kinda surprised this ep receives some hate, thought it was a good opening ep setting up the rest of the season

Yes, as already discussed they showed it but I thought it was pretty funny how they showed it. They showed the circle with the Jorah pretty far outside the circle still, then he just bends over and picks it up without actually going to the middle of the circle. That and the hounds just completely disappearing in the Sansa scene had me chuckling.

The hounds disappearing in the Sansa scene was because killing poor doggies is a line GoT wasn't willing to cross.

It wasn't Drogon who ate the ram.

Great episode one. Enjoy the beautiful outdoor location shots in HD TV and costumes and the set design. They are at a high level of art you wont see elsewhere. As far as plot goes, the show is mostly offering several independent "mini-plots" each episode. Will Sansa be re-captured? Will Khaleesi talk her way out of rape? Will John's supporters be tricked into being massacred? Will Jorah be able to track Khaleesi? What is Arya's next challenge now that she is blind? What does Red Melisandre really look like? There were more. These little intrigues should be are interesting to audiences by themselves. IMO the show is not set up for viewers to focus on a grand overlying plot.

Is this the first episode you've ever watched? If not, cool insight bro.

Is that line beyond beheading horses?

I am a book reader feel free to delete but I'm not spoiling anything.

I noticed Daenerys arm fat a lot more on my 2nd watch through... she's too young to let herself go like that.

The conversations between the Dothraki was cringe worthy along with everything the Sand Snakes do but we expect that from them at least. The thing that really pissed me off was how the women and guards to the Khal would just talk freely and basically argue openly with him. Guy seems like a pushover, Drogo would never stand for that.

The rule about not raping Dothraki widows is pretty cheap writing but at least it is well established in previous seasons. The widows live in Vaes Dothrak together.

Alexander Siddig was the only redeeming feature of Dorne. Criminal to waste him like that. Not looking forward to seeing more of the terribly acted Sand Snakes and that idiot Ellaria, someone who's even worse at forward thinking than Cersei.

this. didn't expect them to hit anything too deep in ep1, but i agree that this set the season up well. just need to check in on Bran soon.

I don't understand why people loved this episode. Like many of the episodes nothing really happened.

Dany - Back with the horsey dudes. Seen that.
Tyrion - Need to win over the people of a big city he's been put in charge of. Seen that.
Aria - Her training has finally really begun...for the second or third time. Seen that.
Sansa - Trying to hide from the bad guys. Seen that.
Jon Snow - Still dead. In-fighting at Castle Black. Seen that.
Margary - Still in jail. Exciting.
Dorne lady - Still wants everyone to die.
Red Lady -Still getting naked but now with yucky naked

About 10 other characters we don't care about doing the same things.

Am I'm missing something? I'll probably do what I did last year and just wait for the season to be over and then binge watch it. This show moves at a snails pace when you have 10 main characters you have to touch on each episode.

Edit: Oh. Dr Bashir was killed. Had actually forgotten he was even on the show and then he showed up and I was like "Oh yeah, Dr. Bashir" and then he died.

Don't really understand how people can day nothing happened.

*Brienne/Pod joining Sansa/Theon is a big deal.

*Doran and Tristane being murdered, while not terribly important is a thing that happened. It's the head and heir of one of the seven kingdoms.

*Melisandre revealed that she's actually really old. We don't know the importance of this yet but it could be significant.

The rest of the stuff is mostly setup and checking in on last season. What else did anyone expect from the first episode?

First episode is always setup. This setup was better than almost any of the other E1s, minus the pilot.

Shockingly I can remember where we are in the story. If I need a refresher I can rewatch last season.

Yeah, I missed it at first, too, but now that it's been pointed out it's really glaring. For anyone who still doesn't see it, here's a quick comparison between how she looked season 1 and last episode that makes the difference pretty obvious.

"Melisandre is really old" isn't an interesting reveal. We already know she can do real magic. It's too late to start filling in her back story now.

So there has to be more purpose to the reveal than that. Probably she's related to someone who's important, but long dead. I thought maybe she is Jon Snow's mother (would explain a lot) or a Targaryen (they also like fire), but she doesnt need to be hundreds of years old for either of those.

If its just a setup for someone eventually defeating her by removing her necklace, that's lame.

I dont like Indira Varma's (Ellaria) character or her acting in this show at all. I liked her a lot in Rome, but here she's either miscast or stopped caring, not good.

I loved the episode personally, but I really like the show so I might be biased.

Came here to check but nobody's said it yet; is the old-aged version of the red woman the Witch that told Cersei her prophecies?

could be, they both apparently can see important future events. would link those scenes in a way that otherwises leaves us wondering where/why there was the cercie foreshadowing.

Could be one of those things you look back at rewatching the series after it's all said and done and say 'ldo'.

I like this theory!

for a refresher this is a picture of Maggy ( the fortune teller) from last season

Interesting

Agreed. I think people should consider it's the first episode of a season where, I assume, a **** ton of things are going to happen, coming out with an ep 1 gunz blazing would just be poor writing and would certainly not be in the spirit of the series, IMO they did good at building up the suspense, particularly the last scene did a good job at making me think "O DAMN, ****S GON GO DOWN" without it being overkill

This is what I was wondering. (I've read some but not all of the books and do not have any knowledge at all that would suggest it so I'm not worried about spoiling.... Throwing this out as a disclaimer because I don't want to piss anyone off)

saw this picture elswehere, is these some implications of something special? Or is it just someone who ****ed the spine up making it look like she got 3 spines