of armed knights riding through that Gate of Mdina itself and found exciting that to be able to do the same thing, "especially in Rodrik’s full-scale Stark battle regalia". Other On the scene where Old Nan offers to tell Bran stories, she claims that his favorites are the ones about Ser Duncan the Tall. The tales of Duncan and his squire Egg are a series of novellas written by author George R. R. Martin, taking place about a hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones. Reception Ratings "Lord Snow"'s first airing was seen by 2.4 million viewers, which represented a 10% increase in the ratings from the two previous episodes. Combined with the second airing it reached 3.1 million viewers, which were considered good results especially considering that the news of Osama Bin Laden's death broke during the West Coast airing of the episode. In the UK, the viewership figures were in line with those obtained on the previous week, with around 510,000 viewers. Those figures are in the top end for the network, Sky Atlantic. Critical response While the majority of the critics gave "Lord Snow" a positive review, many suggested that it suffered from having to introduce many new characters and locations. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 14 reviews of the episode and judged 86% of them to be positive with an average score of 8.75 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads, "'Lord Snow' is an intriguing and heavy transitional episode with standout performances from Bean and Gillen, though it would be better served with more focus on character change and development." Myles McNutt wrote at Cultural Learnings that it was "perhaps the most narratively uninteresting episode of the first six," although he highlighted that it was "hardly a bad episode of television, filled as it is with satisfying sequences that capture many themes key to the series," and added that many issues introduced in this episode had a payoff in future installments. Entertainment Weekly James Hibberd also thought that it was his least favorite episode of the first six, due to too much character development. However, Alan Sepinwall from HitFix, liked the "more rambling quality of 'Lord Snow,' and while admitting it is heavy on exposition he felt it worked "because the stories are being told with such passion." IGN's Matt Fowler wrote that "Lord Snow" was "dense and filled with tons of