Game of Thrones Review-Series Overview

            One of the most successful TV shows in recent times of world TV, which has recently taken even the subcontinent into it’s pie as a major occupant, is to be aired in India a few hours from now. Certainly there are a lot who had adjusted their timetables and shoved their schedules to accommodate the hour long episode of the sixth season. There are many assumptions of ascendancy, attempts at foreseeing of twists, new forms of torture, how musical chairs of the thrones will evolve and most of all guessing of the cast, who will get under the guillotine of the serial killer known as George RR Martin (mentioned as purely fun). The man’s pen is mightier than any westeros’s knight’s sword.

            George RR Martin was surely a compulsive and obsessive writer. This trait should obviously be the character of any author. He had dedicated almost all his life designing westeros and garnishing it with a plethora of characters. These characters, he created vary not only from place to place, but characteristically in their psyches. There are mostly seven kingdoms or families striving to get to the top, and hundreds of other houses in assisting them. Martin is so immaculate in his presentation that he even gave sigils to each and every family of westeros. He even captioned their family trait and even described the peoples of that group. The other impossible thing he does is in describing even the different members in the same family. That’s how clinical he is in creating this mythical and strange world. As strange as it is, he follows the same rule of scheming and backstabbing, which every monarchy has as its hallmarks. But he does it in so unexpected of ways.

            The beauty of game of thrones lies in the endless possibilities, the story provides. In this so unexpected and unpredictable game, he predictably plays his underdogs up. The Targaryen princess with no kingdom and wealth, and with so gloomy of her future with a wrong suitor, goes a long way to build a strong empire. A physically handicapped prince in so barbaric times of westeros monarchy fights all the odds with his compensatory overgrown intellect. A bastard slings to the top of the group of misfits, but of course we know there is no future, there. Or is there? A man of a royal lineage with no knightly skills plays his pawns to get to the top of the food chain. An eunuch made of ill fortune, uses the mastery of information to survive (well) and tries to veer the future of Westeros for its betterment. They are probably the characters we will be looking out for. But of course, many viewers would also like to see what the flaying prince has on his hands to skin and offer. The shivers, he creates is something people are obsessed with. But these are just a few, I could recollect.

            George RR Martin has this passion to tell us about his characters and how they scheme and plan their next assignment. I was intrigued with the series and tried to read his set of books. I went through the first fifty pages of his first book and it was clear to me that it is best seen as a television product. There was not the spark in as that of LOTR and Harry Potter. JRR Tolkien had a passion for his language and you could see his light heartedness regarding the frailties of common life and yokels’ regard of big adventures, and this he does with good cheer and humor. When the wars come, he talks more of magnanimity rather than gore. But JK Rowling is all wit and uninhibited imagination with enthralling storytelling. George RR martin is more concerned with telling his story of the families and their boundaries and their reasons for war and climbing through the hierarchy. Sadly I felt he does with detached and dispassionate way of unfolding of things. I felt I was being critical of him by just sampling one grain of his boiling rice. I read his fifth novel (around 100 pages) and I felt I was going through a historian’s depiction of the events that he needed to tell the world. (he creates what I call ‘character obsession syndrome’, as the series grows you become addicted to the characters) This made me realize that David Benioff had done a great job of handling the writing for the screen version. He has a lot of literary fodder for his disposal and he took the best parts and spiced it with the visual marvels of the new television technology. He probably exploited the vast amount of time for polishing his characters into fine forms. There are scores of characters, who have their own mould of fans.

            Each set of story has its own atmosphere. John Snow is rarely seen out of frost, Daenerys is in the arid climes while Martels dwell in tropical lands. You could see the diversity the story has and which makes the viewer switch his liking when he gets one story gets boring. But most of all, the trait which made the show a success is the way a character is bumped off suddenly and without any caution. You could hold your breath and then again hold it because you are at a quandary as what would happen and how what you have envisaged is something which would never happen. And obviously there is that royal hedonism at its peaks. The younger generation has that additional line of entertainment.

            Anyway the series had created a lot of online speculation and a lot of campus discussions too. What would happen to the nimble and sensitive Sansa Stark? Will Greyjoy redeem his lost shame? How many of the Starks will make it to the end? What happened to Rickon and Shaggydog? What will be the deal with the dothrakis and Daenerys? How will Cersei gain one on the impossible religion of Westeros? And there are lakhs of these questions, but mine are mine.

            What happened to the Blackfish? Is Valar Morghulis at the crux of the entire story? What will be the fate of Walder Frey who has rode on wrong horse of victory? How is the Bolton’s banner going to become stronger when he has lost the moral support he should have saved? I will be closely watching for the answers to the above questions when this show will be aired tonight as will the millions in India. And I feel Roose Bolton is more dangerous than Ramsay Bolton. But that is the beauty of the show, you can speculate almost anything. George RR Martin has the pressure to complete the series in allotted time, not we.