Epic Win! HBO's Bloody, Bold Game of Thrones

Fantasy drama grows up with HBO's bloody, bold Game of Thrones

By James Poniewozik Monday, Apr. 25, 2011
    • Courtesy HBO

    Ned Stark shoulders a leader's burden

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    Meanwhile, across the sea to the east, two exiled Targaryens plot a return to power. Viserys (Harry Lloyd) is an arrogant fop; styling himself after his ancestors who used now extinct dragons to conquer Westeros, he calls himself "the Dragon" (an honorific that from his lips sounds as affected as "the Situation"). He is marrying off sister Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) to Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), chief of the Dothraki, a clan of Mongol-like horsemen who Viserys hopes will carry him to the Iron Throne.

    Thrones ' visual language is Old High Geek — dragon skulls, heraldry, leather and chain mail — but its psychology is bluntly realistic, a reaction against fantasy clichés like the struggle between absolute good and evil. Seeming villains show scruples, seeming heroes are compromised, and moral rigidity is a fatal flaw. (In one duel, a knight is slain by a street-brawling mercenary. "You don't fight with honor!" complains an onlooker. "No," the mercenary agrees dryly, indicating the corpse. "He did.")

    Martin, interviewed near his home in Santa Fe, N.M., says his novels are a response to the fantasy trope that virtue alone wins the day. "A good man is not always a good King," he says. "And a bad man is not always a bad King. Probably the best man to serve as President in my lifetime was Jimmy Carter — the best human being, but he was not a good President. General goodness did not automatically make flowers bloom."

    Thrones ' plot is even more complicated than its morality; Martin's books are leviathans, each one adding layers of conflict. Westeros has millennia of history, distinct religions and cultures and a vast geography. There are dozens of major players scattered across thousands of miles. Several lead characters are children who experience events and emotions harsher than anything encountered on a Quidditch field. And did I mention the 700-foot wall of ice?

    Martin, who was a TV writer in the '80s on Beauty and the Beast and a remake of The Twilight Zone , believed his story was unfilmable. He was convinced otherwise by the possibilities of HBO — which accommodates not just the story's sex and blood but also its moral ambiguity — and a pitch from producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who wrote much of the first season. (Martin scripted the eighth episode.)

    Benioff and Weiss tamed a narrative dragon, editing deftly (beyond an exposition-burdened pilot) but staying remarkably faithful. Their adaptation, shot in Northern Ireland and Malta, makes every second count, starting with the ingenious title sequence, in which a map of Westeros, a handy visual aid for newbies, comes to animated life.

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