Game of Thrones

33 posts

Game of Thrones Deconstructed: Suffer the Fools

Don’t blink. We’re at the midpoint, and things are happening fast. So, yes, don’t blink. If you do, you’re bound to miss some of the careful nuance playing out between all of our beloved characters, and if you’re basing your assessment of Game of Thrones, the television series, on Game of Thrones the books? Yeah, well, the television series is turning things on its head, so haha! Even you book folks won’t know what will happen.

Everyone try and keep up, because the cow pie just got real. Continue reading →

Game of Thrones Deconstructed: Your Wish is My Command

So we enter the world of the swirling supernatural and in one fell swoop things in Game of Thrones are changed forever. We’ve learned at nearly the outset that anyone is susceptible to be felled by their own naiveté, bravado, cocksure attitude, or perhaps even by happenstance. Needless to say, if one doesn’t have his or her wits about them, the world can become a very cruel and lonely place. So it’s better to have allies as one attempts to navigate a world full of vipers and flicking dragon tongues. All claims to the throne must learn this lesson quickly or perish. So says the laws of Game of Thrones. Continue reading →

Game of Thrones Deconstructed: Axis of Evil

From the onset we always knew that Game of Thrones was not going to be a shy show. Oh, no, it wasn’t going to hide behind its mother’s skirts, or pretty up certain things. This was going to be a show that would say unto the viewer, “You will see incest, torture, death, gore, and well, the slow descent into the psychotic, and just for kicks how about a few dragons, and an enchanted priestess or two, eh?” Continue reading →

Game of Thrones Deconstructed: Casting a Long Shadow

What’s the best way to get what you want in Westeros? Well, by taking out your enemies, naturally. Well, how do you identify your enemies when they’re hidden amongst the rubes and foils, the robes of the aristocratic, and the smirks and winks of the cunning? There’s no better way than to set a trap. Tyrion understands that if you want to find a backstabber, you better give them a pretty sharp knife. Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club: A Dance with Dragons

HBO’s critically acclaimed Game of Thrones TV series introduced George R. R. Martin’s brilliant A Song of Ice and Fire series to a mass audience who may never have been interested in fantasy fiction. But it also happened to air at a particularly auspicious time, with the first season ending shortly before the long-awaited fifth book was released.

Considering that the 1510-page length of A Dance with Dragons (available on Amazon) only makes it the second-longest book in the series, plunging into the text version of a world so well-constructed on screen is no small undertaking, but it is well worth it. As a prose stylist, Martin is no Nabokov, but the point-of-view chapters full of flashbacks and internal dialogue give his world and characters a historical and personal depth that can only be hinted at in the screen adaptation. And despite their daunting length, the pages turn so quickly that one could easily plow through a third of the book in a single sitting without even realizing it. Continue reading →

Game of Thrones Recap: Just A Little War, Silly

Remember how we left last week with all kinds of double crosses and betrayals happening… yes, well, that basically means that every Stark associate in residence at King’s Landing is fit for the killing, and we begin with exactly that. There is all kinds of bloody mayhem, and as Arya and Sansa go about their day oblivious to the murder amongst them, we are indeed fearful for their very lives. We watch as all is serene until Holy Slicing Ginsu! Stab, stab, stake, slash, kill, kill, dead, dead. Oh, yes, King’s Landing is no place for a Stark.

Continue reading →