Game of Thrones A-Z (20 page)

The viewer is led to believe Ned has escaped his fate after Varys visits him, once again, and begs him to pledge his allegiance to the King and Cersei, who will let him see out the rest of his life as a member of the Night’s Watch if he pledges his allegiance. However, Ned declines such demands, but Varys makes one last attempt by telling him to think of his children, which seems to hit a chord with him.

Meanwhile, Daenerys has problems of her own – her beloved Drogo is struggling with the infected wound that he received from one of his own fighters. The slave healer is ordered by Daenerys to save Drogo’s life, even if it’s by using black magic.

Elsewhere, Robb outwits the Lannister army, capturing Jaime in the process and taking him as a prisoner.

Back in King’s Landing, Stark is taken to the court, where he spots his daughter near the statue of the Great Sept of Baelor. He shouts the name Baelor to Night’s Watchman Yoren, signalling where his daughter is. Ned confesses his supposed crime, but Joffrey goes against his mother’s wishes and orders him to be beheaded.

TRIVIA

‘It comes as a shock to everybody – everybody, except this young little brat that’s sat on the throne,’ Sean Bean told 
AccessHollywood.com
 about his death. ‘I thought it was a very dramatic ending, a very dramatic thing to do, to kill.

I suppose I was playing the lead, you know, and you just get killed.

‘You can play it for the kind of sympathy vote, but then you’re signalling that there’s gonna be some head chopping off, so I kind of, as Ned, thought, “Well, look, I’ve had to form an alliance with someone in order to save my children’s lives.” It was a wonderful moment to have the stage to yourself, as it were, and to make a speech like that. I know it’s kind of tragic circumstances, but it’s very enthralling, very thrilling to be acting that kind of thing.’

The drinking game between Tyrion, Bronn and Shae (Tyrion’s whore) was added to the series’ plot and isn’t in the book.

Martin said about German actress Sibel Kekilli, who plays prostitute Shae, ‘A lot of beautiful young women read for Shae. But there’s another dimension to Shae as well. She’s not as practised and hardened at this as a more seasoned pro. There’s still a girl-next-door quality to her, a sense of vulnerability, playfulness and, yes, innocence. All of our Shaes were hot as hell. But only a handful of them captured that other quality, maybe three out of 20, and Sibel was the standout. Watching those auditions, any red-blooded male would want to take every one of our Shae candidates to bed, but Sibel made you fall in love with her as well.’

POST-ANALYSIS

‘Baelor’ had 2.7 million viewers, almost matching the previous week’s season high. A critic on sci-fi, fantasy blog 
Suvudu
 said, ‘It’s without a doubt my favourite episode of the season so far. Everything came together in a glorious hour of television: great writing, exceptional acting, a score that suddenly came alive in a way it hadn’t before, the consummate direction of one of television’s best directors.’

Fire and Blood

Season one, episode ten

Written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss

Directed by Alan Taylor

This is the final episode of series one, which moves swiftly, giving fans no chance to recover from the death of Ned Stark.

Ned’s daughter Arya is dragged off by Yoren, who cuts off her hair so she can be passed off as a boy and go unnoticed by the Lannisters. Catelyn and Robb meet up in grief over his death, and vow to exact their revenge on the Lannisters.

King Joffrey continues to show off his violent streak, ordering a singer who penned an offensive song about his family to have his tongue ripped out. He then gleefully shows Sansa her father’s decapitated head.

Tywin Lannister begrudgingly credits Tyrion for his strategic skills, and orders him to be the acting Hand to King Joffrey while he is away.

Daenerys is told by Jorah Mormont that her son has died during childbirth, and that her beloved Drogo is in a catatonic state. She kills Drogo out of mercy and constructs a pyre to burn him. She steps into the fire with the dragon eggs and miraculously survives, with the dragons hatched.

TRIVIA

Ned’s head was shown early on to prove to viewers that he was dead.

