Even if you don't end up murdered like Ned Stark or Jon Arryn before him, acting as the Hand of the King is a thankless job.
As Game of Thrones approaches its Season 2 finale Sunday (9/8c, HBO), the cast of the period-fantasy series weighs in on arguably the most powerful job in the Seven Kingdoms: The Hand of the King (or Queen, as it were). The Hand acts as chief advisor, executes the ruler's commands, is in charge of the army, drafts laws, dispenses justices, handles the day-to-day running of the kingdom, sits on the small council and even sits upon the Iron Throne to act on the king's behalf when he is indisposed (or hunting wild boar).
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Lady Catelyn is just as noble and upstanding as her late husband Ned Stark. And we all know how that ended.
On Sunday's Game of Thrones, Catelyn continues to be torn between her wartime duties to the King in the North, her son Robb (Richard Madden), and being separated from her four younger children. "Robb is the only one that she has any sort of communication with at this time, and she doesn't know where the others are," Michelle Fairley, who plays Catelyn, tells TVGuide.com. "Her whole drive for the second season is to...
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Natalie Dormer may have been topless during one of her first scenes in Game of Thrones, but it was her character's attitude about sex with her husband that made the biggest impression.
In Sunday's episode, Dormer had to play the not-so-shy virgin Margaery Tyrell, who tries to consummate her marriage with Renly Baratheon (Gethin Anthony). When he can't quite rise to the occasion, she offers to enlist the help of her brother Loras (Finn Jones), who just so happens to be Renly's lover.
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"Power is power," the Queen Regent Cersei told a chastened Littlefinger in the long-awaited Game of Thrones Season 2 premiere.
It's a lesson that the Lannister lady has passed down to her son. In Sunday's episode, both Cersei and Joffrey flex their monarchy muscles among their courtiers, but now that Westeros is embroiled in a civil war among more than one self-styled king, it remains to be seen who actually wields the most influence. Who made a play for power? Who succeeded? Who failed? Who just embarrassed him/herself? TVGuide.com breaks down the power shifts in "The North Remembers":
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Power Tripping
Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson): He may only be a teenager, but that kid is sitting on the Iron Throne. So far, he's used his power to hold tournaments, give the order to...
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In its first-season finale, Game of Thrones tied up its loose ends as well as a sprawling fantasy epic could be expected to. More importantly, it left us wanting more by introducing us to Daenerys Targaryen's little ... friends. We bid our spoiler-filled goodbyes below.
TVGuide.com's Hanh Nguyen is an avid scripted-TV watcher, a horror-avoider and someone who's read George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series, on which HBO's Game of Thrones is based. Colleague Rich Juzwiak rarely watches scripted television, is a gorehound and became alerted to Martin's existence just recently, as he started researching this new swords-and-sandals (well, boots) series. He knows nothing of these sorcerers (if that is indeed what they are), while Hanh is something of an expert (read: fantasy/sci-fi nerd). Each week, he'll try to make sense of this crazy new show by enlisting Hanh's expertise. It may turn out to be a test of tolerance: in this case, the Games begin after the TV is off...
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