Con of Thrones 2017

Posted: July 16, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Diary, Game of Thrones, Music
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For three days, running from June 30th to July 2nd,  Nashville Tennessee hosted the first-ever Con of Thrones.

CoT wasn’t the first-ever convention dedicated to the book series A Song of Ice and Fire or HBO’s show Game of Thrones, but the convention’s inaugural effort solidly established itself with an impressive venue, the amount and variety of stars from the show, the massive engagement of fan experts in the programming, and the support of a dedicated app that provided scheduling, maps, and a social media component that was surprisingly effective. (I have some things to say about this app.)

I was pleased to attend the convention, and lucky enough to be a panelist talking about the Night’s Watch. What follows will be some of my experiences at the convention, along with some observations. (I know a handful of my friends, as well as my Game of Thrones-watching dad, wanted some kind of after-action report. But mostly pictures.)

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Bronze, Iron, and Steel: the Metallurgy of Game of Thrones

Posted: July 11, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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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.

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Wights, Wards, and the Wall. What’s Up with that?

Posted: July 4, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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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.

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June 2017 #MicroStory Collection

Posted: July 1, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Flash Fiction, Writing
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It’s July, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of June.

As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 129 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)

Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. June was pretty much no exception. (Some of them seem less obvious as Sci Fi/Fantasy. Your mileage may vary.)

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.

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Game of Thrones: Magic of Ice and Fire

Posted: June 27, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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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.)

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Death Has the Last Laugh: Fools in Game of Thrones

Posted: June 20, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, TV
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We’re getting very close to the next season of Game of Thrones! This post will be touching upon plot points of previous seasons (with a few bits pulled out of the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, for discussion.) If you’re not caught up with the show – how dare you – then I guarantee this post will spoil some plot elements.

Spoiler Alert: Ser Dontos the Fool ends up on the Iron Throne in Season Eight. (I jest, I jest!)

Game of Thrones features lords and ladies, kings and queens, heroes and villains, squires, rangers, wizards, and spies.

And fools.

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The Long Afternoon of Game of Thrones

Posted: June 16, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Blogging, Game of Thrones
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Night gathers, and now my watch begins…

But not quite. Night is gathering, possibly the Long Night (for Westeros) but we still have a month to go until Season Seven finally starts up. We’re kind of still in the Long Afternoon.

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Defending Ramsay Bolton

Posted: June 13, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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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.

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King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Posted: June 11, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Movie Review, Opinion
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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.

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Game of Thrones: You Win Or You Die. Unless You Die And Still You Win.

Posted: June 6, 2017 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, TV
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This post will be talking about Game of Thrones. If you’ve not heard about it, it’s this pretty cool show based on an amazing (and sadly, unfinished) book series.

When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.
But if we dead things kill you, then you’re on our team and when we win, you win.
So, when you play the Game of Thrones, it’s Win-Win! #TeamUndead

In the very first episode of Game of Thrones, a party of rangers from the Night’s Watch fall prey to the Others, the legendary White Walkers who figuratively dwell in myth and literally dwell in some frozen land far north of the Wall.

This set the stage for a conflict that has been slowly developing over the seasons, promising a large battle between humanity and an army of the dead.

I’m not here to talk about that.

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