Talkie Tuesday: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

 

"In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave;

In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just;

In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent."

 

Hello everyone!

 

Welcome.

 

Welcome, welcome, back to the continent of Westeros, and the stories and (mis)adventures that happen to take place within it.

 

Now, I've by this point made my peace with the fact Martin will absolutely never finish his A Song of Ice and Fire series. That's cool, that's great, let's move along now.

 

And yes, season 8 was basically trash and we're not here to talk about it again.

 

House of the Dragon returns for its third season this summer, but IN THE MEANTIME, we get to talk about our very favourite hedge knight!

 

Buckle up, grab those spears, make sure your shields are strong and reinforced enough, and then find the nearest snorting charger, because we're about to enter a tournament, and boy, will you need all the luck you can get to survive it.

 

The first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, everybody!

 

Tome Thursday: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

 

Hello everyone!

 

After taking a mini break right after the Easter holidays and skipping Tuesday, I'm back once again with my next blog post installment, and boy is it a funny one.

 

See, I was supposed to read this book, like, literal ages ago.

 

It was given to me as a gift by one of my best friends, but one thing led to another and, for some reason still unknown to me, I managed to misplace it.

 

I KNOW. Shame.

 

I found it again this week though, after being off-work for a bit and having the time to really clean some stuff, so I managed to unearth it, dust it off, and figure, why not?

 

It's reasonably short, in comparison to the author's other works, so it's a very quick read, and there's nothing too complicated about it.

 

I'm talking, of course, about GRRM, and his three-story collecting A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

 

Talkie Tuesday: House of the Dragon

 

"The only thing that could tear down the House of the Dragon ... was itself."

 

Hello everyone!

 

Saw this coming, didn't you?

 

I bet you have!

 

Or at least, you should have in any event haha. Because the best epic fantasy series to air on television this fall (for now) has just wrapped its first season and I AM HYPED.

 

Okay, there were mistakes. Tactical and story-wise, but that doesn't mean that the execution wasn't magical, however.

Considering we're coming off the horrendous last season of Game of Thrones, people naturally went into this new Westeros-based show with a lot of trepidation, myself included. Heck, I actively tried NOT to get excited, but ended up being so just the same.

I can't help it. I've ALWAYS wondered what it was like during the Targaryen hay-day, when they had all those dragons and were literally on top of the world.

If you're just as curious, dust that saddle off and let's soar above the clouds into House of the Dragon!

Saturday Snippet: Strong Security™

 

House Strong - keeping you safe since 90 AC

 

xx

*images not mine 

Tome Thursday: Fire & Blood

 

Hello everyone!

 

So with House of the Dragon being a smash hit on HBO - but did anyone REALLY expect anything else? Really? - I thought it was time to have a little look at the book that the show is based off of.

 

And no, unlike with Game of Thrones, there's no WIP attached to it ... at least not for the era the show's covering.

 

Which is the best thing possible given we know what happened when the original show ran out of published material and needed to figure things out on its own. I'm not saying it was all horrible, but the steady decline was quite obvious, just the same.

 

House of the Dragon has no such imminent problem on the horizon because the entirety of the Dance of Dragons is written out and detailed down to the last squire fighting on one side or the other.

 

This removes a lot of uncertainty and potential problems, as well as, supported with the knowledge that Martin is actually an executive producer on the show and consultant, we all know it's going to be OKAY. Or at least, that's the general consensus.

 

So without further ado, let's dive right into it, shall we?

 

Because before the Starks and Lannisters went at it, dragons ruled Westeros, with Fire & Blood.

 

Saturday Snippet: House of the Dragon SEASON 2 ANNOUNCEMENT

 

Season 2, let's gooo baby!!!

 

xx

*image not mine

Saturday Snippet: House of the Dragon OFFICIAL TEASER

 

xx

*video not mine

Game of Thrones: The Bells

"A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing ..."

Hello everyone!

Still with me here? 

Hearing church bells ringing and thinking you need to take cover from a massive, pissed off dragon?

Or are you looking at the viral vitriol and dubious commentary wars and thinking "this season has gone down the gutter because the fans are now batshit"?

I hear you on both counts.

Actually, I hear you on ALL counts, because: my sentiments exactly.

