Game of Thrones photo recap: "The Prince of Winterfell"

"The Prince of Winterfell" was an episode of Game of Thrones that picked up on Cersei's line to Sansa from last week: "The more people you love, the weaker you are." Themes of love and its consequences were everywhere, from Robb and Talisa's newly consummated relationship to Peter Dinklage's revelatory work in his scenes with Cersei and Shae. As always, check out the photo gallery for a rundown of the hour's best moments, and then keep reading for the night's most memorable quotes.

The best moments from "The Prince of Winterfell": Brienne and Jaime are oddly perfect together, Arya calls in her final favor, and the episode ends with a reveal that surprises no one.



The hour's best quotes: Yara Greyjoy, Westeros' top comedian, is back, Ned Stark was the best lord anyone could hope for, and Shae can be adorable even when issuing seriously gruesome threats.

"Which one gave you the tougher fight? The cripple or the six-year-old?" Obviously the cripple, because he had Hodor on his side. Hodor!

"Theon, you're my blood. We both loved our mother, we both... endured our father." Yara's summation of Balon Greyjoy acts as a nice counterpoint to Robb's description of having Ned as a father.

"He once told me that being a lord is like being a father, except you have thousands of children, and you worry about all of them." See what I mean?

"See that he doesn't get drunk in the evenings. He's poor company when he's sober, but he's better at his work." I'm not entirely sure how Tywin thinks Arya - who weighs about eighty pounds soaking wet - is going to keep The Mountain from doing whatever he wants, but the vote of confidence is nice nonetheless.

"And how did you accomplish this marked drop in thievery?" "Me and the lads rounded up all the known thieves." "For questioning?" "...No." Bronn and Tyrion are the Abbott and Costello of Westeros.

"Digging latrine pits at the end of the world... I can't imagine anything much worse." "Then you lack imagination." Dolorous Edd lives up to his nickname (although you can't really blame him).

"A man has patrol duty." Jaquen's unique syntax works well when he's making cryptic statements about murder, but it's not as effective when he's just talking about his day. "A man has to stop by the post office" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

"A man can go kill himself." And Arya out-badasses a ninja genie.

"His place is not on the battlefield." "It's not on the throne either. Sadly for all of us..." Joffrey insults will never get old.

"I will hurt you for this. A day will come when you think you're safe and happy, and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you will know the debt is paid." Tyrion Lannister may not be the most physically imposing specimen, but he can be pretty frightening when he wants to be.

"There are people who want to hurt me." "I know. I won't let them. I'll cut off their faces. I will." Only Shae can turn a bloodthirsty threat into a term of endearment.

"I don't want to marry the Frey girl." "I don't want you to marry her." Who would have thought that Game of Thrones could pull of unabashed romance (or, to be more specific, unabashed romance that didn't start with forced marriage and rape).

"He didn't say anything about the guards." "What, he left that bit out? It's a pretty important part, don't you think?" I missed you, Gendry. I really did.

"Imagine Stannis' terror." "I am trying." Peter Dinklage and Conleth Hill are masters of deadpan sarcasm.

"Why are all the gods such vicious cunts? Where is the god of tits and wine?" A pretty hilarious line that highlighted another theme of "The Prince of Winterfell": overuse of the word "cunt." Seriously, I counted at least seven instances, and I probably missed a few.

"Game of Thrones": How Audacious Was That Twist?

Sean Bean as Ned Stark in Game of Thrones. Photo courtesy of mamapop.com.

Warning: SPOILERS for those who haven't yet seen "Baelor." Serious spoilers. Absolutely DO NOT read this if you haven't watched the episode.

Well, I don't think many people saw that coming.

I have known for quite a while that Sean Bean's Ned Stark would not survive the first season of Game of Thrones, because a certain person spoiled it for me before the series even began. (You know who you are.) However, even though I knew what was coming, I found myself with my heart in my throat, pleading with the TV gods to spare this man and cursing that awful little shit Joffrey with every breath. I watched the show with my dad, who did not know what was coming, and he was completely shocked by Ned's death.

