Description
News of Tyrion’s capture reaches King’s Landing where Jaime Lannister, the Queen’s twin brother, demands answers from Ned. A vengeful Jaime fights Ned until his man stabs Ned in the leg from behind. Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. It is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin’s series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones. The episodes are mainly written by Benioff and Weiss, who are the executive producers alongside Martin, who writes one episode per season. Filmed in a Belfast studio and on location elsewhere in Northern Ireland, Malta, Scotland, Croatia, Iceland, the United States and Morocco, it premiered on HBO in the United States on April 17, 2011. Two days after the fourth season premiered in April 2014, HBO renewed Game of Thrones for a fifth and sixth season. The series, set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos at the end of a decade-long summer, interweaves several plot lines. The first follows the members of several noble houses in a civil war for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms; the second covers the rising threat of the impending winter and the mythical creatures of the North; the third chronicles the attempts of the exiled last scion of the realm’s deposed dynasty to reclaim the throne. Through its morally ambiguous characters, the series explores issues of social hierarchy, religion, loyalty, corruption, civil war, crime, and punishment. Game of Thrones has attracted record numbers of viewers on HBO and obtained an exceptionally broad and active international fan base. It received widespread acclaim by critics, although its frequent use of nudity, violence and sexual violence has attracted criticism. The series has won numerous awards and nominations, including a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series for its first four seasons, a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Television Series – Drama, a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in both Long Form and Short Form, and a Peabody Award. Among the ensemble cast, Peter Dinklage won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Tyrion Lannister.
Eddard “Ned” Stark was the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, and briefly served as Hand of the King to Robert Baratheon. He was a POV character for fifteen chapters in A Game of Thrones, the first novel of the series. He is respected throughout the realm for dedication to duty and honor, though he also comes across as cold and distant due to his past and heritage, and is privately a somber man. Despite this, he loves his wife and children fiercely and teaches them valuable lessons with warmth. His ancestral dark hair and gray eyes are inherited by his children Jon and Arya.
The second son of Lord Rickard Stark, Ned was fostered by Lord Jon Arryn at the Eyrie in the Vale from the age of eight until he was twenty, and befriended his fellow ward Robert Baratheon who fell in love with Ned’s sister Lyanna. When Lyanna’s abduction by Prince Rhaegar resulted in Ned’s father and older brother Brandon being executed by King Aerys II, Ned became Lord of Winterfell and married his brother’s betrothed Catelyn Tully. Joining Robert against the Targaryens, Ned was a prominent figure of the rebellion, breaking the Siege of Storm’s End and commanding the rebel forces when they rode to reach King’s Landing after the Battle of the Trident due to Robert sustaining wounds. Arriving to find the city fallen by treachery and the royal family, especially Rhaegar’s wife and children, brutally slaughtered, Ned was enraged that their noble cause was won by the Lannisters’ trickery, especially Jaime Lannister’s murder of the king despite his sworn oath to die for his protection, and harbored a mistrust and enmity of the family for the rest of his life. He also briefly became estranged from Robert following their argument over the brutal deaths of Rhaegar’s family (Ned was appalled, while Robert justified the acts), causing a rift even Jon Arryn couldn’t mend. It would take the death of Lyanna to reconcile them in their shared grief. Riding out to complete the war by himself and in anger, Ned later found a dying Lyanna in the mountains of Dorne after a deadly showdown with the remaining three knights of Aerys’ Kingsguard. Of the eight men who confronted the knights, only Ned and his friend Howland Reed survived. Comforting his dying sister, Ned made a promise to her which remains unknown to this day. During the war he supposedly fathered Jon Snow with a woman whose identity is widely speculated but unknown. In the war’s aftermath, Ned brought Catelyn, their son Robb, and Jon to Winterfell. Although Catelyn resented Ned for rearing Jon as a member of their family, Ned and she four more children: Sansa, Arya, Brandon, and Rickon. Ned ruled the north well for the next fifteen years, though he was always haunted by the deaths of his siblings and father, and never left the north except to help King Robert end the Greyjoy rebellion. After Lord Greyjoy’s later rebellion was crushed, Ned fostered Lord Greyjoy’s only surviving son, Theon, and raised him at Winterfell; but Theon resented this, as he knew he was a hostage in truth.
