Narrative Rebellion: The Last Song, Or, How A Song of Ice & Fire & A Game of Thrones Should End (But Probably Won't)

What A Song of Ice and Fire was always about for me.

So, that's the end of A Game of Thrones. I've written about it a few times on the blog, often quite sceptically, but generally more against the pundits than the show itself.

I, like I'll wager a great many other people, had my own idea about where the series was going. I'm sure many of us had our own theories about how the great struggle for the Iron Throne was going to end. Now, while 25-year-old Aly might've gone into rage over some of the decisions made over the course of the series - by Martin & the showrunners alike - 35-year-old Aly has mellowed out somewhat. I've realised that not only is it OK if a story makes decisions you find bad or terrible, it can be an essential creative spark.

When J.R.R. Tolkien experienced Shakespeare's Macbeth, he couldn't help but be deeply disappointed in its treatment of the Weird Sisters' prophecies: Birnam Wood didn't actually march on Dunsinane, a bunch of soldiers just tied sticks to their bodies to make it look like the forest was marching. Similarly, the entire justification for MacDuff killing Macbeth based on a painful semantic point over the definition of "born" was total weaksauce. As such, two of the most important & beloved elements of The Lord of the Rings - the Ents march on Isengard, & Eowyn's prophesied defeat of the Witch-King - could be traced back to Tolkien's displeasure at Shakespeare's perceived cop out. Whether you agree on that point - wordplay like this was a popular conceit in Shakespeare's time - is somewhat beside the larger point that, rather than complain about what he didn't like about the story, Tolkien did something creative about it.

Hence, while I'm not going to sign the petition making the rounds to remake the last season of A Game of Thrones (and certainly without presuming to be J.R.R.T. to Martin's Shakespeare!), I think creating our own alternate takes is a great creative outlet for any frustrations one might have, as well as possibly inspiring more productive, creative possibilities for the future.

So here's how I would've written the final stretch of A Game of Thrones.

Conan vs Khal Drogo and other such silliness

It's interesting that following the little kerfuffle which emerged when we found out which fictional barbarian Jason Momoa has his money on, many seemed to think the dispute was about how REH fans are incensed that Jason picked the wrong choice.  However, I don't think that's the case.  For one thing, there isn't actually a debate, since we can't really know who would win out of Drogo or Conan for the simple reason that we barely know anything about the former, most specifically his combat prowess.

In A Game of Thrones, all we have to go on is hearsay.  Tales of how impressive the Khal was in battle, the fact that he has a massively long ponytail suggests he was never defeated in battle, the fact that everyone fears and respects him.  But we never see first hand evidence of his skills, strength and endurance.  He has a fantastic mystique and aura of death about him, but it's all just that: mystique and aura.  This was somewhat remedied by the TV show, but I maintain what I thought originally: that wasn't a fight, that was an execution.  Drogo was barely scratched by the "challenger," and he punished the would-be usurper with contemptuous ease.  Aside from that, we have practically no information to go on.

Conan, of course, is a different story.  We have plenty of first-hand accounts of the Cimmerian's battle against scores of different opponents. Duels, brawls, skirmishes, assaults, battles, sieges, with odds both against him and in his favour.  So we have a good idea of how Conan would fare against, say, Thomas Covenant, Imaro or Elric.* But against Drogo, all we can do is speculate.  All the more reason to be annoyed at Martin killing off one of the best characters in A Game of Thrones.

Conan, being a rather famous example of the badass barbarian warrior, is a regular combatant in such contests. However, given how vastly different Howard's Conan is from film-Conan, who is different from Marvel Conan, who is different from animated Conan... So you can have matchups go all over the place. And, of course, all are decided by vote.

Sometimes he's really punching above his weight:

Loss

Optimus Prime

17

to

85

Loss	Witch-King of Angmar	56	to	62
Loss	Wolverine	12	to	75

Others, he's come out on top when circumstances really point against it:

Win

He-Man

41

to

36

Win

The Balrog

13

to

12

Win

Alien King

24

to

8

And, predictably, there are other battles he really should've won:

Loss

Bruce Lee

60

to

62

Loss

Chewbacca

47

to

48

Loss

King Leonidas

58

to

76

That said, when it comes to fictional characters, the only person who would really win is who you want to win: all the attempted empirical deduction and analysis is, unfortunately for such pedantic folks as myself, subject entirely to the whim of circumstance, bias and story.

*Effortlessly, Decently and Poorly respectively.

Faux-Medieval Fantasy Maps

I came across this at the Robert E. Howard Forums.  It is fantastic.

