OMG OMG OMG!!!

So, thanks to my favourite website, io9.com, I just learned that HBO has cast my favourite character from George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' for the fourth season of their great adaptation, Game of Thrones.

http://io9.com/game-of-thrones-has-cast-its-red-viper-618296783

Pedro Pascal (below) will be playing the Red Viper, Oberyn Martell, Prince of Dorne, the most epic badass of all time. I have no idea who the actor is, but he'll look good in the part.

Phwoar.

From io9:

EW shares this note about the casting from the showrunners:

“This was a tough one,” say showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss about the casting. “The Red Viper is sexy and charming, yet believably dangerous; intensely likable, yet driven by hate. The boys love him, the girls love him, and he loves them all back. Unless your last name is Lannister. We found a fellow who can handle the job description and make it seem effortless. He wasn’t easy to find and he won’t be easy to stop.”

SPOILERS!! The Red Viper shows up in King's Landing for King Joffrey's marriage to Margaery Tyrell. Spoilers: he hates both families with a passion. He's also bisexual, as is his bastard lover Ellaria Sand, who he insists on seating at the high table of the feast amid the snooty nobles, much to Queen Cersei's displeasure. The Dornish don't care though, they do things differently in the South.

But the Viper isn't just there for dessert, oh no, he's come seeking justice for the murder of his beloved sister Elia (wife of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, the son of the Mad King). Elia was brutally raped and killed by the Mountain when Tywin Lannister's armies sacked the capitol at the height of Robert's Rebellion, and her two children were murdered on Tywin's orders and presented to the newly-crowned Robert as evidence of the Lannisters' loyalty to their new king. After all these long years, the Viper wants the Mountain's head, yes, but he wants the man who gave the orders too.

The Viper has eight fiery bastard daughters back in Dorne, known as the Sand Snakes. One of these daughters will become very important later on, as will the murder of Elia's children. This is by no means a tangent to the main narrative - the Dornish have been kept out of the first books and the early seasons of the show because their part is an important one. I have been WAITING for this, if they do this right, I will be supremely happy.

House Robot

Another great place to find 'A Song of Ice and Fire' overviews/reviews is YouTube user comicbookgirl19's channel, check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHZDkFt4F9fNO6XB4L1mi4v-vs96zy53g

She's funny, passionate, knowledgeable about the subject and smokin' hot to boot. I have watched her well-produced videos over and over again since I discovered them, my only complaint about them is that there just aren't enough of them! Seriously, go watch them. And if you have some money to donate to help her keep producing this great content, please do ;)

I'm also a huge fan of her co-host, Robot. He's not only well-designed (love that floppy-disc decal on his chest) but the guy doing his voice and movement is hilarious.

The Potter Post

So.

Harry Potter.

It's been a few years now since the series that rejuvenated the young adult book market came to a close, and a couple of years since the final installment of the film franchise based on it. Say what you will about J.K. Rowling, she certainly made her mark with her series of novels about the boy wizard - Harry Potter was an inescapable cultural phenomenon that can be exclusively credited with getting kids interested in reading again. The films were fine, but it was the BOOKS that had kids and young adults around the world waiting with baited breath to see what would happen next to Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. It was the BOOKS that had people queuing up around the block for days in advance of their release.

Harry Potter was the Star Wars of the late nineties and noughties. And it took the form of a series of novels. Harry Potter made books COOL.

So how did Rowling do it? Her prose is pretty mundane, and she ripped off (sorry, incorporated elements of) the works of the far more talented Charles Dickens, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Terry Pratchett, with none of their flair, none of the cohesiveness or depth of their literary creations. But maybe it's unfair to compare her those giants of fantasy literature - or maybe not.

Her wizarding world may not have the depth and scope of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, but her books have a lot more humour and her world has the advantage of intersecting with the real world in ways that are immediate and relatable to its readers. Events in Rowling's wizarding community are depicted as have a bearing on the mundane world of Muggles, rather than taking place in a semi-mythical era a long time ago. Dumbledore is a far more conflicted, mysterious and interesting character than Gandalf, and his grandfatherly relationship to Harry is more intimate and meaningful than Gandalf's is to either Bilbo or Frodo. Lord Voldemort is a much more compelling primary villain than Sauron - while Sauron is just an ancient embodiment of utter evil, Voldemort was an unfortunate child who grew into an adult bent on the destruction of everything he hated about himself.

