Game of Thrones Season One Ultimate Unofficial Guide: The Game of Thrones Season 1

Targaryen reign. The Baratheons most likely lived in Dragonstone among the Targaryens before making a new home on someone else’s ancestral land.
    The Lannisters earned their homeland not through physical defeat, but through trickery and deceit. Their ancestor manipulated his way into power, taking over what had belonged to the Casterly House since the Age of Heroes. They become the third family to make a home out of another family’s ancestral holds.
    Both the Targaryen and Baratheon families fought their way into power, while the Lannisters manipulated their way in. All three families remain connected and are now heading into battle against one another. Here are the connections:
    A Lannister served as Hand of the Targaryen King.
    A second Lannister stabbed the same king in the back, even though belonging to the Targaryen Kingsguard and sworn to protect him.
    A Baratheon descendant usurped the Targaryen throne
    Same Baratheon descendant married into Lannister family.
    Lannister blood has taken control under Baratheon name.
    The rightful Baratheon heir is preparing to take the throne from the Lannisters.
    The last of the Targaryen bloodline is preparing for war to remove Baratheon from power.
    In other words, history repeats itself when Baratheon and Targaryen prepare for a fight, while Lannister manipulates a position of power.

Did You Know?
    The scenes of Westeros are filmed in areas of Northern Ireland. Maltos is used to properly portray Essos.
    A language expert from the Language Creation Society was hired to create an authentic Dothraki language. The actors worked to learn the new language as part of the authenticity of the show.
    Many of the scenes contain constructed sets built into the landscape, but CG animation is used to fill in the rest of the details, such as the towering castle keeps of the various strongholds and the view from the Moon Door of The Eyrie.
    Specially trained “acting” animals were used that only perform one trick. For example, the horse that falls in the joust was taught to only do that one stunt.
    Ravens are very inquisitive and as trainable as dogs.
    The dogs used as direwolves are a special breed of Inuit dog bred to look like a wolf.
    Each established region of Westeros has a surname given to bastard children. Here is a list of them:
     The North: Snow
     The Riverlands: Rivers
     Iron Islands: Pyke (the name of the main island)
     The Vale: Stone
     King’s Landing: Waters
     Highgarden: Flowers
     Dorne: Sand
     Westerlands: Hill
     Stormlands: Storm
    There is no particular surname given for bastards born in Essos.

    A striking new dimension of computer animation is introduced at the beginning of each episode. Since our story involves a fantasy world with different geography than our own planet, the show creators felt a map would help to familiarize the audience with this new world. The pop-up, working game board represents a map of the mythical world into which we have been drawn. It is meant to be just as complex as the story. The four main power Houses of King’s Landing, Winterfell, The Wall, and Vaes Dothrak are always shown, but as the story unfolds, so do additional areas of the Kingdom. Not until half way through the season did The Eyrie appear on the game board map, as it does in the storyline. The same goes for Lord Frey’s manor, The Twins, which pops up in the intro to the episode where Cat agrees to marriage arrangements for Robb and Arya. Numerous designs and animation styles were tested before the current introductory map/gameboard was selected. New and long-time fans alike are left to eagerly speculate about what fresh innovations will be in store for season two.

The Hub
    . . . “Game of Thrones quickly becomes a great and thundering series of political and psychological intrigue bristling with vivid characters, cross-hatched with tantalizing plotlines and seasoned with a splash of fantasy.”
    - Los Angeles Times
    “’Game of Thrones’ is the latest entry in television’s most esteemed category: the sophisticated cable drama about a patriarchal subculture…a sprawling, multi-character exploration of a closed, often violent hierarchical system.”
    - The New Yorker
    “Game of Thrones is a complicated story with numerous characters and a dense, interwoven back-story. The ambition is immense, the fantasy world exceptionally well-conceived, the writing and acting elevating the entire series beyond contemporaries…”
    - The Hollywood