As You Know page for the HBO adaptations of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire universe.
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Game of Thrones
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The show has a lot of exposition, given the amount of plot, backstory and world-building that it has to get through. Often times it's given to characters with a reason for not knowing the information, while other times, they're saying it to people who already do:
- Since it's introducing an entire Constructed World, the pilot episode "Winter is Coming" has quite a few, but most are tastefully subtle:
- Jaime begins his first conversation with Cersei, regarding the possibility that Jon Arryn found out about their Brother–Sister Incest by saying "As your brother..." for the benefit of the audience. Justified, as he is mocking her. Then there's Arya's obviously dubbed Info Drop of the same information, which even the writers mock in their DVD commentary. The unaired pilot apparently left this info All There in the Script, so during rewrites the writers went the extra length to ensure the audience understood the full significance of Cersei and Jaime having sex.
- Tyrion and Ros playfully discuss Tyrion's reputation and place in the Lannister family in the third-person.
- Tyrion spells out Jon's place in the Stark family to Jon himself, framed as firmly reminding him no one will ever forget he's a bastard, so he should just accept it.
- Daenerys and Viserys pepper their conversations with expository phrases like, "We've been his guests for over a year," and "I've waited seventeen years to get my throne back."
- In "The Kingsroad", Tyrion and Jaime both deliver exposition about the Wall and the Night's Watch that doubles as a subtle warning about what Jon's getting himself into.
- "Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things":
- Tyrion supplies some backstory by telling Theon Greyjoy about his own family's failed rebellion. It's justified by Tyrion disliking the Greyjoys for burning the Lannister fleet, and wanting to rub their loss in Theon's face.
- Pycelle tells Ned that Varys is a eunuch, and Ned remarks that everyone knows that. In this case, Pycelle is making an unsubtle attempt to present Varys as a suspect in Jon Arryn's poisoning.
- Tyrion describes the Greyjoy Rebellion and why Theon is the Starks' ward to Theon himself. Maester Luwin is also fond of doing this. Of course, in both cases, they're reminding Theon that he's not as awesome, important, or even welcome as he thinks.
- Almost all the information we get about Robert's Rebellion (until we actually see it in flashbacks) comes from Robert talking about it with other people, whether it's taunting Jaime over him killing Aerys or wistfully recalling the war with Ned. This is done to show the dissonance between Robert and everyone else involved in the rebellion - everyone else carries mental baggage from the events he describes, but Robert is such a Blood Knight that he actually misses it, and his constant reminiscing on his glory days is one of his biggest flaws.
- In "A Golden Crown", Littlefinger feels the need to point out to Ned that his wife(a woman Littlefinger knows quite well)'s family sigil is a fish and that the supersized knight who can behead a horse might be the Mountain.
- After Jaime leaves King's Landing and joins his father at his war camp, Tywin explains the concept of family dynasties to Jaime, who seems awestruck by the revelation, as opposed to sarcastically replying something like "Thank you for explaining how our society has worked for thousands of years to me, father". This has a side issue of making it look like it's a philosophy unique to Tywin Lannister, as opposed to how all nobility think.
- In "Garden of Bones", Stannis recounts the reason he knighted Davos to Davos himself as an explanation of his esteem.
- In "Valar Morghulis", Theon lampshades the hell out of it when Maester Luwin explains siege tactics for the audience.
- "Thank you, O Wise Bald One! Thank you for explaining siege tactics to me."
- In "The Prince of Winterfell", Stannis and Davos discuss more of their backstory while sailing to King's Landing.
- Averted in "Blackwater"; Maester Pycelle doesn't get the chance to exposit anything, because Cersei cuts off his implied offer of war counsel.
- In "The Climb", Tywin tells Olenna, "I'm sure you're familiar with the Kingsguard's vows," but proceeds to list them anyway to make his point that if Olenna's grandson Loras is named to the Kingsguard, he cannot inherit Highgarden.
- Oberyn tells Tyrion the well-known story of his sister's demise, which is justified as confronting Tyrion's attempts to avoid the uncomfortable subject.
- In "Mockingbird", Tyrion muses on the facets and in-universe justification (the gods favoring the winner) of Trial by Combat to Jaime, who absolutely knows how it works. Mitigated by him adding the sarcastic jab about what kind of gods want to see people hack each other apart for justice.
- Lysa Arryn recounts to Littlefinger all the evil deeds she's committed for him, including an important reveal. The viewer is the only one who didn't already know this. To be fair, this scene happens in somewhat of the same artificial context in the books as well, although Lysa is extremely emotionally distraught and somewhat insane to help justify this necessary exposition.
- Obara Sand delivers a blatant Origin Story Info Dump... to her half-sisters and step-mother who already know it.
- In "The Broken Man", Sandor is informed of his own story in conspicuous detail since we last saw him by Brother Ray, since he's not likely to be talkative about it on his own.
- In the Season 7 finale, "The Dragon and the Wolf", as they approach King's Landing, Jon asks Tyrion how many people live there and he says "A million, give or take". While justifiable in that Jon is seeing the capital for the first time, it's rather late in the series to be giving the viewer this information.
- In the final scene in King's Landing in the grand finale, the members of the new monarch's Small Council very pointedly refer to each other by their new titles instead of or in addition to their names for no other reason than to get the audience up to speed on what the survivors have been doing since the events of the final battle.
House of The Dragon
- Aemma recalls to Viserys all the children that they lost at childbirth, which serves as a preamble to her point but also to the benefit of the audience.
- Daemon reminds Otto of the fact that his wife has recently died. Justified by the fact that he hates Otto and is saying this to mock him, as they can't stand each other.
