The time has come. Winter is here.
Many people began their journey through the Seven Kingdoms back in 1996 when A Game of Thrones was originally published.
“I spent a whole summer working on what proved to be ‘A Game of Thrones’.” – GRRM
The next two books in the series, A Clash of Kings (1998) and A Storm of Swords (2000), followed in two year increments and fans of George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series were happy. But then came the five year wait for A Feast for Crows (2005). Fans loved and hated it. Martin had so many plotlines running that he took half of them and addressed them in A Feast for Crows and left the other half for “the next book.” That might have been okay, except that it took him another six years to publish that next book, A Dance with Dragons (2011).
“I’ve never been a fast writer.” – GRRM
Fans were near frenzy level waiting for A Dance with Dragons to come out, not only because they had been waiting forEVAH for the book to come out, but the series had been picked up by HBO as a mini-series. 2011 was kind of a tumultuous year for me personally and somehow I completely missed that this was a thing. At that point in my life, I was not a fantasy reader. Not even low fantasy. Dragons? No, thank you.
But 2012 was a different story, and enter my love of Jon, Arya, Tyrion, and my love-hate relationship with George RR Martin. People were talking about this series that was full of war and intrigue and dragons. Yes, dragons. I worked at the library at that time, and the waitlist for A Dance with Dragons was still crazy long. Any book that good was a book I had to read. Except that I had to read the four books before it because I cannot read a series out of order. I’m not positive God will strike me dead, but I don’t want to tempt him. So, I knew I had to read all 3,181 pages of the first four books before I could read the new book everyone was raving about. I could handle a couple of dragons and a couple thousand pages the way people were talking about these books.
“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”
If only I had known then… I imagine that I’m preaching to my GOT choir here, but I know that there are still some holdouts. Some people aren’t fantasy fans and truly aren’t interested. Sigh. You are totally missing out. Some people, like my friend Nicole, don’t want to read the books until the series is complete and they can read it straight through. Understandable, and your self-control is a-MAY-zing. Some people, IMHO, are just ornery and want to be able to say they aren’t part of the GOT crowd.
The series all together is known as A Song of Ice and Fire and takes place on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos and tells the story of five main families battling for control of Westeros and the Iron Throne. The storytelling is rich, the characters are well developed, and the world-building is incredible. I will admit, his books are so complex it’s often difficult to keep track of who is in what family, where in the world they are, and who is allied with whom (each book has maps and family trees to help sort this out).
So, I was totally gung-ho when I started Game of Thrones. I had no idea what I was actually getting into. I have read plenty of books that were that long. But the complexity of the storylines, the way he weaves the characters together, and the world-building meant that I couldn’t fly through it the way I normally do.
And, of course, there are the signature heartbreaking George RR Martin moments. If you’re already a GOT fan, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t read the books yet, all I can say, is don’t get too attached to any of the characters.
“It’s really irritating when you open a book, and 10 pages into it you know that the hero you met on page one or two is gonna come through unscathed, because he’s the hero. This is completely unreal, and I don’t like it.”- GRRM
This is not to say that just because you love a character Martin is going to kill them off without mercy. But I am saying that just because you loved a character or hated a character in one book, that doesn’t mean you’ll feel the same about them two books later.
“I prefer to work with grey characters rather than black and white.”- GRRM
How could you not love Tyrion when he says things like this, though?
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” – Tyrion Lannister
Now there is some #wednesdaywisdom for you.
“One of the things I love, and I’m a voracious reader as well as a writer, is books that surprise me, that are not predictable.”- GRRM
By the end of the first two books, if there was anything I was certain of is that I couldn’t be certain of anything. Nothing in his books is predictable; not the characters, not the allegiances, and especially not the storylines. But that’s what makes his books so awesome.
“What do we say to the Lord of Death?’
‘Not today.”
As long as it took to get through A Game of Thrones, I flew through the next four books. GRRM talks about being completely immersed when he writes. That’s how I felt when I was reading. It did help that Spring Break was during this time, which meant I had lots of uninterrupted reading time.
Three books in and I was seriously invested in some of the characters. GRRM has a way of making awful characters just likable enough that you don’t actually want them to get disemboweled, but then he goes and kills the character that you’ve been rooting for since the third page and you throw the book across the room. Remember back in book one when I told you not to get too attached?
“I’ve been killing characters my entire career, maybe I’m just a bloody minded bastard, I don’t know, [but] when my characters are in danger, I want you to be afraid to turn the page (and to do that) you need to show right from the beginning that you’re playing for keeps.” GRRM
I still haven’t forgiven him for that one.
I’m trying to be good and not have too many spoilers, but it’s hard to talk about how much I love these books and why I love them without going into details. Take the character Littlefinger, for example. Definitely not a favorite, but someone you love to hate. He’s absolutely a grey character.
“Why does a bear shit in the woods?” he demanded. “Because it is his nature. Lying comes as easily as breathing to a man like Littlefinger. You ought to know that, you of all people.” – Tyrion Lannister
Tyrion is dead on about Littlefinger, but Littlefinger is so insightful…
“Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some, are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.” – Littlefinger
“As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy.”- GRRM
There was definitely a sense of mounting panic as I started A Feast for Crows and then A Dance with Dragons. That was almost seven years ago. I’ve read a lot of books since then, but I will admit to missing Westeros in a way that HBO hasn’t been able to satisfy.
“My biggest dream was to ruin the lives of my readers and crush their souls.”- GRRM
Level achieved, GRRM.
I was late to the GOT party, but I had two books under my belt before I saw the show on HBO (okay, technically I didn’t see it on HBO. I checked the DVD’s out from the library because we didn’t have HBO). By the time I saw the first season of the show, I was a full-on Arya devotee and I had very strong opinions about who should live and die. I am a hard-core purist when it comes to book-to-film adaptations and I was pleasantly surprised at how on-target the show was. It followed the book almost to the letter! Sure, there were some characters that had to be adapted and some of the storylines had to change, but for the most part it was spot-on.
Season 2 was a disaster, IMHO, because they went totally off script, but since then they’ve been amazing. The wait between seasons has been agonizing but has helped keep the hunger for the next book at bay. Book lovers have been watching the show without a script since season six when there were no more source books. And now the final season of the show is finally here. Which means the GRRM can get back to his life’s work which is finishing the damn books. Of course I care how the show ends, but since GRRM has said numerous times that the books and the show are not necessarily going to end the same, it’s time to get back to the books.
“The show has achieved such popularity around the world, the books have been so popular and so well reviewed, that every time I sit down I’m very conscious I have to do something great, and trying to do something great is a considerable weight to bear.” – GRRM
I can understand there might be a considerable amount of pressure to make these last two books unbelievably amazing, but I have absolute faith that George can do it.
“I have an instinctual distrust of conventional happy endings.” -GRRM
I didn’t mean to imply that I need a “conventional” happy ending. I just need an ending where my characters are still alive and one of them ends up on the throne. Is that too much to ask, George?
“George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.”- Neil Gaiman
