Here’s what I’m hoping won’t happen for that scene: the crowd noise dies away as we see the sword fall in slow motion with sad instrumental music playing in the background. We then cut to Arya who noiselessly screams and then the screen goes black and the credits roll.
She got some help. Bran’s wolf hasn’t been named yet.
The HBO website has a viewer’s guide that is pretty comprehensive.
Hugin
2027
Every single person I know who is watching the series but hasn’t read the books assumes Ned is toast. First, he’s played by Sean Bean, that’s a big clue right there. Second, he has the cunning and political IQ of a kumquat. He’s swimming in a pool full of sharks and he’s basically agreed, out of his sense of honor, to wear an outfit made entirely of chum.
And he’s gotten matching suits for every commoner in the realm as well!
Hugin
2029
The name of Bran’s Wolf is at the bottom of Bran’s bio at the HBO site. he guide is deliberately designed not to be spoilery for stuff that hasn’t happened yet, she’s just using it to get the names and such right, I reckon.
Great analysis in general LK, I did want to highlight this point as one which I think shows Martin’s real talent as an author. He knows exactly what every fantasy reader’s conditioned response to a character like Ned is going to be.
He knows we expect the honorable guy to win in the end regardless of the mistakes he’s making. Way back when I first read the book I fell for this entirely. On rereading I had a similar experience to you – Martin makes it very clear Ned is a fool.
What’s interesting to me is that this whole playing with genre expectations aspect of Game of Thrones is going to be entirely lost on people who haven’t read a lot of fantasy. It’s a little like watching a parody of something when you’ve never seen the original.
What’s frustrating is that out there on the big fan boards and places like Westeros and Tower of the Hand there are people who hate, just absolutely hate, Catelyn and Sansa. Two characters who it’s easy to dislike on a first reading, but whose value should become pretty apparent to anyone on a second or third or whatever reading. It’s unfair to blast Sansa for her role given her age and her genuine want for things ‘to be nice’, but it’s equally unfair to blame Catelyn for Robb’s ultimate end. Her actions with Tyrion at the Inn at the Crossroads were probably not the best and right there we see Littlefinger playing her like a damn fiddle, but from the end of book 1 on she’s a vital and sympathetic character who repeatedly offers Robb good advice and is treated like a meddling old lady. In the end Robb decides he has to listen to the ghost of his dad, who he keeps in his dick, and it gets him a sword through the heart.
Then again, I find the people who shriek that Rita ruins Dexter to be incomprehensible, so whatevers.
Y’know who I really feel bad for, though? Dacey Mormont.
Hammet
2032
I don’t think “fantasy” comes into it when it comes to Ned and our perception of him as a “standard” honorable and just hero out to set wrongs right. And right wrongs, too.
However, I’m not completely in Lizard King’s camp since I think that being completely honorable and having the survival instincts of a lemming is precisely what makes Eddard likable. It’s been quite some time since I read the first book but I remember feeling that Ned was quite aware that his chances of survival were slim to none (and Slim had left town), but he went on anyway, since that is who he is. He rarely tried to do things in the most clever way since he is fully aware that he is not a clever man. He’s just brave, a soldier good at following orders or directives and is of course doomed playing a game by what he believes are the rules. Yet he has no idea of the stakes, the other players or indeed of the object of the game.
One of Martin’s strengths as a writer is that he can make you sympathetic to characters who act in ways completely alien to the reader.
I understand why Catelyn does what she does, but much of her advice to Robb is pretty bad, considering. Her character is fairly selfish at the core: she is willing to sell any number of people down the river to keep her family safe, and is more than willing to plunge half a continent into bloody war to further her own sense of family priorities.
The great thing is she is entirely believable almost every step of the way.
The core of her advice to Robb revolves around ‘do not trust Walder Frey, do not fuck over Walder Frey, do not underestimate Walder Frey, maybe you shouldn’t have stuck your dick in a girl who wasn’t related to Walder Frey, oh shit, try not to bleed on Walder Frey’s table linens’. Sounds pretty level headed to me.
They were probably the worst.
I also don’t think Ned is played up to be the main character of the series nearly as much as he is in the first book. I think part of it is that in the books, at least at the start of the series, you could pick out many of the primary characters by who had POV chapters. While later books added POVs to a number of smaller characters, the first book was all big players.
In a TV series, though, you don’t have POVs. Without real insight into what Ned is thinking, his “main character shield” isn’t nearly as strong.
What’s lacking in inner monologue is counteracted by the movie star casting though. I think it would be pretty natural to assume that a show would put its biggest star in the starring role.
Unless, as Hugin pointed out, that star is Sean Bean. The man’s characters aren’t exactly known for their long and happy lives.
StGabe
2039
What’s frustrating is that out there on the big fan boards and places like Westeros and Tower of the Hand there are people who hate, just absolutely hate, Catelyn and Sansa. Two characters who it’s easy to dislike on a first reading, but whose value should become pretty apparent to anyone on a second or third or whatever reading.
Being “valuable” is very different from being likable.
Catelyn is completely understandable to me as a character and yet I see why many do not like her. I consider her to be fairly 1-dimensional, albeit in a realistic way (some people just aren’t that dynamic).
Sansa is, at first, very unlikable. Part of the problem there is that she’s set up as a foil for Arya and Tyrion, characters who most readers do rather like. Sansa at least evolves a bit, however, and she’s more likable later in the series.
I look at characters like Sansa, Catelyn and Cersei like I look at Betty Draper in Mad Men (another female character who people have trouble liking). These are characters who are reflections of the dysfunction in their society. In order to pull that off, they’re going to have to be rather unlikable at times. I think that some of these characters are great, and crucial for raising the quality of the story they’re in, but that doesn’t mean I like them. It would be great if Cersei or Catelyn could overcome the shackles of their role and become strong, successful female who were great role models for women of the 21st century. And that’s exactly what they’d have to do be liked by many people who come from a context of 21st century values and expectations. That outcome simply isn’t the least bit realistic.
In terms of female character I like Arya, Dany and Brienne a lot less in many ways, simply because they are less believable. They serve as fantasy fulfillment tropes more than living, breathing characters in this well-crafted wold. However they are a lot more fulfilling and likable simply because they do things that make us cheer.
Tony_M
2040
When reading the first book, I thought Sansa was being groomed to become a Stark version of Cersie (a ruthless court manipulator). I thought in future books that Arya would fight the Lannisters with sword and wolf, while Sansa would fight the Lannisters in the kings court. But they kept Sansa in the victim role, and Aryas character took a very strange turn.
Tony
