It has arrived, all 800 pages plus another 40 plus of information appendices, George R R Martin’s A Game of Thrones, paperback edition. There will be time to discover the past and present of George Martin R R and my approach will be to read only the parts that have been used to each television episodes and then report the relationship between the two. I will begin with the positive that the first episodes and the opening chapters of the book are as one in all respects except for the most minor
Scene one of the TV production commenced with three members of the Night Watch guards exiting the long dark tunnel from the great wall which separates the 7 Kingdoms from the haunted Forest The size of the rock wall covered in iced snow is impressive, more impressive than the Great Wall of China in terms of its impact and dwarfing the Roman Wall when it was constructed or the latter day attempts to keep people out and sometimes people in, The Berlin Wall or that now between Israel and Palestine. Howver there is no immediate description in the Prologue and which jumps us past the TV to when one of the Watch takes his officer and another guard to where he had seen the bodies of the wildlings- the creatures that live in the forest but which have now vanished. The book explains that the wildlings were cruel men, slavers, slayers and thieves who consorted with giants, ghouls, stole children, drank blood from horns whose women folk lay with the Others and bore half human children. Thus we deduce that the Others are not humans.
From this point the storyline is identical in that the officer does not believe what he has been told or heed the warning and he and the other man perish in some instant and violent way. We also learn from the book that the men have travelled 8 to 9 days away from the Wall. In the book and in the TV we are left uncertain whether any of the men have survived. We have established that there is some dark force the other side of the Wall, deep into the Forest,
In The TV series we first see that one of the men survived and is captured by a part searching for the missing guard. This is followed by a part of men riding out to a place when the same man is beheaded for returning from his mission. Sean Bean in charge of the situation and clearly the Lord/chief or King, discounts the man’s stories of demon killers saying that it is several thousand years since such creatures were in he land and that regardless of the circumstances the law is law, and the man must die and he having issued the sentence has a duty to carry it out. It had insisted that his middle son Bran is present and one the older men with the boy warns that he must not avert his eyes for surely his father will know.
In the Book’s opening chapter it is not established that the executed man, a Night Watch guard deserter is the same as the terrified member of the trio in the Prologue, although this is confirmed in the front page of the Wiki within a Wiki containing over 3000 articles on the published series of books todate. The books does announce on page 14 that the execution is being carried out by Lord Eddard Stark, subsequently known to his family as Ned, of Winterfell and Warden of the North on behalf of Robert of the House of Baratheon, the First of his name, King of Andals, and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms of the Realm. There is talk of the Others-The Others appear as tall, gaunt humanoids with chalk white skin and eyes of blue so deep it burns like fire. They wear reflective armour that shifts in colour with every step, and wield thin crystal swords that seem to give off a bluish hue. They ride corpses of dead animals. They are unknown in the land for some 8000 years. If they have returned then the Kingdom is indeed under great threat.
The banner of the House of Stark contains the silhouette of a grey direwolf, a creature several sizes larger than ordinary wolves. It is one of these then discovered in the forest with part of Antler embedded in the throat and with five cubs recently born searching for food at its mother’s teats. The five are taken for each of the five children of Lord Stark with those present promising feed and train and take full responsibility. A sixth is then discovered, an albino, who is cared for by Starks illegitimate son, Jon who was given the name of Snow, as are all those without a father given name. The fate being without a father’s name I share
The third scene commences with the laying in state of the Warden of the East, Chief Adviser to the King, a man who raised the King and Lord Stark having no children of his own and who regard him as their father. The wife of the King observes the ceremonial and is joined by her brother who warns her to be careful. She says her brother should have been, should be the Adviser and Warden but he rejects this, but is scornful of her husband putting lechery and hunting before the interests of the kingdom. In the book, the third chapter, headed Catelyn, the wife of Lord Stark is featured and who we learn was born in the south where the Godswood was full flowers, birdsong and was bright and airy whereas here, as she approaches her husband, she feels the place is unwelcoming to her, a primal place untouched for 10000 years. She has gone because the scene opens with a black bird arriving at the Castle, bringing a message, we now learn from the King, to confirm the death of the adviser and that the King has set forth with court to visit his former comrade in arms. It is nine year since they have met and journey will take at least a month. In the TV episode there is brief reference to the likely purpose of the visit with great discussion in the book and concern about managing to feed and entertain the Court.
