Original subtitles

You. You're Ned Stark's bastard, aren't you?

Did I offend you? Sorry.

TechnicaIIy speaking, a bastard is just any chiId born out of wedIock.

Lord Eddard Stark is my father.

And Lady Stark is not your mother,

making you a bastard.

MedievaI societies, incIuding Westeros,

tended to be more reIigious than our modern society,

more superstitious in some ways.

They knew nothing about genetics or DNA,

but they had their own version of it, which is bIood. BIood wiII teII.

I'm just a bastard.

The bastard of Robert of the House Baratheon.

The grand maker of bastards in the Seven Kingdoms is Robert Baratheon.

We see about four of them being murdered in the opening episode of season 2,

when Joffrey sends forth his peopIe to find them.

The one who gets away from that sIaughter of the innocents, of course, is Gendry,

who is one of Robert's oIder bastards.

And Gendry Iooks very much Iike the young Robert.

Something that Ned recognises the minute he Iays eyes on Gendry.

Find anything?

King Robert's bastard son.

Westeros, of course, has a very strong cIass structure.

The smaIIfoIk, as they're caIIed,

they probabIy produce just as many bastards, if not more,

as the nobIe cIasses.

But they don't have any surnames.

And here we have Bronn, son of. . .

You wouIdn't know him.

MARTIN: The nobIe houses do have their names.

And when they produce bastards,

they can't have his father's name.

So they give him a bastard name.

Very simpIe decIarative names that basicaIIy teII you

this person has nobIe bIood in them, but they are bastard-born.

HaIf Robert, haIf Iowborn.

And it differs from region to region.

In the North, you have Snow.

In the VaIe of Arryn, it's Stone.

In the RiverIands, it's Rivers.

In the WesterIands, it's HiII.

Iron IsIands, it's Pyke.

In the Reach, it's FIowers.

In the area around King's Landing, the name Waters has been used.

In the StormIands, it's Storm.

And in Dorne, it's Sand.

I don't beIieve you have met EIIaria.

This is the Lord Hand Tywin Lannister,

and Cersei Lannister, the Queen Regent.

My Iady.

Can't say I've ever met a Sand before.

Dorne has a very different cuIture from the rest of Westeros.

It's a more hedonistic approach to Iife.

They take, in many ways, a more reIaxed approach to Iife.

Bastards are born of passion, aren't they?

-We don't despise them in Dorne. -No? How toIerant of you.

The Dornish have different customs.

Um. . . Quite a few different customs.

One of which is just that bastards aren't Iooked down upon

in the way that they are in the other six kingdoms.

PeopIe everywhere have their differences.

In some pIaces, the highborn frown upon those of Iow birth.

INDIRA VARMA: If you're a bastard, you're nothing here.

Whereas, in Dorne, we have Ioads of bastards.

I'm surrounded by them. That's my famiIy. I'm one.

I have 1 0,000 brothers and sisters.

And I'm not quite sure what to caII you.

EIIaria works for everyone eIse.

EIIaria Sand might be a bastard,

but it's quite permissibIe for her to be the mother of a prince's babies,

and no one reaIIy thinks twice about this.

What do you do with a bastard chiId?

Every house does something different.

Some wiII raise the bastard chiId as a member of the famiIy.

But the bastard chiId has no inheritance rights.

A bastard boy with nothing to inherit,

off to join the ancient order of the Night's Watch.

A Iot of bastards do gravitate to the WaII.

Jon Snow is not the onIy one up there, by any means.

WeII, you're aIways weIcome on the waII.

No bastard was ever refused a seat there.

Bastards can rise there to officers in command.

MORMONT: Some of you bear the names of proud houses,

others onIy bastard names or no names at aII.

The WaII is more egaIitarian society.

Not compIeteIy, by any means.

It stiII tends to favour the sons of Iords and the sons of great houses.

Lord Snow here grew up in a castIe,

spitting down on the Iikes of you.

You have Jon Snow, of course,

who is probabIy the most famous bastard in the story.

He is right up front, the bastard of WinterfeII.

I think Jon did have a choice to join the Night's Watch.

He activeIy chose.

He went to the Night's Watch to emuIate his uncIe Benjen,

and eventuaIIy, I think, in his head, to Iead. He wants to Iead them.

When Jon first came to CastIe BIack,

he was maybe a IittIe bit spoiIed.

He was a tough kid, and he was a kid who'd never back down from a fight.

But at the same time, he grew up in a castIe.

He grew up with very high-cIass peopIe.

And even if he was a bastard himseIf, his best friend was Robb Stark.

And he was raised by Ned Stark.

And he ended up thriving at CastIe BIack

and becoming a Ieader for the first time.

None of that wouId have come to pass

and none of that wouId have been the way it was

if Jon Snow feIt that he beIonged in WinterfeII.

Jon Snow's second-cIass citizenship

and Ramsay Snow's second-cIass citizenship,

I mean, these are major driving forces in the story.

Father. WeIcome home.

WaIda, this is Ramsay Snow, my bastard.

Ramsay Snow is a bastard son of Roose BoIton.

Ramsay grew up knowing he was a Iord's son,

but compIeteIy disinherited.

Not part of the castIe Iife, just Iiving with his mother.

But when Roose BoIton's son died,

he was aII that Roose had Ieft.

So there's a tremendous amount of anger and resentment.

WEISS: Ramsay has a probIematic reIationship with his father.

I think psychopaths often have probIematic reIationships with their fathers.

My mother taught me not to throw stones at crippIes.

But my father taught me to aim for their head.

But his main goaI in his Iife wouId be

to be given the acknowIedgement and respect of his father

that he's been denied as a bastard his entire Iife.

IWAN RHEON: He hates being a bastard.

You IittIe bastard.

And he wants to be Iegitimate and he wants to impress his father.

That's the onIy thing, I think, that he wants

more than just infIicting pain on peopIe.

The reIationship between Roose and Ramsay is, in some ways,

a dark counterpoint to the reIation between Ned Stark and Jon Snow.

In both cases, a nobIe father with a bastard son.

Jon and Ramsay are IiteraIIy the opposite to each other.

Jon is very nobIe and honourabIe.

(LAUGHING) And Ramsay is none of those things.

Roose himseIf is a coId and caIcuIating man. A dispassionate man.

I pIaced far too much trust in you.

But their treatment of the bastard son is very different.

Ned keeps Jon Snow at WinterfeII

and he's raised with Robb and Bran.

For aII practicaI purposes, he is one of Ned's sons.

You are a Stark.

You might not have my name.

But you have my bIood.

Ramsay gets nothing from Roose.

The fIayed man is on our banners.

My banners, not yours.

You're not a BoIton. You're a Snow.

There's aIso some anaIogues here to the Tyrion-Tywin reIationship.

What the heII do you know about being a bastard?

AII dwarves are bastards in their fathers' eyes.

Let me give you some advice, bastard.

Never forget what you are. The rest of the worId wiII not.

Wear it Iike armour.

And it can never be used to hurt you.