At the beginning of A Game of Thrones, Ned brings his young son Bran to watch him behead a Night’s Watch deserter, to teach responsibility; and later learns of Jon Arryn’s death and that Robert shall visit Winterfell. Though pleased to see Robert, Ned is reluctant to accept the king’s offer to take Arryn’s place as Hand of the King; but when Catelyn presents him a letter from her sister Lysa that the Lannisters had murdered Arryn, Ned accepts the offer to investigate the matter. Concurrently, Ned allows Jon to join the Night’s Watch. In King’s Landing, Ned is spied upon by Lords Petyr Baelish, also called “Littlefinger”, Varys, called “the Spider”, and by Queen Cersei Lannister. When Catelyn secretly tells him of an assassination attempt on their son Bran, Ned promises to find additional evidence against the Lannisters. Ned later receives a lead through Petyr Baelish to one of Robert’s illegitimate children (Gendry), and realizes that Arryn’s death is part of a larger conspiracy. Ned’s time in King’s Landing also drives rising tensions between the Starks and Lannisters to breaking point, which later sparks the beginning of the War of the Five Kings. After Catelyn abducts Tyrion Lannister to answer for the murder of Arryn and the attempt on Bran’s life, Jaime Lannister openly attacks him in the streets, seriously wounding his leg and giving him a permanent limp. He briefly resigns his position when Robert insists on killing Daenerys Targaryen (the deposed king’s daughter) and her unborn child, though Robert gives him back the position as Ned is the only man he trusts to rule the kingdom out of everyone in King’s Landing.
Ned concludes that Queen Cersei’s children (Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen) are illegitimate and were fathered by Jaime Lannister, Cersei’s twin, and that the Lannisters murdered Jon Arryn due to his investigation into the same matter. Before Ned can tell the king and end the Lannisters’ pretensions, Robert is fatally wounded while hunting and dictates that Ned be Regent for Joffrey, whereas Ned promises “until his true heir” takes the throne. After Robert’s death, Ned writes to Stannis, the eldest of Robert’s younger brothers, of Joffrey’s illegitimacy and Stannis’s own right to the Iron Throne. When this is discovered, Ned is arrested for treason despite his efforts to gain support to overthrow Cersei. It is agreed that if Ned declares Joffrey the rightful heir, Ned’s life will be spared and he will be allowed to join the Night’s Watch, and is told that his daughter Sansa will be killed if he refuses; he makes a public confession of his “treason” as part of the deal, but Joffrey has Ned beheaded anyway on a whim, foiling his family’s plan to maintain peace with the North and ending any chance of peace with the Starks. After learning of Ned’s execution, Robb is declared ‘King in the North’, and Stannis declares himself heir to the Iron Throne, as does his younger brother, Renly, driving the realm into civil war. Cersei and Jamie’s younger brother, the dwarf Tyrion, is named the new Hand of the King in place of his father Tywin who is leading the military effort against the rebels, and orders that Ned’s head be removed from its spike and his bones sent to Catelyn. Meanwhile the Iron Islanders take Moat Cailin, isolating the North, leaving it unknown if Ned’s remains will return to Winterfell to be buried. In A Dance with Dragons, Lady Barbrey Dustin tells Theon Greyjoy that she is waiting for word that Ned Stark’s bones have reached Moat Cailin, whereas she intends to feed Stark’s bones to her dogs.
Eddard is a major character in the television adaptation, in which he was portrayed by Sean Bean.
