2019 Reading List Monthly Update: December (Finale)

Books read in December of 2019:
-
"Find Me" (André Aciman) 12-1-19
"World History: From the Ancient World to the Information Age" (Philip Parker) 12-2-19
"On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" (Ocean Vuong) 12-8-19
"The Magician: Art Companion Book" (Christopher Zeischegg/Gina Canavan/Matthew Kaundart/Luka Fisher) 12-8-19
"The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" (edited by Peter Clayton & Martin Price) 12-15-19
"No Longer Human" (Junji Ito) 12-17-19
"If You Have Ghosts" (Douglas Payne) 12-18-19
"The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt" (Toby Wilkinson) 12-21-19
"24 Hours in Ancient Egypt" (Donald P. Ryan) 12-30-19
"Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile" (Bob Brier/Hoyt Hobb) 12-31-19
-
2019 Reading List Total:
-
1. "The Paintings of William Blake" (Raymond Lister) 1-1-19 
2. "Fascination" (Kevin Killian) 1-10-19
3. "Neo-Decadent Manifesto of Women's Fashion" (Justin Isis) 1-11-19
4. "Halyartes and Other Poems in Prose" (Éphraïm Mikhaël) 1-12-19
5. "In the Stillness of Marble" (Teresa Wilms Montt) 1-13-19
6. "Harlem Smoke" (James Champagne) 1-18-19 *
7. "The Shadow" (Maurice Level) 1-20-19
8. "Batman: A Death in the Family" (Jim Starlin/Marv Wolfman) +
9. "Death Mort Tod: A European Book of the Dead" (Steve Finbow/Karolina Urbaniak) 1-26-19
10. "Of Kings and Things" (Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock/ed. David Tibet) 1-27-19
11. "Batman: Sword of Azrael" (Dennis O'Neil) 1-30-19
12. "The Rita: Anatomical Charisma" (Sam McKinlay/Gabrielle Losoncy) 2-1-19
13. "Sea of Love" (Simon Morris) 2-3-19
14. "Inside the Castle" (Josiah Morgan) 2-4-19
15. "War with the Newts" (Karel Čapek) 2-5-19
16. "Granite City Blues" (Josh Peterson) 2-8-19
17. "Bloom" (Kevin Panetta/Savanna Ganucheau) 2-8-19
18. "The Metapheromenoi" (Brendan Connell) 2-10-19
19. "Batman: Prelude to Knightfall" (Chuck Dixon/Doug Moench) 2-13-19
20. "Tosh: Growing up in Wallace Berman's World" (Tosh Berman) 2-24-19
21. "The Ballet of Dr. Caligari and Madder Mysteries" (Reggie Oliver) 2-26-19
22. "Negrophobia: An Urban Parable" (Darius James) 2-27-19
23. "The Secret History of Twin Peaks" (Mark Frost) 3-7-19
24. "This Planet is Doomed: the Science Fiction Poetry of Sun Ra" (Sun Ra) 3-8-19
25. "Batman: Knightfall Volume 1" (Doug Moench/Chuck Dixon) 3-13-19
26. "Four Circles" (Meg McCarville) 3-16-19
27. "The Purple Cloud" (M.P. Shiel) 3-24-19
28. "Death in Midsummer" (Yukio Mishima) 4-2-19
29. "Faustina and Other Stories" (Renée Vivien and Helène de Zuylen de Nyevelt) 4-3-19
30. "The Invention of Dreams" (Tom Champagne) 4-7-19
31. "Batman: Knightfall Volume 2" (Chuck Dixon/Doug Moench/Alan Grant) 4-9-19
32. "Some Pink Star" (Sophie Essex) 4-16-19
33. "The Man Who Murdered His Muse" (James Champagne) 4-17-19 *
34. "The Pale Ape and Other Pulses" (M.P. Shiel) 4-18-19
35. "Third Instar" (David Gullen) 4-20-19
36. "Smashed" (Junji Ito) 4-21-19
37. "The War Within" (Stephen R. Donaldson) 4-25-19
38. "The Life of Tomorrow" (Fillia) 4-25-19
39. "Love, Sleep & Dreams" (Count Stenbock) 4-26-19
40. "Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies" (C.G. Jung) 4-27-19
41. "Amico Di Sandro" (Baron Corvo) 4-30-19
42. "Star" (Yukio Mishima) 5-2-19
43. "White" (Bret Easton Ellis) 5-3-19
44. "Plan for the Abduction of J.G. Ballard" (Jeremy Reed/Audrey Szasz) 5-7-19
45. "Myrtle, Rue & Cypress" (Count Stenbock) 5-8-19
46. "The Call: Art and Speculative Literature" (editor: Ben Robinson) 5-18-19
47. "The Holy Bible" (David Evans) 5-19-19
48. "Mademoiselle de Maupin" (Théophile Gautier) 5-21-19
49. "Cari Mora" (Thomas Harris) 5-26-19