Various reviewers are discussing the shocking twist at the end of episode, particularly the audaciousness required to kill the main character before the end of the first season. EW.com's recapper, James Hibberd, describes Ned Stark's death as "tragic and horrific and possibly unprecedented for a first-year show," while the AV Club's David Sims argues that the move is less audacious - largely because the show is based on a series of books - but still "a conclusion sure to blow the minds (and break the hearts) of all us non-initiated fans."

Killing Ned is an audacious move - albeit one that already happened in George R.R. Martin's novels - for two reasons. One, it establishes that literally no character on this show is safe. Other shows have tried to intimate that any character could die at any time, but despite Teri Bauer's death in 24's first season, everyone knew that Jack Bauer was going to survive, at least until the finale. The second season finale of The Vampire Diaries, as great as it was, also brought home this truth; the suspense wasn't about whether Ian Somerhalder's Damon was actually going to die, it was about the lengths to which Stefan and Elena would have to go in order to save him. With Ned's death, it has become clear that absolutely everyone is fair game, which puts all of our favorite characters in jeopardy.

Ned's death, however, is audacious for another reason, one that I find more compelling than the first. By killing Ned Stark, one of the few truly noble, honest characters on the show, Game of Thrones has demonstrated that this is no traditional fantasy epic. The noble characters will not survive because of their strength of character; rather, the more noble a character is, the more likely they are to lose the fight against manipulators like the Lannisters and Petyr Baelish. Robb may have won a battle and captured Jaime Lannister, but his father's death presents a bleak future for the rest of the noble Starks.

Ned's death scene was powerful because it was daring and shocking, but also because it was well shot and beautifully acted. The look on Joffrey's (Jack Gleeson's) face when he ordered Ned beheaded was truly disturbing, a malicious smile that contrasted beautifully with the grief, fear and horror present on Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Arya's (Maisie Williams) faces. Even Varys, who is always difficult to pin down, tried to save Ned at the end, but Joffrey's blood lust would not be slaked. To me, however, the most interesting reaction was not that of Joffrey, Sansa or Arya, even though all three young actors - particularly Williams and Gleeson - did an excellent job in that scene. I was instead fascinated by watching Lena Headey's Cersei, the woman who schemed to turn her son into what he is only to realize that even she can no longer control him. Cersei's look implied a realization that she had created an ungovernable monster, and there was fear in her eyes.

Lots of other great stuff happened in this episode - it appears that Khal Drogo is dying and Daenerys is losing her influence, and Tyrion had some wonderful scenes - but I can't really process it right now. I'm still reeling from Ned's death. I'll be back with more thoughts after next week's season finale, but right now all I can think about is that this is the beginning of the end, and that it doesn't look good. Robb is fighting a battle that he may not be able to win, Bran is alone in Winterfell, Arya is on the run, Jon is kept at the Wall and Sansa is trapped by Cersei and Joffrey. Things are certainly looking bleak for the Starks. Winter is coming.

"Game of Thrones" Controversy: Is Fantasy Just for Boys?

Mark Addy, Lena Headey and Jack Gleeson in HBO's Game of Thrones

Anyone who has watched television or been on the internet in the past few months has probably heard about HBO's luxurious and expensive adaptation of Game of Thrones, the first novel in George R.R. Martin's ongoing fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. Those who follow television news and gossip a little more carefully have probably heard about the controversy surrounding Ginia Bellafante's review of the series for the New York Times, specifically the way in which the author implies that fantasy series are "boy fiction," not for women, claiming that the many, many (many) sex scenes that appear in the first few episodes were placed there as "a little something for the ladies," and because "no woman alive would want to watch otherwise." Bellafante goes on to say that she has "never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to The Hobbit first," a statement which is not only completely irrelevant to the task at hand, which is reviewing a TV show and not pontificating on perceived gender differences, but which also demonstrates that she has an extremely limited group of female friends. I for one have never heard of Lorrie Moore, but I am a voracious lover of Tolkien who has, on several occasions, dressed up in a homemade elf costume just because I could.

