Unlike the rest of the site, I have only just now (well, Saturday) finished Game of Thrones.
Now, I assume that everybody else on the planet has either read that book (if not read all of the books) and/or watched the television series. Nevertheless, we will put spoilers for the first book behind the cut for posterity’s sake. I will not rot13 anything, given that we’re behind the cut, but I might ask you kind folks to encrypt any major plot points in Clash onwards if you’ve a hankering to discuss them in comments.
We good? We good! See you after the cut!
Okay, one of the first things I noticed (indeed, couldn’t *HELP* but notice) was that I live in a post-Game of Thrones universe.
Maribou read this tome back in 1996. Many of the subversions of the various tropes that were so very shocking back when Tupac was still alive have themselves become phrases that our 2012 fantasy vocabulary takes for granted. From what I understand, Ned’s death was the biggest surprise in the world back when. Indeed, in our First Mindless Diversions Friday Night Google Groups Chat Thingamabob, James K discussed how he had to stop reading, and go back half a chapter, and re-read the decapitation because, seriously, Ned Starks aren’t supposed to die! By the time I read the book, I saw Ned Stark as a walking chalk outline because I live in a post-Game Of Thrones universe. That said there were a number of tropes that I recognized and then was surprised to see flipped around on their heads.
Related to Ned Stark’s decapitation is the whole Joffrey as puppet of Cercei thing. I had assumed (wrongly, of course) that Joffrey would do what he was told. I had assumed that Cercei, for example, would have been the reason that Ned was shortened. Cercei and Varys working together, perhaps. I get the notion, however, that Joffrey was just being Joffrey. Which brings me to… his Hand:Tywin.
I kinda like Tywin (“That’ll pass”, Maribou tells me). After reading a bunch of chapters where there are a bunch of people who have no idea which an elbow and which is a donkey, we saw Tywin give a short speech to Tyrion that pretty much made clear (finally) that, yes, at least one person (who is not Tyrion, anyway) knows which way is up. Tywin probably would make a not-the-worst-king-we’ve-had king. I’m not saying that he’s a *NICE* person. But there are worse traits than Tywin’s in a monarch. He seems like a “long game” kinda guy. Well, except for the Joffrey thing. That sort of got away from him. Tywin would also be well-served to cut Tyrion some slack.
Which brings me to Tyrion. Tyrion is a smart dude. Hell, he’s a wise dude. He’s got some hang-ups but he had a rough adolescence and he seems to have figured out how to self-medicate and keep his worst demons in check. He’s a good judge of character, a quick study, and would make one hell of a Hand… which tells me that he’s going to be the series punching bag. Though goodness knows what Martin’s going to do with that trope. Probably sell Tyrion to Daenerys or something.
Daenerys had another couple of tropes go wrong with her… to be turned back and around again. While I suppose I shouldn’t have been *THAT* surprised at the betrayal of the Magi woman, I was. It was a nice speech she gave too. “Of course I killed him and your baby at the same time. You killed everybody I ever liked.” I guess I figured that the baby would grow up to be… I dunno. Some weird Dragon/Dothraki vengeance hybrid. Well, I suppose it’s hard to write babies into a story… unless they’re baby dragons.
I look forward to seeing what happens next.
I have a couple of questions, though.
Once, while walking through the room, Tyrion was giving a short monologue about something to the effect of “let’s play a game that *I* am good at. I’ll say something about you and if it’s true, you take a drink. If I’m wrong, I’ll take a drink.” That seemed like an interesting scene… is that a scene that happens in one of the books or are they doing their best to condense two or three Tyrion chapters into one distilled scene that isn’t from the books but accomplishes the same ends?
For that matter, is the television show worth carving time out for?
I’d wait to make time for the show until I’d read the rest of the books. YMMV.
FWIW, I did expect Ned to die by the time he died. It was too obvious that Joffrey wasn’t to be trusted. But I drew that knowledge from my many years reading historical melodramas, not from fantasy-pre-1995… (at least the stuff I’d read).