50. "Heliogabalus or, the Crowned Anarchist" (Antonin Artaud) 5-27-19
51. "Haunted Girlfriend" (James Nulick) 5-30-19
52. "Elsewhere and Other Stories" (G. Albert Aurier) 5-31-19
53. "After the Banquet" (Yukio Mishima) 6-7-19
54. "The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini & Other Strange Stories" (Reggie Oliver) 6-9-19
55. "A Little White Book of Screams and Whispers" (Thomas Ligotti) 6-10-19 
56. "Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down" (Gina McIntyre) 6-14-19 
57. "Rum Punch" (Elmore Leonard) 6-15-19 * 
58. "Watching the Wheels" (Simon Morris) 6-18-19 
59. "Prince Zaleski" (M.P. Shiel) 6-23-19
60. "Clark" (Brendan Connell) 6-28-19 
61. "Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier" (Mark Frost) 7-2-19
62. "Graves" (Quentin S. Crisp) 7-10-19
63. "Guide" (Dennis Cooper) 7-12-19 *
64. "The Adventure Zone 2: Murder on the Rockport Limited!" (The McElroys/Carey Pietsch) 7-20-19
65. "The Call: Art and Speculative Literature #2" (Editor: Ben Robinson) 7-23-19
66. "Body to Job" (Christopher Zeischegg aka Danny Wylde) 7-26-19
67. "Antinous: Boy Made God" (R.R.R. Smith) 7-28-19
68. "POPism: The Warhol Sixties" (Andy Warhol/Pat Hackett) 8-4-19
69. "The Art of C.G. Jung" (Foundation of the Works of C.G. Jung) 8-9-19
70. "Faunus: The Decorative Imagination of Arthur Machen" (edited by James Machin) 8-16-19
71. "To Rouse Leviathan" (Matt Cardin) 8-26-19 
72. "The Glass Key" (Dashiell Hammett) 8-27-19 *
73. "The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate" (Gichin Funakoshi/Genwa Nakasone) 8-28-19
74. "The Essence of Karate" (Ginchin Funakoshi) 8-29-19
75. "Karate-Do: My Way of Life" (Gichin Funakoshi) 8-31-19 
76. "Red Harvest" (Dashiell Hammett) 9-1-19 *
77. "Serpentine Supplications" (Stephan Friedman) 9-3-19
78. "The Shadow of Death" (Count Stenbock) 9-3-19
79. "The Maltese Falcon" (Dashiell Hammett) 9-8-19
80. "Isis" (Auguste De Villiers De L'Isle-Adam) 9-9-19
81. "The Secret Commonwealth" (Robert Kirk) 9-13-19
82. "The Turquoise Ring and Other Stories" (Rafaela Contreras) 9-16-19
83. "Modern Art" (J.-K. Huysmans) 9-18-19
84. "From a Faraway Land" (Remy De Gourmont) 9-24-19
85. "Houses Under the Sea" (Caitlín R. Kiernan) 10-4-19
86. "Doomsday Clock Part 1" (Geoff Johns) 10-8-19
87. "Bad Judgment: Poems" (Cathleen Calbert) 10-8-19
88. "An Imp of Aether" (W.H. Pugmire) 10-24-19
89. "The Man from Düsseldorf: A Tribute to Claus Laufenberg" (Various/edited by Brendan Connell) 10-27-19
90. "The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham" (H.P. Lovecraft/edited by Leslie S. Klinger) 10-27-19
91. "The Illiterate Ghost" (Alan Price) 10-28-19 
92. "The Devils" (New Juche) 11-2-19
93. "Six Ghost Stories" (Montague Summers) 11-2-19
94. "The Call: Art & Speculative Literature #3" (edited by Ben Robinson) 11-7-19
95. "Distemper" (James Nulick) 11-4-19
96. "A Woman Appeared to Me" (Renée Vivien) 11-16-19
97. "Fards and Poisons" (Jean Lorrain) 11-28-19
98. "Find Me" (André Aciman) 12-1-19
99. "World History: From the Ancient World to the Information Age" (Philip Parker) 12-2-19
100. "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" (Ocean Vuong) 12-8-19
101. "The Magician: Art Companion Book" (Christopher Zeischegg/Gina Canavan/Matthew Kaundart/Luka Fisher) 12-8-19
102. "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" (edited by Peter Clayton & Martin Price) 12-15-19
103. "No Longer Human" (Junji Ito) 12-17-19
104. "If You Have Ghosts" (Douglas Payne) 12-18-19
105. "The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt" (Toby Wilkinson) 12-21-19
106. "24 Hours in Ancient Egypt" (Donald P. Ryan) 12-30-19
107. "Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile" (Bob Brier/Hoyt Hobb) 12-31-19

