Warning here there be spoilers. I’d considered trying to skirt around them for this post but considering it’s basic premise that seemed rather pointless on further reflection. So, I decided to instead just offer you a bit of warning … spoilers ahead, if you haven’t read the book, or for some reason managed to miss the show entirely, prepare to have the plot ruined.

Outline of the Basic Plot

This whole thing might be a little pointless – given the popularity of the show – but for those few of you who have for some reason never heard of ‘A song of Ice and Fire’ I’m gonna forge ahead. You deserve not to be confused too during the later section of this post.

Ned Stark, Warden of the North, and best person in all of Westeros is happy living his best life with his wife and his six kids (only five of which are actually his wife’s); when suddenly Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King and Warden of the Vale (and Ned Stark’s foster father), is struck down. Not only is this a blow on a personal level but now the king – his former foster brother Robert Baratheon – has showed up on his doorstep intending to make Ned the next Hand of the King. And marry his psychopath of a son to Ned’s eldest daughter. He can’t say no. And from there Ned is dragged out of the safety of the North and into the deadly Game of Thrones. Politics abound as Ned slowly uncovers the terrible truth hidden behind the beauty of court. Spoiler here. The Queen’s children are not the King’s but instead a product of her affair with her own twin brother. Ned decides to tell the king but he is too slow and the man is felled in a hunting accident before he can. To top that off Ned is accused of treason when he tries to reveal the truth and sentenced to death. Which to the shock of all those watching and reading actually happens and Ned Stark, the best character in all of Westeros, looses his head in the very first book.

Meanwhile up at the Wall – a literal giant wall of ice built to separate the lands of ‘civilised’ Westeros and the wild lands to the North – Ned’s stark bastard son has pledged himself to the order of the Night’s Watch. A legion of men in black cloaks that were sworn to guard the realms of men from the dangers lying hopefully behind the Wall. He knows he no longer has a home with his father off to the south and his step mother actively wishing for his death and so he intends to make a new one by swearing to the night’s watch. Oh, if only he picked a better time. For the time of the White Walkers, those legendary monsters of yesteryear that the wall was actually built to defend the realms of men against, are finally, after a millennium lost in the farthest reaches of the north lands, coming back to the lands of Westeros. And no one, not Kings in their Castles, or beggars on the street, will be safe when those ice zombies return for their pound of flesh.

Meanwhile out in Essos the last living daughter of house Targaryen, the royal dynasty that Robert Baratheon overthrew, is being married off to a vicious Horse Lord so that he will provide her brother with the army he needs to invade Westeros and take back his family’s seat of power. Long story short that is not going to happen. In fact to make an even longer story short: girl falls in love with warrior husband (and when I say girl I mean it in the book she’s thirteen, not seventeen like she is in the show, it is deeply uncomfortable to read); warrior husband kills brother for threatening the girl; later warrior husband gets hurt and girl turns to blood magic witch for help. Witch offers cure but in exchange demands the life of husband’s horse and also ends up taking the life of girl’s unborn child as well. Husband is alive after this but only in the technical sense. Girl smothers him with a pillow and builds his funeral pyre. Then she steps onto the pyre with the dragon eggs she was given as a wedding present. Just for good measure she has tied the witch to the funeral pyre to make sure that she really burns and dies. Body of husband burns, blood witch dies, all the clothes and hair of girl are burned away but she emerges otherwise unscathed – physically at any rate – from the ordeal holding three quite alive dragons. Book ends there.

Themes of the Plot

Oddly enough I think a major theme for the book is the same one that runs throughout all of them … that is the complete and utter absurdity of ‘the Game f Thrones’. Jostling for power and plotting to get your inbred son crowned king are stupid enough ideas when all you have to worry about is the church being mad at you and the odd peasant rebellion. But it’s absolutely suicidal when there are an army of ice zombies coming for you.

The scenes at the Wall are almost entirely cut off and separated from the rest of the political moving and nonsense that is happening in the rest of the book and yet by far and away it’s the most important thing happening. The rest of it, up and to including Joffrey taking best person Ned Start’s head, is almost entirely pointless when you put it up alongside the army of ice zombies coming to eat your face.

Martin has said that the white walkers are an allegory for climate change but honestly the connection between the metaphorical meaning and the monsters in the text is limited to a winter theme, so in theory we could apply this to any oncoming disaster. Heck I’m doing a review of a fantasy book that came out when I was two while Nichola Sturgeon (?) is still alive. (I’m Scottish by the way, and I hate that woman, apply your own hated politicians when applicable and get same result).

Surprise Twists in the Plot

I get the feeling that Ned Stark’s execution, at least from the general feeling of the book while reading it, was supposed to be a surprise. I mean come on … surely Ned Stark is going to live through this he’s the main character. And I get that and I feel like it would have been a good twist that maybe a lot of people would have been blown away at the time of writing but…

It’s 2026.

And we all know Ned Stark gets his head chopped off.

Adaptational Changes to the Plot

Again, season 1 of Game of Thrones is pretty accurate to the first book. The biggest changes are Sansa’s betrayal – which in the show is watered down to a letter she’s forced to write her brother telling him to bend his knee to Joffrey which the characters instantly see through and absolve her of – and Stannis. Granted he doesn’t actually appear physically in the first book but he’s mentioned a lot. And not just in the ‘oh, he could be the next king if the children of the Queen aren’t Robert’s’ way he’s limited to on the show. No, in the book he and Jon Arryn investigated the Queen together and it’s heavily implied he’s been helping Jon run the kingdom for a while now. He booked it out of the capital very recently after Jon died and he realised that he might be next.

But Wee Lassie isn’t that cowardly , shouldn’t he have at least told Robert before he left??

Stannis isn’t Ned Stark his relationship with his brother is at best cold. Had he come to Robert with his suspicions he would not have been believed; or at least this is what Stannis thinks as he states in book two. That is why he goes to Jon with his suspicions because Jon will be believed. And also does anyone out there really believe it’s brave to stay and be willingly murdered by their political enemies? Like is there really someone out there saying that and not just a straw man I’ve made up to get my point across?

It’s not a big change but it is an odd one given how important Stannis would become in later seasons. Granted it’s probably just another instance of the writers of the show trying to tear Stannis down to make Renly look better. Because Renly’s assertions in the show (I can’t actually remember him saying it in the book) that Stannis is not a king, he is, look a lot more flimsy when Stannis has basically been running the kingdom on a day-to-day basis for years. I could go on a long tangent about that, about how they twist and mangle Stannis’ character to the point of having him kill his own daughter so his murderer looks more heroic, but this isn’t a post about that.

And so we’ve reached the end of our story … almost literally as far as these reviews are concerned. For next week we have our second to final post …the conclusion.

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