Sådan lød anmeldelserne af Game of Thrones, da serien havde premiere tilbage i 2011

Hvis du tænker tilbage på første gang, du så Game of Thrones - hvad var så din oprindelige tanke?

Det kan være svært at huske - specielt når hypen er så stor for tiden, og det virker umuligt at tænke på en tid, hvor man ikke var fan af serien.

Jeg kan huske mit første møde med serien - jeg spurgte nogle kammerater omkring det og sagde: "Nå, men er det så sådan noget overnaturligt eventyrhalløj?", hvortil de svarede, at der ikke var så meget overnaturligt med i den, men at den var fyldt med sværdkampe, solide historier og fede personligheder.

Nå, men så kom jeg i gang og det første man nærmest ser, er en zombie-pige med blå øjne og en mystisk hvid troldmand (som jo så senere viste sig at være en White Walker). Der tænkte jeg "okay, drengene har taget pis på mig.. den får sgu en chance alligevel."

Og derfra gik det hånd i hånd.

Men hvordan var den egentlige modtagelse af Game of Thrones tilbage i 2011?

Vi har fundet et udsnit af de største anmeldere, som har givet deres bud på HBOs storsatsning, da den løb henover skærmen tilbage i 2011:

Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times

When the network ventures away from its instincts for real-world sociology, as it has with the vampire saga True Blood, things start to feel cheap, and we feel as though we have been placed in the hands of cheaters. Game of Thrones serves up a lot of confusion in the name of no larger or really relevant idea beyond sketchily fleshed-out notions that war is ugly, families are insidious and power is hot. If you are not averse to the Dungeons & Dragons aesthetic, the series might be worth the effort. If you are nearly anyone else, you will hunger for HBO to get back to the business of languages for which we already have a dictionary.

Margeret Lyons, Vulture

I have a few lingering beefs, though. (1) I still find parts of the show deeply, deeply boring. Please, don’t show me sword fighting — give me more of that national debt conversation! How riveting. (2) I need a little more development from the characters who are changing — wait, Daenerys is now into her husband? Totally? — and a little more depth from the ones who are just evil. (I’m looking at you, Prince Draco Malfoy.) (3) Enough boobs. Seriously, I know, it’s HBO, the boob capital of the world or whatever, but this week was chockablock with ambient bare breasts. I’m sure the people out there writing their dissertations on “The Male Gaze in George R.R. Martin’s Work” are having a field day, but I’m finding it irritating at this point.

Todd VanDerWerff, The AV Club

Sadly, tonight’s pilot—which will likely be the only taste many viewers ever get of the series—is the weakest of the first six. It’s so taken up with making sure everything is set in place that it largely forgets to do anything other than offer up a long series of stilted introductions. It’s smart about only introducing the characters viewers absolutely NEED to know to proceed in the series, but there are still roughly a dozen of these characters, and even with a one-hour, five-minute running time, it’s something of a sprint to the cliffhanger ending that actually kicks off the bulk of the story.

James Hibberd, Entertainment Weekly

Sunday’s heavily re-shot super-sized 65-minute pilot — despite its big revelation and shocking ending — is one of the more sluggish-feeling of the first six episodes of Thrones I’ve seen. So if you watched Thrones and didn’t see what all the fuss was about, you must stick with the series through next week. And if you loved Sunday’s debut, you’re going to lose your head in the weeks to come.

Hank Steuver, The Washington Post

It’s about becoming (or not becoming) the kind of viewer who can sign on to such a daunting amount of Dark Ages hoo-hah. That’s a personal genre choice, and one I’m pretty sure I made as far back as 1981, when a friend’s sleepover in middle school turned into my first and final encounter with Dungeons & Dragons. I was so quickly bored by the whole idea that I wound up in the kitchen, helping my friend’s mother make Rice Krispy treats. My fate — and my kingdom’s — were thus forever sealed.

TK Burton, Pajiba

The show wasn't perfect. The transitions seemed a bit jarring at times, and you could almost feel scenes being cut out, creating an occasionally discordant sensation when the setting would shift. While the production was top notch, the scenes across the Narrow Sea featuring the Targaryens seemed too small, as if they didn't have enough extras or they ran out of costumes. The pacing was steady and even, though at times a bit too much so. That's the consequence of an introductory episode to a show with so much going on — there's little action, and if folks were expecting a rousing medieval tale of wizards and clashes of swords, well, they'll get some of that, but not for a while.

Der var selvfølgelig mere positivt at hente i disse anmeldelser, og hos andre - men den generelle konsensus dengang var, at pilotafsnittet ikke ligefrem varslede det fænomen, som var på vej. Men efter sæson 1 afsluttede virkede det til, at alle var med på bølgen.

Hvornår blev du hooked?