It is at this point that the TV series and raised the ages of the children of Catelyn and Ned from those in the book to enable adult actors to perform as children. The couple were only married 15 years before and on the same day the man who Ned regarded as his second father had married Catelyn’s sister. The eldest child, Jon the illegitimate is talked of in the book as a boy as is the eldest son. Sansa who plays a major part as the betrothed of the son of the Queen is only 11 in the book but presented as older in TV series and Bran who is only even is presented as a couple of years older. The youngest son is three but is presented as five year old. The eldest boy Robb is only fourteen and presented as a young adult.
Daenerys or Dany of the House of Tragaryen is of the old family of Dragon Kings, formerly of one of the seven Kingdoms within the Kingdom and who ruled for some three centuries until the death of Mad King Aeries by the House of Lannister. Now aged thirteen years she was born after the dethronement and death of her father and where her mother who was also the King’s sister died in giving birth. The only other surviving claimant to throne is her older brother Viserys because the eldest brother and original heir was slain by King Robert. His wife and son and daughter, next in line, were also slain. Dany is said to be a late physical developer although the implication of what is written in the book and intimated in the TV series is that she is sexually experienced, although it is not clear if this has been with her brother. As we learn shortly incest appears to be common among several of the family competing to be King and Queens. Since the loss of their Kingdom brother and sister have been guests in the Free cities in the region of parent’s former country. Now, the latest, is only a short channel crossing away and her brother with the help of his host has organised his sister should become the wife of a local warlord with 40000 warriors at his command. The brother inspects his sister closely, more directly in the TV series than the books and tells her she must be perfect for the visitor, marry and please him, warning that he would whore her to all the man’s men if this was the way to gain the return of his Kingdom. The visitor, Khal Drago is so rich that his slaves wear gold collars, and he is a man of his own mind as well his word. Whereas in the TV episode Viserys appears set on the marriage without any hesitancy over the choice of husband for his sister, in the books he asks if Khal likes women as young as his sister, given the tribes reputation for boys, horses and sheep and their liking for only taking partners in the fashion of beasts. Dany is unhappy at the prospect and begs to be allowed to go back to their present home. The brother angered says she will return to their and his homeland with men of Drago and the day will be mentioned by historians as the start of his reign.
The fourth chapter and major TV scene sees the arrival of the King and his retinue of 100 men, perhaps a dozen to a score in the TV production. In this the boy Bran demonstrates his ability to scale the walls, battlements and rooftops of the citadel, something which is only referred in the book later on. The chapter ends with Ned noting the change in the King from when they set out to defeat the mad King after he had called on their guardian to kill them. The king has gained at least eight stone and looks worse for wear. The king asks to visit the crypt to pay his respects to the great love of his life the sixteen year old sister of Ned who had died from fever after unmentionable treatment from Dany‘s elder brother in the war. The king comments that he thought they would never arrive as it had taken so long, forgetting the vast emptiness of the North Kingdom, as large as the other six together. Ned apologised for the late summer snows adding that the winters are hard and Kind urges him to come south because of the delights of the summer. These include that the girls who wear little to nothing in the heat, abandoning all modesty. The King is dismayed that his love lies in such a dark and cold place, but Ned explains this was her dying wish to him.
It is at this point that we learn in the book that their surrogate father’s wife had gone to her family home taking the sickly six year old son with her, despite the King being his protector and making an alternative arrangement. Ned offers to take the boy as ward as a compromise but the King is insistent on his plan adding that the Queen Cersei of Lannister is furious. It is then the King announces his wish for Ned to return South with him and become his right hand man, defending the Kingdom and for his eldest daughter to become engaged to his son. Ned knows he must yield to the King’s bidding but a great foreboding fills him.
A character who it appears will continue to feature is the illegitimate son of Lord Stark, Jon who was allowed to join in the family feast for their visitors but at the back with squires of Knights with his father at the top table with the King and Queen, just below which sat his half brothers and sisters and those of the Royal family. It is at this point in the book we are introduced to the Queen’s other brother, often referred to as the Imp, an ugly dwarf given to licentiousness. In the TV production we meet him being entertained by an almost naked woman at a brothel and his brother enters the room to remind him of the evening requirements, bringing three other semi naked women so that his brother could satisfy himself fully before having to meet their hosts and his family. This is all additional to the text.
