The Real Events That Inspired the Greatest Show on Earth
This is the second part of my editorial about the recent rape. This part of the article is posted separately from the first part, in which I discuss the pain many of us feel when we see rape on television. It is with a little trepidation and mixed feelings that I write this article. On one hand, I’m extremely sympathetic to people who do not want to see violence against women portrayed on television. On the other hand, I’ve spent a great…
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I’ve taken too long to comment on Sunday night’s episode because frankly it is a difficult subject and I’ve rewritten many drafts of this article as I try to figure out how I feel. This is the first half of my editorial. My apologies for the delay. Sansa’s rape has offended and outraged fans, journalists, and even American senators. Websites like The Mary Sue have announced they will no longer cover Game of Thrones due to its repeated portrayal of rape. The Washington…
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An hour ago, George RR Martin released a new The Winds of Winter chapter on his website. It is from Alayne’s point of view. Here is the link. Enjoy! P.S. Please avoid TV spoilers if you leave comments, or preface them with “spoiler” and a paragraph return or two, so the spoiler doesn’t show up in the sidebar feed on our home page.
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~~~Very Mild TV Spoilers~~~ This season we are going to meet the Sand Snakes — Oberyn Martell’s bastard daughters who are looking to avenge their father’s gruesome death. In the novels, Oberyn has eight daughters, all with the last name “Sand,” since that is the name for natural born children in sunny Dorne. The daughters who are shown in the second video below are as follows: Obara — the eldest who is the daughter of an Oldtowne whore. Nymeria —…
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I only just discovered that, for the next four days, the Getty museum in Los Angeles, California has an exhibit about chivalry. It ends on November 30th, 2014. The museum created two videos for the exhibit, which made me reflect on the origins of chivalry. If you love knights and all things martial, definitely check out the combat demonstrations in the first video. It brings to life the fighting styles in the Italian manuscript The Flower of Battle (Il Fior di Battaglia) c. 1410. Both videos are embedded…
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In his A Song of Ice and Fire series, George RR Martin takes elements from history and blows them up to ginormous size. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival, George RR Martin mentioned that the Wall is inspired by Hadrian’s Wall — just like John Henry Clay argues in this article. Martin told the audience: “I remember standing there on a cold October day… and I stood on that wall and stared off into Scotland, or what was Scotland, and tried to think what…
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I’ve reported before that it may be possible to stream HBO without paying for cable. That is, to pay for HBO GO — iPad/Internet version of HBO — without having to shell out for monthly TV service. This was no more than a mere rumor it seems. This week, however, HBO announced they will begin to sell HBO as a broadband streaming service. This means that sometime next year consumers will be able to buy HBO GO directly from TimeWarner, HBO’s parent…
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A few weeks ago I wrote a surprisingly controversial article that asked if Ned Stark was the worst thing that ever happened to Westeros: Ned’s Honor: Was Ned Stark the Villain? Some people were not amused. Somebody posted my Ned article to Reddit, and people there had quite a few things to say. Between the comments on this website and the comments on Reddit, people had quite a few interesting things to say. The purpose of this article is to share some of…
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One of the more direct parallels between George R.R. Martin’s characters and historical cultures is that of the Ironborn and Vikings. Theon Greyjoy spent his formative years away from Pyke, in a foreign land amongst a society that could not be more different from the Ironborn. The Ironborn are fiercely proud of their heritage, they cling to the belief in the Old Way, where a man’s worth was judged primarily on his skill as a raider. The Ironborn disparage the…
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Many of us are familiar with the more popular Game of Thrones/ASOIAF fan theories like the often quoted (“R+L=J”), but how about some of the more exotic ones? Recently The Mary Sue contributor Carrie Tupper wrote a fantastic series about some of the more “out there” theories, and a few of them are strangely tasty. Carrie Tupper based the theories on the wonderful tumblr blog A Song of Theories and the Westeros forums. Definitely check out her articles: The Wild World…
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