Game of Thrones begins....

[Martinus]

And here's an analysis of GoT characters based on their (alleged) Myers Briggs profile:



Not sure how accurate that is, but based on my most common results (including one evaluation done professionally by a psychologist/coach at work) I would have the personality of Petyr Baelish with a touch of Tywin Lannister. 

My direct opposites would be Samwell Tarly and Theon Greyjoy - which is right as I can't stand losers.

[jimmy olsen]

Because we all wanted the opinion of Malthus aunt on the subject

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/mar/22/margaret-atwood-on-game-of-thrones-season-five

Margaret Atwood on Game of Thrones: 'Real people, every murderous one'

With the fifth season of Game of Thrones beginning next month, acclaimed novelist Margaret Atwood explains why she finds the show – inspired by literature and the real monarchs of our blood-soaked medieval history – so compelling, while five other famous fans share their devotion to Westeros

Margaret Atwood

Sunday 22 March 2015 07.00 GMT

Once sucked in, you stay sucked. Be warned.

On one side of the artefact/audience interchange, avid faces will be squashed up against the screen; on the other side, avid faces will simply be squashed, and then cut off, attached to other people's heads, sewn on to wolves, painted with tar, or stuck on spikes. As the Immortal Name, Robert Burns, has it: "Clap in his walie nieve a blade, He'll make it whissle; An legs an arms, an heads will sned, Like taps o thrissle."

Those legs and arms and heads are as good as snedded, because this series must surely have not only the longest cast list of all time, but also the highest body count. Will it be last man standing? Last dragon standing? Or last metaphor-for-climate-change standing – the pale, deadly-cold Others and their troops of the barrow-wightish, zombie-ish Undead with their LED blue eyes who bring endless winter? Funforall, as James Joyce punned of funerals. And it is fun for all, except for the underage, because this is Ivanhoe with the rape and gutting scenes included. Not to mention the incest, the patricide, and the kiddie murders. Freud goes on the rampage! The return of the repressed, times 100!

Yes, it's Game of Thrones, that mesmerisingly popular television series that surely draws its inspiration from so many fictional sources it's hard to keep track. The Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf, ancient Egypt, H Rider Haggard, The Sword in the Stone, the Ring Cycle, Tolkien, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Mabinogion, Harry Potter, The Jungle Book, Ursula K Le Guin, Hans Christian Andersen, Idylls of the King, Conan the Barbarian – himself the stolen-away downmarket twin of Walt Whitman – and The Wind In the Willows. You may laugh at this last citation, but mark:

"They were but four in all, but to the panic-stricken Lannisters the hall seemed full of monstrous warriors, grey, black, brown and yellow, whooping and flourishing enormous swords; and they broke and fled with squeals of terror and dismay, this way and that, through the windows, up the chimney, anywhere to get out of reach of those terrible weapons."

I changed only four words: "weasels," "cudgels," "sticks," and "animals." Maybe I should have substituted "shouts" or "screams" for "squeals," squealing not being a thing a Lannister would do unless subject to unspeakable physical or spiritual tortures in underground caverns; but otherwise, be honest with yourself: it fits. In the sword-and-sorcery formula at work in Game of Thrones, the sorcery has its moments, but the swords prevail. There are no unemployed ironsmiths anywhere in the north, the south, or the points west on the useful maps at the fronts of the books.

A sidenote on the dragons. The past thousand-and-a-half years has given us a range of dragons, from the lucky dragons of China, to the tussling red and white dragons of Welsh lore, to the dragon of St George fame, substitute for Satan, to the Zen-ish, wise, riddling dragons of Le Guin's Earthsea, to the hoarding, miserly dragons of Beowulf and The Hobbit. George RR Martin's dragons are more like superweapon bazookas. They're aesthetically attractive – more so in the books than in the series, where they have less delicate pink tracery and more scaly pterodactyl beakiness – but, so far, they don't talk.

Luckily they're in the hands of a character we can actually approve of, more or less. Daenerys Targaryen surely has the blood of Uther Pendragon flowing in her veins, and we expect she will live up to it. The hairstyle is a bit High Elven, but why carp? There are only so many high fantasy hairstyles to go around, and, unlike Cate Blanchett in the Tolkien films, she doesn't have pointed ears. Not that Cate doesn't look good in them, mind you.

So what else can be said about Game of Thrones, apart from I can hardly wait? I asked some people younger than myself what it was they especially love about the series. The acting, said some: so well done! The characters, said others. (Nobody said "the lavish outfits", but I wasn't fooled.) "What is it about the characters that you like?" I enquired. They're mixed, they answered. It's not all good on one side and bad on the other. They behave well or horribly according to the circumstances which they find themselves in. They're like real people.

Except that some of them are like real psychopaths. Was it absolutely necessary, as "necessary" might be defined by, say, that helpful arch-pragmatist, Machiavelli, to cement one's power position by cutting the head off darling Robb Stark and sewing his direwolf's head onto his neck at that aptly named Red Wedding? No, it was not necessary, it was gratuitous. But the Game of Thrones folk go in for symbolism, in addition to conceptual needlecraft.

We might also say: if Game of Thrones is a game, what then is reality? What are "real people" like? Or possibly real aristocrats battling lethal rivals, most of whom are family members, since they are all so stunningly inbred. By mere chance, I happened to pick up Terry Breverton's Richard III: The King in the Car Park, which attempts to explain why who was killing whom in the Wars of the Roses, and largely succeeds. (You have to pay close attention, because the bodies fall like snow.) "The Plantagenets had been their own worst enemies, killing nearly all claimants to the crown. Sons had rebelled against kings, brothers had fought brothers, wives had fought husbands, various Plantagenets had usurped the rightful monarch and so on. Plantagenet history is drenched in bloodshed and intrigue..." Those were real people. Lancaster and York, Lannister and Stark? Suggestive, at any rate. Kill or be killed was the watchword; without it, there would never have been a golden age of Elizabeth I, the Faerie Queene.