As he drinks more and considers his position he is joined by his uncle, the brother of Lord Stark who evidently has a high regard for the young man. He is also impressed when Jon comments that his father is not enjoying the event and that earlier the Queen had been angry when her husband had insisted in going with Lord Stark to the family crypt. Uncle Ben comments that the could no with such an observant young man on the Great Wall Team although in the TV production it is John that initiates the idea of joining the Night Watch and his uncles who strongly dissuades because their conditions and role means they cannot enjoy family life. He advises Jon to wait until he has experience with women before volunteering for the life at the Wall. Jon is insistent that he ready, capable and willing. In the book the emphasis is on his youth but the boy draws attention that one of heroes of the House of Targaryen conquered one of the states of the Kingdom when he was 14. The uncle draws attention that the conflict took the summer had the loves 10000 men to take the land and another 50000 deaths to hold it. War should never be viewed as a game; He then draws attention to the nature of the commitment that would be required. He also makes thee point that he would never father a bastard or risk doing so and with the rest of table falling silent in attention he made his excuses and left. The conversation take place just between the two in the TV production. On leaving he is met by the Imp, Tyrion Lannister who refers to him as the bastard, not out of malice but from sympathy, He expresses interest in the direwolf and the Wall. Jon says that he did not even know who is mother was, something which I also shared until going to preparatory school and not knowing anything of my father until my fifty ninth year was ending. The chapter concludes with Tyrion arguing that that while all dwarfs may be bastards, bastards need not be dwarfs. Now there’s food for thought!
It is Catelyn who is given the distinction of first having a second chapter in the book titled with her name, and we learn that while the land is frozen and bleak the castle is warm because it was built over hot springs and that her bed changers are one of the hottest places in the building. This reminded her if her former home while her husband could not bear the heat while the Starks were made for the cold thus signalling that for her husband to go south and she to remain in the north would be a challenge for both of them, in addition to the loss of each other and the separation from their children however this was to be insisted on by their king.
It is here we learn that the her youngest child, Rickon is three years old and that she hopes their love making will have led to the creation of another child. While Ned wants to stay in the North it is his wife who counsels that he must obey the king or put his family in peril as well as himself. She thinks of the symbolism of finding the dead direwolf with an antler in its throat. She is also pleased that her daughter would one day be Queen while in the TV production it is the daughter who pleads with her father to accept the offers from the King. In the book Ned points out to his wife that their eldest daughter is only 11 years of age
The talk is disturbed by a visit from Ned’s counsellor trusted family friend who says that box has arrived in his observatory that must has come with someone from the King’s party containing and which in addition to containing lens which bemused Ned but which his wife understood was important because a lens enabled us to see more than we could through natural eyes. The adviser then produced a message hidden in the false bottom of the box which was marked for attention of Catelyn. She froze in fear letting her nakedness show which Ned mentions but she reminds that the adviser helped deliver her children. The message is from her sister who says the King’s adviser, her husband was murdered by the Queen. Ned does not believe the news saying that these are words from a woman over come with grief. She tells him that now there is no choice, He must go South and establish what has happened. Ned is alarmed. His father had accepted the summons from the King to fo south and had not returned. The Adviser says that the times are different. Ned accepts but says his wife must stay to govern in his place until their eldest is old enough to take over. Robb is then only 14 years. She must help her son to learn to rule. He must be ready when the time cones. He tells the adviser to help his wife and son The youngest will stay with her but he would take the daughters and Bran with him to the court of the King. In the TV production it is he adviser who takes the lead in saying that Ned must accept the offer of the king and it is wife who expresses the caution. There is no reference to what should be the fate of their children. Nor is their specific reference to the role of the Queen, only that the Lannister’s were responsible and that the life of the King is in danger. It will be two weeks before he is ready to depart.
The nest chapter of the book is headed Arya, Lord Stark’s youngest daughter their tom boy with hands like a blacksmith according to the needlework teacher who congratulates the elder sister, Sansa saying her work is exquisite. In the TV production Sansa is congratulated by the Queen on her dress and when the girl confirms that she made it herself the Queen asks the girl to make one for her.
There is a brief visual reference to this situation much earlier in the TV production. In the TV production Arya is shown turning up at the reception to greet the King wearing a battle helmet to hide her hair and Bran is shown struggling to hit any part of the target with his bow and arrows while she hits the bull’s eye from a greater distance. In the chapter the seamstress is congratulating the daughter of the King whose work is as unsatisfactory as that of Arya. The eldest sister was talk of the Prince Jeffrey with whom she had sat at the feast while Arya had to sit with his fat younger brother. Arya us then brought t tears by the seamstress and leaves the room noting that while her sister is beautiful and possess all the arts she has not head for figures and hopes she will have a good steward to manage her affairs if she is to marry the Prince.
