Winter has come in the world of Westros. John Snow is in the lands beyond the wall in the presence of their King. The once brother of the Knights Watch and Crow like himself, Mance Rayder. Daenerys Stormborne or Daenerys Targaryen has come across some questionable allies as her true power grows larger and stronger. Tyrion Lannister has survived, his face split open giving him some B. A. Baracus tough looking scars. Like Harry Potters older tougher brother some might say, disagree if you like. The white walkers march toward the wall and Sam and the gang rally to do what they can to warn the rest of the land. It looks like much more than winter has been brewing, I suspect some sort of apocalypse on the horizon.
The season starts in the far north and we see Sam fighting against a white walker, as best as Sam can which mostly involves running away while The Lord Commander saves him. We get our first glimpse, and apparently John Snow’s as well, at a giant. The 20 foot monster apparently hangs loose with the wildlings beyond the wall. When the series began it seemed so plain, good, but plain. It was a brilliantly written fantasy that didn’t have the usual elements (dwarves, elves, etc). Tyrion was a Dwarf I suppose but not in the D&D fashion one might expect. At the end of season one we finally see some dragons and it looks like there might be more to this world than we ever knew.Now, we have White Walkers and Giants. This may be the most subtle yet intricately layered fantasy epic of all time.
As the story continued on it wasn’t the most eventful season start ever. They impressed me with the giant but it mostly takes a backseat to catching you up to what people are doing. This mostly involves them just keeping on. Daenerys is trying to gather an army. She has a small Kalasar of Dothraki and her rapidly growing dragons and she may recruit some slave warriors. Rob Stark is still marching toward King’s Landing and his mother is still his prisoner. Tyrion fears for his life and carries all the best lines. “…You are not half is clever as you think you are,” Cersei says to him. To which he replies, “… that still makes me more clever than you”. He’s brilliant.
I was a little sad that we don’t catch up with Arya and we didn’t see a lot of wolves. But the series is still so rich in it’s environment and the characters and world so well developed that you barely notice the things it hasn’t shown you yet. I look forward to next weeks, and the week after, and maybe even the week after that. It’s hard to believe that Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon, and Khal Drago have been dead for over a season. My how the world has changed. It’ll be some seasons more before the war of fire and ice I imagine (my best guess at the climax since Daenerys heads toward Westros to wage war with King’s Landing and she has dragons, while the White Walkers march to the south on the back of Winter). But with out having read the third book I have high expectations from what I have been shown so far.
