In the north the impetuous Theon Greyjoy, former war hostage turned best friend of Robb Stark, is desperate for recognition while Renly’s young lover Loras Tyrell comes from a large, wealthy and very ambitious family. Littlefinger can be found conspiring in corners with Varys, the court’s eunuch spymaster, and council member Grand Maester Pycelle, who may not be the doddering fool he pretends to be. In the capital of King’s Landing, Petyr, Lord Littlefinger – played by the enjoyably saturnine Aidan Gillen – is a man with an eye for the main chance and a long-standing crush on the newly widowed Catelyn Stark. There are also plenty of schemers and malcontents to keep an eye on. That’s about to change in season two – with neither man happy about the swift way in which the Lannisters declared Joffrey king after Robert’s sudden and suspicious death. We didn’t see a great deal last season of the former king Robert Baratheon’s brothers Renly and Stannis (indeed we didn’t see the latter at all). However, she also has something that almost every other character desires: at the end of season one she hatched the last three dragons in the world from the smouldering remnants of her husband’s funeral pyre. Having recently lost her husband and child as well as her brother, Dany is in a precarious situation and seemingly no closer to achieving her desire of returning to Westeros. She spent the first half of season one adjusting after being sold to a horse lord by her weaselly (now deceased) brother Viserys, but has since proven to have an interestingly steely heart when the situation arises. The Queen across the Waterĭaenerys Targaryen – aka the last of the dragons – is the only surviving heir of the original ruling dynasty of Westeros. Yet while the Lannisters are undeniably unpleasant people, they also have many of the best lines – with Jaime and younger brother Tyrion (the show-stealing Peter Dinklage) particularly adept in the art of the snarky put-down. Strictly speaking the family should not be in any way likeable given that they are headed by the cold-hearted Tywin (played with twinkling malevolence by Charles Dance) and feature among their number the unstable Queen Cersei, who has conducted a long-standing affair with her sardonic twin brother Jaime (currently Robb Stark’s prisoner), and her psychopathic teenage son Joffrey, the newly crowned king. In addition to the hard done-by Starks, the Kingdom of Westeros is also home to the scheming Lannisters, currently in the ascendancy after proving rather more adept at political games than their enemies last season. Meanwhile, Sansa Stark is a prisoner in all but name in the capital of King’s Landing Arya Stark is travelling north with a brother from the Night’s Watch (the order her half-brother Jon Snow is stationed with) and the two youngest children, Bran and Rickon, are at the family seat in Winterfell. ![]() The new season starts with Robb, the oldest son and now Lord Stark following his father’s execution, having declared himself King in the North after a series of astute victories. But the Stark family – bitterly betrayed last season, and beginning series two scattered and under attack – are the most obviously honourable bunch. Whether Game of Thrones really has heroes is debatable, given its predilection for examining the price extracted by every righteous deed. The book’s author George RR Martin is as interested in exploding the common tropes of fantasy – the base-born hero, the exiled princess, the noble knight – as he is in telling an epic tale, and HBO has stayed remarkably faithful to his dark-hearted vision of a world that is almost entirely populated by double-crossing deceivers. This is a world in which magic is often discussed but rarely seen. ![]() Game of Thrones, both the book and the series, is unlike any other fantasy series – one poster last year memorably described the TV show as “Rome meets The Sopranos with a bit of 70s German porn thrown into the mix”.
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