‘There was a bunch of viewers who had a denial reaction – that Ned couldn’t possibly be dead,’ said Weiss. ‘However, in episode 10 we make it clear he’s dead. There was a lot of discussion over how many frames of sword-into-neck to include.’

Sean Bean, who played Ned, said that, when he read Martin’s book, Ned Stark’s death was as much of a shock to him as anyone. ‘It’s a dummy of my head,’ Bean said in an interview with 
New York Magazine
. ‘I was holding it at one point, which was a really creepy feeling, to hold my head and look at it. It was very heavy, just like a proper head!’

The show landed in hot water after Benioff and Weiss admitted that one of the heads next to Stark’s was a prosthetic one of George W. Bush. They insisted it was ‘not a choice, it’s not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around.’

The comments caused an outcry, and they tried to defuse the situation, saying, ‘We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk.’ They added, ‘After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W Bush. In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologise if anything we said or did suggested otherwise.’

HBO was seemingly furious, and released this statement:

‘We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste. We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologised immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production.’

In the commentary, Benioff and Weiss revealed that they looked at more than 200 actresses for the part of Arya. In another interview, they said, ‘We are so used to seeing child roles, in television shows or movies, and in stories like this, being peripheral, and they don’t have to say much. If they’re doing much, it’s really just acting as little innocent creatures. The kids in George’s books are very, very different. Those three Stark children have amazingly important roles, and they each go off in their different directions. For the most part, they’re without their parents around. They’re following their own storylines. So, it was amazingly important to find the right kids, and we were terrified. Especially in Hollywood, you see so many kids, and they’re adorable and very poised, and they have got mannerisms already worked out, but there is nothing very real-seeming about them. We wanted kids who were going to feel like real kids, and who had to perform in amazingly difficult scenes, watching horrible things happen to family members and just be tortured. And, those three kids delivered, beyond our imagination.’

Marillion, the singer, is maimed in the third book, but they decided to push it forward to this episode to showcase Joffrey’s evil side.

One of the big scenes in the final episode is when Yoren chops off Arya’s hair. The young actress who plays Arya, Maisie Williams, wore a wig for the scene, which she had to endure for five or six takes, with the production team sewing the hair pieces on, only for them to be hacked off again. It was made out of synthetic hair so it could break more easily. In season two, Williams cut her hair for real.

POST-ANALYSIS

Over three million viewers watched the episode and it was the most-watched episode of the season. The reviews were universally positive, especially for the final scene featuring Daenerys. It promised fans that they were in for a treat for the second season. 
IGN
 said, ‘Of course, if anyone can think of a more jaw-dropping way to end things than a hot naked chick covered in smouldering ash, with three newborn dragons climbing on her, then I’ll eat my iron helm.’

The North Remembers

Season two, episode one

Written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss

Directed by Alan Taylor

On 1 April 2012, the first episode of the second series began, with fans engrossed in the TV as war gripped the Seven Kingdoms.

It’s King Joffrey’s Name Day, and a tournament is held to celebrate the occasion. Sansa is by his side, putting on a defiant façade as a meek woman.

Tyrion makes his presence known, notifying his nephew that he will be his Hand – something that Cersei is less than happy about. Tyrion hides his lover, Shae, from everyone in the Keep after his father forbids him from seeing whores.

The viewer is finally introduced to Stannis Baratheon and his controversial adviser Melisandre – a fire sorceress.

He believes he is the rightful heir to the throne, and is getting ready for the invasion of King’s Landing. There is also the King of the North, Robb Stark, who demands the release of his sisters for their Lannister prisoner Jaime, not realising that Arya isn’t being held captive.

Renly Baratheon is also staking a claim for his place on the throne.

Rumours that Joffrey is not really Robert’s son, but the product of an incestuous affair between brother and sister, has swept through Westeros – and Joffrey gives the order to kill Robert’s bastards, including, in a terrifyingly brutal scene, an infant child.

One of those bastards, Gendry, has left the city to join the Night’s Watch, along with Arya, who is now posing as a boy.