Ned’s death was the fantasy equivalent of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I’m sure there have been lots of mysteries since where gur aneengbe qvq vg, but that was the first and it must have been a hell of a shock. I was also quite surprised when Lady was killed, since the direwolves were obviously the magic ponies that would watch over the Stark children for the whole series.
Yeah Lady being killed really blew my mind.
I experienced the death of Lady as “This Is How Evil Cercei Is!!! SHE KILLED THE DOG!!!”
Ahh, the arya perspective!
I do not remember the Tyrion scene in a book, but I read them so long ago. I remember back in the day being upset by the death of Ned… and others in the early book, but like most things, when it happens enough you start to not feel it as much. I still read them because they were very well written. Still, with the length of time for Martin to come out with another book and how the last ones (particularly number five) have slowed down storywise as well… I think I am done with the series.
I knew about Ned’s death before I started reading the series too. Some the the twists in the later books still managed to surprise me, though.
I think Ned would have made the best king, of the characters we’ve seen so far.
Tyrion’s also one of my favourites. I spent most of the first book wanting to hate him because he was a Lannister and not quite being able to.
That last graph? I’m pretty sure that’s Martin’s point, cranky old liberal that he is.
I also only finished the 1st book recently, after having seen season 1 & 2 of the show. The TV series is very faithful and much worth watching, and I even saw a few spots where the TV show improved a bit on the book (ex. the show’s writers or actors punched up a bit of dialogue or tightened up some exposition).
I won’t say I was “surprised” by Ned’s death on the show (where I first experienced it), but a *lot* of people were. There were a lot of *really* p.o.’d cable subscribers threatening to cancel HBO because they could not believe the “hero” of the story had been killed – whereas for me Ned’s death was sadly inevitable, given how carefully and meticulously they had crafted the world – like, yeah, OF COURSE someone like Ned would get himself killed in this nest of Medicis and Borgias. It was still a powerful moment, and I credit the writing and the acting with making something so seemingly (to me) pretty much inevitable still dramatically moving (the “maybe Ned can take the Black” fakeout probably helped here).
A good friend of mine who is watching with me, was a little leery of the explicit (re)introduction of magical/fantasy elements in the story (=baby dragons), preferring what up until then we were kind of referring to as the “story AFTER “Return of the King'” – that is, a world after the Elves went West, and magic left Middle-Earth, but there are still people who remember or have been told stories about it.
What really drew him in were the realistic, political/strategic elements of the show, things like how Robert had to make a deal with the Lannisters to claim the throne, because they’re the guys with the gold. He’s still liking it, a lot, but he is a little worried the more fantastical elements will overwhelm the ‘realistic’ political portion; so far to me the showrunners have done a brilliant job balancing the two sides.
Also, and I am not the first to note this, but the show sometimes does a better job of making you sympathize on occasion with even the worst of the characters (credit both the writing and acting here).
In the show I have felt sorry for freakin’ *Cersei* on occasion – yeah, she is a terrible person, no doubt, but having Tywin as a dad, and getting married off to Robert as a young girl, and being a woman in a world where that simple fact of biology limited her choices severely, have screwed her up but good. Somehow you can see that it *could* have been different for her, in another time/place.
I have not gotten to that part yet.
My main interactions with Cercei have involved her interaction with Jaime that led to his interaction with Bran, her interaction with Lady, and her interaction with Sansa.
Now, part of me suspects that Cercei and Sansa could make for one hell of a Soft Power Coalition and would, effectively, run the danged country if they played their cards right. I imagine that Martin will tease that before shattering it.
A lot of it is between the lines, so to speak. I can’t speak to how good an actress Lena Headey is elsewhere, but she is perfectly cast for Cersei, like January Jones is on Mad Men – their brittleness/coldness masks an inner fragility/damage, and every so often that mask slips just a bit. There is so much implied about how she probably grew up under Tywin, and her marriage to Robert, and all that drives how she sees the world and acts now.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s still a villain; but I thought the show gave her more depth than the book did.