The Potter books draw on the Dickensian formula of having an impoverished, scruffy orphan boy as the protagonist, a child who has been abused and neglected his whole life. Harry's an under-dog, and so we as readers are instantly on his side. He's also distinctly British, and the world he comes to inhabit is defined by the sort of social institutions, technologies and artefacts of the the Industrial Age that one finds throughout the works of Dickens - boarding schools, banks, quaintly-named hospitals, train stations, horse-drawn carriages, fireplaces, portraits, ink pots, letters... it's a deeply sentimental look back at Britain That Was (Doctor Who would similarly build on this sort of nostalgia when it came back from the grave in 2005). In a fast-paced, sexed-up, confusing modern world where having the latest model cellphone is crucial to one's social standing, there's something safe and comforting about being able to slip back into times that we (perhaps falsely) remember as simpler.

But Rowling's world has an advantage over the grim Industrial world of Dickens, for it is also a world of magic. Rowling manages to put a fun twist on the Industrial era with her inclusion of Hippogriffs, Goblins, Dragons and the like, by having owl-delivered letters, fireplace-travel, and train station platforms that can only be accessed by ridiculous means, and by the right people. Nostaligia for the quaint old-fashioned world of Dickens is cleverly combined with the escapism of CS Lewis' Narnia, with a whole world hidden just out of view that one might accidentally step into at any moment (if one happens to have wizard blood). In fact, of all the various influences on the Harry Potter books, CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is perhaps the most similar, although on the surface they don't look very alike. In Lewis' books, children step OUT of a quaint Dickensian world into a strange world of dwarfs, witches, lions and castles, whereas in Rowling's books a modern child (albeit a deprived and decidedly anachronistic one) steps INTO a quaint Dickensian world that just happens to have some of the same stuff that Lewis' strange world has in it. Rowling's wizarding world quite literally makes the best of both worlds.

Unlike Lewis, however, Rowling keeps her narrative tightly focused on her single protagonist and his experiences, thoughts and feelings. In the Potter books, the reader doesn't see events that don't happen right in front of Harry, except when he's taken into a recreation of past events through Tom Riddle's diary or Dumbledore's memory device - for everything else he has to rely on the often partial, sometimes conflicting and confusing accounts of other characters. This adds a layer of ambiguity that the reader can have fun parsing for truth - it makes detectives of us all. The Harry Potter series, then, for all its Dickensian and fantasy trappings, is more akin to Scooby Doo. We like puzzles, and Harry Potter's life is a great one.

Another element that contributes to the addictiveness of the series is Rowling's canny inclusion of the 'team' element. Readers are presented (initially) with four 'teams' - the Houses at Hogwarts: Gryffendor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin (to these are later added the visiting European school 'teams' - Beauxbatons and Durmstrang). Each 'team' is depicted as representing particular character traits which readers can see in themselves, and so it is easy to imagine oneself a member of a particular house based on our own strengths, interests and talents (I like to thing I'm a Ravenclaw). While we are clearly meant to root first and foremost for brave Gryffendor and despise power-hungry Slytherin, we're also given the option of aligning ourselves to intellectual Ravenclaw or inclusive Hufflepuff. As the series progresses, we get heroes from all four teams - importantly, even Slytherin. This is the real genius of the Harry Potter books, they allow the reader to imagine themselves as part of the story in a way that almost nothing else has.

I really do think this is an immensely important point - it's something I've been noticing in other top-popularity series lately, from 'Twilight' to 'The Hunger Games' to George RR Martin's brilliant 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series. In ASOIAF, we're presented with a similar central 'Team A' vs 'Team B' dichotomy - we're meant to admire and relate to the dour, honourable Starks and despise the proud, wealthy Lannisters, while also being presented with other 'teams' we can identify with - the Tullys, the Baratheons, the Targaryens, the Arryns, the Martells and so on. Each family is associated with a particular geographic area of Martin's fictional world, has its own sigil and motto, and collection of physical traits (it's worth noting that while the essential formula is the same as that of the Potter books, with their descriptions of various 'teams' and their associated heraldry, the scope of Martin's series is far greater - there are hundreds of Houses, many of which have detailed histories of conflict and romance). I don't think it's a coincidence that both series are absurdly popular - in fact, I rather think that the Potter-Generation kids have 'graduated' to reading Ice and Fire now they're older.