She goes off to watch the boys at their fight training and is chided by Jon for not being at her stitches. They exchange words over the fact that although girls are not allowed to fight they are entitled to a coat of arms while bastards can fight but have no coat. Joffrey is told to fight another round with Robb but protests that it is a game for children and when reminded that he is a child he retorts that he is a Prince and is bore with using play sword. There is an argument over the use of swords with blunted blades and the adult use sword. Both boys want to use the full sword but are refused because of their ages and the risks. A rivalry between the two boys is therefore marked Arya finds that on returning into the Castle her mother and the seamstress are waiting for her. These aspects of this chapter are not included in the first episode of the TV production.
We now come to the catalyst chapter in the book from what the rest of the story develops. Head Bran it describes his love of climbing. The relationship which has developed between himself and the direwolf cub and the use of creature to indicate danger something which is referenced in the TV production before his assent to the roof by climbing the outside walls. As in the TV production he hears a man and woman talking in a windowless room high up in the castle where we see that it is the Queen and her brother making love. In the book they are talking although the twin brother has only one thing on his mind.
In the book Bran cannot se who is talking and it is the talk which startles and frightens him because the woman is expressing concern at the decision of the King to demand Lord Stark be his adviser. The woman says her brother should the Adviser as the appoint of Stark is a major threat to them because the King will listen to him. The brother is not interested and says the king is only interested in whore and hunting animals accusing him also of perhaps wanting to hunt whore and of bestiality. He also dismisses concern over the role the dead man’s widow could play, not knowing, or does Bran that Lord stark and his wife are already warned of the couple’s treachery, but not of their sexual relationship. It is here that the Queen reveals one cause for her anxiety. She comments that her husband still hankers for the dead sixteen year old sister of Stark and that his penchant for young girls means that he could soon want to set her aside for someone much younger. It is at this point in the book that the twin brother and sister couple observed by Bran who is then seen by the Queen. It is his sight of them together that cause the Queen to demand action be taken against the boy in the TV production while more appropriately it is overhearing their talk which requires action in the book. I will make the obvious point that given the King‘s predilection and the general couplings within families of the royals in this fictional world, the King would not be surprised by this aspect. The threat to his life is another matter.
I have not read the next chapter which is headed Tyrion in case it is covered in the second TV episode and move to that headed Daenerys to discoverer if I learn more than portrayed in the first episode of the TV production. The chapter begins with the wedding of Dany to the Drago who had summoned all forty thousands men and their women to attend the event. Only a handful are shown in the TV production although their liking for taking women whenever and wherever is visually portrayed as is some violent deaths during the celebrations where the comments is made that a minimum of three deaths is needed to indicate the festivities are going well.
The chapter is primarily concerned with revealing the extent of Viserys’s ambitions, his discontent as having to play second fiddle at the wedding, sitting below the bride and groom and his anger and frustration on learning that his brother in law will not march on the Seven Kingdoms to reclaim his throne immediately the festivities are over. He will have to wait until the Drago is ready. The chapter also reveals the violence previously experience from her brother and her hope that through marriage she would escape this. The wedding day proves to be an orgy from dawn to dusk with the men and women naturally bare chested, drinking and eating, fighting and coupling. Dany had felt never as much alone and with all this going around her. She was given three handmaidens by her brother, chosen with the help of their host who no doubt also paid for them, one to teacher her riding, the other the language of her husband and the third the art of love making! She was also given a history and songs of her the Seven Kingdoms. He host gave her gave her large box cloths, the finest from the Free cities and three large beautiful eggs, dragon eggs which had been turned to stone through the ages. We also learn that while the gifts were expensive they are a trifle to the number of horses and slaves he received from arranging the marriage. The relatives of her husband provided three great weapons which as instructed she refused so they might be given to her husband. She was also given a vast array of jewels and gowns including one made from the skins of a thousand mice,
The her husband produced his present which took her breath away, a grey white horse which took her breath away with her beauty. She was bid to get on the animal and ride only a little way if she wished but on mounting she felt free and unafraid, perhaps for the first time in her life and at one point jumps a fire returning she asks that her husband be told he had given her the wind and this bring a smile for the first time to his lips and there is then a description of how their relationship developed and tenderness in which her husband approached her and that she gives her herself willingly to him, indicating to us that although enforced the relationship could prove a good one, adding to the frustration and anger of her brother and his ambitious aims. There is little indication of this in the TV production although having read the book first perhaps the episode will have been viewed differently with less emphasis on the crudeness of the orgy. The book does tell us there were 12 deaths during the day, more than the required three thus also a good omen.
