Winter is Coming, Y'all...

“The maester had taught him all the banners: the mailed fist of the Glovers, silver on scarlet; Lady Mormont’s black bear; the hideous flayed man that went before Roose Bolton of the Dreadfort; a bull moose for the Hornwoods; a battle-axe for the Cerwyns; three sentinel trees for the Tallharts; and the fearsome sigil of House Umber, a roaring giant in shattered chains. Even the sigil of House Holyfield, two extended middle fingers flanking a pair of rolling eyes.”* **

I spent the past week’s free time reading A Game of Thrones, the first book in George R. R. Martin’s epic Song of Ice and Fire series. In keeping with what lately seems to have become the pattern of my life, I am a VERY late adopter on this. (I also discovered I like Mumford and Sons this week. Hooray for being behind the curve!) Friends have been poking at me to pick this up since 1996, and I had managed to handily blow them off up until now. Predictably, I loved it, as they all said I would. But I stand by my reticence, and have no intention of picking up the sequel, A Clash of Kings, until sometime in 2012.  I’m not just trying to be contrarian, I swear. I’ve got good reasons behind my stubborn foot dragging.

Mostly, I just don’t like fantasy books.                           

I’ll take a moment and let the thick, rich, sugary irony of that to sink in. Understand that as I write that sentence, I am sitting two feet away from a stack of D&D Dungeon Tiles. I spent an hour earlier crafting a ruined keep with the intentions of inflicting it on a brave group of stalwart adventurers at my regular Tuesday night D&D game. I’ve been neck deep in Dungeons and Dragons for around 25 years, so for me to eschew fantasy on general principle would strike most who know my predilections as counter-intuitive, at best.

Look, early in my nerd life, I DEVOURED fantasy novels. I spent more hours in Xanth, and Pern, and Krynn, and Toril, and Narnia then I ever did in my home town – mentally, if not physically. I’ve hung out in Nehwon a lot, and spent my fair share of time in the Hyborian Age. And I just burned right out. That’s the fact.

A lot of it is due to the world-building aspect involved in fantasy literature. The nature of the genre, especially in the shadow of Tolkien, is to craft gigantic, sprawling tapestries full of rich geographic detail, full-blooded characters, and millennia of history, all of it dreadfully important to the epic narrative at hand. And for the most part, I can’t handle it anymore. I already know more about Middle Earth’s geography than I do about the actual planet I live on. There are only so many brain cells left available to me.

Truthfully, I know plenty of fans of the genre who can handle all of this detail no problem, and can switch back and forth between their favorite author’s realms with a barely audible click of the rails being shifted.  I’m not wired that way. “Different kind of nerd”, as Brian Posehn says. I can tell you way more than you probably care to know about Latveria, though. And draw you a map of Metropolis practically from memory. So I’m not cutting on anyone. Just saying I’m not strong in that particular style of nerd-fu. Spent my building points elsewhere, you might say.

So why did I finally pull the trigger on GoT? Because I watched the TV show, that’s why. I’m not normally the guy who prefers the movie to the book, I promise you (except for Jaws). But I found the TV show a much more accessible entrance point into Westeros than trying to pick up the books would likely have been.

Jenny and I saw the preview for the HBO show, and she couldn’t understand why I wasn’t peeing myself in excitement.  Not being an enthusiast of the books already, I told her I would check it out, but that I had my doubts as to whether or not it would stick in my mental craw. I mean, HBO is good and all, but it’s also the network that produces True Blood, which manages to be simultaneously one of the best shows on television and seven or eight of the worst .

So we watched the Game of Thrones premiere. And I had three thoughts that I took away from that episode.

1. Nobody in this show was safe. It would be a mistake to get too attached to anyone.

2. Nobody in the show had ever heard of the missionary position.

3. I was hooked.

Game of Thrones was my must-see TV for that first season. I watched it on the edge of my seat, and walked away from every episode sweaty and tense, and frothing at the mouth to see what was next. My reaction to episode 9 was not dissimilar to that of the gentleman in this video, although I think I phrased it differently. (Spoilers!)

At the end of the season, I felt like weeping, because Game of Thrones was over, and stupid True Blood was coming back to suck (no pun intended) an hour of my life on a Sunday.

That’s when everyone else I know who had not previously read the books jumped into them and plowed through everything available. But not I. I have read the first book. Read it and loved it. And I eagerly anticipate the second part of the story. AFTER THE NEXT SEASON OF THE SHOW. I’m enjoying the show on such a visceral level that I don’t want to chance ANYTHING interfering with that. (This also means if you try to spoil things for me, I will make like Joffrey Lannister and have your head on a spike.)

Jenny and I had fun the other day deciding on our house sigils (hers would be a uterus with a shotgun in front of it), and the words of our people (mine would be “Fuck ‘Em If They Can’t Take a Joke”).

It’s not going to be easy waiting until 2012 to see the next season of the show and then devour the next book. I know that. But Winter is Coming. And so is more Game of Thrones. I can be patient until then.

Hugs and kisses,

(The)Travis

*From A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin.

**Well, not the last bit.