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https://preview.redd.it/hlv3k7ikfetb1.jpg?width=2016&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c390b9abf5a75c9c1a59de8120b3ef9f7ce3e774

I didn't have the heart to wake him up

Edit 9:28: Corrected name of House "Winterfell" to Stark

Edit 5:28: Corrected name of House Baratheon as the current ruling House.

Link to Blog post: https://cannedbreadblog.wordpress.com/2023/10/10/review-game-of-thrones-by-george-r-r-martin-oh-no-hes-hot/

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Note 1:

This is a multi-sectioned review, jump where you want, I'm not your teacher.

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Note 2:

“Game of Thrones” has plenty of triggers. Please refer to a trigger site before reading further.

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Note 3:

Hi GoT and non-GoT fans!

This review is not to change your mind or diss on this book. It’s here because of what I reviewed.

These are my opinions. You have yours and you might not agree with mine. And that’s OK!

You don’t have to like it or agree to it, but please don’t just comment “How could you not like X, they get better!?” or “Your opinion sucks.”. Be constructive.

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Spoiler-free Blurb:

The House of Stark has stood for many generations. The family has recently discovered a litter of newborn direwolf pups. They take each of them to raise them as guardians for the children.

One day, the King of the Seven Kingdoms needs a new second-in-command. He has chosen Ned Stark of House Stark.

After Ned leaves to take his new job, accompanied by his daughters, the Stark family is scattered in many directions. How they survive in their new environments or challenges depends on who they face, from the worst of humanity to murderers to outlaws. The weak perish and the strong rise from their adversaries.

It’s all a part of the Game of Thrones ™

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Characters and Terms:

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You as You: No amount of bribery would want you to be isekai’d to Westeros and be any of these characters. Trust me.

GoT: Game of Thrones

GRRM: George R. R. Martin, author of GoT

House Stark: House that owns direwolves. All of the House children have their own direwolf pup.

House Baratheon: Current ruling House in King’s Landing and the Iron Throne. Dethroned the Targaryens thanks to Jamie Lannister.

House Lannister: House that helped dethrone the Targaryens.

House Targaryen: Previous House of King’s Landing. The House was slaughtered and exiled by the Lannisters. Only a handful of officials and two surviving members of Targaryen lived: Viserys and Daenerys.

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House Stark

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Ned Stark: Head of house Stark located in Winterfell. Husband to Catelyn Tully. Father to Bran, Rickon, Jon, Arya, Robb, and Sansa. Is forced to accept the job as second-in-command in King’s Landing.

Catelyn Tully: Wife to the head of House Stark. Has plenty of contempt towards Jon for being born out of wedlock. Hates bastards.

Jon Snow: Son to Ned Stark and a mysterious woman. Born out of wedlock and sentenced to life on the Wall. His favorite sibling is Arya and his direwolf is Ghost.

The Wall: An ice wall that sentences its residents to guard the barrier for the rest of their lives. Also known as “taking the black.” Borders an untamed forest.

Arya Stark: Least liked sibling of Sansa for being a tomboy. Her favorite sibling is Jon and her direwolf is Nymeria.

Sansa Stark: A “well-bred” sibling who has a strong dislike of Arya for her tomboy ways. Prim and proper. Dreams of a picturesque future with her betrothed, Joffrey. Her direwolf is Lady.

Rickon Stark: 3-year-old who resides in Winterfell. His direwolf is Shaggydog.

Robb Stark: Stand-in head of Winterfell until Ned returns. Around 13-15 years old. His direwolf is Greywind.

Bran Stark: Second youngest in House Stark. Catelyn dotes on him plenty. His direwolf is Summer

Hodor: Hodor.

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King’s Landing: A castle on a cliff-side region that has the seat of power over the Seven Kingdoms.

Iron Throne: Made up of swords to be melted into the shape of a throne. Uncomfortable to sit in. Resides in King’s Landing.

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House Lannister

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Cersei Lannister: Queen of King’s Landing, wife of Robert Baratheon, sister of Jamie and Tyrion, and mother to Joffrey Baratheon. Cunning, evil, and cruel.

Robert Baratheon: King of King’s Landing, father to Joffrey, and husband of Ceresei. Morally gray and tries to do what is right but can be manipulated.

Jamie Lannister: Twin brother of Cersei. Hot-headed, barely thinks one step ahead, murderous. Also known as the Kingslayer who killed the ruler of the Targaryen House.

