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As this shot from last Sunday’s Game of Thrones shows, NCIS isn’t the only show to feature a reference to Skyrim‘s now-famous “Arrow in the Knee” joke.
Well OK, it’s probably the only one to feature it consciously.
Thanks to commenter Kryle01 for pointing this one out.
Poor little guy. To think! He could have been an adventurer like you.
But alas… no.
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Considering the kid got the arrow in the leg in a book, and the whole scene is set up to show how ruthless the captors are, I don’t think its really referencing to the arrow in the Knee joke (it was filmed mid last 2011)
Shhh Kirk needs to churn out shit to get pageviews or he doesn’t get paid, don’t ruin his feeble attempts.
… Was about to say this happens in the book as well. This is a fairly massive fail at a “witty” Skyrim link to the show.
Is reading comprehension really that terrible these days? Are they not teaching it in schools anymore?
Let’s simplify it for you: “NCIS is the only show to consciously feature a Skyrim reference.” Do you get it now?
If you got it, you’d have realized Kirk knew it wasn’t a real reference either.
Did you even read the book? Lommy didn’t an arrow in the book at all. He gets speared through the leg and becomes increasingly feverish and is murdered. The arrow through the knee thing was a show addition, whether or not it was related to the Skyrim thing is just speculation.
Are people stupid? This wasn’t in the books at all. The character (Lommy Greenhands) was speared through the calf in the fight with the Lannister men-at-arms, not an arrow. Please stop trying to pull the hipster “oh I was into it before you were” and still get it wrong.
The Catch-22 about spoilers, pointing out that something could be a spoiler attracts attention to the spoiler itself.
Renly Baratheon: The late King Robert’s youngest brother will become a major player and then promptly kick it. Even knowing that this happens, we bet you’ll be shocked by the when and how. We sure were.
Yoren: Yoren is the Night’s Watch recruiter that rescued Arya at the end of last season, and is currently taking her North along with his Night’s Watch recruits. As you can imagine, his death doesn’t bode all that well for that plan…
Qhorin Halfhand: A ranger in the Night’s Watch, Qhorin will end up playing a big part in Jon Snow’s story. Just don’t get too attached.
Maester Luwin: The Maester at Winterfell. As you may recall, he’s a pretty nice guy. Of course, nice guys don’t last long in this series…
Doreah: Remember the awesome slave who taught Daenerys Targaryen the art of good sex? Yeah, she dies in the books. We do have some hope that she might survive in the TV show — we could see her role being combined with that of some of Dany’s other former-slave friends for simplicity’s sake.
So pretty much people being shot in tge knee with an arrow is unheard of before Skyrim’s release? Sounds reasonable!
Wow people take this way too seriously. Obviously Kirk saw the arrow in the knee and made a joke about it on the site in the form of this article. Little too dry humour for the lot of you maybe? Even if he isnt joking, the book says the kid takes an arrow to the leg which means the arrow could be placed anywhere in the leg for the show but they chose to put it in the knee area. Who is to say that the crew isnt referencing Skyrim as an in-joke. Probably not, but who knows? Definately not any of you.
Do you mind not spoiling a TV series that hasn’t even released in Australia on the FRONT PAGE of your site.
geeze Kotaku.
But this episode that was mentioned in the article won’t be aired on Showtime until NEXT Tuesday, so it is un-aired as of now.
Not to sound too hipster douchey, but I gave up on this series after they butchered Stannis’ character and turned Asha into ‘Yara’. The first season was actually pretty good. It changed what needed to change to fit the TV format and little else. But the first 2 episodes of this season were a train wreck. No Shireen, no Patchface, Stannis’ wife is absent, Davos is an atheist and instead of a devout Seven man, Asha’s name and character changed. Too much.
Stannis is a butchered character? In what respect? I don’t think we’ve seen enough of him yet to make that judgement. Also, Asha became Yara as to not confuse her with Osha – makes sense considering Asha and Osha are easier to differentiate visually on the page than audibly on the show.
Personally I like some of the changes made, they keep the focus where it’s needed. The biggest change perhaps, for instance, is that Shae is staying at the tower of the hand. It removes the whole subplot of Tyrion needing to sneak across the city to interact with her. In a TV show that has to cover chapters and chapters of content in a 50 minute window, I’d say they’re doing an alright job. Did we really need Shireen and Patchface in S2E01? With all the ground it covered and all the catching up it had to do to remind us of what was happening with EVERY character, It would have just muddled the episode. The TV show also has the freedom to take POV wherever the scriptwriters like, so we’re seeing interactions between characters that we could only make assumptions about.
Davos being an atheist is no biggie. Again it was probably done for simplification purposes. On a TV show it could be wrongly interpreted as simply one religious nutjob arguing with another – it would be harder to portray the sense of reason in Davos’ dialog. Atheists are people who think and act on reason, so it’s reasonable to make him one.
Holy crap guys.
If you’d been sitting around a TV watching this with your mates, someone would have made the joke, and you would have laughed.
By all means call out bad journalism, but lighten up eh?
AS well as everything that has been said above, the arrow in the knee isn’t even originally from Skyrim, they took it from a book called The Name of the Wind, where the name character, Kvothe says it. Do your research Kotaku.
Once gangster movies become popular again, are we going to start saying they’re taking it to the future with “Bullet in the knee” jokes?
Baz Luhrmann will make a gangster film where bullets are called arrows, just to do that.
1. It’s not funny and good television writers would never reference it.
2. It happened that way in the book released in 1998.
3. The TV episode was most likely shot before Skyrim was released.
4. SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT ARROW TO THE KNEE JOKES.
“2. It happened that way in the book released in 1998.”
No it didn’t. Why do people who keep bringing this up despite the obvious falsity. Read the A Clash of Kings again genius, Lommy Greenhands is speared in the calf and it festers so he’s killed off. He wasn’t shot with an arrow in the knee. I love it when people trying to seem smart or superior get basic shit like this wrong.
There is also a reference in the book The Name of the Wind, which also has other pre-skyrim references but still, the idea of an arrow to the knee has been around since people have worn eyepatches (“He said don’t blink but I didnt trust him”)
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