After the third and fourth episode, I wasn't really holding my breath that the fifth was going to make things any better, execution-wise. The rushed season feels, well, rushed. So really, I went in with a lot of warnings from all around (looking at you, friends!) and emotionally detached.

I was pretty sure there would be great moments (Game of Thrones DOES have those), not-so-great ones (also Game of Thrones territory), illogical ones, and completely nutty ones.

The Bells was all of the above, so might as well put on your helmets and take cover.

Game of Thrones: The Last of the Starks

"We have won the Great War. Now we will win the Last War."

Hello everyone!

We are now officially in the very last leg of this Game of Thrones season, and I have to say that fans are beginning to see just what a shortened season has caused in the overall plot and development. 

Not that this wasn't obvious on occasions prior to this week's episode, but it's usually when everything really comes to a head that you see whether a show can sink or swim.

It seems like Game of Thrones is beginning to slowly sink, which is sad news for something that's been so epic since the beginning.

Was it all bad? Of course not. It IS still Game of Thrones, after all.

But unfortunately it also wasn't all good, either, and that seems to be the standard by which people in general look at these episodes. I have to admit I'm one of them, too. There's a lot of things to sink your teeth into on television these days, but truly remarkable ones remain scattered and divided.

With now only two episodes to go, and five promising to be a smackdown of epic proportions, let's take our leave of the North, shall we? The Last of the Starks is basically a relocation.

Game of Thrones: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

"We must fight together now ... or die."

Hello everyone!

Winter is here. 

No, I mean, it's LEGIT HERE.

Not many people have missed the second episode of the Game of Thrones final season this weekend/Monday (depending where you live), so I'm going to bet that pretty much everyone knows what I'm talking about .

After all, there's really only one Night King.

And he means business.

With basically a third of the season already over (ZOINKS!) you best believe that it's not going to ease up any time soon.

There's too many people still alive, after all.

Brace yourselves and sound the horns; A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has arrived.

Game of Thrones: Winterfell

"We must fight together now ... or die."

Hello everyone!

IT'S HERE.

WE MADE IT.

Almost two years after season seven wrapped up, season eight of Game of Thrones has finally landed.

And boy, is it promising to be a whopper.

We've only really seen the introductory first hour to the last six episodes HBO will give us of this narration (the prequels and sequels and whatever else they cook up don't count at the moment), but already, things are gearing up. An exposition of a premiere, we've pretty much set it all.

How did Gandalf put it?

The board is set. The pieces are moving.

It's time to call the banners and pull out your dragonglass. Winter is here.

Saturday Snippet: The Final Season

xx

*image not mine

Game of Thrones: Dragonstone

"The Great War is here."

Hello everyone!

Welcome, yet again, to another summer filled with Game of Thrones reviews and recaps. 

As I've done last year, I'm eschewing movies in favour of this television show because, SERIOUSLY, is there anyone (beside my sister) who hasn't seen this yet?

This Sunday marked the drop of the show's sevent season, a much-anticipated and highly speculated episode as well as the penultimate season of the show in general, since season eight is to be the last, during which we will finally, FINALLY, see the conclusion and who gets to sit on the bloody Iron Throne.

No pun intended.

So without further ado and without adding more to this introduction than is needed, let's jump right into the premiere, aptly named Dragonstone!

Game of Thrones: Battle of the Bastards

"You will die tomorrow."

Hello everyone!

So.

It happened.

Episode Nine.

I swear the number alone should come with a warning when it's Game of Thrones, because, looking back on previous seasons, the penultimate episode of each has ALWAYS been the one that made people remember just why it was that they initially began watching the show in the first place.

Season six, episode Nine, did not disappoint either.

Not only was it brilliant visually and condensed in terms of space and time, but it was also pretty much an epic smack-down which told us who will, in the end, probably prevail and stand over the charred and/or frozen corpses of their enemies.

Although, I will also freely admit that I made a very vital mistake in eating dinner prior to watching the episode.

Special shout-out to Maegan because, well, she told me not to, and I didn't listen.

Game of Thrones: Book of the Stranger

"You will not serve - you will die."

Hello everyone!

It's back to Game of Thrones for the week, and BOY was it a whooper of an episode this Sunday! 

