Inside Game Of Thrones - Season 1 - Episode 9

Episode 4 years ago

Inside Game Of Thrones - Season 1 - Episode 9

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The old gods they worship reside in a place called “the godswood” in Winterfell, a bone-white tree called a “heart tree” with red leaves and a face carved into its trunk, a face whose eyes the worshippers of the old gods claim to see all.

That is one of Eddard’s favourite places to be in, sitting on a stool in front of the heart tree in the silence of the godswood, polishing Ice’s long blade and brooding on times past. Either that or the crypts, standing before the statues of his father and brother and sister.
After paying his respects, Robert Baratheon doesn’t mince words. No use doing that with his friend. Jon Arryn is dead, so he needs a new Hand. He doesn’t trust his wife, or her Kingslayer brother, or any of her family, for that matter. Even those who sit on his council either don’t know the truth, or cannot say it to his face the way Eddard can. He needs to surround himself with people he can trust. So will Ned accept the privilege of becoming his new Hand?

Eddard had already suspected this was coming. The South and the North are very far apart, and thousands of leagues lie between King’s Landing and Winterfell, and yet Robert somehow happened to wish to make the trip with all his household as soon as Jon Arryn was dead.

Coincidence? Hardly.

Ned does the respectful thing in this situation for someone who wishes to decline. He goes down on one knee, says that he his honored but cannot accept because of his duties as a father and Lord of Winterfell and apologizes.
Robert laughs at Eddard’s use of the word “honor”, and asks if he remembers the saying about the King and the Hand. Eddard does remember. “Whatever the King thinks, the Hand builds.” But Robert says the commonfolk have an even choicer way of putting it. “The King eats, and the Hand takes the shit.”


As can reasonably be expected, in spite of his jokes, Robert isn’t too happy with his friend’s refusal, but he shakes it off, insisting that Ned will come around sooner or later. But first, they must have a feast.
Which is exactly what Ned does in honor of his king.

Over the next few days, the two friends have a lot of talks and go on hunts together. I guess that is a nice way of saying Robert found new ways to request his favor of Ned over and over again, and between his friend begging him to death and Robert’s entourage diminishing their stores at Winterfell, Ned finally acquiesces.
Lord Stark is going South.

Eddard Stark’s younger brother, Benjen Stark, is a man of the Night’s Watch, part of the garrison at Castle Black at the Wall. He came to Winterfell on the same day as the King to recieve supplies for the Night’s Watch, and to see his brother. Benjen and Jon are close, and Ned’s brother tells him that Jon has decided to take the black, a phrase used to denote that someone wants to join in with the men at the Wall.

Any criminal from any corner of the seven kingdoms can be punished by being forced to take the black, which means the bulk of the people who man the Wall are, you guessed it, criminals. Any man who takes the black will hold his post for life, and will never take a woman to wife, nor have any children.
So you can understand that Ned is less than pleased with his bastard son’s decision. But he also understands why Jon has decided to go to the Wall. His wife, Lady Catelyn, was a good woman who loved her children, but she could never bring herself to treat his bastard as her own. To her, he was just the bastard, the outcast, and she made sure all her children saw him as such.

She had tried again and again to have him sent away from Winterfell, and so far for the fourteen years of Jon’s life, Ned had refused her. Eddard was the only reason the boy was with his family. With Ned going South, Jon knew he couldn’t stay alone with Catelyn in Winterfell.

A wise decision, though a painful one.
Before the day of Ned’s departure, however, a terrible tragedy affects Ned Stark’s third son, Bran, which doesn’t kill him but has a big impact on the young boy’s life. Ned wants to be with his son, but he has made a promise to Robert, and the king has had enough of the cold of the North, so he has to leave. He takes both of his daughters, Sansa and Arya along with him, leaving his firstborn Robb to be Lord of Winterfell.
Sansa is already a proper lady. Young, but she has already learned her sewing, her courtesies, and everything about the womanly arts from Septa Mordane. Arya— or Arya Horseface, a nickname which the other girls had taken to calling her because of the big step down in beauty between her and her sister —didn’t do as well, or just plain didn’t take as much of an interest in them, if the reports and complaints from Septa Mordane were anything to go by.

Where his first daughter kept her woolens and silks spotless and had the step and manner of a lady, his second was always getting dirty and running all over the place.
Which is exactly why he’s taking her with him to King’s Landing, to see if she can maybe learn the ways of Southern ladies since the Northern ladies have had no effect on her.