S1·E1 — Winter Is Coming
The hour retold
The whole saga is stated in the first five minutes and then deliberately forgotten for years: three rangers ride out through a tunnel of ice, find a wildling camp arranged into an ominous pattern, and meet something that has not been seen in eight thousand years. The survivor flees south — and the story promptly executes him for desertion, because the realm has better things to worry about. That beheading in the Winterfell snow is the pilot’s thesis. Ned Stark swings the sword himself, tells his sons the man died bravely, and rides home past a dead direwolf with an antler in its throat. The omens are laid out like place settings; nobody at the table reads them.
What the hour is actually about is a family being pried apart by an offer it cannot refuse. Robert Baratheon arrives with the whole rotten south in his train — a queen who despises him, a Kingslayer, an imp who reads — and asks his oldest friend to come rule the realm with him, because ruling is the one thing Robert never wanted to do. Lysa’s letter accusing the Lannisters of murdering the last Hand turns a request into a duty. Across the sea, meanwhile, the story’s other engine starts turning: Viserys Targaryen sells his sister to a Dothraki warlord for the promise of an army, and Daenerys stands in her wedding silks like a woman at her own funeral, three stone eggs among the gifts.
And then the ending — still one of television’s great cold slaps. Bran climbs a broken tower because he climbs everything, sees the queen with her brother, and Jaime Lannister, with an apology that isn’t one, pushes a ten-year-old out a window. “The things I do for love” closes the hour like a door slamming. In one stroke the show declares its rules: children are not safe, love is the most dangerous motive in the world, and the audience’s sympathy will be handed to people who do unforgivable things. Winter is coming, the Starks keep saying. Nobody, including them, has any idea what that means yet.
What happens
- Beyond the Wall, a ranging goes wrong: the White Walkers are seen for the first time in eight thousand years.
- Ned Stark executes the deserter who saw them — and his children find five direwolf pups in the snow.
- King Robert rides to Winterfell and asks Ned to be his Hand; the letter from Lysa accuses the Lannisters of murder.
- In Pentos, Viserys weds his sister Daenerys to Khal Drogo for the promise of an army.
- Bran climbs a tower, sees the queen and her brother — and Jaime pushes him from the window.
The people of the episode
Eddard Stark — The king's justice, then the king's reluctant Hand.
Catelyn Stark — Begs Ned to refuse — the letter changes everything.
Jon Snow — Chooses the Wall, where a bastard's name doesn't matter.
Arya Stark — Better with a bow than her brother, and bored by needlework.
Robb Stark — The heir who stays home when the pack splits.
Tyrion Lannister — Reads everything; drinks and knows things.
Daenerys Targaryen — Sold to a khal, wed at sunset with three stone eggs.
King Robert — Fat, restless, and haunted by a dead girl's name.
Bran Stark — Climbs too well, sees too much, falls too far.
Khal Drogo — A khal of forty thousand riders takes a silver-haired bride.The fallen — spoilers
- Jon Arryn, Hand of the King — Poisoned before the season opens — the death that starts it all.
- Ser Waymar Royce — Slain by a White Walker beyond the Wall.
- Gared of the Night's Watch — Taken by the cold things in the dark.
- Will of the Night's Watch — Fled south; beheaded by Ned Stark as a deserter.