Season Eight of Game of Thrones has finally started, and now our watch begins. The fine folks at the Watchers on the Wall are agreeably continuing to publish features written by yours truly, and my latest essay is on the site, talking about the events of the first episode of this final season.
The Night King is on his way, and it looks like our favorite Starks, Targaryens, and Lannisters might be too busy squabbling to resist him. And that’s okay.
In exactly one week, the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones will be airing. I am probably not ready.
Sneaking in with one week left, the good people at the Watchers on the Wall site accepted a feature essay on Varys, the Master of Whisperers.
It was important for me to get any speculative piece written and published before the show aired and made my feature either redundant or invalid.
It’s March, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of February.
As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 269 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)
Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. February was pretty much no exception.
For really great #MicroStory action, please follow @MicroSFF, the Twitter account that inspired me to participate in this minimalist writing exercise. That feed puts out great science fiction and fantasy MicroStories all the time.
Season Eight of Game of Thrones is right around the corner. But it’s not here yet. To occupy my time, I’ve been writing feature essays (if I can dignify what I write as “essays”) for the Watchers on the Wall Game of Thrones news site.
My most recent feature is now up on their website, a (long) post defending an event that is not only one of the most derided situations in Season Seven, but the most critical. The decision to go beyond the Wall and capture one of the Night King’s wight foot soldiers.
In just two months (more or less) we should have all seen a new episode of Game of Thrones, the start of the eighth and final season. The kind people at the Watchers on the Wall site have graciously allowed me to submit features for them, so I can work through my Game of Thrones related issues. Or something like that.
Just published on the site is a feature on Cersei Lannister, who is almost absolutely guaranteed to be regarded as a witch when the maesters write their histories of the War of the Five Kings and the Second Long Night. Sorry Cersei.
Another great A Song of Ice and Fire + Shakespeare analysis. I’m pleased to be able to reblog this.
One can almost see the sombre face of Eddard Stark looming up behind these lines:
BRUTUS:
For let the gods so speed me as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.
– Julius Caesar, II.ii
Hailed as Shakespeare’s great political tragedy, Julius Caesar presents the delicate balance between the private and public self; a central conflict for both Ned and Brutus. The parallel is likely intentional, especially considering that George R. R. Martin has named Julius Caesar as one of his two favorite Shakespeare plays. Throughout A Song of Ice and Fire, the conflict of private self vs. public self persists as a vibrant theme–a duality of opposing concepts, much like ice and fire. It is also congruent with Martin’s ultimate conflict; the heart at war with itself.
By examining Ned’s orientation as a Brutus figure, we can identify how Martin incorporates thematic elements of
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We are just under three months away from the final season of Game of Thrones!
Mercifully, April 14th is just around the corner. (I’m kidding – it feels like an eternity.) Our favorite (surviving) characters will be returning, as well as new characters among the famed Golden Company sellswords that Cersei hopes will preserve her hold on Westeros.
Good luck with that, your Grace.
Over on the Watchers on the Wall website, my go-to site for Game of Thrones news, I recently published a feature speculatively talking about the Golden Company and the likely story elements that they will bring with them from Essos.
