That way people who don't want to know ANYTHING about what goes on in the books don't have to read, and those people who have questions about back story or more details on characters can ask those of that have read the books.

STILL NO SPOILERS HERE

pity bump

House Stark



Seat: Winterfell
Region: The North
Titles: Wardens of the North, Lords of Winterfell (formerly Kings in the North)
Words: Winter Is Coming
Sigil: A grey direwolf on a field of white
Ancestral weapon: Ice, a Valyrian steel greatsword

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 4:52p).]

thank you Pastry, just trying to make everyone happy

House Baratheon



Seat: King's Landing, Storm's End (cadet branch), Dragonstone (cadet branch)
Region: The Crownlands, The Stormlands
Titles: Kings of the Andals, Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord's of Storm's End (cadet branch), Lord's of Dragonstone (cadet branch)
Words: Ours Is The Fury
Sigil: A black stag, crowned, on a field of gold

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 4:52p).]

House Lannister



Seat: Casterly Rock
Region: The Westerlands
Titles: Wardens of the West, Lords of Casterly Rock (formerly Kings of the Rock)
Words: Hear Me Roar
Sigil: A golden lion on a field of crimson

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 4:53p).]

House Targaryen



Seat: In exile, formerly King's Landing, Dragonstone
Region: Formerly the Crownlands, Dragonstone
Titles: Formerly Kings of the Andals, Rhoynar, and the First Men
Words: Fire and Blood
Sigil: A red three-headed dragon on a field of black

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 4:55p).]

House Tully



Seat: Riverun
Region: The Riverlands
Titles: Lord of Riverun
Words: Family, Duty, Honor
Sigil: A silver leaping trout on a field of blue and mud-red

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 4:54p).]

House Greyjoy



Seat: Pyke
Region: The Iron Islands
Titles: Lords of the Iron Islands
Words: We Do Not Sow
Sigil: A golden kraken on a field of black


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House Arryn



Seat: The Eyrie
Region: The Vale
Titles: Wardens of the East, Lords of the Eyrie (formerly Kings of Mountain and Vale)
Words: As High As Honor
Sigil: A sky-blue falcon against a white moon on a sky-blue field

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 4:56p).]

House Tyrell



Seat: Highgarden
Region: The Reach
Titles: Wardens of the South, Lords of Highgarden
Words: Growing Strong
Sigil: A golden rose on a field of green

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 5:03p).]

House Martell

Seat: Sunspear
Region: Dorne
Titles: Prince of Dorne, Lords of Sunspear
Words: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken
Sigil: A golden spear piercing a red sun on a field of orange

Got a map of East of the Narrow Sea? (the area where Drago and the exiles are?)

This thread is appreciated! Liking the show, but wishing I knew more background and don't want anything spoiled while looking around for it.

One question that's bothered me is: Does the king belong to any family? So far he seems like he's entirely on his own surrounded by Lannisters without a household of his own to back him up. Is that the case or does he have a household and royal family we haven't met yet?

The King has two younger brothers, Stannis and Renly. Stannis will likely be merely mentioned in this season, while Renly will likely be introduced in the next episode.

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 4:43p).]

Stannis is a stodgy do-gooder and Renly is a lot younger than Robert. He doesn't care a whole lot for either of them. He is much closer to Ned.

Also Robert's kingship is pretty new and to a degree unexpected. He and Ned and several others rebelled against the Targaryons but I'm not sure they gave much thought to what to do if they won. They end up winning, Robert becomes king and he marries Cersei probably as much for political reasons as anything else. The Lannister's are really powerful and they supported the Targaryons so their support legitimizes Robert. I don't think he realized he would be placing himself in the figurative Lion's den (pun!).

Robert married Cersei because Lyanna (I think that was her name? Ned's sister) died. He was slated to marry her and bind the Kingship and House Stark closer together. Robert mentioned in the first episode that since he missed his chance with Lyanna, perhaps they could still be bound by blood with Joffrey and Sansa.

That's not entirely accurate, but I think I would be getting into a spoiler zone by explaining events that will probably explained during the series later on, even if they are in the past right now.

Thanks! It's good to know more about the past will be explained down the road.

In the opening credits (which for those of you who haven't caught on by now, change with every episode to show the locations that will feature in that episode on the map) there is also a story being told on the rotating rings of the armillary sphere or astrolabe type thing thats rotating around the globe map.

The first thing you can make out is a volcano and then a dragon maybe roaring over a city. The next time we see the ring we see Direwolf, Lion, and Stag attacking each of three heads of a dragon. In the final image you see Stag triumphant, haloed by the sun, with Lion kneeling to the immediate left and Wolf, and maybe other animals looking also bowing in the periphery of the image.

