So I Have Now Read A Game of Thrones

In 2014, the Hamilton musical (based on the story of one of America’s founders) got very big very quickly, especially among a subset of musical theater nerds who were, like the play’s protagonist, young scrappy ‘n’ hungry. Everyone swooned over a colonial history presented with a diverse cast, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s modern score, and the idea that Alexander Hamilton could have whupped Thomas Jefferson in a rap battle. Circa 2020, the praise and good vibes were dampened by criticisms of the play’s casting choices, its heroic framing of wealthy slave owners, and the supposed mediocrity of Miranda’s rapping skills. This phenomenon is particularly ironic because one of Hamilton’s major themes is anxiety over what legacy a person can hope to leave, and how there is no telling what happens to that legacy when others are in control of it. 

Which brings me to A Song of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin and its first book, A Game of Thrones. Because you canNOT pick up a copy of this book, or any book in the series, without having some knowledge about how the end of the formerly popular HBO adaptation went down. And I mean down. As in, so-bad-that-the-head-writers-lost-out-on-future-writing-gigs down. The final season, which aired in spring 2019, left disappointed fans to turn to the internet to grieve their collective loss. At the time of this writing, Game of Thrones is regarded as a failure of great potential and an example of arrogant showrunners who assumed their audience didn’t care about themes, character arcs, or subtle storytelling beats.

 But Pagegirl, you’re probably asking by now, is the book actually good?

 A Game of Thrones, the first book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire, is about kingships, jousting tournaments, assassination attempts, political intrigues, and the promise of dragons. That’s right: it’s a dark fantasy epic where almost no magic appears until the last handful of chapters, when some mysterious stones start to crack open—but I’m getting ahead of myself. There are three overarching plotlines in AGOT: there’s Ned Stark, reluctant Hand of the King, attempting to find out why his predecessor was killed on the job; there’s Jon Snow, the black sheep who is sent off to the Night Watch to guard the kingdom of Westeros from permafrost zombies; and there’s Daenerys Targaryen, exiled princess of Westeros, struggling to amass power to regain her kingdom from the usurper. Complicating things is the fact that all these people are connected, sometimes intimately: Jon is the bastard son of Ned and therefore cannot inherit Winterfell, his home for fifteen years; the usurper that Daenerys hopes to overthrow is King Robert, Ned’s childhood friend and all-around likable leader; and Ned’s appointment to the Hand is spurred by an assassination attempt on his young son, and the dagger that was wielded is traced back to Queen Cersei’s family, the formidable House Lannister. The title of this book could have very easily been A Conflict of Interests (good thing I’m not an editor). Oh, and the seasons can last for years at a time before changing, which is either caused by magic or the planet’s axis spinning wildly out of control.

 And, yes, this book is good. The narrative is compelling, the characters (while numerous) are bursting with personality, and the pacing is some of the best I’ve read lately. The worldbuilding can be overwhelming at times, especially when Ned is reflecting on the recent rebellion that put Robert Baratheon in the Iron Throne—we hear that the previous king went mad, that he kidnapped Ned’s sister, that the battle has taken a toll on the collective psyche of Westeros’s ruling class. We also follow Ned’s two daughters, different as night and day; suddenly disabled son Bran, ignorant about Westeros’s past and his future; Tyrion Lannister, hated younger son with a cynical take on everything; and Catelyn, Ned’s wife, so close to and yet so far from figuring out the mystery of the Lannister dagger. The story develops sneakily, dropping small hints to the reader that no single character has as much control as they think. And as compelling as the characters can be (I liked Tyrion the best, I thought Catelyn was often a drag), it’s the framing device that gives AGOT its sweeping epic feel and propels the reader forward. You can see why someone looked at this and thought, This would make for some amazing, expensively-produced, well-acted TV.

 Of course, I have to acknowledge the violence factor. Violence shows up in the duels, battles, rituals, and entertainment of Westeros and beyond. If this sounds gratuitous, I am not sure that Martin means for it to be so, as the violence is shown without comment from the narration. It’s important to show the dangers of the world and how it affects characters’ behavior. In particular, I find it fascinating how Martin uses aggression and violent antics to link the Westerosi to the Dothraki, the tribe that Daenerys marries into. Though initially the Dothraki might appear more barbaric than the knights and lords, it’s made clear that the honor-bound structure of the Westerosi ruling class is just a pretense. That being said, this is an R-rated book where the mature content is, for better or worse, a feature instead of a bug.

Cards on the table: I knew some of the twists that were in store due to the TV show having been such a phenomenon. I mean, it’s pretty noticeable that Sean Bean, who plays Ned Stark, isn’t a regular after season 1. And given the negative reception of the final season, amplified by seething Twitter posts, petitions for a re-write, and not-mad-just-disappointed video essays, you could argue that the average reader has no reason to pick up A Game of Thrones. And that’s not even getting into the fact that only two-thirds of the book series have been published. The first book came out in 1996! What are we waiting for here?

 Well, I’m average as fuck, and I downed this baby in less than three weeks. Then I went on to devour Clash and Storm before I could think of a way to end this review. I don’t know what it says about me that I genuinely, heartily enjoyed reading A Game of Thrones five years after the peak of its hype. I don’t know why I was ready to read the beginning of the Ice And Fire series when I’ve heard every possible take on the TV adaptation. You think I haven’t seen Emilia Clark’s grimace as she groans “Best show ever?!” like it’s a curse? Yeah. I saw that. There’s no reason to read A Game of Thrones. But I’m so glad I did.

Reading A Song of Ice and Fire these days means all sorts of things. It means disappointment, intrigue, and cliff hangers. It means intricate plots, surprising characters, unexpected deaths, and lots and lots of knights and House [Surnames] to memorize. It means a richly realized world that is both familiar and alien, grudges held with iron fists, and a broken kingdom that will possibly never heal from its ruptures. And as of spring 2024, it means a legacy stuck in limbo. I hope that legacy swallows up the disappointment of the TV show—I hope those showrunners won’t be the ones who tell Martin’s story for him. I hope we’re not just left with the Wild Mass Guessing page on the TV Tropes subpage to substitute an ending. I hope the legacy of the Ice and Fire saga endures, battle-scarred and bruised, to delight readers generations from now.