'GoT' premiere shows how things have come full circle for major characters

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By Ani Bundel

“Game of Thrones” season eight premiered this weekend, with the first of the final six episodes. For millions of hungry fans, it was something of a reunion: Characters who have travelled far and wide over the past few years returned to where it all began, to face an enemy no one believed in. This week’s episode — the beginning of the end for a fantasy story that has spanned generations and continents — deliberately echoed the original pilot in both structure and in style, reminding fans that those who were once children and pawns in the great game are now the ones in charge.

When “Game of Thrones” premiered all the way back in 2011, it was considered one of the strangest bets HBO had ever taken. Though high fantasy tales like “Lord of the Rings” had swept the Oscars a few years before, and “Harry Potter” was slaying at the box office, both franchises were seen as outliers. “Game of Thrones” was also more complex than either story, a meditation on the nature of power with a cast of dozens that would soon bloom to hundreds. Pacing an introduction to all of the main characters was so difficult it took two pilot episodes to get it right.

This week’s episode — the beginning of the end for a fantasy story that has spanned generations and continents — deliberately echoed the original pilot.

But that second pilot, entitled “Winter Is Coming,” managed to make the whole endeavor seem almost easy. Perhaps then it’s not surprising Sunday’s episode spent so much time looking back. The original cast has shrunk back down to a nearly manageable size again, a mere two dozen or so speaking parts. And with a gap of more than a year separating the end of the seventh season and this final season premiere, much of the hour was spent reminding everyone who these characters are, in a mirror image of how they were introduced in the first place.

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In the initial pilot, after a quick introduction to the Stark brood of the North (father Ned, mother Catelyn, five kids, plus one bastard) the first major set piece “Game of Thrones” staged depicted the arrival of the ruling family from the South. The interactions between the high-born characters and their various underlings defined their personalities as well as their place in the hierarchy.

source: nbcnews.com