dominates, and the rest are copying them. 

That's how the steppe worked in reality.  Anything else is absurd. 

Dude, fanatasy.

[Valmy]

One tribe would start using armor, and !surprise! start slaughtering the others.  Pretty soon, that tribe dominates, and the rest are copying them. 

That's how the steppe worked in reality.  Anything else is absurd.  Life was hard.  War was constant.  Stupidity got you slaughtered, and your women and flocks stolen.

The Dothraki are not that important do not sweat it.  We will just have a small group of them around going forward.

[Eddie Teach]

The Dothraki generally appear to be living at some point in the Bronze Age.  I don't know how they are expected to conquer Westeros.

I thought Dany's army consists mainly of freed slaves?

[MadImmortalMan]

 

Don't worry, Ned Stark comes back.


The Tleilaxu make a ghola out of him.

[viper37]

Sean Bean is a real hero

Funny story, in a way.

[Josquius]

Despite his wounds, Bean refused any medical attention and opted not to go to a hospital.

Instead, the actor accepted a first aid kit from the bar staff, then ordered another drink.

And hanging out with 22 year old models at 52...good man. Always thought he was married though.

[Siege]

Sean Bean is 52?

[Habbaku]

Despite his wounds, Bean refused any medical attention and opted not to go to a hospital.

Instead, the actor accepted a first aid kit from the bar staff, then ordered another drink.

And hanging out with 22 year old models at 52...good man. Always thought he was married though.

He's been married 4 or 5 times, as I recall.

[Berkut]

Blogger review:

Blogger's review:

"GAME OF THRONES "Baelor" Season 1 Episode 9 – Ever since I heard that HBO was going to adapt George RR Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire for the television screen, a number of thoughts went through my head, mainly concerning the casting choices because above all, it's the characters in A Game of Thrones I love the most. But one scene in the first book stood out to me and I've been itching to see how creators David Benioff and DB Weiss bring it to screen, and that is the beheading of Ned Stark. It's the biggest twist in the books: Martin allows the reader to clutch on to Ned Stark as the central character. He may not be the protagonist, but he is certainly the central character: he brings the Lannisters and the Starks together. When HBO's Game of Thrones started airing the promotional material, I was so fucking smug.

First of all, they cast Sean Bean in the role of Ned Stark. Bean is an actor with very naturalistic tendencies, and in a potentially showy role like Ned Stark, he was wonderfully low key and truthful. He is also a pretty famous actor and easily the most famous actor of the cast of Game of Thrones. So HBO focused all of their posters and promos around Sean Bean's Ned Stark. Clearly, HBO was saying, Ned Stark is your Harry Potter, your Rand al'Thor, your Holden Caulfield. He is your unquestionable protagonist.

So in Ned Stark's final episode, what did creators do? They shifted the focus away from King's Landing, away from Sansa and Arya and Cersei and Joffrey and Ned Stark himself. Instead they focused on Tyrion and Jon Snow and Dany, giving Ned Stark a scene in the beginning of the episode, leaving him behind, and then abruptly moving back to him, through the eyes of Arya, in the last ten minutes of the episode. He did not get the standard melodramatic sappy scene with Sansa. There was no final parting with Arya through the iron bars of his prison cell. There was no moment of "If I don't make it, tell my wife." because Ned Stark was going to make it. By all accounts he should have. He was brought to the dais in front of the people of the Seven Kingdoms and, seeing the dire positions his daughters were in, one scruffy and alone, clinging to the base of a statue of Baelor, the other in high fashion, a prisoner of the castle, he had no choice at all. Honor be damned, he wanted his daughters safe. He confessed his treason. He should have been shown the mercy Cersei promised him. He should have been sent to the Wall.

Joffrey. You little shit.

When I rewound the beheading scene, I found myself smiling gleefully at two things. The first is Lena Headey's reaction as Cersei when Joffrey expresses his smug righteous delight when Ned declares that Joffrey is the true heir. No one can look as simultaneously triumphant and condescending as Cersei. The other thing I loved was Jack Gleeson's entire speech, especially his delivery of the line "Bring me his head!" Just...beautiful. In a terrible way, of course (I'm totally not a sadist.)

Unlike Joffrey, who is of course a little shit. He's a stupid little shit, flexing his muscles. He's the kind of jackass who would call his biceps "big guns" and give them names. But instead of biceps he has a crown and an Iron Throne. His mother, Cersei, master manipulator, had a plan, and Joffrey had to fuck it up by gorging on power and sadism. Cersei knew that sending Ned Stark to the Wall would not only be safe, but smart. Having shown Ned Stark clemency, Robb Stark and his army haven't a leg to stand on. Arya is lost, Ned is on the Wall, Sansa is betrothed to Joffrey. Why the hell would they even dare think of raising a finger to the Lannisters?

But Joffrey had to flex his big guns, didn't he? You can see Cersei pleading with him to recant.

Most tragically about that beheading scene, is that you can see Arya and Sansa both struggling to reach their father. Sansa is held back by a soldier and forced to watch everything. Arya, from her vantage point at the foot of the statue of Baelor, leaps into the crowd, tugging at Needle, before she, by her father's last command, is intercepted in the crowd. Ned Stark's final moment is saved for a glance at the statue of Baelor: seeing Arya is not there, and does not have to bear witness to his gruesome end, he bends his neck.

Holy cow. I think I might cry. It was so daring of the creators to structure the episode like this, so beautifully shot by director Alan Taylor. It's early to call, but this scene may one day go to the pantheon of "Best moments in television. Ever."