And of course, at the heart of both series is a love triangle. With the Song of Ice and Fire, it's Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryen's fight over Lyanna Stark, with everything that follows being a consequence of two men tearing the world apart for the sake of a woman (more on that later). In the Potter-verse, much of the drama comes down to the fact that social misfit Severus Snape loved brilliant Lily Evans, who chose popular James Potter. While this choice doesn't have the world-shattering consequences of the Ice and Fire love triangle (there being no kings involved, and of course, Tom Riddle having already set off down the dark path to becoming Lord Voldemort quite independently from this little spat between Potter and Snape), it is far more personal, having a direct bearing on the life of the books' protagonist. The adult Snape goes out of his way to torment Harry because Harry is a constant reminder of Lily's choosing James. And Snape's eventual redemption is an integral part of the downfall of the series' main villain. The Potter series is profoundly romantic at heart.

Which brings us, finally, to the advent of 'shipping', an inseparable part of the popularity of the Potter franchise. Now, 'shipping' has always existed, of course, but it found its clearest expression in Harry Potter, most likely because the Potter Generation is the first to have been born into a world where computers and the Internet were a part of everyday life. Potter-Generation youth flocked to the online forums to discuss each and every plot development, theory and prediction, and of course romantic relationships between the characters quickly rose to prominence as the issue of paramount importance. Who would Harry's first kiss be with? Who would become his girlfriend? Brilliant but frumpy Hermione Granger, who had been with him every step of the way? Insanely talented Ginny Weasley, with her fiery hair and temper? Uncanny Luna Lovegood, with her otherworldly spirituality? Or Cho Chang, the pretty, popular girl? There were plenty of options, and the reader aligned themselves with one choice - one 'ship' - or another depending on their personal preferences. It was another kind of 'team' allegiance. And of course, when Harry eventually made his choice (which I would argue was heralded from the very beginning - more on that later) half the fandom broke down in tears. It wasn't just Harry, either - would Ron and Hermione get together? What about Neville?

And of course, I can't finish off a post about Harry Potter without briefly discussing the fact that Rowling very publicly declared that one of her primary and most important characters - Dumbledore himself, no less - is gay. The impact of this statement on a generation of youth cannot be overstated. Millions of kids around the world grew up knowing that their hero's mentor, the strongest of the good wizards, the man who enabled Harry to defeat the most evil dark wizard alive, was a gay man. There is ample evidence in the text to support the notion, too, from his sometime-estrangement from his family, his flamboyant style of dress and penchant for knitting patterns, and importantly, some pretty strong evidence that he once loved a man, Gellert Grindelwald. The romanticism that permeates the series is extended to a gay man - that's hugely significant in a series of children's books. Rowling's books essentially humanized gay people for vast swathes of young readers who only heard negative, false stereotypes about us elsewhere. And now, finally, around the world, policies of exclusion toward LGBT people are being challenged by the youth who grew up reading Ms Rowling's books. That's a legacy to be proud of.

So thank you, J.K. Rowling, thank you for giving us an optimistic, inclusive, wonder-filled world to inspire us toward our better human qualities in our own lives. Thank you for Harry Potter.

A Podcast of Whiners and Haters

A recommendation:

I've been listening to a lot of 'A Podcast of Ice and Fire' recently, which is a spoiler-heavy, absolutely hilarious podcast about George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series, and the HBO show 'Game of Thrones' based on it. The regular hosts, Mimi, Ashleigh, Kyle, Chase and Amin are a fantastic ensemble, and they have a really great irreverent take on the series. They get guest hosts in almost every episode, including the guys behind Westeros.org and ToweroftheHand.com, and they discuss recent news about the books and the show, do a chapter by chapter summary of the books (an ongoing process slowed down by hijinks and Kyle's dramatic re-enactments), character discussions, crackpot theories and Amin's bizarre and often disturbing shipping of characters.

