A Game of Thrones recap

Lord Eddard Stark leaves Winterfell to serve his friend King Robert as Hand of the King, a post whose previous holder was murdered. Investigating in the capital, Ned learns the deadly secret that Queen Cersei's children are not the king's but were fathered by her own twin brother, Jaime Lannister. Before he can act, Robert dies of a hunting wound, and Cersei's cruel son Joffrey takes the throne. Betrayed by allies he trusted, Ned is arrested and, despite a promise of mercy, publicly beheaded. His son Robb raises the North and is proclaimed King in the North, while Robert's brothers Stannis and Renly each claim the crown too, plunging the realm into war. The Stark family is scattered: Sansa a hostage, Arya fleeing in disguise, Bran crippled and left at Winterfell, and Jon Snow sworn to the Night's Watch as an ancient enemy wakes beyond the Wall. Across the sea, the exiled Daenerys Targaryen loses her warlord husband and unborn child, then walks into his funeral pyre and emerges unburned with three newborn dragons, the first the world has seen in over a century.

The story opens in the North of a land called the Seven Kingdoms, where seasons last for years and a long winter is feared to be coming. Lord Eddard Stark rules the ancient castle of Winterfell as Warden of the North. Far to the north, beyond a colossal ice Wall manned by the sworn brothers of the Night's Watch, something old and cold is beginning to stir in the haunted forest. When the king's chief minister, the Hand of the King, dies unexpectedly, King Robert Baratheon travels north to Winterfell to ask his old friend and comrade Ned to take the dead man's place at court. The Stark children come into possession of a litter of direwolf pups, the sigil of their house. Far across the sea, the last exiled children of the overthrown dragon dynasty scheme to win back the throne their family lost. It is a realm of great houses, old grudges, and looming winter, where a game of thrones is quietly beginning.

Ned Stark is executed on King Joffrey's order despite the mercy he was promised, shattering any hope of peace. His son Robb, declared King in the North, wins his early battles and captures the knight Jaime Lannister, with his mother Catelyn at his side. Sansa remains a captive in King's Landing, betrothed to the boy king who killed her father, while Arya, disguised as a boy, escapes the capital and is carried northward. Crippled Bran and his little brother Rickon remain at Winterfell, and Bran is troubled by vivid wolf-dreams. Jon Snow commits fully to the Night's Watch as unmistakable signs mount that the ancient enemy beyond the Wall is returning. Farthest away, Daenerys Targaryen, widowed and childless after the death of Khal Drogo, steps into his funeral pyre clutching three fossilized dragon eggs and rises from the ashes unburned, three living dragons clinging to her, reborn as a queen with a power the world had thought long dead. The realm has broken into open war, and every side believes itself the rightful one.