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.
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.
2019 is finally here, with the final season of Game of Thrones on the horizon. I’m hoping to write feature articles for the Game of Thrones fan site Watchers on the Wall during the last months of the hiatus and then while the show is airing. (I can put out one a month until the show comes back, but then I’d better go weekly, exploring some insight from each episode.)
Over on Watchers on the Wall, I currently have a feature article speculating on what might be happening with Tyrion Lannister in Season Eight, by looking at significant events that have already unfolded in his narrative and then applying the performance Rule of Threes.
We’re a month closer to the premiere of the final season of Game of Thrones! Since I’m trying to get something Westeros-related written every month until the show airs (when I hope to have weekly content) – this month I was inspired by the longer and longer December nights to write something about Melisandre of Asshai, for the Watchers on the Wall website.
In her last appearance on the show, Melisandre hinted about a significant event that’ll be happening – most likely – in Season Eight, and I did some exhausting (if not totally exhaustive) speculation on that.
Months ago, on the Fighting in the War Room podcast, one of the co-hosts (I am sure it was Da7e Gonzales) talked at length about the Indian cinematic epic Baahubali.
Several weekends ago I had some free time, so I decided to treat my dog Chi Chi and Willow to a movie. (Or rather, I comfortably watched Baahubali via Netflix with my dogs next to me on the couch, so I could prevent Willow from trying to crush Chi Chi with her affection.)
Because I’m so classy, when the dogs and I watch foreign films, I declare it to be the next in a series of Pug Film Festivals (because of Chi Chi the Pug. Look, you’re not here for why I do things, I understand.)
It’s November and the ongoing (thanks to the extended and legal counting of all the votes) Mid-Term Elections in the United States have been on my mind. But no one needs to know my thoughts on that hot mess, so I wrote a post tackling several political points in Game of Thrones for the Watchers on the Wall site.
I give an overview of the political landscape going into Season Eight of Game of Thrones (I even have a shout-out for the delightful Lollys Stokeworth.) And I definitively tell you who is ending up on the Iron Throne. Hopefully I avoid referencing political cliches.
Jon Snow: Hashtag I’m With Her. IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!
Me: Keep it real, son.
Here’s a special treat for Game of Thrones fans and Shakespeare lovers – an essay discussing witches and their significance in A Song of Ice and Fire. (Everyone should be aware of the work Shakespeare Of Thrones is doing. She’s the best.)
Witches.
One of the most easily recognizable archetypes in literature, yet transmutable into so many varying forms. Old, young, wise, prophetic, repulsive, tempting, ugly, beautiful–for every one witch characteristic, there seems to be a corresponding opposite.
Macbeth’s three Witches are old and ugly hags, endowed with the gift of prophecy. They begin and end the play—indeed serving as a centerpiece of the story—as they feed Macbeth’s ambition. Lady Macbeth is, likewise, a witch figure. She is young and mortal, bereft of prophetic powers, but aligns herself with the Witches and has seductive power as she impels her husband to do wicked deeds.
In A Song of Ice and Fire, there are many more types of witches. Melisandre comes to mind as the most prominent, plot-driving witch in the story, but there is also Maggy the Frog, Mirri Maz Duur, Ghost of High Heart, Lady Stoneheart, and even Cersei. Quite…
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I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time 