Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Cersei Lannister’s line from the first book/season of Game of Thrones sums up the theme of the series: “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” This willingness to kill any character in the story anytime is one of the most appealing things (oh c’mon, this is fiction) of the series. On that front, author George RR Martin acknowledged the influence of The Lord of the Rings : ““The minute you kill Gandalf, the suspense of everything that follows is a thousand times greater, because now anybody could die,” Martin says. “Of course, that’s had a profound effect on my own willingness to kill characters off at the drop of a hat.” What were (some of) the other inspirations for Martin? “The Wall” was based on Hadrin’s Wall (Roman empire); Lord of the Rings: ergo, a story world that is similar and different from the world we know + a “restrained use of magic” through the story; Martin’s own TV writing experience: End every chapte...

Imagine yourself getting defined for life by a single act. People don’t want to know your reasons and, if they do hear them, they dismiss them as a coverup. Jamie Lannister faces exactly this situation in all of Game of Thrones . He is one of the bodyguards to King Aerys Targareyan. And yet, during a civil war, he assassinates the king whom he was sworn to protect. The new king pardons Jamie, retains him as his own bodyguard, and appoints Jamie’s father as the (right) Hand of the King. How well things ended for Jamie, right? No wonder everyone assumes that it was Jamie’s intent from Day 1 to get close to the King and assassinate him: “Why don the white cloak if you meant to betray all it stood for?” But unlike the characters in the story, let us hear Jamie’s version: -           King Aerys, the man he was sworn to protect, was er, the Mad King: “Aerys was mad and cruel, no one has ever denied that.” -    ...

The fourth Game of Thrones book is a bit weird. Correction: very weird. It doesn’t talk about half the main characters at all! George RR Martin explains why in the epilogue: “I felt the readers would be better served by a book that told all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters.” And so we find missing half “the characters you love or love to hate”. This book is all about Tywin Lannister, the “perfect Hand”, the man “who wore no crown, yet he was all a king should be”. Consider how outrageous that is, given that the man in question dies at the end of the previous book! Inevitably, the man who “did what was needed” was never popular, notes his daughter, Cersei: “King’s Landing had never loved Lord Tywin. He never wanted love, though.” No wonder then that when the “perfect Hand” dies, the unravelling begins: “When the lion falls the lesser beasts move in: the jackals and the vultures and the feral dogs.” And so begi...

Everybody wants to rule the world. Duh, this is the Game of Thrones , what else were you expecting?! But it’s key that those who rule know the duties that come with being a ruler. Mediocrity won’t suffice, and greatness? As Ser Barristan tells Daenerys: “Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born… the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.” Duties are something that King Stannis had to be reminded: “He reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights.” Lose track of that, and your external enemies will prevail, laments Stannis: “I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.” Conquests and reigns are different beasts altogether, as Daenerys realizes. Missandei: “You have bought them freedom as well.” Daenerys: “Freedom to starve? Freedom to die?” Unlike some of the other contend...

For some weird reason, Book 3 of Game of Thrones is split into 2 parts. So what’s the central theme of this book? There are two themes actually. The first one is building the foundation of what will follow, writes author George RR Martin in his acknowledgments: “If the bricks aren’t well made, the wall falls down. This is an awfully big wall I’m building here, so I need a lot of bricks.” The second theme is about how wars are fought not only on the battlefield but also by intelligence, alliances and marriages. Anyone who thinks that wars are won (only) on the battlefield is left fretting like Tyrion Lannister: “I thought I won the bloody battle. Is this what triumph tastes like?” One shouldn’t be too moralistic about the means, says Tywin Lannister: “Every lord has need of a beast from time to time.” What’s the point doing all the right things and ending up like Rhaegar, says Ser Jorah Mormont: “Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorabl...

The first Game of Thrones book ended with (ex) King Robert Baratheon’s born-of-incest-between-the-Queen-and-her-brother “son”, Joffrey on the throne. In the second book, we see that the “boy king” is too young to maintain alliances (let alone rule), a psycho who alienates his subjects by his wanton cruelty, and a moron who won’t listen to his top advisors. Perhaps such folly is only to be expected in a teenaged king, as Theon Greyjoy wonders: “Boys believe nothing can hurt them… Grown men know better.” But grown men cannot let a lunatic, even if he is the King, destroy everything. Which is why Bronn wonders if Joffrey should be assassinated and replaced by his younger brother: “Seems like he’d do whatever he was told, as a good king should.” Others like Lord Varys intend to survive regardless of what happens: “The storms come and go, the waves crash overhead, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling.” Given that Joffrey was not even Robert’s son (see...

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 i...

Every now and then you read a point of view that you completely disagree with. I had just such an experience while reading the stance on parenting of a 2 nd generation Asian-American, Ryan Park. He had followed the stereotype course of most Asian children: “excelled in school”, went to a top college (Harvard Law School), and had a well-paying job (lawyer). But the stereotype “immigrant overachiever” says he doesn’t want to be a “tiger parent” to his daughters. Park has decided to become a heretic, to abandon the religion of his ancestors: “a near-religious devotion to education as the key to social mobility”. He doesn’t intend to follow the “traditional Asian parenting model” of “imposing pain now to reap meritocratic rewards later”, to churn out “academic gladiators”. Like I said, I absolutely do not subscribe to Park’s view on academics. In case you are feeling sorry for my daughter, let me refresh your memory on what kids do to their parents via some Game of Throne...

One time, I found this description of the book, Ivan the Terrible on Bookbub : “Explore the life of Ivan the Terrible — the infamous Russian tsar who more than earned his daunting moniker . But beneath Ivan’s exterior of brutality may have lurked a complex, even sympathetic leader…” The phrase “daunting moniker” caught my attention. It reminded me of this blows-your-mind-away monologue by Christoph Waltz as part of his portrayal of a Nazi Colonel named Hans Landa in the movie Inglorious Basterds. Here, I quote the parts of relevance: “Monsieur LaPadite, are you aware of the nickname the people of France have given me? … “The Jew Hunter.” … Heydrich apparently hates the moniker the good people of Prague have bestowed on him. Actually, why he would hate the name “the Hangman” is baffling to me. It would appear he has done everything in his power to earn it. Now I, on the other hand, love my unofficial title precisely because I’ve earned it.” Set aside the moral aspect of t...

When it came to Game of Thrones , I used to be like Clive James : “Like anybody both adult and sane, I had no intention of watching “Game of Thrones,” even though the whole world was already talking about it.” I used to think Game of Thrones was based on a video game. And since I never liked anything onscreen that was based on a video game (not even Lara Croft , which starred Angeline Jolie), I never bothered about Game of Thrones either. Until I ended up watching one episode for lack of anything else on TV. And boy, have I been hooked ever since. And understand why it’s as popular as Star Trek . First off, it’s not based on a video game. It’s based on a series of books, though I’ve never read them. Set in medieval times, it has swords, cunning, betrayals, even dragons, and as the title suggests, power plays. To top it off, it has awesome dialogs and even better characters, played by actors who play the part perfectly. There’s Queen Cersei Lannister, the femme fatale ...