First up, there’s something interesting about the way the series presented sexuality. Straight sex was shown in abundance, with not one episode going by that failed to meet HBO’s Mandatory Nipple Quota. That said, very little of it was what you could consider “ordinary” – instead we get an array of incest, non-consent and prostitution. We never see Ed and Catelyn Stark together, or any of the show’s other (non-sibling) couples. The closest we have is Danaerys and Drogo, and by the time their partnership becomes less disturbingly non-consensual we pretty much stop seeing them as well. Straight sex, then, is abundant but somehow always unpleasant.

Renly and Loras: soon to vanish from the screen faster than you can shave an armpit.

Homosexual acts are distinctly less common in the series. Between female characters we get some slight implications with Danaerys and one of her serving girls as she learns how to please Drogo, a scene that is noticeably less graphic than the straight scenes in the show. The one time we are shown things by the same standards is a particularly unusual scene. The focus throughout is pretty much entirely on Lord Baelish as he instructs two recently arrived prostitutes. The scene is somewhat reminiscent of moments from (link is not worksafe) American Psycho, where Bateman does much the same, the sex a mere sideshow to his monologue. It places the male character directly at the centre of the scene and becomes almost parodic as Lord Baelish informs one of the pair to “be the man” in their actions.

And lastly, gay male pairings. We get one, and it’s an interesting one. On the one hand, it’s significantly more overt than it is in the books. Where the books give us a few sly remarks and implications from people, HBO pretty much flashes a giant neon “HEY GUYS, THEY’RE BONING” sign. And yet nothing is actually shown, only implied by sound effects, and the pair are then immediately written out for the rest of the series. Yes, they leave in the books as well, but given that HBO has already shown willingness to make changes, why not go a little further and develop them more fully? Certainly, HBO hasn’t shown a problem showing male relationships in past titles – see Michael Hall and Mathew St. Patrick in Six Feet Under, for example. So why the shying away this time?

Next up, issues of race. These have been widely discussed across the internet (see for example this, which we recently linked to), so I won’t go into it too much here. In summary, the handling of race is fairly disappointing and the presentation of the Dothraki never rises much above the Savage Other. The one key comparison that really illustrates this, and which is worth talking about in a little more depth takes place in the first episode.

Viserys simply can't *cope* with all this awfully tiresome uncivilisation.

The Starks, as we are first introduced to them, are going about the business of executing a deserter from the Night’s Watch, the brotherhood that guards the great wall in the North. It’s all shown as very grim and honourable, in that way that the Starks are throughout the series. No one takes any joy in it, but it’s a necessary task and the younger Starks learn a lesson about duty and suchlike from watching this poor chap get beheaded. Later we see the marriage celebrations for Danaerys and Khal Drogo. It’s a wild party with dancing and public sex. A fight breaks out over one of the women, ending with the disembowelling of the loser. Two public deaths, two very different contexts. When the (very, very white) men of the North kill someone it’s honourable and we sympathise with them. When the Dothraki do it it’s savage and lets us know that they’re Not Like Us. And that’s a problem.

Lastly, a minor character worth discussing: Lysa Tully, sister to Catelyn Stark. She’s an uncomfortable character, and a hard one to depict tastefully. If Cersei Lannister has something of the manipulative Lady Macbeth to her portrayal, Lysa Tully is entirely caught in the moment of “out damned spot, out I say!” Driven into a state of paranoid mania following the death of her husband, and with an entirely inappropriate relationship with her sickly son, there’s just something awkward about the implications of her character. As with a few others (notably Hodor), it’s a character that it’s hard to see how HBO could have done right without massively deviating from the source material.

Okay, that’s the last I’m going to say on Game of Thrones until season two rolls round. In the mean time, book five is finally out after a generation-long wait, so there’s that to get through between now and next spring.

In my initial review of the first episode I said that the female characters were a bit weak, and didn’t get much screen time. But, like their counterparts in the books, there was a good chance we’d get to see them develop into a pretty well-rounded bunch of characters. Let’s take a look at a few of them to see how HBO did.

Danaerys Targaryen

Danaerys (Emilia Clarke) was one of the more problematic characters in the first episode. She’s presented as a mostly passive tool for her brother’s plans of conquest, and pushed into a forced marriage with a disturbingly non-consensual first night. By the finale episode things have… sort of improved? She has definitely developed as a character, becoming a leader in her own right and banishing any notions that she might be passive or weak (“I do not have a gentle heart,” she declares).