Scene one of the TV production commenced with three members of the Night Watch guards exiting the long dark tunnel from the great wall which separates the 7 Kingdoms from the haunted Forest The size of the rock wall covered in iced snow is impressive, more impressive than the Great Wall of China in terms of its impact and dwarfing the Roman Wall when it was constructed or the latter day attempts to keep people out and sometimes people in, The Berlin Wall or that now between Israel and Palestine. Howver there is no immediate description in the Prologue and which jumps us past the TV to when one of the Watch takes his officer and another guard to where he had seen the bodies of the wildlings- the creatures that live in the forest but which have now vanished. The book explains that the wildlings were cruel men, slavers, slayers and thieves who consorted with giants, ghouls, stole children, drank blood from horns whose women folk lay with the Others and bore half human children. Thus we deduce that the Others are not humans.
From this point the storyline is identical in that the officer does not believe what he has been told or heed the warning and he and the other man perish in some instant and violent way. We also learn from the book that the men have travelled 8 to 9 days away from the Wall. In the book and in the TV we are left uncertain whether any of the men have survived. We have established that there is some dark force the other side of the Wall, deep into the Forest,
In The TV series we first see that one of the men survived and is captured by a part searching for the missing guard. This is followed by a part of men riding out to a place when the same man is beheaded for returning from his mission. Sean Bean in charge of the situation and clearly the Lord/chief or King, discounts the man’s stories of demon killers saying that it is several thousand years since such creatures were in he land and that regardless of the circumstances the law is law, and the man must die and he having issued the sentence has a duty to carry it out. It had insisted that his middle son Bran is present and one the older men with the boy warns that he must not avert his eyes for surely his father will know.
In the Book’s opening chapter it is not established that the executed man, a Night Watch guard deserter is the same as the terrified member of the trio in the Prologue, although this is confirmed in the front page of the Wiki within a Wiki containing over 3000 articles on the published series of books todate. The books does announce on page 14 that the execution is being carried out by Lord Eddard Stark, subsequently known to his family as Ned, of Winterfell and Warden of the North on behalf of Robert of the House of Baratheon, the First of his name, King of Andals, and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms of the Realm. There is talk of the Others-The Others appear as tall, gaunt humanoids with chalk white skin and eyes of blue so deep it burns like fire. They wear reflective armour that shifts in colour with every step, and wield thin crystal swords that seem to give off a bluish hue. They ride corpses of dead animals. They are unknown in the land for some 8000 years. If they have returned then the Kingdom is indeed under great threat.
The banner of the House of Stark contains the silhouette of a grey direwolf, a creature several sizes larger than ordinary wolves. It is one of these then discovered in the forest with part of Antler embedded in the throat and with five cubs recently born searching for food at its mother’s teats. The five are taken for each of the five children of Lord Stark with those present promising feed and train and take full responsibility. A sixth is then discovered, an albino, who is cared for by Starks illegitimate son, Jon who was given the name of Snow, as are all those without a father given name. The fate being without a father’s name I share
The third scene commences with the laying in state of the Warden of the East, Chief Adviser to the King, a man who raised the King and Lord Stark having no children of his own and who regard him as their father. The wife of the King observes the ceremonial and is joined by her brother who warns her to be careful. She says her brother should have been, should be the Adviser and Warden but he rejects this, but is scornful of her husband putting lechery and hunting before the interests of the kingdom. In the book, the third chapter, headed Catelyn, the wife of Lord Stark is featured and who we learn was born in the south where the Godswood was full flowers, birdsong and was bright and airy whereas here, as she approaches her husband, she feels the place is unwelcoming to her, a primal place untouched for 10000 years. She has gone because the scene opens with a black bird arriving at the Castle, bringing a message, we now learn from the King, to confirm the death of the adviser and that the King has set forth with court to visit his former comrade in arms. It is nine year since they have met and journey will take at least a month. In the TV episode there is brief reference to the likely purpose of the visit with great discussion in the book and concern about managing to feed and entertain the Court.
It is at this point that the TV series and raised the ages of the children of Catelyn and Ned from those in the book to enable adult actors to perform as children. The couple were only married 15 years before and on the same day the man who Ned regarded as his second father had married Catelyn’s sister. The eldest child, Jon the illegitimate is talked of in the book as a boy as is the eldest son. Sansa who plays a major part as the betrothed of the son of the Queen is only 11 in the book but presented as older in TV series and Bran who is only even is presented as a couple of years older. The youngest son is three but is presented as five year old. The eldest boy Robb is only fourteen and presented as a young adult.