-

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Musical Picks (and pans) of 2019

My musical picks (and pans) of 2019:

Album of the year: Ladytron (Ladytron)

Runner-ups: Airless Space (Consumer Electronics), Leaving Meaning (Swans), On The Line, (Jenny Lewis), 2020 (Richard Dawson), Cause And Effect (Keane)

Other Notables: Cuz I Love You (Lizzo), Fine Line (Harry Styles), My Songs (Sting), Use Your Illusion III (Ceramic Hobs), No Home Record (Kim Gordon), Life Metal (Sunn 0))) ), uknowwhatimsayin (Danny Brown)

Okay, could have been better: Madame X (Madonna), Fear Inoculum (Tool), When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (Billie Eilish)

Not that great:Amidst The Chaos (Sara Bareilles), She Is Coming (Miley Cyrus), The Highwomen (The Highwomen), Ghosteen (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)

(On the soundtrack front, I highly recommend the soundtrack to the Tarantino film ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, which I feel is one of the best soundtracks for one of his films in years)

2019 Reading List Monthly Update: November

Books read in November of 2019:
-
"The Devils" (New Juche) 11-2-19
"Six Ghost Stories" (Montague Summers) 11-2-19
"The Call: Art & Speculative Literature #3" (edited by Ben Robinson) 11-7-19
"Distemper" (James Nulick) 11-4-19
"A Woman Appeared to Me" (Renée Vivien) 11-16-19
"Fards and Poisons" (Jean Lorrain) 11-28-19
-
2019 Reading List Total:
-
1. "The Paintings of William Blake" (Raymond Lister) 1-1-19 
2. "Fascination" (Kevin Killian) 1-10-19
3. "Neo-Decadent Manifesto of Women's Fashion" (Justin Isis) 1-11-19
4. "Halyartes and Other Poems in Prose" (Éphraïm Mikhaël) 1-12-19
5. "In the Stillness of Marble" (Teresa Wilms Montt) 1-13-19
6. "Harlem Smoke" (James Champagne) 1-18-19 *
7. "The Shadow" (Maurice Level) 1-20-19
8. "Batman: A Death in the Family" (Jim Starlin/Marv Wolfman) +
9. "Death Mort Tod: A European Book of the Dead" (Steve Finbow/Karolina Urbaniak) 1-26-19
10. "Of Kings and Things" (Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock/ed. David Tibet) 1-27-19
11. "Batman: Sword of Azrael" (Dennis O'Neil) 1-30-19
12. "The Rita: Anatomical Charisma" (Sam McKinlay/Gabrielle Losoncy) 2-1-19
13. "Sea of Love" (Simon Morris) 2-3-19
14. "Inside the Castle" (Josiah Morgan) 2-4-19
15. "War with the Newts" (Karel Čapek) 2-5-19
16. "Granite City Blues" (Josh Peterson) 2-8-19
17. "Bloom" (Kevin Panetta/Savanna Ganucheau) 2-8-19
18. "The Metapheromenoi" (Brendan Connell) 2-10-19
19. "Batman: Prelude to Knightfall" (Chuck Dixon/Doug Moench) 2-13-19
20. "Tosh: Growing up in Wallace Berman's World" (Tosh Berman) 2-24-19
21. "The Ballet of Dr. Caligari and Madder Mysteries" (Reggie Oliver) 2-26-19
22. "Negrophobia: An Urban Parable" (Darius James) 2-27-19
23. "The Secret History of Twin Peaks" (Mark Frost) 3-7-19
24. "This Planet is Doomed: the Science Fiction Poetry of Sun Ra" (Sun Ra) 3-8-19
25. "Batman: Knightfall Volume 1" (Doug Moench/Chuck Dixon) 3-13-19
26. "Four Circles" (Meg McCarville) 3-16-19
27. "The Purple Cloud" (M.P. Shiel) 3-24-19
28. "Death in Midsummer" (Yukio Mishima) 4-2-19
29. "Faustina and Other Stories" (Renée Vivien and Helène de Zuylen de Nyevelt) 4-3-19
30. "The Invention of Dreams" (Tom Champagne) 4-7-19
31. "Batman: Knightfall Volume 2" (Chuck Dixon/Doug Moench/Alan Grant) 4-9-19
32. "Some Pink Star" (Sophie Essex) 4-16-19
33. "The Man Who Murdered His Muse" (James Champagne) 4-17-19 *
34. "The Pale Ape and Other Pulses" (M.P. Shiel) 4-18-19
35. "Third Instar" (David Gullen) 4-20-19
36. "Smashed" (Junji Ito) 4-21-19
37. "The War Within" (Stephen R. Donaldson) 4-25-19
38. "The Life of Tomorrow" (Fillia) 4-25-19
39. "Love, Sleep & Dreams" (Count Stenbock) 4-26-19
40. "Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies" (C.G. Jung) 4-27-19
41. "Amico Di Sandro" (Baron Corvo) 4-30-19
42. "Star" (Yukio Mishima) 5-2-19
43. "White" (Bret Easton Ellis) 5-3-19
44. "Plan for the Abduction of J.G. Ballard" (Jeremy Reed/Audrey Szasz) 5-7-19
45. "Myrtle, Rue & Cypress" (Count Stenbock) 5-8-19
46. "The Call: Art and Speculative Literature" (editor: Ben Robinson) 5-18-19
47. "The Holy Bible" (David Evans) 5-19-19
48. "Mademoiselle de Maupin" (Théophile Gautier) 5-21-19
49. "Cari Mora" (Thomas Harris) 5-26-19
50. "Heliogabalus or, the Crowned Anarchist" (Antonin Artaud) 5-27-19
51. "Haunted Girlfriend" (James Nulick) 5-30-19
52. "Elsewhere and Other Stories" (G. Albert Aurier) 5-31-19
53. "After the Banquet" (Yukio Mishima) 6-7-19
54. "The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini & Other Strange Stories" (Reggie Oliver) 6-9-19
55. "A Little White Book of Screams and Whispers" (Thomas Ligotti) 6-10-19 
56. "Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down" (Gina McIntyre) 6-14-19 
57. "Rum Punch" (Elmore Leonard) 6-15-19 * 
58. "Watching the Wheels" (Simon Morris) 6-18-19 
59. "Prince Zaleski" (M.P. Shiel) 6-23-19
60. "Clark" (Brendan Connell) 6-28-19 
61. "Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier" (Mark Frost) 7-2-19
62. "Graves" (Quentin S. Crisp) 7-10-19
63. "Guide" (Dennis Cooper) 7-12-19 *
64. "The Adventure Zone 2: Murder on the Rockport Limited!" (The McElroys/Carey Pietsch) 7-20-19
65. "The Call: Art and Speculative Literature #2" (Editor: Ben Robinson) 7-23-19
66. "Body to Job" (Christopher Zeischegg aka Danny Wylde) 7-26-19
67. "Antinous: Boy Made God" (R.R.R. Smith) 7-28-19
68. "POPism: The Warhol Sixties" (Andy Warhol/Pat Hackett) 8-4-19
69. "The Art of C.G. Jung" (Foundation of the Works of C.G. Jung) 8-9-19
70. "Faunus: The Decorative Imagination of Arthur Machen" (edited by James Machin) 8-16-19
71. "To Rouse Leviathan" (Matt Cardin) 8-26-19 
72. "The Glass Key" (Dashiell Hammett) 8-27-19 *
73. "The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate" (Gichin Funakoshi/Genwa Nakasone) 8-28-19
74. "The Essence of Karate" (Ginchin Funakoshi) 8-29-19
75. "Karate-Do: My Way of Life" (Gichin Funakoshi) 8-31-19 
76. "Red Harvest" (Dashiell Hammett) 9-1-19 *
77. "Serpentine Supplications" (Stephan Friedman) 9-3-19
78. "The Shadow of Death" (Count Stenbock) 9-3-19
79. "The Maltese Falcon" (Dashiell Hammett) 9-8-19
80. "Isis" (Auguste De Villiers De L'Isle-Adam) 9-9-19
81. "The Secret Commonwealth" (Robert Kirk) 9-13-19
82. "The Turquoise Ring and Other Stories" (Rafaela Contreras) 9-16-19
83. "Modern Art" (J.-K. Huysmans) 9-18-19
84. "From a Faraway Land" (Remy De Gourmont) 9-24-19
85. "Houses Under the Sea" (Caitlín R. Kiernan) 10-4-19
86. "Doomsday Clock Part 1" (Geoff Johns) 10-8-19
87. "Bad Judgment: Poems" (Cathleen Calbert) 10-8-19
88. "An Imp of Aether" (W.H. Pugmire) 10-24-19
89. "The Man from Düsseldorf: A Tribute to Claus Laufenberg" (Various/edited by Brendan Connell) 10-27-19
90. "The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham" (H.P. Lovecraft/edited by Leslie S. Klinger) 10-27-19
91. "The Illiterate Ghost" (Alan Price) 10-28-19 
92. "The Devils" (New Juche) 11-2-19
93. "Six Ghost Stories" (Montague Summers) 11-2-19
94. "The Call: Art & Speculative Literature #3" (edited by Ben Robinson) 11-7-19
95. "Distemper" (James Nulick) 11-4-19
96. "A Woman Appeared to Me" (Renée Vivien) 11-16-19
97. "Fards and Poisons" (Jean Lorrain) 11-28-19

