Game of Thrones Thoughts

 people of the internet,
My exams are finally over and I've been left with more free time than I've had for about a year. Now this may sound like a good thing to many of you but actually it's not. This is because I am so bored and I have no idea what to do with myself. Some people suggest taking up a  project for the summer and so I've tried to play the piano a bit more  but it doesn't fill the gaping hole left by having to do no more revision. Therefore I've been catching up on a load of TV that I haven't seen or missed because of exams.

I've been intrigued by Game of Thrones since it really took off a few years ago here in the UK and because of this I made the possibly regrettable decision to read the books. Yes I'm reading the book not watching the TV show because the show is arguably more time consuming. The book you can read for as little as 10 minutes whereas with the show you have to set aside at least 40 minutes and usually more because you can't stop watching. So I'm reading the book with some preconceived ideas that have stemmed from the social media outpouring that inevitably follows the show.

Some of these preconceived notions include the evilness of Joffrey, Sansa being an absolute waste  of space and Arya being tough and tom boyish. Now I started a few days ago and I'm only about 180 pages in but already some of these ideas are being fulfilled. For example Joffrey. While he's not done anything entirely evil so far he has been manipulative, slimey and basically an arse. Sansa refuses to tell the truth to the king and it results in lady's demise which could be seen to be fair. Arya is already far tougher than most of the characters and I already like her a lot.

Other characters I like so far include Jon Snow and Dany but due to the erruption on social media after series 5 concluded recently I'm trying desperately hard to not get attached to any characters as I'm well aware of George R R Martins love of killing characters. Therefore I'm fully expecting almost everyone over the age of about 25/30 at the beginning of this book to be killed off in so-me form or another reasonably soon so that the group of children can take the thrones and cause havoc.

A problem I often have with fantasy books is the names, which in Lord of the Rings led to complete confusion in the final book. So I may be using the actors matched to the character to keep a rough track of whose who. So I know Ned Stark has the whole winter is coming meme:

I also know what Arya, Dany and Joffrey look like but as they're in the story quite a lot at the moment its ok. Dany husband, Khal Drogo is also easy to keep track of. The most confusing part was Cersei being discovered by Bran as I basically hadn't realised who she was or the significance of the situation. But as I'm sure you're aware everybody dies basically, I don't know if any of the characters from the first book even make it through until the latest one. I'm assuming a few of them do.

Another thing I'm struggling to get my head around is the sear vastness of the setting. Basically it's permanently cold in the North and hot in the South.  It snows in the North and is sunny in the South. In the UK that doesn't happen, there are changes in temperature with it being colder up North than in the South but not that bigger difference. I suppose that larger change is found in North America but if I'm being honest I'm amazed at how big North America actually is.

Anyway these are just a few of my thoughts from  the first couple of hundred pages of A Game of Thrones, I will update you as I progress and I fully expect to have my heart broken multiple times over the next few weeks.

Rhona x