Game of Thrones: Who the F*** Are All These People?

It’s mcweanis and I’m ba-ack….

You should know that I really, really love you, cause it’s almost finals time at law school and I’m doing this instead of learning about laws and stuff. Okay, I’m about to lay down a semi-short season recap for you, because I know this show is confusing as hell.

Previously, on a Game of Thrones…
Daenerys was sold by her asshat brother Viserys to horse lord Khal Drogo, who raped her on her wedding night, and then they inexplicably fell in love, and Daenerys got preggo. Drogo killed Viserys for being a dick, and then Drogo was injured by one of his minions when Daenerys intervened to keep the menfolk from fulfilling their rape tradition on some newly conquered peasant ladies. Daenerys asked a newly captured peasant lady magician to help cure Drogo, but instead she put Drogo in a coma and killed Daenery’s baby in her belly. Drogo was burned on a funeral pyre; Daenerys walked into the fire with three dragons eggs and emerged unburned with some cute little baby dragons!

Robert Baratheon, King of Westeros, went to ask his bff Ned Stark to be his new Hand (VP) since his old Hand mysteriously died. Ned really didn’t want to because he likes the snowy, stoic North, but he goes down with his daughters Arya and Sansa to the depraved Southern capital, King’s Landing.
This doesn’t go well for him. He finds out that the Queen, Cersei, and her twin brother, Jaime, have been doin it, and thats the source of the little princes and princesses. AKA the king has no legitimate heir. King Robert is mysteriously killed on a hunting trip before Ned can tell him, and Ned doesn’t play his knowledge too well. He gets mad betrayed by one of the king’s advisors (and his wife’s ex-lover) Littlefinger, and the new incest bastard King Joffrey has Ned’s head chopped off. Bye Sean Bean, most famousest guy on the show! I always thought your name rhymed when I was little!

At Winterfell, the Stark hood, Ned’s son Bran has also discovered the incest secret, which resulted in him being shoved out a window by Jaime. Unfortunately for the incestwins, he survived and was all comalicious. Even more unfortunately, the assassin they sent to take him out was stopped and his knife identified… as belonging to the third, unincestuous but instead really short sibling, the dwarf Tyrion.

Tyrion probably didn’t actually do it; he may be a drinking, whoring, generally nihilistic little asshole, but as far as I’m concerned he’s a good person deep down. This is possibly just because I want to bone Peter Dinklage though. Anyway, Ned’s wife Catelyn took shit into her own hands, and by shit I mean Tyrion, arresting him and bringing him to her sister’s place. Her sister, wife of the aforementioned departed former Hand, is seriously CRAY CRAY and this results in some gratuitous mom/eight year old son breastfeeding scenes.

(almost as creepy as this: http://www.thefrisky.com/2008-11-12/breastfeeding-is-beautifulwhen-its-not-downright-creepy/)

Anyway, Tyrion clears his name through a trial by battle, fights some hill tribes, and makes his away back to his daddy,Tywin, who clearly has some issues with Tyrion for killing the mom when his large dwarf head was birthed. Despite this, Tywin makes Tyrion the latest Hand of the king. Here’s hoping three is the lucky number for not dying while being Hand.

Hmm, what else? The rest of the Starks, particularly sexy ginger Robb, are not too happy with Ned’s head being chopped off and a gross little asshole incest boy being king, and the north people declare Robb King of the North and go off to fight. In order to get down there, Robb has to promise his hand in marriage to some nasty chick (more on that later). At a big battle which HBO cheaply skimped out on and didn’t show, Robb captures Jaime.

Some other peeps want to be king too, such as Robert’s older brother Stannis, an uninspiring hardass, and his younger brother Renly, an untested pretty boy who also happens to be gay.

Umm… let’s see. Little boy Bran is now paralyzed and riding around on a giant mentally challenged man named Hodor. He also has a servant lady named Osha – a savage wildling from beyond the Wall!

Speaking of the Wall, Jon Snow is freezing his butt off on the Wakk with the Night’s Watch, protecting the realm from wildlings and from scary new ice zombies.

Redhead sis Sansa is still betrothed to Joffrey, the butthead boy king; her smart and more awesome sister Arya has gone into hiding with a Night’s Watch as a boy, Arry.

