Game of Thrones Season 1 Trivia
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50 free Game of Thrones Season 1 trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Game of Thrones season 1 trivia quiz sticks to the ten episodes that aired on HBO between April and June 2011, from the White Walkers in the cold open of Winter Is Coming to Daenerys walking out of the ashes in Fire and Blood. It follows Ned Stark's investigation into Jon Arryn's death, Catelyn's arrest of Tyrion, Arya's water dancing lessons, Viserys's golden crown, the trial by combat at the Eyrie and the beheading at the Great Sept of Baelor. It also covers how the season got made: the pilot that was largely reshot, the two lead roles that were recast, the composer hired ten weeks before air, and the awards the season picked up. Roughly a third of the questions are easy for anyone who watched the season once, a third need a decent memory for who said what, and the rest reward the fans who know which episode George R. R. Martin wrote himself and which sword Ned was executed with. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's season and episode articles before publishing, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Season one of Game of Thrones adapts the first novel of which fantasy book series?
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire began as a planned trilogy, but George R. R. Martin's story outgrew three books, and the ten episodes cover only the first novel, A Game of Thrones.
Q 02What are the words of House Stark, which Ned speaks in the first episode of Game of Thrones?
Winter Is Coming
Winter Is Coming: Ned says it to Catelyn as his reason for taking ten-year-old Bran to watch a beheading, adding that the boy won't be a boy forever.
Q 03Which position does Robert ask Ned Stark to fill after the death of Jon Arryn?
Hand of the King
Hand of the King: Ned would rather stay at Winterfell, and accepts only after a letter from Lysa Arryn claims the Lannisters murdered her husband, the last man to hold the post.
Q 04What had the Night's Watch deserter Ned executes in the premiere seen beyond the Wall?
White Walkers
White Walkers: the ranger had watched one kill both his companions, but Ned insisted they had been gone for thousands of years and beheaded him for desertion.
Q 05Which two dead animals, both house sigils, do the Starks find on the road?
A stag and a direwolf
A stag and a direwolf: Ned means to kill the dead wolf's orphaned pups until Jon points out there are five, one for each of the Stark children.
Q 06Who gives Daenerys three petrified dragon eggs as a wedding gift?
Magister Illyrio Mopatis
Magister Illyrio Mopatis hands over eggs long since turned to stone, yet in the season's final scene all three hatch on a funeral pyre.
Q 07What does Jaime Lannister say as he pushes Bran from the tower?
The things I do for love
The things I do for love: Bran had climbed the tower and seen Jaime with his twin sister, the queen, and the shove was meant to keep their affair secret.
Q 08What does Arya name the sword Jon Snow gives her before he leaves for the Wall?
Needle
Needle is Arya's joke on the needlework she hates: her sister Sansa can keep her sewing needles, she says, because now she has a needle of her own.
Q 09Which direwolf does Ned reluctantly kill himself in "The Kingsroad" after Nymeria cannot be found?
Lady
Lady, Sansa's wolf, had hurt no one: Cersei demanded a direwolf die for the attack on Joffrey, and with the guilty wolf gone the innocent one paid instead.
Q 10Which sworn brother of the Night's Watch gives Jon the mocking nickname "Lord Snow"?
Ser Alliser Thorne
Ser Alliser Thorne coins it after Jon beats his fellow recruits in the yard, sneering at a bastard raised in a lord's castle, and the insult gives episode three its title.
Q 11Who does Ned hire to teach Arya swordsmanship in King's Landing?
Syrio Forel
Syrio Forel, once First Sword of Braavos, later holds off the Lannister guards sent for Arya with nothing but a wooden practice sword so that she can run.
Q 12According to Grand Maester Pycelle, what were Jon Arryn's last words?
The seed is strong
The seed is strong: following Arryn's trail, Ned finds a smith's apprentice the dead man had visited and recognises him as King Robert's bastard son.
Q 13Which veteran knight does Joffrey's court dismiss from the Kingsguard after Robert's death?
Ser Barristan Selmy
Q 21Which sellsword volunteers to fight for Tyrion in his trial by combat?
