Hey everyone, the Watchers on the Wall website accepted another feature article from me, discussing some of the events from the recent episode of Game of Thrones in a historical context. By historical, I mean from the show’s own history.
Yup, Game of Thrones is such a big story, we’re seeing its history repeat itself. Maybe?
Hey, this post, like many of my posts, is about the HBO show Game of Thrones (occasionally I talk about the book series it’s based on: A Song of Ice and Fire.) Will this post be safe for people to read, for those who are not up on the story and don’t want to be spoiled?
No.
Don’t listen to him. Everything is perfectly safe. We’re perfectly safe. Come be our guest for dinner.
The armorer considered that a moment. “Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He’ll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he’s copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day.” (Jon I – A Clash of Kings)
Much is made in Game of Thrones of Valyrian steel, the nigh-mythical metal alloy whose secrets vanished with doomed Valyria. Much is made of Valyrian steel and with good reason. It’s rare, valuable, and possibly non-replicable. Valyrian steel weapons are superior weapons and also of powerful symbolic importance to the houses of Westeros.
And they’re hell on White Walkers. But I’m not here to talk about legendary carbon-rich iron, forged in the fires of a vanished empire.
Season Seven of Game of Thrones is looming on the horizon, like the Wall itself.
I’ll be talking about that Wall, and details from Season Six (and earlier) so if you’re not caught up, you are taking the risk well-warned of spoilers.
In the finale of the sixth season of Game of Thrones, Bran Stark’s undead uncle Benjen escorted them from the far northern locale of the deceased Three Eyed Raven, to within site of the Wall. Before placing Bran next to a weirwood tree, Benjen announced that he was leaving.
This post will be talking about magic, but not really Harry Potter magic. I’ll be addressing some supernatural underpinnings in HBO’s Game of Thrones. If you’re not up on the show, I wanted to state up front that I’ll definitely be discussing plot points.
The blogger would make an awful maegi. One is supposed to make vague statements and trick the reader into stumbling onto curses and naked spoilers.
No one disputes that there is magic on display in Game of Thrones.
Daenerys Targaryen was given a brief lecture about magic and dragons by the Warlocks of Qarth, while in their House of the Undying.
When your dragons were born, our magic was born again. It is strongest in their presence, and they are strongest in yours.
This post will be about magic and specifically how Daenerys represents a magic that had gone away from the world, and which is now returning in force. I’ll also discuss that there’s a magic that never went away, a passive but persistent kind of magic. As a counterpoint to Daenerys, there’s a character who is the central focus for that type of supernatural element. (Narratively or symbolically speaking. Yes, it’s going to be one of those posts.)
This post will be about Game of Thrones and its reprehensible monster of a villain, Ramsay.
Reprehensible? Me??? – Well, I suppose that’s fair. Carry on.
Game of Thrones is a rare story in that so many of its villains have sympathetic traits, and its well-intentioned heroes more often-than-not struggle with the consequences of questionable choices.
Recently, I took my daughter to see a movie about superhero royalty. No, I didn’t take her to see Wonder Woman (we’ll see it soon, I assume) – instead I took her to see Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
If you’ve not seen King Arthur: LotS, this post will be spoilery, so I’ll just strongly recommend the movie to you and send you on your way. It’s not a typical King Arthur movie though. It’s a very specific genre-mashing of Arthurian legend and Ritchie’s Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels style.
As the name of the post implies, I’ll be talking about Game of Thrones. If you’re not up on the show (or the books, the excellent books) then consider this your spoiler warning.
The events that take place in Westeros largely concern themselves with the interaction of four prominent families: the Targaryens, the Baratheons, the Starks, and the Lannisters. I’ll make my apologies to the Greyjoys, Tullys, Arryns, Tyrells, and Martells right up front for implying that they’re not important.
But the show’s opening title card has no krakens, trout, falcons, roses, or suns-with-spears displayed prominently. Just a dragon, lion, direwolf, and stag.
To be clear, the trailer for Season Seven of Game of Thrones was great!
My post is technically unnecessary and obsolete, because the trailer came out a few days ago and instantly a plethora of podcasts, YouTube videos, and professional/semi-professional online articles were released talking about the trailer.
But this blogging hobbyist can’t be silent. And I can’t listen to these podcasts or read the trailer articles until I got my thoughts down, so after diligently screen-shotting each frame (more or less) from the trailer (thank you YouTube and the PrintScreen button) here’s my analysis.
Alien: Covenant is now out in theaters, but I haven’t seen it yet. (So no worries about me spoiling that movie here.)
I noticed the other day that I was coming up on my blog’s 300th post. Yay me!
I felt it would be appropriate to recognize that milestone with some thoughts on a movie series (since that’s why I started blogging in the first place) and since there was an Alien franchise movie in theaters, here are some of my observations with those movies.
Game of Thrones is still over a month away, but there’s no reason not to keep blogging about it. If you’re up on the storyline and have any interest in some off-beat comparative religion talk, you have come to the right forbidding, chilly seaside.
Don’t listen to him! I drown people who are interested in comparative religions! (To be fair, I drown everyone I get my grizzled hands on.)
Located west of the Riverlands across Ironman’s Bay, the last stretch of dry land before one enters the endless Sunset Sea, you’ll find the Iron Islands.
Before the advent of dragons in Westeros, the Ironmen of those rocky metal-rich islands held tremendous sway over the people of Westeros. The Riverlands and all people who lived within the sound of the waves paid tribute to keep axe-wielding torch-brandishing reavers from their doorsteps.
The Ironmen consider themselves a breed apart from the other inhabitants of Westeros, with cultural differences that include a specific faith not followed on the mainland. The Ironborn do not hold with the Old Gods or the New, but instead worship the Drowned God who dwells beneath the waves.
I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time 