As for Daenerys, her numbers have diminished following the death of Drogo and they are facing starvation, so she continues to seek shelter for her loyal people.

TRIVIA

Carice van Houten was asked to audition for another part in season one before landing the role of Melisandre, but scheduling conflicts prevented that.

Weiss admitted there were deviations from the second book, but ‘only because there are characters that are off screen in the book. A lot of the changes keep people front and centre who are very important characters.’ Benioff added, ‘We’re adapting 
A Song of Ice and Fire
. So we’re bringing in elements from 
A Storm of Swords
. We don’t think of this season as being strictly an adaptation of 
A Clash of Kings
, it’s really a continuation of our adaptation of the series as a whole. For our purposes, moving some stuff forward helps a lot and pushing some stuff back helps us a lot.’

The budget was extended for season two. Benioff told 
Entertainment Weekly
, ‘This season is about a country at war. And we felt like, if we didn’t see the most important battle of this entire war onscreen, we’re going to short-change viewers.’

Weiss added, ‘To my knowledge, a story of this scale has never been told within filmed entertainment. There’s so many characters and locations and storylines, so many things that are atypical in television, and for good reason.

You could do this show relatively easily, with twice the money that we have, then after a couple great seasons it’d collapse under its own weight and cease to exist. We went in asking for more money, a considerable sum, in order to shoot the battle scenes. We didn’t get everything we wanted. But it [the conversation with HBO] wasn’t about “Will this attract more viewers? Is this something that’s gonna pump ratings?” It was all about why this story needs this big battle. And so it was really a long conversation about how the second season builds towards it [a battle sequence].’

POST-ANALYSIS

Unsurprisingly, with it being the debut episode of the second season, the ratings were its highest yet, hitting 3.8 million. The additional airings of the night saw that figure nearly double.

The Night Lands

Season two, episode two

Written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss

Directed by Alan Taylor

Aired on 8 April 2012, ‘The Night Lands’ saw the series back to its political plotting best, with the episode showing the different rulers making their plans to either invade King’s Landing or protect it. Ser Davos, the right-hand man of Stannis, seeks out help to bolster their army, with Robb Stark sending Theon to the Iron Islands where he grew up in a bid to win an alliance – while Cersei and Tyrion try to mend their differences for the sake of the throne.

Tyrion’s attempts to keep Shae secret from the people of the Red Keep doesn’t last long, and it should be no surprise that it’s Varys who does the discovering. But, with Varys back-slapping himself with the notion that he has the upper hand against Tyrion, the acting Hand begins to show that he has his own skills of deceit and manipulation.

Theon’s belief that he will be welcomed with joyous celebration by his father is misplaced. Theon was placed in the care of Ned Stark after his father and his people attempted, and failed, to rebel against Robert – and by taking his only living male heir it ensured he wouldn’t do anything like that again. Ned raised the boy well and looked after him, and Theon’s inner battle about where his loyalty lies is something that begins to torment him.

Jon Snow and other Night’s Watch members are holed up at Craster’s farm for brief shelter during their expedition Beyond the Wall. Snow discovers that Craster keeps his daughters as wives and gives his baby sons to the White Walkers.

TRIVIA

Fantasy plays a bigger part in season two, with Weiss noting,

‘We’re well within the bounds of groundedness. When supernatural things happen, they happen infrequently enough that they’re still startling. By the time the next thing comes along, your roots in the story are deep enough that it doesn’t yank you out.’

Liam Cunningham, who plays Davos, didn’t feature in season one but studied it. ‘It was a no brainer,’ he told 
SFX.
 ‘When I got the 10 DVDs, I said I’ll watch two a day for five days, and of course as anybody who knows the show knows, as soon as you put the first one in, well... I managed to get through six the first time, and went to bed about five in the morning, and as soon as I got up, I watched the other four. So I watched them all over about a 14-hour period. It wasn’t difficult, it’s beautifully crafted television. It is intelligent, thought provoking, in your face, joy to watch and certainly a joy to be a part of.’