Since there is so much going on, I thought I'd give a breakdown of what's going on so we can all be caught up. To simplify things, it helps alot if you just focus on the four main stories. Yup, it's really just four stories, four houses, four families, four locations.
House Targaryen - Let's start with the simplest one, the only one left is Daenerys, Khaleesi and Mother of Dragons, and she is separated from everybody else by the Narrow Sea. Her family were the original royal family of Westeros ever since the founder rode in on a dragon. Over the years, dragons died out and the family grew weaker until the last king went mad and the kingdom turned against him. His pregnant wife was sent across the Narrow Sea for safety. Many years later, Daenerys is a grown woman, Queen of the Dothraki and helped hatch the last dragon eggs. The three dragons imprinted on her and now treat her as their mother. After growing up under the oppression of her oder brother, she has no patience for oppression and routinely fights to liberate slaves and then add them to her army to liberate even more. Her true goal is to return to Westeros and reclaim the Iron Throne.
House Lannister - The richest family in Westeros, owner of gold mines and fillers of the coffers of the kings. They once backed House Targaryen, until the king went mad, then they sided with the people who ultimately defeated them and took the Iron Throne.
- Cersei, the Queen - mother of the late King Joffrey and his successor Tommen. She was forced to marry the late King Robert Baratheon when he took the Iron Throne, she is a political monster, cold calulating and using everything she has, money, family, her own body, to hold power.
- Jaimie, the Kingslayer - Cersei's twin brother and lover. Yes you read that right, he is the biological father of Cersei's children. He earned his nickname for killing the last Targaryen king, though in his defense, the king ordered him to kill his own family. during the War of Five Kings, he was captured by Robb Stark and while trying to return to his family, his right hand was severed by people who didn't have much respect for House Lannister.
- Tyrion, the Imp - a dwarf and youngest of the lannister siblings. Jaimie is the only person who actually seems to like him, althogh he is actually the most likable of the people in King's Landing. He has had a rough life because not only is he a dwarf, but his mother died in childbirth so his sister and father have had it out for him ever since. He fell in love with a whore, but was forced to marry Sansa Stark against both their wills. When he found his father had taken the whore as his own, he killed both and retreated across the Narrow Sea.
House Baratheon - Robert was once betrothed to the sister of Ned Stark, and when the Targaryen King took her, the two Houses joined forces to bring down the mad king and when Ned rejected the Iron Throne, it fell on Robert. He died after being gored by a boar that he was hunting and when rumors spread that Joffrey was not in fact his son, the War of Five Kings began with two of those kings being Robert's brothers. Stannis arranged for the assassination of his brother and intends to claim the Iron Throne for himself. He has Melissandre, a priestess of the fire-god to assist him with powerful magic.
House Stark - Once mighty they have been dropping like flies, but the few left are possibly the strongest.
- Sansa - The eldest sister and eldest living legitimate Stark, she was betrothed to Joffrey which she was excited about until Joffrey killed her father Ned Stark for treason despite protest from everyone. Fortunately, there was another more ambitious suitor, Margaery Tyrell, who took Joffrey off her hands, but then she was forced to marry Tyrion who let her off the hook for her marital duties. She has since been smuggled to her mother's family by Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish who loved her mother and may have an unhealthy attraction to Sansa.
- Arya - younger sister of Sansa, a tomboy to the point of being a swordfighter wielding Needle, a small rapier commisioned by her illegitimate half-brother Jon Snow, it is now all that she has left of her family believing everyone else dead. While trying to escape King's Landing she was captured on the road and met an assassin named Jaqen dedicated to the Red God and managed to save his life and two others by opening their burning cage so they could escape. In return he killed three people and offered her to join his guild. At first she turned him down because she wanted to return to her family, but now believing that impossible, she has decided to join the assassin's guild after all.
- Bran - the older of the remainging legitimate sons of Ned Stark, he is now the Lord of Winterfell. He was crippled after being thrown off of a tower for discovering the Lannister incest, but also lost that memory in the fall along with the use of his legs. He is carried by a large man known as Hodor because it's the only thing he can say. He is a worg and has the ability to possess animals usually Summer a direwolf he raised from a cub. In a pinch he can also possess Hodor, but it's not particularly pleasant for either of them. Most recently they have ventured north beyond the wall into the territory of the White Walkers and encountered the Children of the Forest.
- Jon Snow - The eldest living Stark, but unfortunately a bastard and forced to join the Night's Watch giving up his rights to House Stark and forced into service to protect Westeros from threats north of the wall. For centuries this was only the Wildings but recently discovered the legendary White Walkers, undead of the frozen north are in fact real. This may in fact be the deadliest threat to Westeros, but nobody is taking notice because they are all busy playing politics down in King's landing.
So that should cover everything important in Game of Thrones. Next week it's Tora-Con, and I'll give you the lowdown on Monday!
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