The first episode of Game of Thrones establishes three converging storylines: in the frozen North, Night's Watch rangers encounter White Walkers — supernatural killers long thought extinct — and only one survives to warn the south, a warning no one heeds. King Robert Baratheon travels to Winterfell to recruit his old friend Ned Stark as Hand of the King, bringing the Lannister royal family into close orbit with the Starks. Across the sea, exiled prince Viserys Targaryen sells his sister Daenerys into marriage with Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo to secure an army. The episode ends with young Bran Stark shoved from a tower window after witnessing Queen Cersei and her twin brother Jaime in a sexual act.

This premiere lays the foundational tension that drives the entire series: the gap between political maneuvering in the south and an existential  ...