These guys are awesome - I particularly love Chase, he's so bitter and dark, and then he comes out with a passionate defense of 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' or some other random thing (and he has a really sexy voice). And Mimi, who started the podcastway back in 2009 or somesuch, is just a fount of knowledge, and plays with knives. What's not to like? Go check them out:

http://podcastoficeandfire.com/download-links/

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure

I literally just finished watching 'Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure' and had to Google "Ewoks Caravan Terrible", and I'm reassured that that's pretty much the consensus of most critics and viewers. I don't know what I ever saw in this film - I remembered it from my childhood as pretty enjoyable. Maybe I wasn't as fussy back then, maybe all the other films of the era were just as bad (but that can't be right - ET, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and Willow were all awesome, weren't they? I guess I'll get to them in time) ;)

First, the good. There are some gorgeous matte paintings throughout the film, expanding the scale of the story significantly. Without them, the cheapness of the effects work and costumes would defy any attempt to suspend one's disbelief. And I always find it refreshing when a film focuses on a goal other than lurve - somehow that dullest of narratives manages to intrude into virtually every movie ever made - even kid's films. But in the 80s at least, there were some decent kids films that revolved around reuniting families instead, and this is one of those. I liked the fact that the film made explicit the parallels between the separation of the human and Ewok families - it was even possible to feel sympathy for Mommy Ewok as she cried the night before her husband and children went off on their big adventure.

And the narration was fairly decent - it was necessary, for a start, given that otherwise the culture, motives, reactions and dialogue of the Ewoks would be a complete mystery. It gave the film a strange anthropology-documentary feel, rather than the fairy-tale feel I think they were going for, but that's not entirely out of place, given that this story is set in a science fiction universe (although mysticism and magic are clearly a part of the Star Wars universe).

I actually thought the girl playing little Sindel Towani was pretty decent for someone so young, although the bit with the pond was ridiculous - they didn't even show her actually noticing her brother was trapped in the pond - one minute she's not looking at him, the next she's declaring he's in the pond needing help even though from where she's standing she couldn't possibly see him (and boy, was he under there a long time - I wonder how many takes they did? Not enough, obviously, as he was still alive to keep filming this garbage). But that's the bad directing, not the little girl's fault.

I like the Gorax, the film's antagonist, for a man in a suit it was pretty well done. But the spiders in the caves were appallingly bad - the strings on the puppet were obvious in every frame. And the boar/wolf thing earlier in the film was decent in the dark and when it was just a giant paw ripping at the tree trunk in which the kids were hiding... but why on earth they thought it was a good idea to do the daytime bit showing more of it in all its stop-motion-y tackiness is beyond me.

The most exciting bit of the whole thing was the runaway horse. It was the only point in the movie that the fact of the Ewoks just being people inn suits didn't intrude to ruin my suspension of disbelief. The Ewoks themselves were mostly tolerable, Wicket being the only one that didn't creep me out - there's something about the dead, glassy eyes of the others that's just terrifying. As for Mace... what a whiny little bastard. Did he really have to repeat every line of dialogue twice? Even if it was scripted that way, it was atrociously acted. I spent the whole movie just wanting to punch him in the face.

And perhaps the worst part of all - it's all for nothing, because (SPOILERS!!) even though the kids rescue their parents, the parents both die at the beginning of the sequel. Thankfully, so does Mace ;)

*

*Side Note: Wicket is played by the wonderful Warwick Davies, who was the star of one of my favourite films, Willow, which I mean to cover at some point.

Best Adventure Time Episodes (I've Seen So Far)

Yes, I know, I'm a bit behind, I've only seen the first three-and-a-half seasons, and one or two episodes from later seasons, so I can't include fan-favourites 'I Remember You', 'The Lich', 'Jake The Dog', 'Finn the Human' and 'Simon and Marcy'. Nevertheless, here are the episodes I HAVE seen, that I've enjoyed most:

S1
Slumber Part Panic (the first real, proper episode, good fun)
Ricardio the Heart Guy (strange and funny - is that George Takei's voice?)
Memories of Boom-Boom Mountain (rough-housing)
City of Thieves (wonderfully absurd)
Henchman (the first time Marceline shows up)
What Have You Done? (would have been a good season finale)

S2
It Came from the Nightosphere (Marceline's dad shows up, laffs ensue)
The Eyes (the horse - supremely creepy)
The Other Tarts (just good fun)
Susan Strong (first appearance of a potentially major character)
Mortal Folly (first actual appearance of main - and scary - villain, the Lich)
Mortal Recoil (excellent conclusion to the Lich story)

