So, I don’t have HBO. But, my husband’s been raving about Game of Thrones for years, and I knew the series would generate a lot of hype, so I decided to check out the book for myself.
Game of Thrones isn’t just a single 800 page tome. It’s one of four, soon to be five, fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin. And from what I can tell based on clips and recaps of the show that I’ve seen, the TV series is limited to the first book of the same name, and has stuck faithfully to the plot – no surprise since the author was an advisor.
If you haven’t read the book, I will give a caveat. The first 80 pages or so are ponderous. Martin goes right into the tale from the perspective of the Stark family, a wealthy lordship that controls the area of Winterfell in the north of a fictional country named Westeros. It takes a while to get interested in them, because the Starks, as the name would suggest, are rather austere and, frankly, pretty boring. Mostly, you just get introduced to the father, Ned; the mother, Catelyn; and their children Robb, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Rickon and the illegitimate son, Jon. About the only interesting thing that happens in the opening of the book is that the children find a dead wolf and a litter of orphaned wolflings - one wolf for every child. So, there’s some heavy handed symbolism going on with the wolves. Which also happens to be the family crest of the Stark family.
Shortly after the wolves are adopted, we learn King Robert of Westeros is coming to Winterfell – his chief advisor, known as his Hand, has been killed and Robert is coming to offer the job to Ned.
Snooze, right? Symbolic wolves and a job offer? But soldier through those 80 pages, dear readers, because as soon as King Robert arrives in Winterfell, we learn in pretty short order that his wife, Queen Cersei, had a role in killing the previous Hand. Later, Bran Stark catches Queen Cersei getting it on with her brother (yes, that’s right, brother!), so the two push the child off a castle tower, crippling him, but failing to kill him. This leads to a separate attack on Bran by an assassin hell bent on cutting his throat, which is barely thwarted by his mother and his wolf.
So, with incest, child murder, conspiracies and intrigue, you get amazingly hooked on the story. In fact, it’s like crack cocaine from that point forward, with a different bombshell going off in every chapter. Who ordered the second attempt on Bran’s life? Is someone trying to kill King Robert? Are the King’s heirs really his? Who should succeed the throne once Robert is finally taken out? How can Queen Cersei get Ned out of the way so that her bratty son Joffrey can assume power unquestioned?
These are all incredibly compelling story lines that converge in interesting ways, keeping readers turning the pages voraciously. But these plot points take a back seat to the stories of two of the most interesting characters in fantasy fiction, a dwarf named Tyrion Lannister and Danerys Targaryen.
Tyrion is the unloved brother of Cersei, who shuns him due to his physical deformities. But Tyrion has managed to survive his family’s scorn and plenty of others in Westeros who would take advantage of his physical weaknesses, generally by outsmarting them. He’s accused of ordering the hit on Bran (although we never learn that’s the truth, as the information comes from an unreliable source), which prompts Catelyn Stark to kidnap him and put him on trial – a trial by combat that he miraculously wins (albeit by proxy). On his way home, Tyrion is ambushed by barbarians, whom he convinces not only to save him, but to join him in battle against the Starks under his own command. The interesting thing about Tyrion is that nothing is a given with him. He’s incredibly complicated, and at different turns is as likely to turn against his family as he is to fight for them. Tyrion understands that when you play the Game of Thrones, it’s best to look out for yourself, and worry about other people and settling scores later. And this goes double if you’re a dwarf.
Danerys Targaryen is one of the two surviving heirs of the previous kingship, which was overthrown by King Robert. Danerys left Westeros as a baby, and has since been living in exile with her sadistic brother Viserys, who sells her to a Mongol-type King named Kahl Drogo. But rather than bemoan her fate, Danerys embraces it, learning to love Drogo as well as the power that comes along with being a barbarian Queen – and does it without losing her humanity. She identifies with and helps save women from abuse, she is kind to her servants and ensures they are treated fairly and she abides by new cultural customs out of respect for her new found people, something her brother never got the hang of. Danerys goes from being a child in the beginning of the book to a fully forged woman Queen who inspires loyalty and earns her place as someone worthy of a proper throne – perhaps even the throne of Westeros.
Although you sound like a Dungeons and Dragons nerd or a LARPer if you speak about Game of Thrones in public, there really is something to these books. Frankly, I find Tolkein incredibly dull and could never get into Lord of the Rings, but Game of Thrones is truly addictive. In part, I think it’s because the themes that make the novels interesting aren’t really driven by fantasy. At the end of the day, the book is about power – who has it, how you conspire to get it, how you retain it – which in my mind makes it much closer to Shakespeare than Baggins.