Tyrion Lannister: Unfavored heir to the Iron Throne for being a little person. Does what he wants, wanders, and is a smart ass. Is known for his quick thinking, humor, and bluntness. Well favored by Jamie Lannister, regardless.

Joffrey Baratheon: 1st in line to the Iron Throne and only child to Robert and Cersei. Has the same temperament as Ceresei.

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House Targaryen

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Viserys Targaryen: Will stop at nothing to reclaim King’s Landing and is an abusive piece of shit towards his sister. Brother to Daenerys. Sells his sister to the Dothraki in hopes of getting an army.

Dothraki: Horse-riding nomadic clan in the deserts far from King’s Landing.

Daenerys Targaryen: Sister to Viserys, an innocent 13-year-old who is sold to Drogo, head of the Dothraki. Tries to do the right thing. Is given 3 dragon eggs as a dowry.

Drogo: Head of the Dothraki. Hot-headed and rapes Danerys until she is pregnant. Becomes caring towards her afterward.

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Reading “A Game of Thrones” is like…:

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Picture this.

It’s a Saturday morning, you have your nice cup of tea/coffee cupped in your hands, and unlike your childhood where you watched Saturday morning cartoons, you click the bookmarks in your browser and watch the trash fire that is r/fantasy, Instagram, TikTok, or Bluesky. (Facebook and Twitter don’t exist)

You mindlessly scroll through your feed.

Ah, someone’s pregnant? Cool.

A lucrative job offer is up for grabs? Awesome.

Your friend found wolves in the back of their woods and now they’ve adopted them as the sole protectors of their children because who needs parents? Huh?

Somewhere during this scrolling, you stop and sip your drink. You have a momentary post-social media clarity that everything….everything in social media is made for you to react strongly.

That shitty guy killed your best friend? You want to get mad and tell him he’s a piece of shit.

Will he change? Probably not.

Report him to the police? Won’t do shit, he’s still assaulting people left and right like a temper tantrum because he’s rich and famous.

Is your other friend being abusive to her stepson? No amount of mansplaining will save that child unless he or you contact the authorities.

Your childhood crush gets shipped to exile but he’s still posting hot selfies? Nice.

And then it encourages you to keep scrolling to find more injustices (or hot selfies of your exiled crush) in society that you start drowning from all the evil (or OnlyFans) there is in this world and you find yourself imagining you’re part of Anonymous to fix the world. (Or a Suga parent)

But then…two people you follow are like your guiding light. They tell their followers they’re moving from these social media platforms to focus on their blogs and you sigh in relief.

You finally have a reason to escape the shittiness of social media. (…but still want to see that OF). At the end of the day, someone else will get mad for you, report that asshole being a dick to wolves, or the dipshit who’s murdered your friend’s husband, because let’s face it

Most people want to be a queen or king of social clout. Even for a day.

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Real Thoughts:

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I read this book to catch up from a decade-plus of not reading anything. In the 10s, it was THE fire thing to talk about, hell, even my partner’s mom knew of GoT. Before I even read this book, I paused and thought, “OK, this show/book has some of the most toxic characters and plot I have ever seen….it’s nothing but pain, why do people like this?”

There’s 100% a study on why people like GoT even though the world and characters are so depressingly “realistic” or toxic, however, I’m going to theorize myself without research.

My conclusion is: that people usually love to hate on something or remember people they hate, far more than the people they love.

Why?

Early survival instincts taught us to remember a bad thing because it meant we lived to another day. For example, if your best friend got eaten by a lion yesterday in a savanna that had a lake, you are more likely to remember that savanna for days to come, rather than the time your mom gave you a banana.

And Larry here only remembers about the banana and not the savanna and goes waltzing to his funeral. Survival of the fittest, err, smartest.

Now for GoT, remembering this logic, you remember Cersei and Joffrey plenty, and when you talk to them with your friends or colleagues and y’all are like, “Man, they’re such assholes, right?!”

So you rag on them more to your friends, then your other friends are like, “Wtf is GoT?” “Why should I read it?” “CAUSE JON SNOW IS SO HOT” “…” “What?”

The amount of unlikable to likable characters is favored more over to unlikable and I feel the only likable ones that aren’t deranged are Arya, Jon, Bran, and to a lesser extent Tyrion.