Daenerys or Dany of the House of Tragaryen is of the old family of Dragon Kings, formerly of one of the seven Kingdoms within the Kingdom and who ruled for some three centuries until the death of Mad King Aeries by the House of Lannister. Now aged thirteen years she was born after the dethronement and death of her father and where her mother who was also the King’s sister died in giving birth. The only other surviving claimant to throne is her older brother Viserys because the eldest brother and original heir was slain by King Robert. His wife and son and daughter, next in line, were also slain. Dany is said to be a late physical developer although the implication of what is written in the book and intimated in the TV series is that she is sexually experienced, although it is not clear if this has been with her brother. As we learn shortly incest appears to be common among several of the family competing to be King and Queens. Since the loss of their Kingdom brother and sister have been guests in the Free cities in the region of parent’s former country. Now, the latest, is only a short channel crossing away and her brother with the help of his host has organised his sister should become the wife of a local warlord with 40000 warriors at his command. The brother inspects his sister closely, more directly in the TV series than the books and tells her she must be perfect for the visitor, marry and please him, warning that he would whore her to all the man’s men if this was the way to gain the return of his Kingdom. The visitor, Khal Drago is so rich that his slaves wear gold collars, and he is a man of his own mind as well his word. Whereas in the TV episode Viserys appears set on the marriage without any hesitancy over the choice of husband for his sister, in the books he asks if Khal likes women as young as his sister, given the tribes reputation for boys, horses and sheep and their liking for only taking partners in the fashion of beasts. Dany is unhappy at the prospect and begs to be allowed to go back to their present home. The brother angered says she will return to their and his homeland with men of Drago and the day will be mentioned by historians as the start of his reign.
The fourth chapter and major TV scene sees the arrival of the King and his retinue of 100 men, perhaps a dozen to a score in the TV production. In this the boy Bran demonstrates his ability to scale the walls, battlements and rooftops of the citadel, something which is only referred in the book later on. The chapter ends with Ned noting the change in the King from when they set out to defeat the mad King after he had called on their guardian to kill them. The king has gained at least eight stone and looks worse for wear. The king asks to visit the crypt to pay his respects to the great love of his life the sixteen year old sister of Ned who had died from fever after unmentionable treatment from Dany‘s elder brother in the war. The king comments that he thought they would never arrive as it had taken so long, forgetting the vast emptiness of the North Kingdom, as large as the other six together. Ned apologised for the late summer snows adding that the winters are hard and Kind urges him to come south because of the delights of the summer. These include that the girls who wear little to nothing in the heat, abandoning all modesty. The King is dismayed that his love lies in such a dark and cold place, but Ned explains this was her dying wish to him.
It is at this point that we learn in the book that their surrogate father’s wife had gone to her family home taking the sickly six year old son with her, despite the King being his protector and making an alternative arrangement. Ned offers to take the boy as ward as a compromise but the King is insistent on his plan adding that the Queen Cersei of Lannister is furious. It is then the King announces his wish for Ned to return South with him and become his right hand man, defending the Kingdom and for his eldest daughter to become engaged to his son. Ned knows he must yield to the King’s bidding but a great foreboding fills him.
A character who it appears will continue to feature is the illegitimate son of Lord Stark, Jon who was allowed to join in the family feast for their visitors but at the back with squires of Knights with his father at the top table with the King and Queen, just below which sat his half brothers and sisters and those of the Royal family. It is at this point in the book we are introduced to the Queen’s other brother, often referred to as the Imp, an ugly dwarf given to licentiousness. In the TV production we meet him being entertained by an almost naked woman at a brothel and his brother enters the room to remind him of the evening requirements, bringing three other semi naked women so that his brother could satisfy himself fully before having to meet their hosts and his family. This is all additional to the text.
