Game of Thrones the book (unclear about the show) is amazing. Let's recap why.
A MILLION FAMILIES. Fighting for the throne. I think there're actually like four as of right now, but if gifsets on tumblr have taught me anything, it will soon turn into a million.
CHANGING PERSPECTIVES. Wilkie Collins started it and George R. R. Martin is going to finish it. By creating a serum that allows him to outlive the last man on Earth and therefore ensure that no one will ever be able to read his complete series. Such seems to be his plan. But changing perspectives of characters is a similar device to short chapters re keeping the reader's interest. Don't like what's going on? Wait 20 pages and your ENTIRE LANDSCAPE shall change. Good one, GRRM.
DIREWOLVES. No one in their right mind would refuse a direwolf. Well. Maybe if a direwolf had killed your parents. And as you were lying there, weeping over their direwolf-mauled bodies you yelled "IF THERE IS ONE THING I SHALL NEVER DO, IT IS HAVE A PET DIREWOLF." But that is pretty much the only situation I can imagine, because direwolves are all about YOU. Everyone wants one because it's like "Hey, what if you had a bodyguard who couldn't be bribed and everyone was afraid of it because it could rip your arm off? But also it's kind of cute."
SIDE PICKING. "Oh, you like the Greyjoys? Well FUCK YOU, Stannis Baratheon 4EVS." Side picking is the funnest and it's one of the main reasons professional sports are a thing. So this is like that, only at the end it's who rules the known world and not who gets to have their name engraved on a plaque or...whatever you get in sports. One of the best parts of Game of Thrones is that almost no one is just bad, so everything is shades of grey and you get to pick the side you personally like. My middle brother 100% would be pro-Stark. I suspect I will like Asha Greyjoy, solely because of this:
So what's the first book in broad strokes? There's Current King. His best friend is the head of the North or something. That's the Stark family. The head of the North has a bunch of kids and they all get direwolves which might be a prophecy or something, no one knows, but the direwolves are cool so we don't care. Current King is married to a lady whose family is head of the West. They're all jerks, but there's a dwarf named Tyrion and everyone who reads the books seems to love him but he's kind of an asshole. Then across the sea are the Targaryens, whose family was overthrown by Current King, and they have the dragon as their symbol and they're REALLY INTO DRAGONS. Except Danaerys Targaryen marries King of the Horses or something, and she wants to take back the throne with her horsey dragon powers.
There're a lot fewer boobs than in the show (thank God), and everything kind of goes to hell at the end of the first book (but in a FUN way), so then you read on to the second and the third and fourth and the fifth and OMG why are you so invested you don't even know but you feel like it's okay because everyone else is too.
The one thing I can't do is ship people, because everything feels so unstable. Whenever I ask my GRRM-wise friend Katie-Anne if I can ship a pairing, her response is basically "Erm...I maybe wouldn't do that." Which probably means one person eventually kills the other one's grandmother in some horrific way and makes them watch. I'll find a ship, Game of Thrones. You won't keep me from this.
A MILLION FAMILIES. Fighting for the throne. I think there're actually like four as of right now, but if gifsets on tumblr have taught me anything, it will soon turn into a million.
CHANGING PERSPECTIVES. Wilkie Collins started it and George R. R. Martin is going to finish it. By creating a serum that allows him to outlive the last man on Earth and therefore ensure that no one will ever be able to read his complete series. Such seems to be his plan. But changing perspectives of characters is a similar device to short chapters re keeping the reader's interest. Don't like what's going on? Wait 20 pages and your ENTIRE LANDSCAPE shall change. Good one, GRRM.
DIREWOLVES. No one in their right mind would refuse a direwolf. Well. Maybe if a direwolf had killed your parents. And as you were lying there, weeping over their direwolf-mauled bodies you yelled "IF THERE IS ONE THING I SHALL NEVER DO, IT IS HAVE A PET DIREWOLF." But that is pretty much the only situation I can imagine, because direwolves are all about YOU. Everyone wants one because it's like "Hey, what if you had a bodyguard who couldn't be bribed and everyone was afraid of it because it could rip your arm off? But also it's kind of cute."
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| And in that moment, we were all Jon Snow |
SIDE PICKING. "Oh, you like the Greyjoys? Well FUCK YOU, Stannis Baratheon 4EVS." Side picking is the funnest and it's one of the main reasons professional sports are a thing. So this is like that, only at the end it's who rules the known world and not who gets to have their name engraved on a plaque or...whatever you get in sports. One of the best parts of Game of Thrones is that almost no one is just bad, so everything is shades of grey and you get to pick the side you personally like. My middle brother 100% would be pro-Stark. I suspect I will like Asha Greyjoy, solely because of this:
So what's the first book in broad strokes? There's Current King. His best friend is the head of the North or something. That's the Stark family. The head of the North has a bunch of kids and they all get direwolves which might be a prophecy or something, no one knows, but the direwolves are cool so we don't care. Current King is married to a lady whose family is head of the West. They're all jerks, but there's a dwarf named Tyrion and everyone who reads the books seems to love him but he's kind of an asshole. Then across the sea are the Targaryens, whose family was overthrown by Current King, and they have the dragon as their symbol and they're REALLY INTO DRAGONS. Except Danaerys Targaryen marries King of the Horses or something, and she wants to take back the throne with her horsey dragon powers.
There're a lot fewer boobs than in the show (thank God), and everything kind of goes to hell at the end of the first book (but in a FUN way), so then you read on to the second and the third and fourth and the fifth and OMG why are you so invested you don't even know but you feel like it's okay because everyone else is too.
The one thing I can't do is ship people, because everything feels so unstable. Whenever I ask my GRRM-wise friend Katie-Anne if I can ship a pairing, her response is basically "Erm...I maybe wouldn't do that." Which probably means one person eventually kills the other one's grandmother in some horrific way and makes them watch. I'll find a ship, Game of Thrones. You won't keep me from this.
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