The depth comes later in the books. They moved some stuff around in the shows, and gave stuff away earlier that comes later on in the books… but the books eventually had me feeling occasionally-sad-sympathetic for Cersei, too.
Not me. The more I see of her, the less I like her.
Virtually everyone in the series gets a bad deal in life – the female characters are female in a heavily patriarchal world, Jon’s a bastard, Tyrion’s a dwarf, Bran’s crippled, Sandor had his face wrecked, Varys is a eunuch, Wnvzr bayl fgnegf orpbzr n orggre crefba naq n prageny punenpgre nsgre ur ybfrf uvf unaq, Pyotr’s as close to common-born as you can get and still be in the main cast, and even the sympathetic characters who aren’t underprivileged tend to get screwed over by the conniving assholes who make up the rest of the cast. (And Ned, who was the main character who was sympathetic and not-underpriviliged, gets killed off. Naq yngre, fb qbrf Eboo. V guvax gung’f qryvorengr ba TEEZ’f cneg – ur’f znxvat gur fgbel bayl nobhg gubfr jub ner aba-cevivyvtrq va fbzr jnl, jurgure ol traqre, qvfnovyvgl, ovegu be fbzr bgure snpgbe.)
The difference is between the people who actually care about others despite all that, and those who use oppression or bad experiences as an excuse to only look out for themselves.
Katherine, I have long held that the absolutely central idea of the entire series is right here, from AGOT:
“I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things”.
GRRM gave away the whole game.
She’s an unsurprisingly-mean drunk, that’s for sure.
Also, you are absolutely right about the fact that everyone gets a bad deal – I didn’t mean to imply that it’s only women who get the shaft in GoT-world (or our world), though medieval patriarchal oppression is certainly one of the themes Martin seems to be hitting.
But Tywin and Robert specifically did her no favors. Not just as “men”, but as “family”, as fellow humans who should have treated her like a person rather than as a tool.
The show is good. I recommend watching the show. The books are good, but long. Martin could use a better editor than himself.
Amen.
Come back to this post after you’ve read each of the books going forward. You might be surprised how many of the things you’ve guessed here are either right or only wrong ironically, and you might also be surprised how long it takes to pull some of them off.
As for Tywin, he’s undoubtedly the best natural leader in a place as morally and legally fraught as Westeros. He’s a man who can certainly bring peace and stability if given enough time, but the number of (what we would call) war crimes he has to commit to get there is… troubling. (I hope this isn’t too spoilery; I don’t think it is.)
The show has its benefits and drawbacks. A few characters are given a much better deal on the show. Cersei has already been mentioned and is easily the most obvious. Lena Headey (and presumably the writers) transcends the material GRRM gave her. In season 2, Stephen Dillane (who plays Stannis, who you haven’t really gotten to yet) is riveting. Tywin, Tyrion, and Arya are great characters anyway, but Dance, Dinklage, and Williams prove there’s plenty of value in knocking juicy fastballs out of the park. Catelyn, Littlefinger, and Renly are served very, very poorly by the show, though. As are a lot of the contextual elements (history, prophecy, etc).
I don’t consider that particularly spoilerific. One cannot make an omelet, something something, after all.
(I got 4 or 5 pages into Clash and there was an absolutely *BRILLIANT* scene where the old Maester is remembering Renly as a child… running around with bright fabric yelling “look at me, I’m a Wizard!” or “Look at me, I’m a dragon!” and now he’s yelling “Look at me, I’m a King!” and I thought “This won’t end well for anybody.”)
I like Tywin. He’s an honestly decent guy, unless you look at his relationships with his children. He does what has to be done, even if his hands get bloody along the way.
LOLWUT. I don’t think decent guys let Gregor Clegane do… well, anything Gregor Clegane has ever done.
Tywin makes a good king, but not a good man.
Yeah, this. Tywin is intelligent and efficient, which is why I enjoy watching/reading about him, but “decent”? Nope. No way, no how. The man is a shark.
