It’s that wonderful holiday season, and it’s not only Good King Wenceslas who’s in the seasonal mood. Over at the Joffrey of Podcasts podcast, the esteemed Lannister-Loving (Double El) hosts produced an excellent version of the Twelve Days of Christmas, celebrating King Joffrey’s interests, hobbies, and circumstances.
Bubba and Catfish were cool enough to let me post the lyrics here. By memory. Hopefully I won’t mess it up, for my sake.
Well, obviously she’s attractive, that’s not my point.
This post discusses elements from the first three seasons of HBO’s Game of Thrones. There will not be any spoilers regarding future plot points from the books. If you are up to date on the show, this post should not be considered dark and full of terrors.
Game of Thrones can loosely be described as a realistic fantasy (moreso in the beginning admittedly), there are fantasy elements but they are usually more behind the scenes. The average person of Westeros might hold superstitious beliefs while never seeing anything supernatural.
Recently at work, I was bringing in my really old board game, Dune (from Avalon Hill.) My office is a pretty cool place to work, and at lunch we occasionally get a game of something going. Since we’ve played some games in the past that required more than a few lunches to complete (Game of Thrones, Small World) I thought Dune might be a good addition to lunchtime strategic competitions.
One of the interns from the cubicle pod near ours saw me carrying the box, and asked if I knew that they’d made a movie called Dune. I did know that. Oh, I had that knowledge.
Back in 1984, I was very excited to see David Lynch’s adaptation of one of my favorite science fiction books. I roped my dad into coming along, since I’d convinced him to read Dune during a summer vacation trip. He had agreed that the book was great.
After we saw the movie, we agreed that unlike the book, the movie was not.
Warning: I’m talking HBO’s Game of Thrones here, and I won’t be talking about anything that hasn’t been shown in the television show (or strongly hinted.) I won’t be having any spoilers for future plot points involving the secessionist self-crowned King of the Iron Islands, the butt that sits on the Sea-Stone chair, Balon Greyjoy.
Pull that Goddamn Rope! And That Other Goddamn Rope!
Full disclosure, I’m not a fan of House Greyjoy. But I think that they are a great part of the story. I just wished that they’d joined with Robb Stark and the North in a coallition against the Lannister-led regime. But I’ve been thinking on this, and maybe that wouldn’t have made sense. Balon Greyjoy probably made the right call in attacking the undefended North.
At the northern reaches of the Seven Kingdoms, rising 700 feet and stretching nearly from coast to coast lies the Wall.
South of the Wall
I’ll be touching on topics regarding this glacial wonder of Westeros, from the first three seasons of HBO’s excellent Game of Thrones. This won’t be crazy crazy spoilery, since I’ll be mostly talking about a large chunk of ice, but there will be some incidental references to the plot as presented from the television show (nothing from the books that hasn’t happened yet), so if you aren’t caught up on the story currently on HBO, don’t risk it.
I should have written a novel in November (since it is National Novel Writing Month), but now it’s December and apparently I didn’t. But I have two really great excuses:
So Good.
I’ll totally write a novel next November. But right now, I want to talk briefly about this excellent sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear. This review will not be any more spoilery than the book’s dust-jacket blurb. Trust me, warrior.
It’s December, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all the MicroStories I tweeted during the month of November. As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed in 140 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)
I should have been working on a novel, since it was NaNoWriMo. I needed NaNoWriMoTime.
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.
There’s not a lot of love thrown around for the character of Stannis on HBO’s excellent Game of Thrones. I think it’s time to enumerate some of Stannis’ many positive qualities. And just maybe the naysayers will come around to consider dead King Bob’s younger brother as the right man to run Westeros. After all, at least he’s not Joffrey.
Usual spoiler warnings apply. I’m not going to be revealing anything that hasn’t happened on the show, although there’s always the chance that I’ll bring in some book detail from the same period that’s covered by the TV series. But this is going to otherwise be all HBO show-related. (Look, just watch the show.)
Last post, I explained that my wife and I had just finished Season Two of AMC’s excellent series Breaking Bad. That post was a recap. This post will be observations. Hopefully it won’t go on too long.
Just What Kind of Critter is This Thing?
Way late to the party, my wife and I just finished watching an excellent season of television. The Second Season of Breaking Bad.
Just like my last series of posts covering Season One Breaking Bad, this series is going to contain spoilery details for Season Two. If you haven’t watched the show but for some reason you want to read my blog, do yourself a favor, go to Netflix right now, and get caught up.
I have not seen any later seasons of Breaking Bad (although I do know some details… just getting GIFs and JPEGs for these posts is fraught with peril) so please don’t reveal any future plot points or spoilers should you choose to comment. Please.
I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time 