-

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Currently Reading:

"World History: From the Ancient World to the Information Age" (Philip Parker) 
"Find Me" (André Aciman) 

And Now Its Watch Is Ended...

Yesterday was the last day I had my old car (though the last time I actually drove in it was on Monday). A black 2004 Dodge Stratus. It was the 5th car that I've owned, and I purchased it in July 2009, so had it for close to 10 and a half years (by comparison, I went through my first 4 cars from 1998-2009). It was previously a government car and thus had very low mileage (only around 16,000 miles: when I stopped driving it it was somewhere over 72,000 miles), which partly explains why it lasted as long as it did. Although I'm not a car guy by any means, I will admit that I grew quite attached to this car (mostly due to its sheer longevity, and the fact that I didn't have to sink very much money in it over the years), and kind of had trouble parting ways with it; but to pass inspection I would have had to have had a lot of costly repairs done, and at this point in time, it made more sense to get a newer car. Still, at the very least, I did have one of the main characters in my novel HARLEM SMOKE drive a black 2004 Dodge Stratus, so in a way the car has possibly kind of been immortalized in the realm of Lovecraftian weird fiction (and I say possibly because at first *I* need to be immortalized in the realm of Lovecraftian weird fiction... still, it's the sentiment that counts). In any event, now its watch has ended...

Against the Grain: In Defense of GAME OF THRONES Season 8

AGAINST THE GRAIN: IN DEFENSE OF GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8

By James Champagne

PREAMBLE

Warning: there are many spoilers for both the book and TV series in the following article.

The spring of 2019 saw the premiere of the eighth and final season of HBO’s wildly popular Game of Thrones TV show, and to say that this denouement was divisive would be putting things very mildly indeed. One thing I noted with interest as the season unfolded was watching how both the mainstream media and a large portion of the fandom turned on the show with an almost breathless and emotionally deranged passion that at times displayed both a grotesque sense of hysterical entitlement and solipsistic self-importance (though it could be argued that this critical rebellion was slowly building up over the last few seasons). In some cases, it seemed as if nitpicky criticisms that book fans had directed at the show over the years finally got adopted into the mainstream discourse, who embraced them as orthodoxy. In others, it seemed as if some people saw the finale as a betrayal of whatever their political ideology might be (for example, the fans who felt the show would end on a feminist note, with women ruling Westeros; incidentally, someone at the Is Winter Coming? Forums identified as Onrack once joked that “I feel like D&D are the only writers who get simultaneously accused of being ‘SJW feminazis’ and MRA right wing misogynists with regularity”). Whatever the reason may be (and in truth it can probably be chalked up to a number of reasons), a narrative emerged where it was maintained that the general consensus was this: that the final season of Game of Thrones was a spectacular failure on almost all levels that nobody really enjoyed, and very few people seemed willing to challenge this narrative, perhaps for fears of going against the grain (what with human nature in general being predisposed to conformism and following the popular opinion, which is not to say that in many cases their negative reaction to the show was insincere). But what about the opinions of those who did enjoy the final season, and who felt that the haters “doth protest too much?” It often seemed as if their voices and thoughts on the subject were drowned out by the Voice of the Many (to make an allusion to System Shock 2).

The main reason I’ve decided to write this extremely informal and not very scholarly article (and I should stress that these are simply my opinions on the matter, and that I don’t consider these opinions gospel truth) is to take a closer look at some of the more common complaints/critiques concerning the final season of Game of Thrones, and see if they stand up to scrutiny. My qualifications for writing such a thing are modest: naturally I’ve seen every episode of the TV show and have also read the five books that currently make up the A Song of Ice and Fire series (though I have not read any of the Dunk & Egg stories, or Fire and Blood for that matter), and for many years now I’ve closely been following discussions and debates about the book and TV series on sites such as the Westeros forums, the Is Winter Coming? forums, the Watchers on the Wall website, and the ASOIAF Reddit page (among others), along with reading the coverage and reviews of the show from the more mainstream news media outlets. Finally, speaking as someone who has read a great many books (and has had a few of his own published as well), I’m very aware of the conventions of narrative and storytelling, and the ways in which such conventions can be both utilized and also subverted for artistic effect.

Before I begin, I would like to briefly go into the backstory of how I discovered the Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire franchise. In 2004, I began working as a bookseller at Barnes & Noble, and very quickly became familiar with the various sections of the store, especially the fantasy and science fiction section. Although these days it’s not uncommon to walk into such a bookstore and see a whole bookcase (or more) devoted to George R.R. Martin’s books, back around 2004-2010 he barely occupied half a shelf at the B&N I work at, and we only had 1-2 copies at most of his books (and only the A Song of Ice and Fire books at that). But I remember how, around 2006 or 2007 or thereabouts, we always had customers coming in and asking when the next book (A Dance with Dragons) was going to be released. I thought to myself, this series must be pretty good if all of these people keep coming in and asking me when the next one is coming out. Of course, as we all know, it was finally published in July of 2011. The B&N I work at got our copies a number of days before the actual publication date, but because it was a “strict on sale” title legally we were forbidden to display it on the sales floor until the actual date of publication. One of my co-workers (who was a big fan of the series) would actually hang around in the receiving room after his shift was done just so he could read the book before anyone else he knew, and even though his final verdict was lukewarm (“It wasn’t worth it”), I found myself intrigued, and began doing some research on why the series was taking so long to finish. In early 2013 (shortly before season 3 of the TV show began airing) I picked up a DVD copy of the first season on a whim, watched it, and quickly became obsessed with the show and everything related to it. I read the first book of the series not long thereafter, then spent much of the rest of 2013 alternating between reading the books and catching up on the TV show (which I mainly watched as the DVDs were released, though around the time season 5 began I finally broke down and signed up for HBO so I could watch them as they aired in real-time).

