Characters

As I said my characters post there wasn’t a single character that I found overly grating or hate worthy. And that was surprising considering some of their show counterparts. Yes, Sansa, I’m looking at you. The thing is I’m an adult now so I like to think I have more patience with characters behaving dumbly – at least when they’re eleven like book Sansa was in this story – than I did when I first watched the show. Also I’m far more forgiving of Sansa’s foibles and sins here, though God knows she has so much more of them, because at least here they make for an interesting story.

As for the others … yeah …. didn’t actually hate a single one even the ones I was meant to hate. They were all so well written and believable it felt like following the lives of real people who just so happened to live in a slightly fantastical world.

Plot

Also excellent. Despite the fact that I knew how the story would end I couldn’t help following Ned’s tale hoping that for once it might have a different outcome. It didn’t of course you can’t change something that’s been down in ink since 1995. The book is a slow trod to the envetable death of this good man because of course Ned Stark was going to die. There was no other outcome once he agreed to ride south, once he agreed to step foot in King’s Landing, once he agreed to pin that royal badge to his chest. For the Game of Thrones is not a game for good, or even marginally decent, men to play. It is the Game of Bastards. Sometimes quite literally. For only an evil man can truly call the act of ruling others a game and mean it enough to win.

Oh and there’s some ice zombie and dragon nonsense going on in the background but it’s Ned’s story that’s the actually plot here. At least as far as the first book is concerned.

Over all Impression

A fascinating look into the death of a man who should have been left alone to raise his family in peace. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Would I read again?

Hell yes.

Recommended Adaptation

Come on people … there’s only one out there.

Recommended Further Reading

Well, it’s got a sequel. Check out A Clash of Kings today.

Join me next week for … The Playlist.

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