10 best moments from the Game of Thrones series premiere
Jaime pushes Bran out a window
The first episode of Game of Thrones ends with one of the greatest cliffhangers in TV history. Bran Stark, an insistent climber of buildings, scales an abandoned tower in Winterfell while his new direwolf puppy Summer watches from below, this despite his mother Catelyn Stark explicitly forbidding him from climbing, especially while the king is in town.
But here Bran is, climbing a tower. When he reaches the top he hears some…interesting…noises coming from the window. When he peaks around the corner, he sees Queen Cersei and her twin brother Jaime Lannister having sex. Bran is spotted and Jaime grabs him, dangles the boy from the open window and then shoves him off the tower. “The things I do for love,” Jaime says.
Before we have time to grapple with the Lannister twins’ gross incestuous relationship, a child is presumably murdered. Then the episode ends.
Looking back, the first episode poignantly sets up much of the rest of the season and series. The reason why the king is in Winterfell is to ask Ned Stark to be the next Hand of the King. The last Hand, Jon Arryn, was supposedly murdered because he knew of Cersei and Jaime’s secret. That secret was their incestuous relationship, which beget Cersei’s three children — Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen — who everyone else believes are the king’s heirs.
King Robert not only has no trueborn heirs, but he also has few true allies and friends in King’s Landing, hence his insistence that Ned join him as his most trusted adviser. With Lysa Arryn’s accusatorial letter in mind, Ned is about to head to King’s Landing to take up Jon Arryn’s post and investigate the Lannisters.
But as we see in the first episode, the Lannisters will do anything and kill anyone who tries to expose them.
Next. The 10 most important kings to rule Westeros. dark
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