One additional note: although I generally consider myself more a fan of the TV show than the book series (as I pretty much discovered it through the former), I think both mediums have their own pros and cons, and that some of them do things better than the other (and vice-versa: to give just one example, I thought the Red Wedding was done better in the TV show, but the TV version of Daenerys’ experiences at the House of the Undying were better executed in the books). I remain somewhat ambivalent about how I feel about Mr. Martin as a writer (though I should stress again that when it comes to his books I’ve only read the five A Song of Ice and Fire books); while I think he’s very good at creating interesting characters and obviously has some skill at world building (though some have taken the time to point out that Mr. Martin’s acclaimed world building skills often break down under closer examination: see Lyman Stone’s 2016 article ‘Westeros is Poorly Designed’ for an example of this: https://medium.com/migration-issues/westeros-is-poorly-designed-3b01cf5cdcaf), I feel his plotting leaves much to be desired (which might explain why it has taken him so long to finish his series), and I don’t think he’s much of a prose stylist (certainly in regards to that latter issue I would rank him below, say, Stephen R. Donaldson, who is one of my favorite prose writers: speaking of which, seeing as how Mr. Martin has admitted to being a fan of Mr. Donaldson’s work in the past, I’ve long wondered if his utilization of naming each chapter from the POV character was inspired by Mr. Donaldson’s use of the same technique in The Gap Cycle, which I feel is probably one of the most underrated and sadly under-read science fiction series of recent memory). Having said that, my interest in the book series was more than casual: I read them very closely and even took the time to note how many pages every character appeared in, two pages of which I've included below (for example, I can tell you that after 5 books a character like, say, Grey Worm, has thus far appeared in 24 total pages: 8 pages in A Storm of Swords and 16 pages in A Dance with Dragons). My issues with Mr. Martin’s writing notwithstanding, I’ll still be one of the first people in line when (or should I say if) The Winds of Winter ever comes out, and I’m very curious to see how the book series will both dovetail and diverge from the last few seasons of the TV series.

The nine issues I’ve decided to focus on are pacing issues (and the whole “they rushed the ending” claims), trope subversion (specifically, the decision to have Arya defeat the Night King rather than Jon Snow), Jaime Lannister’s character arc, the accusations of “plot armor,” fast travel, the anti-climax of the White Walkers storyline (and also the show’s approach to magic in general), dialogue, and Euron Greyjoy (who seemed to be one of the most divisive characters of all). For various reasons I’ve chosen not to focus on some of the other common complaints (namely, “The Long Night episode was too dark,” Weiss & Benioff’s “forgot about the Iron Fleet” comment, and the coffee cup gaffe), mainly because I see those as being mostly minor quibbles. I also don’t feel like dwelling too deeply into the controversial Austin panel of late October 2019, mainly because I think that many of the showrunners’ comments during it were twisted around and taken out of context, and that many media outlets and cultural commentators jumped on this story using secondhand sources rather than try to actually verify the facts, which just made them end up looking foolish: I would suggest the curious consult the following post published at the Watchers on the Wall website on October 30^th, 2019 for more information on this matter: http://watchersonthewall.com/benioff-weiss-reflect-decade-game-thrones-austin-film-festival/#more-177125. The one BIG issue I won’t get into was whether or not Daenerys’ descent into madness/burning of King’s Landing was properly set-up. There seem to be two schools of thought on this matter, one being that it was improperly foreshadowed, the other that it had been properly foreshadowed for a very long time. Simply put, I fall into the latter camp and had no real issues with it. Perhaps in the future I’ll elaborate on this matter, but this article is already long enough as it is, and for space reasons I think it would be better to not go into further detail on it for the time being. So, without further ado:

Issue #1: "The season was too short"/pacing issues

When David Benioff and Dan Weiss (for brevity’s sake I’ll simply refer to them as D&D for the rest of this essay) first conceived of the idea of adapting George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (which I'll abbreviate to ASOIAF for the remainder of these entries), they envisioned a 7 season series of 10 episodes each, totaling 70 episodes, though after season 6 they decided they needed 13 more episodes to wrap everything up. Then for various reasons they decided to split the final season into two parts, with 7 episodes for season 7 and 6 episodes for season 8, bringing the series to 73 episodes (which, remember, was 3 more than originally intended). Many people complained about the shortened final season, saying that it seemed as if the show was just in a rush to finish. But what they often fail to take into account was that a number of those episodes in the show's final season were dramatically longer than in prior seasons. The final season of Game of Thrones (which I will abbreviate to GOT for the rest of these entries) comes to around 7 hours and 12 minutes, which is not only close to around the same running time as season 7 (which had one more episode than it, remember), but only 2 hours less than, say, season 2, which came to 9 hours and 9 minutes (and was a 10 episode season, in contrast to season 8's 6 episodes). So you could essentially argue that the last season was really only around 2 hours shorter than a typical 10 episode GOT season, which, all things considered, isn't THAT drastic of a gap, especially if you view season 7 and 8 as one big season that got split in half for various logistical reasons (as I tend to do).