Tywin’s certainly an intelligent man who’s able to pursue his own interests, but IMHO he’s way to quick to engage in horrible wide-ranging war crimes for personal gain to be considered a potentially good king.
I’m not certain he views them terribly much as “personal gain”, though he’s far from the most selfless man around.
an intelligent man who’s able to pursue his own interests
Hey, he’s one of the few who knows what his interests actually are. Joffrey, for example, is a jerk. It is not, absolutely not, in his interests to be a jerk to Sansa. There are a handful of things that they’re going to be doing someday, if plans pan out, that involve a certain degree of vulnerability on his part.
We made a joke about watching Tyrion slap Joffrey on the youtubes but, seriously, Joffrey was receiving a very important lesson in that moment… and, I assume, failed to learn it.
This strikes me as Joffrey being stupid. Not just evil… but stupid evil.
I can handle evil in my stories. Hey. The world works a certain way. What can you do?
Stupid evil? The stones themselves cry out for justice.
Tywin? Dude has half a brain. Given the stupidity of most everybody else in the book, it’s downright refreshing to run across a character who knows how to count.
Tywin? Dude has half a brain. Given the stupidity of most everybody else in the book, it’s downright refreshing to run across a character who knows how to count.
It’s possible this is also why the Davos/Stannis pairing is so refreshing.
Yeah. Dillane is unsurprisingly terrific if you saw him as Thomas Jefferson, but I thought that Tommy Carcetti would be a natural for Littlefinger. Alas, no.
hmm, to me the biggest “WTF” was with the wolves.
That’s early on, setup for the whole series. The last noble lord (true noble, not just having the right parents but the honorable standards and whatnot) and his kids plus one bastard, and he finds…exactly as many dire wolf cubs (the symbol of his house) as kids, including one that’s albino — for his bastard son, whose last name is Snow.
So stock fantasy, right? They’ve got their living symbols of how awesome the Starks are and how central they’re going to be to fix everything when it all goes to crap.
And by the end of the first book, well….the least you can say is the wolves and the kids were intertwined. Arya’s was run off (as she was). Whats-her-face stuck in Queens Landing — her’s is dead, and so is she (symbolically). She’s being forced to move further and further away from her family, having chosen the Lannisters over them. (Much to her eventual dismay).
In retrospect, they all share a fate with their owners. But at the time it was “What? You cut off her wolf’s head? THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN.”
See, I assume that Arya will, eventually, escape the city and start travelling North to go home because, hey, that’s what I would do.
During her journey, I expect her to meet back up with her wolf, re-establish their relationship, and become local heroes.
And, of course, Martin will know that I expect that and so they’ll probably kill Sansa and marry Arya off to Joffrey.
Oh my. You’re in for a fun, fun ride. 🙂
Yes watch the shows. Dinklage’s emmy was well deserved. And contrary to Mr. Noonan above, I think Littlefinger was served well by the screenplay and played well by Aidan Gillen – particularly if you’re familar with his work 0n The Wire.
(I also didn’t find too much wrong with the series interpertation of Catelyn)
(Bronn/Jerome Flynn is pretty awesome too)
Ack, really? The TV version of Littlefinger is all snarling and mustache-twirling. It’s fine enough for what it is, but it’s absolutely nothing like the unassuming menace of the character from the novels.
In season 2, when he rkcyvpvgyl gryyf Prefrv gung xabjyrqtr vf cbjre, it’s like a big neon flashing sign that his character has been irreparably diminished. Aidan Gillen does a fine job acting the role he’s given, but the mystique is completely ruined.
Well, Yvggyrsvatre qvfncrnef bss gur cntrf sbe n ybat gvzr hagvy ur cbcf hc va Rlevr, no? (and that’s a lot later). So it is possible that I’m retconing a bit. But also, jung unccraf jvgu Prefv fubjf Yvggyrsvatre vf zber pbeerpg, I think.
To quote Marge Simpson, “That’s true… but he shouldn’t say it.”
Darn, didn’t embed. Here’s the link.