Also by chance, I've been reading the 1970s Maurice Druon series of historical novels, Les Rois Maudits – The Accursed Kings – that trace the Capetian monarchs of France in the 13th and 14th centuries. Burnings at the stake, adulteries, castrations, stranglings, poisoned candies, baby murder, and hot pokers up the rear, just for starters; plus daring escapes from such strongholds as the Tower of London, intrigues, necromancy, money-lenders pulling the strings, religious leaders ditto, and more. What a treat to discover that this series strongly influenced George RR Martin; but, on second thought, how unsurprising. Because these, too, were real people, every murderous one.
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Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, we wish you well, even though we have trouble spelling your name. May the Force be with you! We think you will make a dandy Faerie Queene, once you've obliterated those cold Snow King Others thanks to the fire at your command. Unlike Elizabeth I, you may even get married and have some little Pendragons, though we hesitate to place bets on the identity of the groom. Odds on it won't be Tyrion Lannister, though he does have a touch of nobility, as his Tyrian purple name suggests. We do hope he survives the bloodbath, or baths. After all he's been through, we'd be sad to see his neck with a donkey's head sewn on to it. Or something equally Shakespearean.

© OW Toad Ltd 2015. Game of Thrones returns to Sky Atlantic on Monday 13 April at 9pm

[Berkut]

http://www.mtv.com/news/2125566/jon-snow-dinner-party-seth-meyers/

[Martinus]

So, since we are in the no book territory for Littlefinger and Sansa, any speculations where they are going?

[spoiler]Dorne, or perhaps to join with Euron Stormcrow?[/spoiler] Could they be reusing the [spoiler]Young Dragon[/spoiler] story somehow with Littlefinger?

[Liep]

Good start. All the story lines seem to go in interesting directions, except, of course, for Jon who's still a whiny bitch.

[The Larch]

So, since we are in the no book territory for Littlefinger and Sansa, any speculations where they are going?

[spoiler]Dorne, or perhaps to join with Euron Stormcrow?[/spoiler] Could they be reusing the [spoiler]Young Dragon[/spoiler] story somehow with Littlefinger?

Sincerely I have no idea and I'm more than willing to be surprised. Most certainly we'll be entering uncharted territory with them this season, and it makes me giddy.

Btw...[spoiler]I'd say that there's no Rattleshirt-Mance switcheroo in the show, so bye bye Ciaran Hinds.  [/spoiler]

[Martinus]

So, since we are in the no book territory for Littlefinger and Sansa, any speculations where they are going?

[spoiler]Dorne, or perhaps to join with Euron Stormcrow?[/spoiler] Could they be reusing the [spoiler]Young Dragon[/spoiler] story somehow with Littlefinger?

Sincerely I have no idea and I'm more than willing to be surprised. Most certainly we'll be entering uncharted territory with them this season, and it makes me giddy.

Btw...[spoiler]I'd say that there's no Rattleshirt-Mance switcheroo in the show, so bye bye Ciaran Hinds.  [/spoiler]

Some speculated that [spoiler]Mance at the execution looked somewhat differently than Mance in the dungeon but I think this is more wishful thinking[/spoiler].

[The Larch]

So, since we are in the no book territory for Littlefinger and Sansa, any speculations where they are going?

[spoiler]Dorne, or perhaps to join with Euron Stormcrow?[/spoiler] Could they be reusing the [spoiler]Young Dragon[/spoiler] story somehow with Littlefinger?

Sincerely I have no idea and I'm more than willing to be surprised. Most certainly we'll be entering uncharted territory with them this season, and it makes me giddy.

Btw...[spoiler]I'd say that there's no Rattleshirt-Mance switcheroo in the show, so bye bye Ciaran Hinds.  [/spoiler]

Some speculated that [spoiler]Mance at the execution looked somewhat differently than Mance in the dungeon but I think this is more wishful thinking[/spoiler].

[spoiler]Wishful thinking indeed. His way of talking and carrying himself was entirely Mance-like, if it was Rattleshirt he would have behaved much differently.[/spoiler]

[Martinus]

Good start. All the story lines seem to go in interesting directions, except, of course, for Jon who's still a whiny bitch.

I gotta disagree - I think for the first time the Wall storyline is actually interesting so you gotta give credit where credit is due.

[Grey Fox]

My gf watched the 1ere with me.

Her main comment : There is A LOT of characters.

[HVC]

First 4 episodes have been leaked. Reviewers copies, so not the best quality I've heard

[Martinus]

I decided against watching them, partially because of the quality reasons.

[grumbler]

First 4 episodes have been leaked. Reviewers copies, so not the best quality I've heard

I don't think that they are low quality because they are reviewers' copies, but because someone decided that they were to be compressed into a single torrent.

I'm not much interested in having nothing to look forward to for four weeks, so I'll pass.

[Josephus]

Funny how they're ahead of the books in one or two story lines and far behind in others.

[spoiler]I wonder if Sam Tarwell and co. are gonna take that boat ride to the Free Cities.[/spoiler]

[grumbler]

Funny how they're ahead of the books in one or two story lines and far behind in others.

[spoiler]I wonder if Sam Tarwell and co. are gonna take that boat ride to the Free Cities.[/spoiler]

I think that they are just skipping a bunch of the less important and interesting story lines.
[spoiler]No reason to show Tarwell in the Free Cities.  He'll probably set off in one episode and arrive at his destination the next episode.[/spoiler]