It's funny -- I think HBO did a great marketing job with this episode, because everyone was excited to see it early (online), and then they were talking about how great it was. Not my favorite episode, though it certainly wasn't bad. It seemed mostly to be the consequences of episode 6, which to me was a lot more engrossing.
I remember Danaerys getting Drogo to go invade north, but I didn't remember quite how well tied together the causal chain to it was -- Robert finds out she's alive and orders the assasination, Ned quits in protest, the assassination attempt happens, Khal Drogo is pissed and rides north, Robert dies, Ned is super-screwed. Brilliant plotting.
The only thing I'm not sure of is I don't remember Ned being quite so naive? I don't remember him doing things purely for honorable reasons to the degree that it seemed stupid. I thought he was trying to play the game as best he could, and he was just not very good at it, despite being the most honorable of them (and possibly because of it). I remember him mostly as a character who was pulled into the gravity well of the palace because he was good at what he did, and reliable -- and both having no interest in its politics and therefore not being good at them, but he tried, and his efforts seemed like good ones. Here in the series he seems instead doggedly idealistic, maybe because we miss the details of everything he did to uncover the Lannisters' secret (I seem to recall it was more than just reading books).
It's good to get the updates on how your husband is doing with it, because I continually wonder how it must be for someone who hasn't read the books. Like you I read them but there was just so much going on that I forgot things or didn't connect them right at the moment of reading -- so the series is making some things actually make more sense -- but I can't imagine it connects much if you don't already know a lot about the characters.
I remember Danaerys getting Drogo to go invade north, but I didn't remember quite how well tied together the causal chain to it was -- Robert finds out she's alive and orders the assasination, Ned quits in protest, the assassination attempt happens, Khal Drogo is pissed and rides north, Robert dies, Ned is super-screwed. Brilliant plotting.
The only thing I'm not sure of is I don't remember Ned being quite so naive? I don't remember him doing things purely for honorable reasons to the degree that it seemed stupid. I thought he was trying to play the game as best he could, and he was just not very good at it, despite being the most honorable of them (and possibly because of it). I remember him mostly as a character who was pulled into the gravity well of the palace because he was good at what he did, and reliable -- and both having no interest in its politics and therefore not being good at them, but he tried, and his efforts seemed like good ones. Here in the series he seems instead doggedly idealistic, maybe because we miss the details of everything he did to uncover the Lannisters' secret (I seem to recall it was more than just reading books).
It's good to get the updates on how your husband is doing with it, because I continually wonder how it must be for someone who hasn't read the books. Like you I read them but there was just so much going on that I forgot things or didn't connect them right at the moment of reading -- so the series is making some things actually make more sense -- but I can't imagine it connects much if you don't already know a lot about the characters.
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