The show, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R.R. Martin, was in its 1st season, airing its 9th of 10 episodes that season, titled "Baelor." Much of the promotional material for the show featured English actor Sean Bean, as Eddard "Ned" Stark, head of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and Warden of the North in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. He served the King, Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), who was married to Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), twin sister of Jamie Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).
But King Robert dies in what's called a hunting accident. (Since his death was not shown onscreen, there is suggestion among fans that he was murdered.) And so, his son, Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), becomes King. Where Robert was once athletic and heroic, but had become fat and weak, Joffrey was a sadistic, sociopathic teenager, not really fit to rule.
Ned discovered another reason why Joffrey was not fit to rule: While he is Cersei's son, he is not Robert's son. Rather, his father is Jaime, Cersei's own twin brother. I should note that, in Westeros, which may be on a different planet than Earth (Martin has also written science fiction), incest is not considered a taboo. The previous ruling family, House Targaryen, married relatives off. The problem for the people of the Seven Kingdoms isn't the incest, it's the illegitimacy: If Joffrey is not the son of the King, then he is not the next rightful King.
Ned, who had been Robert's "Hand of the King" -- effectively, the Prime Minister of the Seven Kingdoms, and probably a play on the term "right-hand man" -- reveals this to the nobles, and threatens to reveal it to the public. The King would then be Robert's brother, Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane).
Ned is told by Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance), father of Cersei and Jaime, grandfather of Joffrey, and the true power behind the throne, that, as Ned's daughter, Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) is engaged to Joffrey (at least in a political sense, it seemed like a good idea at the time), her life would be forfeit as well as his for the treasonous revelation he was threatening. By taking it back amongst the nobles who now knew, Ned would spare himself and his family.
Except Joffrey, whose genetic makeup has left him a bastard in both senses of the word, orders Ned's execution anyway, and to have it done in front of his family: His wife, all 5 of his legitimate children, and the young man he has raised as his own son even though... well, the true origin of Jon Snow (Kit Harington) wouldn't be revealed for a while, and doesn't need to be spelled out here.
It was already a running gag that "Sean Bean dies in every movie." It's not that bad, and it's been established that he doesn't have the worst such percentage in Hollywood; but his character does die in about 1 out of every 3 of his appearances, often horrifically. People who were fans of his before GoT hoped that his status as the lead character would keep him alive.
But anyone who had read the books knew that Ned was doomed. The joke goes, "George R.R. Martin can't go on Twitter, because he's already killed 140 characters." And when it looked like Ned's son Robb (Richard Madden) would avenge him 2 years later, on came "The Red Wedding," in which Robb, his mother, his wife, and much of his army were wiped out in one treacherous fell swoop. (UPDATE: I later discovered that the phrase "one fell swoop" was created by none other than William Shakespeare, in Macbeth, to describe the slaughtering of Macduff's family. So I unknowingly blundered into an appropriate usage of the term.)
If Ned had managed to escape from custody, and escape with his family intact, many GoT fans believe it would have prevented all the suffering that followed. But this theory is ridiculous: Knowing Tywin, Cersei and Joffrey, there is no doubt in my mind that Ned and his brood would all have been hunted down, and wiped out. It would have been what "The Red Wedding" nearly was. Atrocious pun alert: It would have been a total eclipse of the Starks.
On November 19, 2019, ScreenRant did a post about Ned's survival, how it could have happened, and what the results would have been. Most of them would have been good, including the Lannister forces being wiped out at the Battle of Blackwater Bay, and the lives of the Lannister family as a whole being forfeit (with the exception of Cersei and Jamie's 2 younger children, as Ned would have spared them as innocent minors); and no Red Wedding, so Ned's wife Catelyn and eldest son Robb live longer.
But Arya never would have had to leave Winterfell to train as a warrior, and would not have killed the Night King at the Battle of Winterfell. So either someone else would have had to do it (Jon? Robb?), or Westeros would have fallen. If Ned had lived to that point, maybe everyone would have died. Instead of Infinite Earths, the Crisis In Seven Kingdoms could have been the end of life as they knew it.
So, as bad as things got for House Stark, they were better off in the end.
In a 2016 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played George R.R. Martin, and "Nice" Peter Shukoff played a man to whom Martin is often compared in terms of writing style, Lord of the Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien.
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June 12, 2011 was a Sunday. The NBA Championship was won, as the Dallas Mavericks beat the Miami Heat, 105-95 in Game 6 of the Finals, at the American Airlines Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami. I have a separate entry for this event. This returned the favor: These same teams met in the 2006 Finals, the 1st for each, and the Heat won.
Football was out of season. It was a travel day for the Stanley Cup Finals. The Vancouver Canucks led the Boston Bruins, 3 games to 2. But the Bruins won Game 6 under dubious circumstances -- the conspiracy theory is that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman will never let another Canadian team win the Cup, after the Montreal Canadiens did so in his 1st year -- and Game 7, to win their 1st Cup in 39 years.
These Major League Baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 9-1 at Yankee Stadium. Freddy García was the winning pitcher. Derek Jeter went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Alex Rodriguez went 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs. Curtis Granderson went 4-for-4 with 2 RBIs. But there were no home runs.
* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-0 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Chris Capuano was the winning pitcher. The Mets scored all their runs in the last 3 innings, including home runs in the 9th by Scott Hairston and José Reyes.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-3 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Ryan Howard went 3-for-3 with a walk and 3 RBIs.
* The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Baltimore Orioles, 9-6 at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 14-1 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. The Red Sox got home runs * from David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Adrián González. Jon Lester was the winning pitcher.
* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Florida Marlins, 5-1 at Sun Life Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida.
* The Seattle Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-3 at Comerica Park in Detroit. Miguel Olivo hit 2 home runs. Ichiro Suzuki went 2-for-5 with an RBI. For the Tigers, Miguel Cabrera went 1-for-1 with 3 walks.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-4 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3 at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Texas Rangers, 6-1 at Target Field in Minneapolis.
* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 4-1 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies, 10-8 at Coors Field in Denver.
* The Washington Nationals beat the San Diego Padres, 2-0 at Petco Park in San Diego. Jordan Zimmerman pitched 7 innings of 4-hit shutout ball, striking out 10 and walking just 1, but he was not the winning pitcher. The Nats scored 2 runs in the 9th, on Danny Espinosa's sacrifice fly and Laynce Nix's single, so the winning pitcher was Todd Coffey, who pitched a perfect 8th. Drew Storen finished the 5-hit shutout.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the Los Angeles Angels, 9-0 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Vin Mazzaro pitched 7 innings of 5-hit shutout ball, and Blake Wood finished the 5-hit shutout.
* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-2 at AT&T Park
(now Oracle Park) in San Francisco.
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