Catching up on ‘GoT’

We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.”

Thus began the first of the novels spun into HBO’s Game of Thrones. Bestselling epic fantasy author George R.R. Martin wrote that first paragraph over two decades ago, starting off the prologue to A Game of Thrones, billed as Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire and Ice. Four other books have followed since, while the last seven years have seen these transposed into a TV series of episodes drawing a phenomenal following — so much so that as a religion it has spawned a contrarian company of proud infidels.

I was one myself until this year, making me such a latecomer of a fan. It’s only been these past seven weeks that I found the time and inclination to join the keening, spectating public that waited for 9 a.m. on Mondays, Manila time, to catch the first screenings on TV. Millions of others worldwide took advantage of leaks and downloads to address their impatience.

Hearing from many friends who were into GoT from day one, I had been rendered curious about the gasps of awe and shock recorded in social media, following particular episodes where major characters were suddenly killed off.

But there was no time to join the bandwagon, and on the few instances I caught parts of an episode a year or two ago, I found most scenes too dark and gloomy, and talky. A hearing problem brought on by age plus the confounding accents of most of the actors had me wishing for subtitles. Why, only that midget named Tyrion struck me as a colossus of clear articulation.

In the season-ending episode last week, his utterance of “You’re pregnant” — to a villainess of a sister who currently sits on the throne — proved powerful enough to save a truce and a grand alliance. And now we all have to wait a year, likely more, to find out how the epic resolves all its myriad narrative arcs.

Meanwhile, I still keep asking my daughter and granddaughter who this or that character was, since I’ve only became familiar with the major ones — Jon Snow since that image of him dead on snow (before subsequent resurrection) got imbedded in my graphic memory, Daenerys Targaryen since she kept demanding that a man bend the knee (and I tell myself I’ll bend both for such a silky-silver-haired cutie Mother of Dragons); the Stark siblings, the Lannister kissing twins, and Littlefinger who deserved to have his throat slashed by any knife, at first glimpse. Oh, and the Night King with his Army of the Undead a.k.a. White Walkers a.k.a. wights a.k.a. zombies. Plus three fire-breathing dragons, one of them turned traitor. 

Of late I’ve managed to add the following to this realm of relative familiarity: Brienne, Bronn, the loyal Ser Jorah, Theon Greyjoy, Sam, another not-so-nice Greyjoy, the Hound, his nemesis brother the Mountain… Many other characters still escape my ken, since with their heavy cloaks and winter-proof hoods, they seem indistinguishable from one another.

So now I might have to try to join the download army and work my way back to the start of the series. Over a year of waiting for the concluding Season Eight should give me enough time to get up to full speed with GoT. Meanwhile, a now-gnawing appetite is easily fed by all the online critiques, memes, comic discourse, extrapolations, spoiler fents, and stabs at fan fiction. 

Some hilarious exegete of a blogger calls Jon Snow “the pomade Christ.” I agree. The night before I wrote this, a well-meaning FB friend tagged me “If Game of Thrones had Facebook.” Again, hilarious.

A travel agent offers a tour of European places where GoT scenes were shot. So King’s Landing, capital of Westeros, is Dubrovnik, while Meereen is Split. These are in Croatia, formerly Yugoslavia when I set foot in both cities at the height of Medjugorje fever. This trivia adds to my personal fascination.

I’ve also been aware that the show’s writers have moved past Mr. Martin’s books, so that more exegesis may be expected arguing about plotline variances and effectivity. As a jeprox to all that lore, I can’t take sides. I do think that the show’s writers tell the story with fine cinematography, excellent CGI and effective dialogue. A sample, as voiced out by Jon:

“I’m not going to swear an oath I can’t uphold. Talk about my father if you want, tell me that’s the attitude that got him killed. But when enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies. And lies won’t help us in this fight.”

Hmm. Seems to apply to a couple of current presidents still engaged in the century-old irony of Benevolent Assimilation. As for the original creator, why, he’s no slouch when it comes to power writing.

My granddaughter opts not to watch the TV series since she’s enjoyed Martin’s books, preferring them to those of Tolkien and J.K. Rowling. She argues that Tolkien gets too immersed in his own fantasy realm that, as a reader, she finds herself detached, with the author as narrator simply telling her what to see and believe. As for Rowling, whereas her world-building appears to be comparable to Martin’s, the story is confined to Harry Potter’s perspective, mostly, not spread out among a multitude of characters as Martin has it, with conflicts among POVs. You get to watch many characters and you get to see the story from different sides, she says.

So I borrow Book One from her and begin to browse. With appreciation.

“His cloak was his crowning glory, sable, thick and black and soft as sin.”

“Twilight deepened. The cloudless sky turned a deep purple, the color of on old bruise, then faded to black.”

I take note of other literary pluses. Such as: “… muscled like a maiden’s fantasy.” And insights: “I take you for a king. Kings lack the caution of common men.” Or: “A bastard had to learn to notice things, to read the truth that people hid behind their eyes.”

Equally entertaining is the “medieval” predilection for compounded words: “Dragonbone dragondew Highgarden Stormborn smallfolk holdfasts horselords sellswords bloodriders warhammer Riverrun Kingslayer godswood…” Reminiscent of G.M. Hopkins’ and Dylan Thomas’ reliance on compound modifiers in their lilting poetry.

Martin exercises sheer deviltry in naming a barbaric horde as the Dothraki, which course reminds us of Duterte’s army of malignant trolls.

Then there’s this passage, on Daenerys’ rite of early womanhood:

“Dany was flushed and breathless, her heart fluttering in her chest. He cupped her face in his huge hands and she looked into his eyes. ‘No?’ he said, and she knew it was a question.

“She took his hand and moved it down to the wetness between her thighs. ‘Yes,’ she whispered as she put his finger inside her.”

Yes. I have over a year to catch up on brilliant authorship.