She’s stood up to her brother, dealt out harsh justice, and worked to improve people’s lives by attempting to make the Dothraki end their practise of raping prisoners from their raids. Oh, and she’s got her own dragons, the first to be seen in a long, long time. On the other hand, the presentation of the dragons highlights one of the remaining issues in how she’s depicted. Rather than striding into the fire untouched and walking out resplendent, a reborn queen with her dragons behind her, she’s found the next day, curled up and naked, providing the episode’s HBO nipple quota. It’s also possibly the first use of a strategically placed dragon in mainstream TV.

The other issue with Danaerys is that her entire relationship with Khal Drogo just feels more than a little Stockholm Syndrome-y. The show never really addresses that first night, or the other occasions where we see her having sex against her will. Instead, she just learns to love him, and most of his respect for her seems to come solely from the fact she’s carrying his child. It’s not ideal.

Continuing the theme of arranged marriages…

Cersei Lannister

Evil, incestuous, and an arch-schemer, Cersei (Lena Headey) was presented initially as almost a caricature of the Ice Queen archetype. Ten episodes on, and she’s still evil, still incestuous, and still manipulative. But she’s also a lot more human and almost sympathetic. We’re given a genuinely revealing conversation between her and King Robert (Mark Addy), in which we glimpse a young woman who was married for political reasons to a king who was in love with a dead woman. We see how, raised for almost exactly this purpose, she tried to make it work, and how their flaws destroyed them and bought them to the sad state they’re in now. It makes her something a little more interesting than just evil for evil’s sake.

Sansa Stark

The last character linked by an arranged marriage is the young Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner). She’s perhaps the one we’ve seen the least progress out of. Raised from birth to meet the expectations of what a noble lady should be, and to someday marry a prince and have lots of little noble children, she’s got a lot of conditioning to overcome.

By the end of the series she’s still the most passive of the characters, still being used in other peoples’ schemes instead of forming her own. But she has at least seen that the dream she was sold was a false one, and that Joffrey is not a good king to marry, or even a remotely decent person. We get a brief glimpse of some steel in her as she talks back to him and moves to throw him off the castle wall. It’s not much, and she’s punished for it, but it gives us a hint that she might eventually get to be as cool as her sister.

Sansa: “I’m supposed to marry Prince Joffrey. I love him, and I’m meant to be his Queen and have his babies!”

Arya: “Seven hells!”

Which leads us to…

Arya Stark

Ah yes, Sansa’s sister. Standing alongside Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister as one of the best cast characters in a well cast show, Maisie Williams’s Arya is the polar opposite of her big sister. Sword-wielding, cat-chasing and adventurous, Arya actively rebels against the rules for what a noble’s daughter ought to be. On the one hand, this makes her incredibly badass. On the other hand it’s notable that she only gets away with things and survives because people mistake her for a boy. It highlights just how tight the gender roles are in the Seven Kingdoms, that even her father – a remarkably open minded man for the setting – can’t conceive of a life for her that doesn’t involve marrying a lord and having lots of offspring.

Where Arya is allowed to practise her sword fighting only as a father’s indulgence for his wilful child, and told she’ll never be a knight, her brother Bran continues to train in archery back at Winterfell. Arya is the more skilled of the two (shown in the very first episode, as she makes a shot Bran can’t), but as a girl it’s inconceivable that she could live that life, just as it’s impossible for Bran not to.

And lastly, amongst our main characters…

Catelyn Stark

She’s quite possibly the best of the bunch, in a quiet and determined way. She’s not got Danaerys’s flair or Cersei’s scheming prowess, but she gets things done and will not be stopped. It’s Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) who comforts her son after Ed’s death, not the other way round. It’s she who sums up what needs to be done: “We get the girls back. Then we kill them all.” It’s she who walks into a not-entirely-friendly castle keep alone to make the deal that’ll get their army across a major river. It’s nice to see an older female character on this show who knows what needs doing and gets it done.

On the other hand, there’s an issue with the repercussions of some of what she gets done. Her capture of Tyrion sparks a lot of drama, sees people killed and injured, and is one of the contributing factors to the war that breaks out. The whole treatment of it smacks a little too much of “flighty women do not think their actions through, and men must pick up the pieces.” It’s a key part of the plot in the books though, so that’s on Martin as much as it is on HBO.

There’s half a dozen secondary characters worth discussing as well (Shae, the Wildling woman, Sansa’s nursemaid, Catelyn’s sister), but not nearly enough room to discuss them. Damn you GoT for being so sprawling. Overall though, there are still definite issues, and there’s always the obligatory HBO nipples in each episode, but the characters are improving and will hopefully continue to do so if they stick to the course of the books. Roll on Spring 2012 and Season 2.

All images copyright HBO, taken from A Wiki of Ice and Fire