As he drinks more and considers his position he is joined by his uncle, the brother of Lord Stark who evidently has a high regard for the young man. He is also impressed when Jon comments that his father is not enjoying the event and that earlier the Queen had been angry when her husband had insisted in going with Lord Stark to the family crypt. Uncle Ben comments that the could no with such an observant young man on the Great Wall Team although in the TV production it is John that initiates the idea of joining the Night Watch and his uncles who strongly dissuades because their conditions and role means they cannot enjoy family life. He advises Jon to wait until he has experience with women before volunteering for the life at the Wall. Jon is insistent that he ready, capable and willing. In the book the emphasis is on his youth but the boy draws attention that one of heroes of the House of Targaryen conquered one of the states of the Kingdom when he was 14. The uncle draws attention that the conflict took the summer had the loves 10000 men to take the land and another 50000 deaths to hold it. War should never be viewed as a game; He then draws attention to the nature of the commitment that would be required. He also makes thee point that he would never father a bastard or risk doing so and with the rest of table falling silent in attention he made his excuses and left. The conversation take place just between the two in the TV production. On leaving he is met by the Imp, Tyrion Lannister who refers to him as the bastard, not out of malice but from sympathy, He expresses interest in the direwolf and the Wall. Jon says that he did not even know who is mother was, something which I also shared until going to preparatory school and not knowing anything of my father until my fifty ninth year was ending. The chapter concludes with Tyrion arguing that that while all dwarfs may be bastards, bastards need not be dwarfs. Now there’s food for thought!
It is Catelyn who is given the distinction of first having a second chapter in the book titled with her name, and we learn that while the land is frozen and bleak the castle is warm because it was built over hot springs and that her bed changers are one of the hottest places in the building. This reminded her if her former home while her husband could not bear the heat while the Starks were made for the cold thus signalling that for her husband to go south and she to remain in the north would be a challenge for both of them, in addition to the loss of each other and the separation from their children however this was to be insisted on by their king.
It is here we learn that the her youngest child, Rickon is three years old and that she hopes their love making will have led to the creation of another child. While Ned wants to stay in the North it is his wife who counsels that he must obey the king or put his family in peril as well as himself. She thinks of the symbolism of finding the dead direwolf with an antler in its throat. She is also pleased that her daughter would one day be Queen while in the TV production it is the daughter who pleads with her father to accept the offers from the King. In the book Ned points out to his wife that their eldest daughter is only 11 years of age
The talk is disturbed by a visit from Ned’s counsellor trusted family friend who says that box has arrived in his observatory that must has come with someone from the King’s party containing and which in addition to containing lens which bemused Ned but which his wife understood was important because a lens enabled us to see more than we could through natural eyes. The adviser then produced a message hidden in the false bottom of the box which was marked for attention of Catelyn. She froze in fear letting her nakedness show which Ned mentions but she reminds that the adviser helped deliver her children. The message is from her sister who says the King’s adviser, her husband was murdered by the Queen. Ned does not believe the news saying that these are words from a woman over come with grief. She tells him that now there is no choice, He must go South and establish what has happened. Ned is alarmed. His father had accepted the summons from the King to fo south and had not returned. The Adviser says that the times are different. Ned accepts but says his wife must stay to govern in his place until their eldest is old enough to take over. Robb is then only 14 years. She must help her son to learn to rule. He must be ready when the time cones. He tells the adviser to help his wife and son The youngest will stay with her but he would take the daughters and Bran with him to the court of the King. In the TV production it is he adviser who takes the lead in saying that Ned must accept the offer of the king and it is wife who expresses the caution. There is no reference to what should be the fate of their children. Nor is their specific reference to the role of the Queen, only that the Lannister’s were responsible and that the life of the King is in danger. It will be two weeks before he is ready to depart.
The nest chapter of the book is headed Arya, Lord Stark’s youngest daughter their tom boy with hands like a blacksmith according to the needlework teacher who congratulates the elder sister, Sansa saying her work is exquisite. In the TV production Sansa is congratulated by the Queen on her dress and when the girl confirms that she made it herself the Queen asks the girl to make one for her.
There is a brief visual reference to this situation much earlier in the TV production. In the TV production Arya is shown turning up at the reception to greet the King wearing a battle helmet to hide her hair and Bran is shown struggling to hit any part of the target with his bow and arrows while she hits the bull’s eye from a greater distance. In the chapter the seamstress is congratulating the daughter of the King whose work is as unsatisfactory as that of Arya. The eldest sister was talk of the Prince Jeffrey with whom she had sat at the feast while Arya had to sit with his fat younger brother. Arya us then brought t tears by the seamstress and leaves the room noting that while her sister is beautiful and possess all the arts she has not head for figures and hopes she will have a good steward to manage her affairs if she is to marry the Prince.
