Saturday, March 16, 2013

Westeros revisited

We spent most of today rewatching the first series of Game of Thrones; I put the first episode on mostly to check how our new media server would handle sending HD content to RaspBMC, but then it turned out to be quite difficult to only watch one episode.

I had been hoping to rewatch some of it before the third season kicks off at the end of the month anyway, just to refresh my memory of what the hell's actually happening. I wasn't expecting it to be so much better, though - the first time through, I was having trouble following who characters were and what they were talking about in the early episodes. With the added experience of a previous viewing, it lends a lot more significance to scenes that I'd more or less glossed over or forgotten the first time around.

Daenery's story is still a little weak (not least for its Life of Brian associations1), but I'm finding it more interesting than last time. I'd dismissed her character arc before, but her gradual realisation that she has power - even if her brother would prefer she doesn't - and that she's capable of wielding it is a pretty big contrast with all the Westeros political manoueverings. She's also the only woman in the show who wants to be her own queen, not somebody else's.

My favourite scenes are still any with Tyrion Lannister, though. Ned Stark has the honour and means well, but Tyrion also knows how to manipulate and play people; it's great to see how different characters try to set up certain sequences of events, knowing how things turn out (at least as far as the second season; I've not read the books and don't intend to).

1 You mean you were raped?! / Well, at first…

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