Bronn
Bronn wins by refusing to fight like a knight: he dodges until Lysa's champion tires in his heavy armour, then kills him, and Tyrion walks free.
Q 22What clue makes Ned realise Joffrey is not Robert's son?
He lacks the Baratheon dark hair
He lacks the Baratheon dark hair: Sansa's wish for golden-haired babies sends Ned back to Arryn's book of lineages, where every Baratheon on record is dark.
Q 23What does Daenerys eat during her ritual before the Dosh Khaleen?
A raw stallion's heart
Ser Barristan Selmy led the Kingsguard for King Robert, and the new court pushes him out and gives his command to the queen's own twin brother.
Q 14What does Tyrion give Bran on his way south through Winterfell?
A saddle design
A saddle design: it lets the paralysed Bran ride again, and when Robb asks why he would help, Tyrion says he has a tender spot for cripples, bastards and broken things.
Q 15Which fearful, overweight new recruit does Jon defend from the other trainees at Castle Black?
Sam Tarly
Sam Tarly tells Jon his father gave him a choice on his eighteenth nameday: take the black and give up his inheritance, or die in a hunting 'accident'.
Q 16How does Loras Tyrell beat the Mountain in their King's Landing joust?
By riding a mare in heat
By riding a mare in heat: she distracts the Mountain's stallion, and in his rage he beheads the horse and goes for Loras until his own brother, the Hound, steps in.
Q 17According to Varys, which poison was used to kill Jon Arryn?
The Tears of Lys
The Tears of Lys: Varys blames Arryn's squire, Ser Hugh, who can no longer be asked, having been killed in a joust just before Ned meant to question him.
Q 18Why does Ned resign his office in "The Wolf and the Lion"?
Robert orders the assassination of Daenerys
Robert orders the assassination of Daenerys to stop a Dothraki invasion, and the failed poisoning is what finally makes Khal Drogo vow to cross the sea.
Q 19Which member of Ned's household is killed when Jaime ambushes him in the streets of King's Landing?
Jory Cassel
Jory Cassel, the captain of Ned's guard, dies fighting Jaime, who then lets the wounded Ned live as a message: he wants his captured brother Tyrion back.
Q 20Where is Tyrion imprisoned in a "sky cell" while awaiting Lysa Arryn's judgment?
The Eyrie
The Eyrie's sky cells need no bars: one side is open to a sheer mountain drop and the floor slopes towards it, so a prisoner can roll out in his sleep.
A raw stallion's heart: once she has eaten all of it, the crones proclaim her unborn son the 'stallion who mounts the world', the khal who will unite every horde into one.
Q 24How does Khal Drogo give Viserys his "golden crown"?
He pours molten gold over his head
He pours molten gold over his head, and Daenerys watches the brother who called himself the dragon die without pity: 'He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.'
Q 25Through which opening in the floor are prisoners of Lysa Arryn's court sent to their deaths?
The Moon Door
The Moon Door: Lysa's young son begs to see Tyrion 'fly' through it, but after the trial by combat it is her own champion's body that goes down.
Q 26Which character speaks the line "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die"?
Cersei
Cersei says it to Ned after he warns her to flee the capital with her children before Robert learns whose they are, and she adds that there is no middle ground.
Q 27What animal fatally wounds King Robert while he is out hunting?
A boar
A boar: as the dying king dictates his will, Ned quietly writes 'my rightful heir' where Robert says Joffrey, having learned the boy is not his son.
Q 28Who holds Ned at knifepoint in the throne room with the words "I did warn you not to trust me"?
Littlefinger
Littlefinger had been asked to win the City Watch for Ned, and when Ned moves against the queen its men cut down the Stark guards instead.
Q 29Which grisly item does Ghost bring Jon after he takes his vows before the heart tree?
A severed hand
A severed hand: it comes from the bodies of Benjen's missing rangers, which are carried back to the castle, where one rises in the night and attacks.
Q 30Which season one episode was written by George R. R. Martin himself?
The Pointy End
The Pointy End: Martin had written for television for years before his novels, and this script for his own story was his first in at least a decade.