I think part of the reason why there was such a complaint about pacing was the long span of time that came about between the end of season 7 and the start of season 8. My opinion (untested, mind you) is that the narrative of these 13 final episodes will flow much better when watched consecutively once the DVDs are out, without that long gap of waiting in the middle; ideally I almost wish that they had just filmed the final 13 shows in one go without splitting them into 2 shortened seasons, but I can see why they might have had to (again, for sheer logistical reasons). Anyway, when viewed as one big season, here you would have the Long Night battle taking place on the 10th episode (of a 13 episode season), as opposed to halfway through a 6 episode season, which I think people would have had less of a problem with. But even looking at season 8 as an individual season on its own merit, I don't think it was as rushed as people would have you believe. The first episode was a typical and fairly sedate “set-up-the-pieces/get everything in place” episode, the second show was a very slow-moving (in a good way) and intimate one of just characters mostly talking/interacting with each other (a bone seemingly tossed to the fans who complained there was too much spectacle the previous season), the third show was devoted entirely to the Winterfell battle, the fifth concerned itself solely with the battle at King's Landing, and the last one wrapped things up. I think the only episode where you COULD conceivably argue that the pacing was iffy was the 4th episode, where a lot of things happened in a brief span of time (such as Jaime trying to start a relationship with Brienne at the start of the episode and changing his mind and deciding to go back to Cersei at the end of it). In an ideal world maybe there should have been 2 episodes between the Winterfell battle and the King's Landing battle, but I'm not going to get too worked up about this.

(For the curious, I got the season run times from a chart that originally appeared on the Watchers on the Wall website on March 15^th, 2019, which I reproduce below):

Issue #2: Trope Subversion

When I first began looking into the ASOIAF/GOT phenomenon, one thing I quickly noticed was that one of the things a lot of people liked about it was that the series seemed to avoid a lot of the standard fantasy clichés, or how it subverted the typical fantasy tropes. Around the time of season 7, I began to notice many of the show’s haters (and even some of the casual fans) complain about how the show was becoming a typical cliché fantasy story about a Chosen One (Jon Snow) involved in a battle against a supernatural evil force (the White Walkers). Yet many of these same people were complaining in season 8 when Arya was the one to end the White Walker threat, as they felt denied that Jon Snow wasn’t the one to do it; incidentally, the very notion of Jon Snow battling the Night King with the future of humanity at stake was quite possibly the biggest fantasy cliché the show could have possibly done, so you would think that those people who gave ASOIF/GOT props for subverting tropes and avoiding clichés would have appreciated that D&D decided to take an unexpected path on this matter! But such was not the case. Would it have been more emotionally satisfying to have seen Jon Snow battle the Night King, especially given their established history together (even if that history consisted mainly of silent stare-downs)? Well, yes. But would that also have been the most cliché stereotypical fantasy thing they could have done? Again, yes. Having said that, since way back in season 1 the show had begun establishing Arya’s own rivalry with the “God of Death” (even if the decision to have Arya be the one to defeat the Night King wasn’t made until around season 6 or thereabouts), so to have her be the one to destroy the show’s personification of death incarnate is, in a way, also somewhat satisfying, if on a less visceral (and more abstract/intellectual) level.

Issue #3: Character Arcs and Redemption

One of the more controversial aspects of the final season of GOT was what many saw as the ruination of Jaime Lannister’s character arc. Specifically, a point of annoyance is that, while Jaime has tried to redeem himself often over the last few seasons, he also had frequent relapses. Now, as many of my friends know, as a Christian (of an unorthodox stripe) I’m a sucker for a good redemption story. But I actually think there was something a touch realistic about Jaime’s on again, off again attempts at redemption. Because redemption is rarely a straight line: it has peaks and valleys, like anything else, and while some succeed, just as many fail. Try as hard as some people can, not everyone gets there in the end. By GOT’s end, we had already seen Theon get redeemed (and, to some extent, Sandor Clegane: his passion for revenge proves to be his undoing, but at least he’s able to steer Arya off the path that he himself was on). I wonder if maybe a 3^rd redemption arc would have been one redemption arc too many? I think it’s fairly obvious now that Jaime is less a redemptive character and more a tragic one: a man who wants others to see him as honorable but is ultimately incapable of seeing the good in himself.

With ASOIAF/GOT I see an attempt to portray a messy reality, and the trade-off with that is that not everyone’s arc ends on a note that is satisfying (much like real life, in that respect).

Issue #4: Plot Armor

And yet, while fiction may strive to emulate real-life, it is at best still an artificial simulation of the real thing, one that must often follow the caprices of the plot/story. In some ways I think that the “plot armor” charge is, by far, one of the laziest critiques I’ve seen directed towards the GOT TV show, and it seems very strange to me that that franchise seems to face that charge more than almost any other popular franchise I can think of. In part this is most likely due to the reputation that the book series has for its characters never being safe, and it must be said even the TV show played up this angle in the beginning (see Arya’s line in the second season about how “Anyone can die”). In fact, I think in some ways the greatest sleight of hand that Mr. Martin has pulled with the books is the notion that the major characters can die at any time, which I think is drastically overstated. I mean, not counting the prologue/epilogue chapters, how many prominent POV characters have actually been killed at this point? Ned, Catelyn, Quentyn (though I'm loath to call him a major character), Jon... and in two of those cases one (Catelyn) has already been brought back to life and the other (Jon) will probably follow in book 6 (yes, I left Arys out of that list, because let's be honest, he barely even qualifies). The majority of book characters who are killed tend to run on the minor side: sometimes a prominent minor character will be killed off (Robb Stark and Tywin come to mind), but for the most part, in my opinion, after 5 books in the series most of the major characters are still alive, and have faced death numerous times (Tyrion especially) yet keep surviving. If anything (and even Mr. Martin has admitted this) the show was much more efficient at reducing headcount.

A brief tangent: I know this goes against conventional opinion, but I’m very glad that D&D made the decision to cut Lady Stoneheart entirely. I felt that Mr. Martin bringing her back to life just cheapened her death scene at the Red Wedding (even if in the process she changed enormously in terms of personality), and found Beric Dondarrion a far more interesting character, so I was very happy the show decided to keep him around and develop him further. I could see the deletion of Lady Stoneheart being a major issue had she done a lot in the story, but so far, aside from one page at the very end of A Storm of Swords and 5 pages in A Feast for Crows, she’s only appeared in six pages total, and doesn’t seem to merit the massive amount of hype that some of the fandom have bestowed upon her (though my opinion on this matter might change depending on how much or little she does in Winds). But I feel myself getting sidetracked here so that’s all I’ll add to that topic for now.

