I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones. Throws you in at the deep end, doesn't it? What the **** is going on, mainly? And quite racey. I don't think our dear Queen, for example, would have felt comfortable at a Dothraki wedding. Which seemed to be held on Californian beaches ... anyone got any info on that? Ends on a little bit of a cliffhanger, but in reverse, so to speak. (GoT fans will get that.)
OK, I've now mulled it over for a few hours.
Without seeing any other episodes (except for a YouTube of the Red Wedding, and I don't recall the characters who appear in that, because I was just aghast at the wanton bloodletting), or reading any of the books, I make the following extrapolations. The audience will note that at no time during the performance do my fingers leave my hands.
- The white haired pretender over the water and his brutish Dothraki army come to a bad end, very enjoyable (for us).
- His sister raises dragons (those fossils are just dormant eggs), gets tattooed, has a lot of fun cuckolding Muscle Boy with anything in sight, (including the guy who gave her the books, a sure sign), and then goes to the bad, revenging herself on any males but finally finding peace nursing sick dire wolves in a cottage in Dorset. (Not sure about that last bit.)
- Sean Bean loyally serves his buddy, until the king is treacherously murdered and Sean has to step up to the plate. He emotes a lot. But after a brief halcyon period something horrible happens, and Sean's youngest son (who has somehow survived what happened at the end of Episode One) comes into the kingdom. Hmmmm.
- The Bastard is everyone's expected king-in-waiting, but he is taken out by a meteorite. (This needs work.)
- The Dwarf roisters his way through (almost) the entire series, developing a nice line in sarky banter and depravity, before succumbing to either a stroke when he is denied a ride at Dragonland because he doesn't meet the height criterion, or something involving an edged weapon. Bets are on the latter.
- Those wolf cubs develop telepathic links with the brothers and the sister, and do a lot of meaningful growling.
- The sister proves to be more of a warrior than any of the brothers. She takes to leather.
- Something nasty comes through The Wall and lays the country to waste, combining 'Village of the Damned' with 'Blair Witch'. No-one thinks to just stop up the tunnel and forget about the whole thing.
- Many characters can't decide their motivation, but throw themselves into it anyway and look forward to bacon butties at the commissary truck. Ooops, don't spoil the screen magic .....
- A lot more flesh is revealed, but it's all in the best possible taste and essential to the plot. My dear. (My other half remarks that the amount of tasteful male flesh has been disappointing so far.)
- A drinking game develops centred on matching drinks to the country in which the filming is taking place (chianti for Italy, porter for Ireland, schnapps for the Black Forest, weak lager for Arizona etc. etc.). Many carpets and soft furnishings thoughout the land are ruined by colourful stains.
- At no point is anyone shown raising crops, herding livestock, or otherwise generating food for all the feasts. Some cooking goes on (but only to provide a kitchen which can be overturned by brawls), but everyone has a diet of wild game which gives opportunities for hunts in which a lot of male bonding goes on. Oh yes, there will be a seer or sage trying to direct the course of the civilisation, but he will die senselessly and his books and alchemical equipment will be trashed by barbarians who sneer and pose the while.
- Winter comes, and isn't as bad as the winters when I were a lad.
No comments:
Post a Comment