She goes off to watch the boys at their fight training and is chided by Jon for not being at her stitches. They exchange words over the fact that although girls are not allowed to fight they are entitled to a coat of arms while bastards can fight but have no coat. Joffrey is told to fight another round with Robb but protests that it is a game for children and when reminded that he is a child he retorts that he is a Prince and is bore with using play sword. There is an argument over the use of swords with blunted blades and the adult use sword. Both boys want to use the full sword but are refused because of their ages and the risks. A rivalry between the two boys is therefore marked Arya finds that on returning into the Castle her mother and the seamstress are waiting for her. These aspects of this chapter are not included in the first episode of the TV production.
We now come to the catalyst chapter in the book from what the rest of the story develops. Head Bran it describes his love of climbing. The relationship which has developed between himself and the direwolf cub and the use of creature to indicate danger something which is referenced in the TV production before his assent to the roof by climbing the outside walls. As in the TV production he hears a man and woman talking in a windowless room high up in the castle where we see that it is the Queen and her brother making love. In the book they are talking although the twin brother has only one thing on his mind.
In the book Bran cannot se who is talking and it is the talk which startles and frightens him because the woman is expressing concern at the decision of the King to demand Lord Stark be his adviser. The woman says her brother should the Adviser as the appoint of Stark is a major threat to them because the King will listen to him. The brother is not interested and says the king is only interested in whore and hunting animals accusing him also of perhaps wanting to hunt whore and of bestiality. He also dismisses concern over the role the dead man’s widow could play, not knowing, or does Bran that Lord stark and his wife are already warned of the couple’s treachery, but not of their sexual relationship. It is here that the Queen reveals one cause for her anxiety. She comments that her husband still hankers for the dead sixteen year old sister of Stark and that his penchant for young girls means that he could soon want to set her aside for someone much younger. It is at this point in the book that the twin brother and sister couple observed by Bran who is then seen by the Queen. It is his sight of them together that cause the Queen to demand action be taken against the boy in the TV production while more appropriately it is overhearing their talk which requires action in the book. I will make the obvious point that given the King‘s predilection and the general couplings within families of the royals in this fictional world, the King would not be surprised by this aspect. The threat to his life is another matter.
I have not read the next chapter which is headed Tyrion in case it is covered in the second TV episode and move to that headed Daenerys to discoverer if I learn more than portrayed in the first episode of the TV production. The chapter begins with the wedding of Dany to the Drago who had summoned all forty thousands men and their women to attend the event. Only a handful are shown in the TV production although their liking for taking women whenever and wherever is visually portrayed as is some violent deaths during the celebrations where the comments is made that a minimum of three deaths is needed to indicate the festivities are going well.
The chapter is primarily concerned with revealing the extent of Viserys’s ambitions, his discontent as having to play second fiddle at the wedding, sitting below the bride and groom and his anger and frustration on learning that his brother in law will not march on the Seven Kingdoms to reclaim his throne immediately the festivities are over. He will have to wait until the Drago is ready. The chapter also reveals the violence previously experience from her brother and her hope that through marriage she would escape this. The wedding day proves to be an orgy from dawn to dusk with the men and women naturally bare chested, drinking and eating, fighting and coupling. Dany had felt never as much alone and with all this going around her. She was given three handmaidens by her brother, chosen with the help of their host who no doubt also paid for them, one to teacher her riding, the other the language of her husband and the third the art of love making! She was also given a history and songs of her the Seven Kingdoms. He host gave her gave her large box cloths, the finest from the Free cities and three large beautiful eggs, dragon eggs which had been turned to stone through the ages. We also learn that while the gifts were expensive they are a trifle to the number of horses and slaves he received from arranging the marriage. The relatives of her husband provided three great weapons which as instructed she refused so they might be given to her husband. She was also given a vast array of jewels and gowns including one made from the skins of a thousand mice,
The her husband produced his present which took her breath away, a grey white horse which took her breath away with her beauty. She was bid to get on the animal and ride only a little way if she wished but on mounting she felt free and unafraid, perhaps for the first time in her life and at one point jumps a fire returning she asks that her husband be told he had given her the wind and this bring a smile for the first time to his lips and there is then a description of how their relationship developed and tenderness in which her husband approached her and that she gives her herself willingly to him, indicating to us that although enforced the relationship could prove a good one, adding to the frustration and anger of her brother and his ambitious aims. There is little indication of this in the TV production although having read the book first perhaps the episode will have been viewed differently with less emphasis on the crudeness of the orgy. The book does tell us there were 12 deaths during the day, more than the required three thus also a good omen.
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