Eddard/Ned I feel like is the tired mid-life crisis dad, tired of everyone trying to be a badass or evil, and is seemingly the only sane person in King’s Landing before he’s executed. But he’s also a hypocrite for fucking up a lot in his life, how he handled the situation with Jon and Catelyn, and the fact he brought his daughters to Land’s End where there was a strong possibility they could have been held for ransom when he knew how batshit the Lannisters are….And it happened anyway.

Daenerys is pitiable for her situation and straight up raped after their wedding night to an older guy the following weeks, but her viewpoints I unfortunately got spoiled by how she turns out at the “end” of the series.

Robert is morally gray but he’s still a touch mad cause of the Lannisters.

There is so much evil and it was trying to portray a “realistic” fantasy society but… I doubt half of the population is so unlikable and evil 24/7. I guess that’s why GRRM focused on House Stark since most of them are morally gray.

But there was so much shit going on without any dopamine hit, that I rather read “Harrow” than GoT (I’m reading “Harrow” as my distraction reading, that’s how much it felt like my rescue inhaler compared to GoT.)

I doubt I’m going to read any more of ASOIAF but if I do, it’ll mostly be Wiki articles to read characters and lore. GoT has good worldbuilding and prose though. It flows like silk. However, characters like side characters are thrown in so much that the reader can’t remember any of them. The plot was a character and political drama. When it was around characters I cared for (Sansa can suck Joffrey’s dick) I was focused a lot on the story. When it came to Sansa or Catelyn, my eyes rolled to the back of my brain. It’s like reading your high school bully’s diary. Realistically, how much would you want to read a diary that says they want to kill their sister or kill their son, by heavens, why would I want to read that?

A defense could be that there will be justice eventually. Right? Or do you want to see how it would end? But like hun…I got boundaries. I ain’t got time for this angst fic.

Vampa is waiting for me to read her next tetralogy book, there could be better Soulsbourne books waiting for me at my door, and Delemhach is dangling the last book of “The House Witch” at me. And I rather read “Harrow” and “Raven Tower” than any of this. (In “Raven Tower”’s defense, I haven’t read enough of it to determine if I don’t like it, my point is, I’m enjoying it more than “GoT”)

Some mind dumping: I think the reason why I like “Soulsbourne” so much even though it’s about as grimdark as well, is that at least I can have some hit of dopamine when I beat a boss. What dopamine do I get when I get to a Catelyn chapter? That she dunks more on Jon and hates a random bastard girl who did nothing wrong to Catelyn? Sure, Arya, Jon, Bran, and Tyrion chapters can be counted as dopamine, but that’s no guarantee anything good will happen to them. They’re the ones that suffer the most in my opinion.

You can argue that all of these are human and it’s a breath of fresh air but at some point…that fresh air is gonna become toxic with the amount of CO2 you’re pumpin’.

Only Tyrion, Arya, Bran, and Jon are gonna be of any decent(ish) human enough to take refuge in so huff that COPIUM that all 4 of these characters get a happy end (which they probably won’t)

Random thought: Do people just skip the chapters of the characters they don’t like? Is that normal?

Cover Art:

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https://preview.redd.it/ibeyo6c1getb1.jpg?width=459&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02dfb189673d72b8b2d322c433e096d7d7ccdca7

Like Sanderson’s books, there are so many editions and cover artists that it’s impossible to recognize all of them.

The artist who did the cover for the book I read I sadly was not able to track down, however, if you know who created it, please comment below!

It has a visually appealing cover.

The dragon eyes seemed like a bit of a weird addition at first as a way to insert dragons into everything until I thought about it. True, dragons aren’t exactly seen until the last page, but the hints and the meaning behind the dragons embedded into the Iron Throne itself are seen throughout its history and were a nod to it.

Not the best cover, but not bad either. It does the job of selling you a book, nothing more, nothing less.

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Tags:

High Fantasy, Dark, Character Drama, Fantasy Politics, Court Intrigue, Rape, Sexual Assault, Step-Parental Abuse, Animal Abuse, Multiple POVs, Blood, Gore

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Plot:

The plot revolves around King Robert who married into House Lannister and needs a new second-in-command at King’s Landing. He travels to Winterfell to appeal to Lord Eddard Stark to accept the position. Seemingly having no choice but to accept, Stark travels with his two daughters, Arya and Sansa, to King’s Landing to serve his new job.

At this point, House Stark is separated and various events happen that mainly divide the house into 3 branches: one at King’s Landing, one still at Winterfell, and the last is exiled to defend the Wall, a place where only low members of society are taken to serve for the rest of their life.