I know it must seem like I say this all the time, but how cool would a map like this be for the Hyborian Age?  Flags, faction symbols, cities, monsters, ships, warriors, all that jazz.  The golden lion of Aquilonia, the scarlet dragon of Nemedia, Grey apes lurking in the mountains of the Vilayet, sabretooths haunting the Pictish Wilderness, Atali and the Frost Giants in the far north, , the many distinctive cities and ruins of the Black Kingdoms, the Tigress gliding down the Black Coast.  There could be little hints of the stories: Numalia would have the famous bowl, Khorshemish the Scarlet Citadel, Zamora a certain tower, and so forth.

A cartoony style would be fun, but I think taking after the Book of Kells' illuminations would be especially appropriate.  Nemedian Chronicles, wot wot.

Mo reasons to love Momo

Arnold's Conan did a few impressive things.  He lifted a giant bowl of green soul.  He pushed a giant wheel.  He... *sigh* knocked out a camel with a punch.

He didn't, however, rip a man's tongue out through his own throat.

I will not have your body burned. I will not give you that honour. The beetles will feed on your eyes. The worms will crawl through your lungs. The rain will fall on your rotting skin... until nothing is left of you but bones.

You'll notice Drogo doesn't even seem to register the flesh wound on his chest from the khopesh (and we seriously need a moratorium on those, they're getting like the katana for the 21st Century), treating it with no more concern than a nettle sting.  Also, that he drops his two tiny knives during the fight: he is Khal Drogo, he doesn't need weapons to kill a man. And to top it all off, he goes all Ken-"Fist of the North Star"-shiro with a final quip.



As with the last showcase of Momo's talent, I really hope Nispel and the gang gave Conan a scene remotely as badass as this one.  Literary Conan certainly had his share of highlights, and it would be nice to have one that doesn't involve animal abuse or lifting heavy things, and hopefully not just rip off one of those moments from the stories.  If there's one thing we can probably depend on, though, it's ingenuity in gory fight scenes.

* I will note that the scene isn't perfect, for the same reason the last one wasn't: Dothraki extras in Game of Thrones suck.  They really suck.  Suuuuuuuck.  In the last video, they didn't seem nearly as fired up as Momoa, reducing the impact of the scene entirely.  I've already talked about how I hate their visual design.  In this case, it's Drogo's "opponent" - more like Drogo's victim.  That guy who challenged Drogo looks like no threat whatsoever to Drogo: surely if you want to show how badass Drogo is, you give him an opponent that looks like he could pose a challenge?  Then, when Drogo defeats him he looks even more dominant? I wasn't remotely worried about Drogo here, and arguably we probably got that point - but that doesn't make it a fight, that makes it butchery.

When Conan fought someone, they were usually treated as dangerous threats.  Howard wrote about their victories, size, deadliness, prowess.  Sergius of Khrosha, Zaporavo, Baal-Pteor, Shah Amurath, the Adventurer, Olgerd.  Conan defeated them all, and while the difficulty of those victories varied, Conan either came out more imperssive because he made them look like nobodies, or because he just barely managed to survive against a truly formidable opponent.  This guy fighting Drogo's a nobody, Drogo defeated him like a nobody, and all I thought during the fight was "how's Drogo going to defeat this nobody?" I'm not going to recall this fight scene as "do you remember when Khal Drogo defeated that challenger to his rule," but "do you remember when Khal Drogo owned that cocky little punk?" Considering we'll (probably) never see Khal truly fight in the series, it's a shame this one fight scene wasn't what I was hoping for.  Ah well. 

If there's a scene like this in the upcoming film, we can forget all about Arnold.

Let's look at the most famous scenes in Conan the Barbarian.





Much as I like those scenes in their original contexts, they're not Robert E. Howard's Conan. The next video is closer to Howard's Conan than every alleged "Conan" film, television show or cartoon to date combined. If Momoa's Conan is given a scene like this performance in "Game of Thrones," then I think the ghost of Arnold may be dispelled at last.

"And to my son, the stallion who will mount the world, I will also pledge a gift. I will give him the iron chair that his mother's father sat upon. I will give him seven kingdoms. I, Drogo, will do this. I will take my Khalasar west to where the world ends, and ride wooden horses across the black salt water, as no Khal has done before. I will kill the men in iron suits and tear down their stone houses. I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak. This, I vow, I, Drogo, son of Bharbo. I swear before the Mother of Mountains, as the stars look down in witness.


As the stars look down in witness."

OK, last one, then I'm done.

I never thought I'd read a worse review of Game of Thrones than that one in The Guardian, but The Telegraph managed to do it.