October 2018 #MicroStory Collection

Posted: November 1, 2018 by patricksponaugle in Flash Fiction, Writing
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It’s November, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of October.

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. October 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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In Triple Aspect: Witches of Macbeth and A Song of Ice and Fire

Posted: November 1, 2018 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones
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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.)

Shakespeare of Thrones

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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Double-Crossing Devils and Mocked Gods

Posted: October 6, 2018 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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Happy October everyone! Over on the Watchers on the Wall site, I have a new feature that hopefully is in sync thematically with this spooky, Halloween-focused month.

My feature talks about haunted Harrenhal and the blood-soaked bargain forged between Arya Stark and the mysterious and mercurial Jaqen H’ghar. One of those two was getting in over their head – and I suggest that the one out of their depth wasn’t Arya.

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Defending Dead Direwolves: Part 5 of 5

Posted: September 23, 2018 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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This is the final post in a series talking about the direwolves on Game of Thrones (with some references to their analogous narratives in the books of A Song of Ice and Fire.) For more info on what this post is about, you can check out Part One. I tried to constrain myself to a five-part series, but part four was split up among two separates posts, because I was too verbose.

Nymeria hates verbosity as much as she hates Lannisters.

If you’ve wandered here without having read any of the previous essays talking about the direwolves, here’s the Too Long; Didn’t Read summation.

The direwolves on Game of Thrones appear to be an endangered species, and though it might not be correct to say that I’m okay with that, it is entirely fair to say that I’m not not okay with that. If there’s weakness in the adaptation of the direwolves’ narrative (which is hard to say definitively since there are more of the books to come out) then that weakness is probably on par with the other shortcuts taken in adapting A Song of Ice and Fire.

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Where’s Ghost? Defending Dead Direwolves Part 4.5

Posted: September 19, 2018 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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This post is part of a continuing series on the direwolves in Game of Thrones. I’ll also be discussing the books so if you’re not up on either versions, this is your spoiler warning.

I’ve been discussing the various fates of the direwolves, and had planned on writing a single post about pairs of direwolves (so, six direwolves would be covered in three posts) with an intro post and a wrap-up post making for five posts total. This worked well with the dead pair of direwolves (Lady and Greywind) and the dead-on-the-show direwolves (Shaggydog and Summer) but when I started writing about the still-living Nymeria and Ghost in the last post, I wrote so much about Nymeria I had to split my discussion of that pair into two posts.

So this is the second part of a fourth entry in a five-post series. And it will be all about Ghost. Or rather, mostly about Ghost. (I reserve the right to refer back to other wolves.)

But there will be no more math, I promise.

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Nymeria and Ghost: Defending Dead Direwolves Part 4

Posted: September 15, 2018 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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This is the penultimate post in my series of articles talking about the direwolves on HBO’s Game of Thrones (and the literary source A Song of Ice and Fire.)

I’ve mostly been defending the fact that the majority of the direwolves are dead and that the showrunners are probably doing a reasonable job with them in the adaptation, although that’s not a popular fan-held position.

Just a reminder, I’ll be talking about the show and the books. So spoilers abound if you’re behind on your viewing or watching.

Two posts ago, I talked about the Stark direwolves Lady and Greywind, and the most recent post in this series featured Shaggydog and Summer. Up next are the last two wolves in the story, Nymeria and Ghost.

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Batman Day 2018

Posted: September 15, 2018 by patricksponaugle in Comics, Opinion
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Happy International Batman Day! (Or, if you prefer to be grim and moody on this thematic day, you don’t have to be happy. I’m not the boss of you.)

Commissioner Jim Gordon: Virtue Signaling

Back in 2015, I started to write annual blog posts about my favorite costumed comic book hero, Batman, as a means to celebrate the September-event Batman Day – a day I suppose was created by the marketing department at DC Comics.

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