There is also a side story plot alongside these POVs of House Targaryen, the exiled House thanks to the Lannisters.

It’s a solid plot, I give points where it’s due. If you want something engrossing, this book might just be for you.

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Characters:

Characters, huh?

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Publisher: How many characters do you want in your story?

GRRM: Yes.

I swear, more side characters in this story randomly get named for doing nothing but moving a horse to the left side of the barn but I’m still supposed to remember him because of reasons. GRRM forgot he was not on the writing staff of Pokemon.

Still, he does give all the main characters depth that they truly are living and breathing people.

The question of whether you would like them is another story altogether.

Each POV will give you a good grasp of what they are like, down to their flaws and good traits and you swear you’re reading a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet.

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Pacing:

Here is where I deduct 2 points from the whole book. It’s not just about the pacing but how GRRM designed his whole novel. It’s the structure itself. I mentioned it in “Characters” but he introduces so many side characters that I start to not understand what the point the book was trying to make to begin with. It throws the structure off because we’re exploring this side character that maybe gets mentioned 3 times in a book only to be killed off.

And he throws a big revelation in certain POVs only to slow it down by not going into it until like 5 POVs later.

It’s not the pacing, but more of how he structured the book. But the pacing suffers as a result of the structure if that makes sense.

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Prose:

GRRM is a strong-ass writer. You can really tell in his work that he knows how to write a novel. If he wrote a novel about frogs, it’ll probably be a bestseller. Because…what are frogs?

I want to say that his prose style is not similar to Sanderson at all but also not similar to Tolkien, but neither similar to Lawrence either.

GRRM is like his own style combining these guys’ works to just have his own. This is incredible given Sanderson and Lawrence didn’t even start publishing until way later.

He knows when to be flowery with his prose, historical in exposition, and natural in dialogue. He has a good balance of it all that when he drones on about the world, it’s engaging and mysterious. Props to GRRM for knowing how to write his prose cause that’s something every writer needs to master.

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Vibe:

The vibe is hard to pinpoint since we juggle so many POVs that the only vibe is suffering as barely anyone gets a satisfactory conclusion by the end of this book. In fairness, it is a series so no one gets an ending per se.

Imagine reading every character’s diary of their thoughts and feelings in a typical fantasy setting. Castles, dragon heritage, court drama, except insert direwolves in the mix. Just make sure to put a healthy dollop of depression to top it off.

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Worldbuilding:

Here is where I wish GRRM focused his work more on. When he does talk about worldbuilding it makes the whole book shine. However it took the backseat and instead, he made this book a character and political drama. I wasn’t a fan of it, though that’s just my opinion. (Now deep breaths, and say after me, “Everyone has an opinion. It’s ok that I don’t agree with every random person online. And- No…don’t break that keyboard, I just got that…)

GRRM’s worldbuiliding includes the history of the world and how the territories came to be. Occasionally there is a backstory on different Houses like Stark and Targaryen.

It is in the Orderly Method: information is presented in usually uniform pieces and can be seen as its own separate text if placed back to back.

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Fix It AU:

If I were personally in charge of fixing GoT:

I would switch up which characters get POVs, less rape, eliminate the number of side characters by half, focus more on Worldbuilding, fix the pacing to take advantage of hyped-up revelations and mellow it out when it needs to just have Ned walking a hallway in one sentence, not 5 paragraphs.

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Final Warning:

If you’re new to “Game of Thrones” like I was, I highly recommend looking up trigger warning sites as there is a lot of shit happening. Doesthedogdie.com is pretty good at listing a ton of media triggers but it might be helpful to look at multiple sources to be safe.

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So, Who Should Read This?

Read if you had a shitty breakup and need to be depressed and engrossed in a book that could rival how shitty your life is at present.

You also like reading unlikable characters that remind you of your ex and don’t want to stray too far from fantasy elements. You want DEATH, BLOOD, AND KNIVES- wait wrong- no it’s the right book, Kyle.

Don’t fret too much about it being depressing, because life is infinitely way better than anything happening in GoT. Just look at Jon Snow’s OF and you’ll be fine.

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2.5/5

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(It was originally a 3 in last month’s RRR, but after further brewing of this book, I didn’t like it. It has a very strong skeleton that I can’t ignore and will study it at my own pace, but ultimately, I didn’t enjoy the meat of it.)

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Previous Review: The Wolf and the She-Bear by Morgan Stang

Update: “Half a King” review will be up Friday 12 PM CT, stay tuned!