Issue #5: Fast Travel

One thing that many viewers of the show complained about (starting around season 5 or thereabouts) was how it seemed as if characters were zipping around Westeros like nobody’s business and getting where they needed to be much faster than they used to (pretty much the opposite of the book series, especially in the later volumes where characters can wander around endlessly and still make no headway, though Catelyn Stark’s story jumps all over the map in the first volume: in fact in a span of around 200 pages she bounces from Winterfell to King’s Landing to the Eyrie). But because the show is very cagey about not being too clear about establishing how much time has passed in-between each scene, I think it gives itself a bit of wriggle room. Really, I’m not sure how to placate people who complain about this “fast travel” issue. Do they want to have montage scenes of characters trekking through the wilderness? That would mostly be a waste of time and money, I think. Do they want characters to acknowledge in the dialogue how much time has passed by? That might come off as a little artificial and overly expository in feel. Maybe the show should have just gone the Indiana Jones route and showed a map with a line indicating route of travel!

One important thing to keep in mind is that in the early seasons, when you had characters spread out all over the maps and storylines that sometimes were not even featured in certain episodes, it naturally created the illusion in the viewer's mind that it was taking characters a very long time to get from point A to point B. In later seasons, when the characters and storylines began merging together and there was less space in-between their scenes, this illusion just as naturally vanished, which might have made it seem that characters were getting to where they needed to be much faster than they actually were (and again, because very rarely does the show actually say how much time has elapsed from scene to scene, there’s plausible deniability). Some people have complained that in the final season it almost seemed as if Westeros was reduced to Winterfell, King’s Landing, and Dragonstone. Well, yeah, what do you expect? Those were the locations that all of the main characters were currently occupying, and where all of the main action was unfolding! In any case, I think the show was a little more explicit about showing characters traveling from point A to point B in the early seasons because they wanted to indicate the vast sizes of the fantasy world they were portraying, but once that had been sufficiently established it seemed (in my opinion) needless and unnecessary to keep continuing to do so.

Issue #6: The White Walkers (and the series’ handling of magic in general)

Before I begin going into this issue, I would like to briefly quote Mr. Martin himself:

“Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien — he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy — there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, ‘Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys.

It is certainly a genuine, legitimate topic as the core of fantasy, but I think the battle between Good and Evil is waged within the individual human hearts. We all have good in us and we all have evil in us, and we may do a wonderful good act on Tuesday and a horrible, selfish, bad act on Wednesday, and to me, that’s the great human drama of fiction. I believe in gray characters, as I’ve said before. We all have good and evil in us and there are very few pure paragons and there are very few orcs. A villain is a hero of the other side, as someone said once, and I think there’s a great deal of truth to that, and that’s the interesting thing. In the case of war, that kind of situation, so I think some of that is definitely what I’m aiming at.” – GRRM

One thing that I think the show did much better than the books was establish the White Walkers as a serious threat (whereas with the books you can almost literally count on one hand the number of pages they actually appear in, pretty much one scene at the very start of book one and another short scene in A Storm of Swords). Many viewers of the final season of GOT found the resolution of the White Walkers threat to be one big anti-climax (though the absurdist in me kind of finds it funny that the White Walkers had thousands of years to plan their conquest over all life and once they’re finally past the Wall they’re essentially wiped out in a matter of days). I’m not actually convinced that in the books they’ll be a greater threat (especially in light of that GRRM quote posted at the start of this entry). I saw someone online predict that the White Walker threat (or Others if you prefer) might even be resolved in The Winds of Winter, and I think that’s a real possibility: in any event I think odds are very good that the White Walkers will meet their end at Winterfell in the books as well (other people have noted the obvious symbolism of the name “Winterfell”), though the manner of that defeat will obviously be quite different (especially seeing as how at this stage the books have yet to even introduce a character equivalent to the show’s Night King).

Another complaint in regards to the White Walkers is that a lot of people were frustrated that their motivations were never elaborated upon (despite the fact that in season 6 we clearly see that they’re nothing more than an artificial race created by the Children of the Forest as a weapon to destroy humankind). But I think this is partly because the prequel currently being developed by HBO will possibly elaborate on this issue in greater detail (though seeing as this prequel, entitled Bloodmoon, was cancelled by HBO since I first typed the following sentence, this is no longer an issue), but also possibly because maybe there just really isn’t all that much depth to the White Walkers as some people may assume. And again, I’m not convinced that the books will go into great detail about the origin/motivations of the White Walkers either. I think this line of thought can even be extended to the series treatment of magic in general. I know that some people found D&D’s treatment of the magical elements of the series as vague and not very fleshed out, but again I think this is keeping in line with the books, and it might be useful to quote Mr. Martin on the subject again: “Fantasy needs magic in it, but I try to control the magic very strictly. You can have too much magic in fantasy very easily, and then it overwhelms everything and you lose all sense of realism. And I try to keep the magic magical — something mysterious and dark and dangerous, and something never completely understood. I don’t want to go down the route of having magic schools and classes where, if you say these six words, something will reliably happen. Magic doesn’t work that way. Magic is playing with forces you don’t completely understand. And perhaps with beings or deities you don’t completely understand. It should have a sense of peril about it.”

Mr. Martin obviously isn’t too stressed out about the nuts and bolts of how magic works in his world, and most of his readers don’t bat an eye: yet D&D take the same approach and people complain they’re too vague on the subject! It never fails to amaze me that there is a certain category of fantasy fans who, despite constantly reading/watching/consuming fictional constructs that take place in fantastical worlds of mystery and magic and imagination, have an almost stolid obsession with dreary reality: all dots must be connected, everything most make logical sense, all things must be explained to death.

Issue #7: Loose Ends

This is a quick one. I know some people have complained about this as well, but I actually think that having some loose ends can be a good thing. One of the reasons why the TV show Twin Peaks has enjoyed such longevity is partly, I feel, because of the loose ends, and how some of the storylines didn’t have much in the way of closure (or providing answers). It gives people something to talk, speculate and theorize about after the show’s long done, thus extending the show’s shelf life in a way. When GOT ended there were still a number of loose ends, mainly for some of the minor characters (Quaithe, Salladhor Saan, Daario, Illyrio Mopatis, the Faceless Men, whatever happened to Howland Reed, and so on), but what the hell, as stated above you want to leave the fans some things to conjecture and theorize about (and let’s face it, if there’s one thing ASOIAF fans enjoy doing, it’s conjecturing and theorizing).