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/25/2011 7:04p).]

there might be some slight spoilers here but everything i'll say has happened prior to the events of the series and doesn't reveal much

yes, robert is part of a family, the Baratheons. he and Ned were both fosters of Jon Arryn, the lord of a place called The Vale of Arryn (he was also Robert's hand when robert became king). Catelyn Tully, ned's current wife, was slated to marry Ned's older brother, Brandon, and Robert was supposed to marry Lyanna

basically what happened (if memory serves) is that the previous Targaryen king, Aerys II, was pretty much bat-sheet crazy and killed Ned's brother and his father, Rickard, and at some point Aerys' son Rhaegar nabbed Lyanna as well, provoking Ned and Robert into rebellion. as the show has already explained, Lyanna died in some way that is known only to Ned (well and one other guy as well but that's not at all important for now), and Robert killed Rhaegar in a legend-inspiring battle at a place called the Trident

the Lannisters figure in in kind of a complicated way but the important thing to know for now is that Jaime Lannister was a member of the Kingsguard (a group of seven elite bodyguards for the king) and through some chain of events, he killed the Mad King, Aerys II.

there's more to the story as far as what happened with Viserys and Dany, as well as some other members of the Targaryen family (including some people from Dorne, another part of Westeros), but for now all you really need to know is that Vis and Dany were snuck across the narrow sea and live in exile up until the series starts

after re-reading that, it's basically spoiler free, and most of it has been said in the show already. if you have any more questions i'll be glad to answer them

one thing that's difficult to pull off in the show are the wolves. they're actually direwolves, and are supposed to be much much larger than regular wolves. they are also extremely rare to be found inside the wall and people aren't exactly fond of the fact that the stark children have taken them as pets. kind of like if i went to the dog park with an alligator.

Will there be more story told in regards to the White Walkers in this first season?

backstory? probably not, although there may be some incidents involving their kind.

He is 4 books in and we still haven't gotten any background on the white walkers. Sometimes I think GRRM had these ideas for what the books would be about, but then forgot while he was writing and things kind of just go off of their own accord.

Thats kind of the way character driven writing works. There is a general framework, but occasionally the characters take things off on their own because your characters actually develop as you write and sometimes their reactions dont fit anymore with what you had planned for them when you first made them your wooden outline. The way the books are written each chapter has a first person POV of a character, I think GRRM admitted that when he started he imagined having the same POV characters in each book, but that chanegd a lot, and there have been many we ddin't have in the first book.

There is plenty of background on the North peeps. There is also mystique for a reason and a big ass wall.

IIRC, there was already a war a long time ago. There were beat back and the wall was built. But it's been a while since I've read the series.

basically the white walkers (they're called The Others in the book, HBO probably changed it because of Lost) first appeared during a time called The Long Night thousands of years ago. at this time, Westeros was only habited by two groups - the First Men who have been there for a long time, and a race called the Children of the Forest, who carved the faces in the trees like you see in the shots of the Godswood at Winterfell (but very little is known about them and for all intents and purposes they don't exist any more). the Others were beaten back into the far north somehow (don't remember exactly) and a legendary Stark named Brandon the Builder constructed the Wall with help from the CotF using some kind of magic, this is never really explained nor is it known to any of the currently living Westeros inhabitants. but the Wall (and the Nights Watch) were put there to guard the realm from supernatural 'things' like the Others/White Walkers.

hth

[This message has been edited by unicyclist_ag (edited 4/26/2011 4:07p).]

they were called white walkers as well, in the book

Right, but only a couple times as a more formal name. Almost everyone calls them "The Others"

We haven't, for example, seen any character on screen use the common curse "The Others take it/you/him/her/that" or anything like that, and that phrase is all over the books.

[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 4/26/2011 5:54p).]

They need Old Nan to come on screen and do her "Others/White Walker" story so they can start using "May the Others take you!" as an insult and have the audience understand.

quote:

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and Robert killed Rhaegar in a legend-inspiring battle at a place called the Trident

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Just a very very minor mention here, because I don't think it was mentioned in the show, but the Trident is the river that Arya threw Lion's Tooth into. It's the meeting location of the Red, Blue, and Green river seen on the map above.

So as far as 'locations visited', you can check that one off.

So the wall was built exclusively to keep the white walkers out of the winterfell area? I know there are a few other supernaturals/monsters in the novel, do live on the other side of the wall? in this first season will we get to see a little more of the other side of the wall?

Not just keep them out of Winterfell, but the entire land.

One of the things that I don't think has been touched on during the show yet is that in this world, the seasons do not change annually. Instead there are alternating periods of summer and winter. Right now, the land is in a summer that has lasted abnormally long (like a decade or two?), and I believe the following winters are supposed to last much longer than the summers. The last time the white walkers came, I think it was supposed to be the longest winter ever.

quote:

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He is 4 books in and we still haven't gotten any background on the white walkers. Sometimes I think GRRM had these ideas for what the books would be about, but then forgot while he was writing and things kind of just go off of their own accord.

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I haven't read the books in a long time and I've forgotten a lot about them, but I think the others will be coming in force before it's all said and done, and a lot of enemies will have to put aside their squabbles in order to face the "real" threat.