June 12, 2011: "Game of Thrones" Proves That No Character Is Safe

June 12, 2011: The HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones takes a drastic step: Killing off what had appeared to be the show's main character.

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.

June 2, 2013: "Game of Thrones" Airs "The Red Wedding"

Oona Chaplin as Talisa Maegyr and

Richard Madden as Robb Stark

June 2, 2013: The HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones airs an episode titled "The Rains of Castamere." Based on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series, this episode includes a scene known to the books' fans as "The Red Wedding."

The show's 1st 6 seasons each had 10 episodes. The 9th episode of Season 1, "Baelor," featured the death by execution of the character who, to that point, had been suggested as the show's hero, Eddard "Ned" Stark.

Ned was played by Sean Bean, and it had already become a trope that Bean dies in everything he's in (which is greatly exaggerated, as he "only" dies in 1 out of every 3 roles on the average), so maybe the show's fans should have seen it coming. The message from the show, and before that from the books, to the fans was, "See? No character is safe. Anybody can be killed off at any time."

This was made clear in Season 3, again in the 9th episode. At this point, the main conflict on the show was between the portrayed-as-noble, though often reckless, family House Stark, now led by Ned's eldest son Robb (played by Richard Madden); and the evil, forever-scheming House Lannister, officially led by the sociopathic teenage King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), but truly led by his mother, Cersei (Lena Headey), and her father, Tywin (Charles Dance).

There is a lull in the fighting, and one of the other family heads, Walder Frey (David Bradley), who is pledged to support another of the family heads, Robb's uncle Edmure Tully (Tobias Menzies) -- offers to allow Robb to marry one of his daughters. Before this can happen, Robb falls in love with Talisa Maegyr (Oona Chaplin -- granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin and great-granddaughter of Eugene O'Neill), and marries her.

In revenge for Robb breaking his promise, Walder comes up with a new plan. He offers to let Edmure marry one of his daughters, and to host the wedding. It's a trap: Walder is now allied with the Lannisters, and he breaks the sacred rule that no guest may enter a wedding armed. Walder's men use swords and daggers to kill the Starks: Robb, his wife, even his mother, Edmure's sister Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley); along with many men loyal to House Stark. Edmure, not being a Stark by blood, is not targeted, and escapes. Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), Robb's teenage sister, is barely rescued and taken away.

This scene was horribly violent, and very bloody, and could not have been shown on non-pay TV. The level of cruelty was as shocking as the fact of Robb's death. As Tywin pointed out in the next episode, Robb had a large army of very loyal men, and had never lost a battle -- but because he had followed his heart instead of his head, he was now dead, and his family in seemingly irrevocable decline.

As photographer and YouTuber Phil Alexander put it, to the tune written by Jim Steinman for the song sung by Bonnie Tyler:

Once upon a time, he was a King in the North

now he's just a corpse in the dark.

There's nothing he can do:

A Total Eclipse of the Starks.

Author Martin had used 2 sources for the Red Wedding, both from Scotland: The Black Dinner, in Edinburgh in 1440, where the Earl of Douglas and his brother were executed by their great uncle (who inherited the Earldom) in front of the 10-year-old King James II; and the Massacre of Glencoe, in Argyll in 1692, where 30 members of Clan MacDonald were killed for refusing to pledge themselves to England's King William III.

It took 3 more seasons for Arya to train as a warrior, and to get her revenge on Walder Frey; and 2 more seasons, and several twists, for House Stark to ultimately triumph.

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June 2, 2013 was a Sunday. It was the day that the United States Soccer Federation celebrated its 100th Anniversary with a special match at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, the closest thing American soccer then had to a "national stadium." The match was between the U.S. team and Germany, seen by 47,359 paying customers, myself included.

The U.S. got a goal by Jozy Altidore and an own goal by the Germans, and were up 2-0 in the 16th minute. Germany scored in the 2nd half, but Clint Dempsey scored 2, to make it 4-1. Germany scored in the 78th and the 81st to make it 4-3, but the U.S. hung on to win. I have a separate entry for that event.

This was not a full-strength Germany team: Of the 20 players on their roster, 17 of whom they sent into the game, only 3 would appear for them in the 2014 World Cup Final: Benedikt Höwedes, Miroslav Klose, and, very briefly at the end of that final, Per Mertesacker.

American-style football was out of season. The NBA Playoffs were approaching a climax. The next day, the Miami Heat beat the Indiana Pacers to win the Eastern Conference title, and went on to beat the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals.

In hockey, the Chicago Blackhawks beat the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Los Angeles Kings, 4-2 at the United Center in Chicago, to win Game 2 of the NHL Western Conference Finals. The Hawks took a 2-0 series lead. The day before, the Boston Bruins had taken a 1-0 lead over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Hawks would beat the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals, 4 games to 2.

And these games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. The game was called in the middle of the 6th inning, due to rain. (It had threatened to rain in Washington all day, but it only really started as we came out of RFK Stadium. The real problem was the 90+ degree heat.) Clay Buchholz allowed only 3 baserunners: A walk by Robinson Canó in the 1st inning, a single by Ichiro Suzuki in the 2nd, and a single by Austin Romine in the 3rd.

* The New York Mets lost to the Miami Marlins, 11-6 at Marlins Park (now LoanDepot Park) in Miami.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-5 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Despite the threat of rain, they got the entire game in.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-2 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Despite the threat of rain, they got the entire game in.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Washington Nationals, 6-3 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Travis Snider singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning.

* The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Indians, 11-3 at Progressive Field in Cleveland.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Seattle Mariners, 10-0 at Target Field in Minneapolis. How many Twins pitchers does it take to pitch a 4-hit shutout? This time, 4.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-1 at Rangers Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb or Arlington, Texas.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-2 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the San Diego Padres, 7-4 at Petco Park in San Diego. Mark DeRosa hit a home run in the top of the 11th, and the Jays got 2 more runs to put the game away.

* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Angels, 5-4 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 2-0 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the O.co Coliseum). How many A's pitchers does it take to pitch a 3-hit shutout? This time, 4.