Also, there was lots of gratuitous sex! And lots of additional creepy male characters who you shall discover in time. Oh, did I mention all of the Starks plus Jon Snow have baller wolf pet/familiar thingies? Which are actually being played by wolves this year instead of digitally enhanced doggies?

And here were are, just a few pages later! Read the book, people.

We open on Joffrey’s name day/b-day, which he celebrates by ordering various knights to fight each other to the death. What a great way to maintain your military strength for the coming war. Sansa, who used to be obsessed with Joffrey, has seen the error of her ways now that he murdered her dad and all. But she’s still got to pretend to love and respect him, what with that penchant for beheading people and all.

constipated birthdays are the worst.

When one of the knights show up a tid bit nippily… I mean tipsy… Joffrey is excited to take advantage of the opportunity to funnel wine into him until he dies. That’s very Dothraki fiesta of him. Sansa and the Hound come to the rescue, telling him blatant murder is bad luck on a birthday; Sansa suggests using him as a fool instead.

high on life

Speaking of the type of person traditionally used as a fool in medieval courts, in walks Tyrion! Yaay! He displays a bit of sympathy for Sansa since half her family is dead and the other half she must renounce as traitors. He then marches, whistling,  off to his official business…. new Hand of the King! AKA, pissing off Cersei! (Sidnote… I always wonder if grandpa Tywin knows about the incest… I think not. He’s definitely a dick but his top priority is the honor of the family.)

Tyrion tries to explain to Cersei that their side is losing the war and that Joffrey is an idiot. He has a plan to get the captive Jaime back by trading Sansa and Arya. Cersei breaks the news that Arya has magically disappeared; the Stark captive population is down from three to one (one missing a head, one missing in general, and one Sansa.)

Meanwhile, in a much more dismal hall, Bran is getting sassed by some cranky lord who’s house is getting all ratty cause all the men are off fighting. He’s being assisted by the old bald Maester, since a crippled little grumpus is probably not an ideal Lord of Winterfell.
Cut to a dream, where Bran is running in the woods as a wolf. Poor boo will never run again. His lady peasant slave takes one look at him after he wakes up and knows he’s having some mystical dreams, but Bran won’t admit it. He changes the subject to the big shiny comet in the sky, which could mean several things… Stark victory, Lannister victory, dragons…

cue lazy scene transition.

Daenery’s dragons are hungry, but she doesn’t have any meaty noms for them. Luckily… for the dragons but not the pony/everyone depending on the pony, Daenerys’ beautiful white horse keels over at that moment. Drogo gave it to her on her wedding day! Right before the very romantic rape!

acceptably good cgi

Daenerys orders her sexy khaleesi horsemen to go find cities or lakes or some shit other than a desert. She flirts with one of them before he leaves.. he has a short braid, which means he sucks at fighting. Who is this guy she’s depending on? “You are my last hope?” Anybody?

Cut to the other wasteland, the frozen kind, where Jon Snow and his Night’s Watch compatriots are riding on their zombie hunt. They arrive at a cabin, home of Croster, the incest capital of Westeros (which is actually a feat on this show). Croster marries all his daughters and makes more daughters with them and then marries them. He tells Jon he’s pretty and asks if he has a nice wet twat. What a charmer!

Here’s some exposition… not sexposition, luckily, since everyone in this house is really closely related… all of the villages between the Wall and Croster’s are abandoned. Everyone’s joined Mance Rayder’s army and heading south. Mance Rayder’s the “King Beyond the Wall” (since we need another king, obviously); he used to be on the Night’s Watch. Traitor alert!

We now transition to a beach… oooh, it’s Melisandre, the red sorceress! I’m a little bit disappointed; I expected her to look older and harsher.

instead they cast Phoenix. flashback to worst x-men movie.

She’s prophesizing away and burning all of the “false idols” of the seven gods. She seems to have would-be King Stannis wrapped around her finger. I get distracted when religious people talk so I can’t really tell you what’s going on, but Stannis grabs a fiery sword and that’s good or something. He’s ready to claim the Iron Throne, recently vacated by his not beloved bro Robert, and he’s sending letters to all the lords to ask for their support. Unfortunately, as loyal servant Davos points out, half the continent has already declared for one of the other kings. Stannis refuses to ally with any of them, even his little bro.

One old white haired dude is not pleased about the blasphemy going on, and he tries to poison Melisandre. He drinks from the cup first, and she watches him start to die from the poison and then drinks it for herself anyway, and she doesn’t get sick. Cause her fiery god is magic and stuff.

