New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Eddard”

You know what it’s like when you hate camping but have to go anyway? There’s always the one guy who’s all, “Get up! Let’s go greet the sun and pee in the bushes and be one with nature!” And all you want to do is curl up in your sleeping bag and pretend you’re in your bed and there’s running water and electricity for your laptop within your reach. The royal court, now including some Starks, is trekking back south and Robert Baratheon is that nature-loving asshole. He wants Ned to get up and go pre-dawn riding with him.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Jon and Daenerys”

Summer snow swirls around the castle’s grey walls. Wind howls and its howls are answered by those of wolves. Inside the walls it is warm, but quiet. Too quiet. Jon Snow makes the climb as if it were for the last time. It is. There is danger waiting ahead for him. A monster with claws and teeth that tear at his very soul. His wolf won’t save him, no one will save him, and he would turn back, but for the love that motivates him in this quest.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Tyrion”

I can’t tell if GRRM is a kind old wizard who’s cheering me up with Tyrion after that Bran chapter or if he’s an evil genius cackling madly as he gives me emotional whiplash.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Bran”

We don’t get to see what Catelyn does to parent a kid who is neither perfect or beloved like Sansa and Bran nor forced on her by circumstance and her husband like Jon because some days have gone by and we’re back with Bran.

Oh.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Catelyn and Arya”

If I have to do another Catelyn, you have to promise me the next one will be Tyrion. (I checked, it’s not. Neither is the one after that. This is why I didn’t read the book in order in the first place!)

Catelyn has the hottest room in the castle, and that’s not a euphemism for sex, it’s just a statement to her innate southern wussiness when it comes to weather. Sex has been happening, though; it winds down in unromantic terms as the chapter opens. Catelyn hopes Ned’s “seed” inside her doesn’t go to waste and gets put to baby-making use. I gag because it’s gone from unromantic to slightly gross. Mercifully, the conversation is moving on to politics.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Jon”

Fourteen-year-old Jon Snow is drinking wine, as one does when one lives in a mediaeval fantasy world. Lest I mislead anyone into thinking that Jon is in need of an intervention and a twelve-step program, it should be said that this is happening during a feast. Jon is secretly gloating over the fact that his brothers and sisters — sitting with the adults at the hosts and royalty table — would only be allowed one glass, whereas he, being seated on the benches in the crowd, can keep on drinking while the young squires surrounding him do the mediaeval fantasy version of the “chug chug” chant. Ok, so maybe a small intervention.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Eddard”

You know, I had completely forgotten that Ned Stark is a point-of-view character. It’s details like this that justify my choosing to start the series from scratch rather than jump in where I left off. On the other hand, this means there’s yet another segment standing between me and the delightfully twisted mind of Tyrion Lannister. The Lannister Crazy will be my reward for making it through the Stark Emo.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Daenerys”

The chapter opens with Viserys being creepy, which is Viserys’s default setting. Brothers should never say the word “caress” to their sisters, in any context. Eurgh. Talking about the fabric bringing out the colour in Dany’s (Daenerys is a pretty name, but I’m lazy) eyes is not helping! There are a lot of sexual undertones to the way Viserys treats Dany, but we are talking about Targaryens, a House whose words might as well have been “Incest: a game the whole family can play.” Here’s a creepy question no one wanted to contemplate: if the rebellion had never happened, would Dany and Viserys be forced to marry even though Viserys was not the heir to the throne? Now, Targaryens do not have a monopoly on incest in A Song of Ice and Fire, but in their case, it’s institutional incest. There must have been some sort of laws and traditions governing it, right?

No, brain bleach will not be provided with these recaps.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Prologue”

“The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.” Summer that lasts for years and years. With winter almost here and temperatures dropping, I can see the appeal of that. I imagine a nine-year summer in Winterfell must be really nice. Nine years of summer in King’s Landing, or worse yet: Dorne, on the other hand, must suck balls. Sweaty, humid balls.

New post on Second Time Around!

“A Game of Thrones – Prologue”

The story opens with a prologue and if this is your first time opening the book, you might foolishly believe that the prologue would be logically followed by a “chapter 1”. We’ll return to that assumption when we make it that far. If we make it that far and in George R.R. Martin’s books, that’s a big if! (George R.R. Martin shall henceforth be known as GRRM, pronounced “grim,” roll the R.)