Issue #8: Dialogue

Many viewers/fans took issue with the writing of the show as it progressed, especially in the last two seasons. And while I think they’re not entirely wrong on this matter, at the same time I don’t view Mr. Martin himself as some sort of wizard when it comes to writing good dialogue (I know book fans like to point to the “Broken Men” speech in Feast for Crows, but I personally feel the fandom overrates it: it’s not bad, but is mostly just a flowery speech that can be reduced to “war is bad”). In an ideal world all of Tyrion’s dialogue should have been specifically written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton (of Blackadder fame), but of course, we hardly live in an ideal world. While I wouldn’t call D&D the best writers, I hardly think they’re the terrible writers that some people in the fandom have attempted to portray them as, and they have their moments; most people like to point to that scene between Cersei and Robert Baratheon in season 1(and with good reason), but I would also say that I really liked the very long scene between Jon Snow and Tyrion that takes place in the series finale, in which Tyrion tries to convince Jon Snow to kill Daenerys... in fact I would even say that that scene probably ranks in my top ten as far as favorite scenes in the series goes.

Issue #9: Euron Greyjoy

The portrayal of Euron Greyjoy on the show was divisive, to say the least. This is one issue where I actually side with the complainers (for the most part). While I think Book Euron is a little overrated thus far (he hasn’t done nearly enough yet to justify the hype he receives: not counting that Winds of Winter sample chapter he’s only appeared in one book, and in a mere 14 pages at that), speaking as a lover of all things Lovecraft I do wish they had incorporated some of the mystical aspects of his character into the show. I think the big problem with his character (in regards to the TV show) was that he simply was written too late into the show to really make a huge impact. He really should have been introduced in season 5 at the earliest: I get the impression that when approaching season 5 D&D had the choice of adapting either the Dorne or the Ironborn storylines for the show, with the intention to ignore the one they didn’t pick, but after the poor reception of the Dorne storyline in season 5 they seemed to decide to scrap it entirely at the start of season 6 and shoehorn the Ironborn storyline in its place, which was, to put things mildly, not very elegant. I don’t think that Show Euron is a total failure (he does have some elements of the “Magnificent Bastard” trope in his persona), and I found it interesting how he tailored his personality to whomever he was interacting with. I just wish they had introduced him sooner and given him a bit more depth.

Conclusions

I’ll be one of the first to state that the final season of GOT had its flaws (though I would most likely rank “The Bells” as one of my top ten favorite episodes, and quite enjoyed the final episode as well, which I found thematically satisfying), and there were certain issues and complaints I did have with it. Certainly Cersei Lannister’s final fate was a bit of a disappointment, though it could be argued that after 8 seasons of her doing horrible things, the greatest punishment the show could deliver to her would be a boring and mundane death, rather than honoring/rewarding her with a dramatic death befitting her stature. Certainly Conleth Hill’s disappointment that not only was he not able to share a final scene with Littlefinger, but also not even be shown responding to the news of Littlefinger’s demise, is a complaint that has merit. And I do feel that, post season 6, Bran Stark’s visions were vastly underused (I remember being fascinated by the one tantalizing glimpse we received of the Mad King in one of his visions back in season 6, and I was very much hoping that at some point we would have gotten a longer vision featuring that character). There were things that, if I had been writing the story, I would probably have done differently. But that’s really not super-important, because at the end of the day it wasn’t my story to tell, and I was just going along for the ride. I think one of the problems that the TV show had (and the book series has even worse) is that it suffered from an overload of theories. There has been a huge amount of conjecturing and theorizing at work for both the book series and the TV show over the years, and it seems some people became so obsessed with their own pet theories that, when the story was all said and done and said pet theories were not validated, this might explain some of the backlash. What’s not often stated is that a LOT of these theories, IMO, are either laughably convoluted or not nearly as clever as their primogenitors believe them to be (although I will admit that I liked the show theory that Littlefinger faked his death and was 100% convinced this would bear fruit). My own theory about the last scene (going into the last season) was that the show would end with Varys and Littlefinger reuniting in Braavos, congratulating each other on a game well played, followed by making plans to start a new game in motion. Obviously, this did not come to pass!

In all of the noise generated by the people who found a seemingly endless amount of flaws in the last season, I feel it only fitting to end this piece with some of the scenes and moments that I myself most enjoyed. There was the scene where the last members of the Night's Watch came across the remains of Lord Umber at Last Hearth, which was one of the more atmospheric and horrific moments in a series that has had many such moments. That prostitute that flirts with Qyburn (yeah, I’m a huge Qyburn fan). Jaime knighting Brienne in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” (also, the scene where Tyrion gives Podrick a conspiratorial grin while filling his tankard with alcohol, and the face that Podrick makes in response: I went into the last season 100% certain that Podrick would be killed, and I barely even cared all that much, but after that scene listed above I suddenly found myself desperately wanting him to make it). “The Long Night” had some great bits: Melisandre using her magic to ignite the trench, the aerial battle between the three dragons, Beric’s heroic sacrifice (steeped in faux-Christian symbolism), and, even more moving, Theon’s last stand (my one regret is that he didn’t live long enough to see Arya save Bran from the Night King). The mass funeral at the beginning of “The Last of the Starks.” Varys’ execution at the start of “The Bells” (I especially loved the shot of Drogon emerging from the darkness, and I think it’s probably the most terrifying he ever comes across in the series). The epic battle between Sandor Clegane and his brother. The iconic scene where Drogon destroys the Iron Throne. These are just some of the scenes and images I emotionally responded to, and which I suspect will stick with me for a long time to come...

One last thing: speaking on behalf of all of the Bran Stark fans out there who enjoyed seeing him crowned king, I would just like to say to all of the people who dreamed of the show ending with Daenerys and Jon Snow ruling the Seven Kingdoms, either individually or collectively as a married couple: nyah nyah nyah!