Shaun Mark “Sean” Bean (born 17 April 1959) is an English film, television, theatre and voice actor. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1983 and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Bean first found success for his portrayal of Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe. He has since garnered further recognition for his performances in the HBO epic fantasy series Game of Thrones, the BBC anthology series Accused and the ITV historical drama Henry VIII. His most prominent film role was in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy as Boromir (2001-2003). Other notable roles include Alec Trevelyan in the James Bond film GoldenEye (1995) and Odysseus in Troy (2004) as well as Patriot Games (1992), Ronin (1998), National Treasure (2004), North Country (2005), The Island (2005) and Black Death (2010). He will also co-star in the upcoming science fiction film Jupiter Ascending. As a voice artist he has featured in the video game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the drama The Canterbury Tales among several others. Bean has received several honours throughout his career and has won an International Emmy for Best Actor. He has also been nominated for a BAFTA and Saturn Award. Bean starred in the first season of Game of Thrones, HBO’s adaptation of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin, playing the part of Lord Eddard Stark. Bean and Peter Dinklage were the two actors whose inclusion show runners David Benioff and Dan Weiss considered necessary for the show to become a success, and for whose roles no other actors were considered. His nuanced portrayal of what could have been a stereotypical “noble leader” character won him critical praise; as the A.V. Club’s reviewer put it, he “portrayed Ned as a man who knew he lived in the muck but hoped for better and assumed everyone else would come along for the ride.” HBO’s promotional efforts focused on Bean as the show’s leading man and best-known actor. The photograph of him as Ned sitting on the Iron Throne holding his greatsword was used for promotional posters and on the cover of the first season’s DVD box set as well as the cover of a tie-in reedition of the novel A Game of Thrones.Jaime Lannister is the younger twin brother of Cersei and the first son of Tywin Lannister. He serves as the third-person narrator of seventeen chapters throughout A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons. He is inseparable from Cersei, and the pair have maintained an incestuous relationship. He treats his dwarf brother Tyrion with respect and kindness, though Cersei and Tywin do not. An immensely skilled warrior, he was knighted at a young age and has little interest in anything other than battle. To be close to Cersei, he renounced his claim to Casterly Rock and joined the Kingsguard, a group of knights sworn to protect the King, being raised to the position because King Aerys II Targaryen wanted to rob Tywin of his heir. In protest, Tywin resigned his position as Hand of the King and took Cersei from King’s Landing, leaving Jaime at court. When the King planned to burn the city instead of surrendering to rebels, Jaime murdered both the king and the agent sent to arrange the act. This gives Jaime a reputation as an evil and dishonorable man, and the nickname “The Kingslayer.” By A Game of Thrones, he and Cersei have three children, though the children believe that King Robert Baratheon is their father. Jaime accompanies Robert and Cersei to Winterfell, where Bran Stark discovers Jaime and Cersei in coitus, and Jaime throws the boy from a window to keep the relationship secret. When Tyrion is captured by Catelyn Stark, Jaime attacks Catelyn’s husband Eddard Stark. He then leaves King’s Landing and joins his father against Catelyn’s home in the Riverlands. He is given command of half of Tywin’s army; but his arrogance leads him into an ambush by Robb Stark and his army is scattered or slain. Despite his defeat, Cersei names him Lord Commander of the Kingsguard after Barristan Selmy is dismissed. At the end of A Clash of Kings, Catelyn releases Jaime after he swears to return her daughters to her, and thereafter never to take up arms against her family. He and Brienne of Tarth journey to King’s Landing, but they are captured by sellswords in the service of a Stark bannerman Roose Bolton. Jaime suffers torture and his sword hand (right) is cut off. After losing what he considers his only redeeming part, his sword hand, he loses the will to live, but recovers with Brienne’s help. He is discovered by Roose Bolton and given more dignified treatment. He is released, but Brienne is given over to the sellswords for “entertainment.” Turning his entourage around, he returns to Harrenhall to rescue Brienne from the Bear Pit and they both then return to King’s Landing. Bolton puts the sellswords who maimed Jaime to death to conceal his role from Tywin Lannister. Returning to the capitol, he once again refuses to resign from the Kingsguard and argues with his father, whose gift of a sword is taken as an insult. Jaime gives the blade, which he names Oathkeeper, to Brienne and orders her to protect Sansa Stark. When Tyrion is accused of the murder of Joffrey Baratheon, Jaime refuses to believe the claims and confesses that Tyrion’s first wife was not a prostitute, an act that enrages Tyrion. Before Tyrion departs, he tells Jaime that Cersei had been conducting numerous affairs while he was captured, casting a great shadow over the only other thing he lived for, his relationship with Cercei. Twice, Cersei asks him to become Hand of the King, and he refuses both times.Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (born 27 July 1970) is a Danish actor, producer, and screenwriter. He attended Statens Teaterskole in Copenhagen in 1993. In the United States, he played Detective John Amsterdam on the short-lived Fox television series New Amsterdam, as well as appearing as Frank Pike in the 2009 Fox television film Virtuality, originally intended as a pilot. Since April 2011, he became known to a broad audience by playing the role of Jaime Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones. Since April 2011, Coster-Waldau has played Jaime Lannister on HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin’s best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novel series. He commented about the character: “What’s not to like about Jaime? As an actor I couldn’t ask for a better role”. BuddyTV ranked him #85 on its list of “TV’s Sexiest Men of 2011”.
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