Bellafante has also clearly never made the acquaintance of Ilana Teitelbaum, who wrote a brilliantly insightful article in the Huffington Post about the sexism inherent in Bellafante's article, namely the idea that women aren't bothered with watching fantasy, and would instead spend their time shoe shopping and watching Sex and the City. Indeed, in the opening paragraph of Bellafante's article (I'm going to stop calling it a review, because there is very little actual reviewing happening here), she says that the show's opening credits should come with a warning stating, "If you can't count cards, please return to reruns of Sex and the City." For the record, while I am a huge fantasy nerd, I also really enjoy stereotypical female activities like shoe shopping, spa days and lunches that include mimosas. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not even going to go into all the sexism (aimed, oddly enough, at her own gender) contained in Bellafante's article, partly because Teitelbaum does the job much better than I ever could, and partly because I think it's fairly apparent in the aforementioned quotes. (Seriously though, just because someone happens not to like Game of Thrones doesn't automatically imply that they're a woman, and even if they are a woman, it doesn't automatically imply that they will be watching Sex and the City. They could be watching baseball, or Fringe, or Community.) Instead, I want to respond with my own opinions about Game of Thrones, the first episode of which I decided to watch before writing this post.

I should state that, because I am not a critic for any of your fancy newspapers, I did not get screener copies of the first six episodes of the season, so this review is based entirely on the pilot episode. Having noted that, I really liked the show. Scratch that: I LOVED it. Game of Thrones was well-written and well-acted, the production values were absolutely top-notch, and there was just enough sex and violence to provide a nice, gritty atmosphere without completely upstaging the plot, although the producers could have cut down a bit on the exposed breasts. Plus, there were zombies. Zombies! I particularly enjoyed the performances of Sean Bean as Lord Eddard Stark, a man torn between loyalty to his king and his family; Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf brother of Lena Headey's Queen Cersei who is witty, often drunk, fond of prostitutes, and much tougher than he looks; and the luminous, marvelous newcomer Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen, descendent of the deposed king who is now being used a bartering tool by her nasty brother to get his kingdom back. Clarke perfectly captures Daenerys' innocence and fear, and her performance in the scene of her wedding to savage warlord Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) is mesmerizing.

Speaking of Daenerys and her forced marriage to Khal Drogo, the scene later in the episode in which she unwillingly consummates her marriage is a refutation of Bellafante's assertion that the sex was put into the series for the purpose of pandering to women. Even if all the sex in the episode was not in the books, which is most certainly was, there a three major sex scenes in the episode, and none are the sort that strike me, a woman, as being particularly sexy. They are: a scene in which Tyrion pays four prostitutes to have sex with him at once; Daenerys' consummation of her marriage, which is, to put it bluntly, rape; and a scene in which Queen Cersei is glimpsed having rather vigorous sex with her twin brother (not the dwarf, her other brother). These scenes are not titillating so much as degrading, and the first two in particular serve as a commentary on the place of the women in the fictional kingdom of Westeros and, by extension, the very real setting of medieval Europe.

There are certain small problems that I had with the series. The number of characters and their shifting allegiances confused me, and I don't know if I would have been able to follow had it not been for the assistance of my boyfriend, who has read A Song of Ice and Fire. The episode was also extremely expository, and while the exposition was well done, there's only so many times you can hear a character refer to another character as "my brother" or "my husband" without completely giving up on the verisimilitude of the thing. However, these were small quibbles, and I suspect that the second in particular will be resolved in a few episodes, after the audience has become better acquainted with the intrigue. I, for one, will definitely be watching the second episode come Sunday, and I can't wait to see where the series takes me. I might be a little late though; I have to get in some shoe shopping first.