Naturally, most of the episodes in this series are the likes of, you know, oh my God who's going to die and who lives?! kind of thing, but really, some of them stand out even further along the already amazing stuff we see on screen.

What I'm most thrilled about is the fact that we are now seriously past the action of the books, because they've come to a stalemate and I think I even remember Martin saying he probably won't finish Winds of Winter this calendar year either. Which is just bleh in my opinion since honestly, drawing it out so much? That isn't stringing fans along anymore, that's losing them.

Anyway.

As the show moves into its own territory, I agree with some that certain aspects are probably slightly more erratic than in the books, but for the most part? Yes, PLEASE, don't follow anything written down anymore!

Game of Thrones: The Red Woman

"For the night is dark, and full of terrors."

Hello everyone!

Normally, I don't do these kinds of posts, or better still I do posts which cover the whole season of a television series since if I wanted to do recaps of each episode, I'd have to have more sets of hands, more time, and much more blog space. 

But.

In all honesty, the hype surounding Game of Thrones and its sixth season was such that I'd have to be blind not to notice it.

Not to mention, I was right along there with them!

This show is probably the most successul one HBO will ever make, and I'm not saying this lightly given there's a lot of potentially awesome material out there which could very well take the throne, but so far, Game of Thrones seems to be the only thing that's really burning all bridges and collapsing every single record out there.

And honestly, they own it.

Tome Thursday: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Hello everyone!

 

I will apologize in advance if parts of this blog are going to be slightly less coherent or even a little bit muddled. For some reason or other, I've been fighting off a headache all day long and nothing has really helped, so I think a good night's sleep will be just about the only thing that does at this point. However, I am determined to get this post out, since if I start missing out on these my rhythm will be practically gone.

I have what feels like a billion other books to type about, but I just managed to finish one that's relatively new today, mostly because it's one of those you can't put down unless someone physically forces you to.

Although, I will admit, I have yet to finish the Throne of Glass series, which is pretty amazing in its own right, I had to start A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas because, well, I've always preferred Beauty and the Beast to Cinderella.

Though the author did absolutely make me like her Cinderella rendition more than the original one!

Talkie Tuesday: The Abominable Bride

"If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Hello everyone!

Happy New Year! 

I hope you all had a festive and cozy get-together with the people you care about the most, and started off this calendar year with a bang - I know I did. Not so much the bang as it was the previous part, as I was lucky enough to spend my New Year's Eve with very good friends who make everything a whole lot less problematic and seem much brighter than it sometimes is. And then I got to go home to my family, which, of course, is even better.

To top it off, the first weekend of this new year was spent in the most delightful way imaginable (I may be chaneling my inner Galadriel here, but An Unexpected Journey was on TV this Sunday night, blame it on that): watching the Sherlock special, The Abominable Bride, surrounded by a bunch of Sherlockians and Sherlock-enthusiasts!

Really, life just doesn't get any better than that.

Tome Thursday: The Inheritance Cycle

Hello everyone!

Back to books, since it's Thursday and all, I would have gone to my trust little notepad where I keep my notes on reviews and the like, but then I had a different idea. 

Sometimes, when I feel like it, I can read just about anything, and then at other times my brain is pointing me to a specific book or series. In this case, it just so happened to be one I'd already finished a couple of years ago (and even so it took a freaking DECADE to get to its final point, which is probably less complicated than with GRRM's books, but, you know). But hey, my head didn't want me to read anything else, so I couldn't argue much about it and I just went with the flow I guess.

I first bought Paolini's Eragon book on a whim waaaaaay back when, I think I was still in grade school at the time actually, and the hardcover was really, really cheap. I didn't even know much about it, the blurb on the back sounded interesting, and it had a blue dragon up front.

Yeah, I know, pretty superficial.

But hey, it got me started with the Inheritance Cycle!

Saturday Snippet: Bookshelf Tour, part 2

Hello everyone!

I may be a little trippy at the moment. Not because I've drank anything, or otherwise consumed anything of the illegal sort of variety - but mostly because staring at translation stuff and then on top of it all reading through Alice Clayton's Cocktail book series is seriously something to make your mind spin.

Ahem.

But I'm back with the second round of my bookshelf tour! If you've fallen behind, never fear, there'll be a link at the bottom of the post to the previous part.