Game of Thrones, Book 1

For a very long time, I resisted reading the Game of Thrones books. Why? In my experience, only one of the two is good: the book or the serial/movie. Given that the serial is so awesome, I assumed the book would be a huge letdown. But then during one of those all-too-many Kindle discounts, I bought the books: they were too cheap to ignore! Eventually, I read the first book.

Boy, is it great. One of those rare cases where both the book and picturization are top of the line. George RR Martin’s ability to build up characters, filling in the most minor of details yet keeping it captivating, means that each character has a mind of his own, an agenda of his own. And the agendas are highly diverse: some are loyal to families (“I never bet against family” - Tyrion, the Imp), others to the king (“I protected him from his enemies, but I could not protect him from his friends” – Ned Stark), yet others are mercenaries (“It was your blade I needed, not your love” – Tyrion again), some do it for love (even though, as the Old Bear warns, “The things we love destroy us every time”), and the rest are how Lord Varys describes: “Those who are loyal to the realm, and those who are loyal only to themselves”.

So is nobody a just character then? Be careful what you wish for, warns Varys:

“There is no creature on earth so terrifying as a truly just man.”

But as in real life, they can be easier to deal with, as Jamie Lannister says:

“Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I’ll sleep more easily by night.”

Because, as Littlefinger tells Ned Stark:

“You wear your honor like a suit of armor, Stark. You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move.”

Unlike almost every other book and movie where you know who the hero is, here you only have characters you love and characters you hate. Jamie Lannister said:

“Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”

And yet, any of the major characters can (and does) die anytime. Death may be final for that character, but it opens up possibilities for the story itself, something Martin knows to weave fantastically. Perhaps such deaths are only to be expected because, as Cersai Lannister tells Ned Stark:

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”

Even though King Robert Baratheon talks of the problems of the throne:

“Sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one… I sit on that damnable iron chair and listen to them complain until my mind is numb and my ass is raw. They all want something, money, land or justice.”

Why then does everyone still seek the throne? Cersai has the answer, power:

“A true man does what he will, not what he must.”

Wondering how George RR Martin weaves such a twists-and-turns tale? He gives the answer in the Acknowledgments to his 819 page first book (Don’t worry, it won’t spoil anything):

“The devil is in the details, they say. A book this size has a lot of devils, any one of which will bite you if you don’t watch out.”