Robb Stark is carting prisoner Jaime around on all his battles, wearing a very s&m little collar. Robb’s afraid if he leaves Jaime with any of his men, they’ll sell him back to the Lannisters for a million golds. Jaime tries to taunt Robb about being a baby boy, but he’s outsmarted by Robb’s terrifying wolf. Woo! These are way scarier! AMINALSZZ

wolf squee with ghost control panel special effects

Tyrion has brought his secret mistress, prostitute Shae, to live with him in King’s Landing – against his father’s express wishes. (Again, if Tywin is against hookers, I can’t imagine his incest views.) This scene is kind of cute, other than the talk about cum. Well, I guess it depends on your taste.

(very expensive, illicit, cum-tinged) snuggles

Cersei asks Littlefinger, sneaky mcsneakerson, to help locate Arya. Littlefinger recommends that Cersei ask the other sneaky mcsneakerson around, Varys the Spider, where Arya is. They do a little reciprocal taunting. Cersei makes fun of Littlefinger for being in love with Catelyn, who ditched him for Ned; Littlefinger taughts Cersei for banging her own brother. Littlefinger says “knowledge is power;” Cersei has her guards seize him and almost cut his throat to illustrate that actually, power is power.

Robb sends a Lannister cousin (there are a lot of them) to Tywin with his peace terms. They sound pretty reasonable until he gets to Joffrey and the Lannisters giving up the right of all the lands in the north so Robb can be King in the North. Yea… that’s not going to happen, which both Robb and his bro Theon know. Theon wants Robb to join forces with the Greyjoys, his family, who have ships and stuff to help take King’s Landing. Robb’s not so hot on this, since Greyjoy fought in a rebellion against Ned (and the throne) in the past; that’s how Theon ended up as Ned’s ward in the first place – Greyjoy was punished by losing his only son.

Catelyn is not feeling that plan, and wants to trade Jaime for Sansa and Arya. Robb says no cause, you know, they’re girls (useless, unimportant, weak, etc…) Catelyn wants to go home and see her other kids, Bran and Rickon (who has had like three seconds of screen times) but Robb orders her to go south instead, to try to get Renly to join forces with the Starks.

in case you forgot what rugged yet sensitive looks like

And now a scene reminding us why Joffrey is the worrrrst. He opens his conversation with his momma Cersei with the hope that Arya is dead in a ditch somewhere, following with this criticism of the Starks: “They’re weak. They put too much value on their women.” He then outright accuses his mom of banging his brother, and asks about Robert’s bastards: “I’m asking if he fucked other women when he grew tired of you.” She then slaps him real good. I hope someones makes that a gif like the Tyrion slap!

Oh, finally, some boobs! We’re back in Littlefingers brothel, doing some more sex skill training, when some guards storm in! Looks like Littlefinger has lost some of his cred with the royalty. What are they after? The very same babe in arms that Ned found – one of Robert’s bastards. WHAT! They just killed that baby! THEY JUST KILLED A BABY! That is legit. There is not a lot of baby killing going on on tv, even within the belly baby killing. There’s then a montage of the guards going around killing all of Robert’s bastards, of various ages. I count at least four. This is really intense. Lannisters are the worst.

The last bastard, Gendry, can’t be found… he already joined up on the Night’s Watch with Arya. But they’ll find him, from his bull’s head helmet. The episode closes on Arya/Arry and Gendry riding north on their wagon, unaware that the King’s Guard is coming to bring the hammer down. EEEE!

arya as boy/rebellious teenage girl from 90s. plus bonus control panel!

This season looks pretty great so far. As those of you who have read the books know, some serious stuff is about to go down. Probably not more serious than a montage of murdering a bunch of children, but still pretty serious. I hope the darkness doesn’t scare too many people away from this show, cause it needs a lot of viewers to hold up the ridiculous budget – all of their sets are on-site this time instead of cgi’d! My one problem is there’s SO MANY CHARACTERS. In a book you can hurry ahead to read about the ones you like, but TV has you trapped for a week. Me, I like to stick with Tyrion and Arya, who didn’t even get a word in this week. But I guess that’s the beauty and the curse of the book. I hope you guys can all follow; please leave comments, qs and suggestions!

~mcweanis