S3
Conquest of Cuteness (hilarious)
Morituri Te Salutamus (achieves in 11 minutes what full-length feature movies often fail to)
Memory of a Memory (just... awesome)
Too Young (Lemongrab's first appearance... Unacceptable!!!)
Fiona and Cake (fantastic - I would watch the hell out of this as a full show)
What Was Missing (just for Marceline's song - Finn's is awful)
Beautopia (Susan Strong pt 2 - and if I'm not wrong, the truth about Finn's mother)
Jake vs Me-mow (also hilarious)
Thank You (just beautiful)
Holly Jolly Secrets (alternately hilarious and heart-breaking)
Marceline's Closet (more hilarity)

S4
Dream of Love (sweet)

S5
All the Little People (... interesting)


To be clear, ANY episode of Adventure Time is better than pretty much any episode of any other cartoon*, but as you can see from the above, season 3 has been my favourite so far (out of what I've seen). The half of season 4 that I've seen has had some funny moments, but the bigger story (Return to the Nightosphere, Daddy's Little Girl) didn't do it for me, and Flame Princess seems like the obligatory complication to the Finn/Bubblegum relationship (yes, I believe in the First Girl Wins trope - I believe All the Little People bears this out). Overall, it seems the show is just getting better and better, and they're churning them out fast.

*with the exception, possibly, of Futurama (I'm thinking especially of the episode Jurassic Bark).

ASOIAF Predictions

How ASOIAF Will End

This post is just a collection of my speculations on how the final two installments of George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series will unfold, based on what I personally think will be most saatisfying, and the little bits we can glean from Martin's chapter readings at conventions (those parts being in bold, as they're definite).


THE WINDS OF WINTER


*Having dealt Khal Pono and the Dothraki a harsh lesson, Daenerys will be taken by Drogon to Old Valyria, where she will discover of the truth of the Doom.

*In Dorne, Prince Doran Martell has decided to send young Myrcella Baratheon/Lannister home to Kings Landing with and armed escort. He and his daughter Arianne will then learn of Aegon(Griff), and Doran will decide to send Arianne to him (Arianne I).

*In Meereen, Tyrion Lannister will prove himself useful in the Queen's absence, but get along poorly with Ser Barristan Selmy and her other generals.

*In the Riverlands, the warrior maid Brienne of Tarth will hunt down her friend Ser Jaime Lannister to kill him, because of the promise she made to the undead Lady Stoneheart(Catelyn Stark), in order to save her own life and that of her squire, Podrick Payne. She will spend most of the book looking for him, wrestling with her conflicted feelings, and remembering the horror of her undead former mistress.

*Jaime Lannister, meanwhile, will be dealing with the rebels and outlaws in the Riverlands, including trying to track down the escaped Ser Brynden 'Blackfish' Tully. He and Brienne will not cross paths yet.

*In the Vale, Littlefinger will put his plans in motion to kill young Lord Robert Arryn and marry Sansa/Alayne to Harry the Heir.

*Arianne Martell will travel to Griffin's Roost to meet Aegon(Griff) and Jon Connington, discovering some cave paintings by the Children of the Forest on the way, but on arrival will learn that Aegon(Griff) is not there, that he pushed on and took Storm's End. She will receive an invitation to mett him there, and be advised against going because it sounds peculiar and might be a trap, but will decide to go anyway (Arianne II).

*In the Stormlands and the Crown Lands, lords and armies will rally to Aegon(Griff) and lay siege to Kings Landing, but be unable to take it. The Tyrells will initially withhold support, as they try to defend themselves against the Ironborn on the west coast (besides which, Margaery is Queen, wed to the Baratheon/Lannister king Tommen, if they declare for Aegon(Griff) they lose that position of power). The war in the North having largely been won, the loyalist lords will bring their armies south to meet Aegon(Griff) in the field.

*In Kings Landing itself, Cersei will find herself increasingly marginalised on the small council and in court, and without the guidance of her father Lord Tywin, her uncle Kevan or Grand Maester Pycelle - she will still suspect that her brother Tyrion the Imp is nearby, and is responsible for the murders. Her bother/lover Jaime will not have come to her aid either. She will have only the monstrous undead Ser Gregor Clegane to protect her and her son.

*After some time missing, Daenerys will return to Meereen and find it a mess, first terrorized by her other two dragons Viserion and Rhaegal, then enslaved by the Ironborn pirate Victarion Greyjoy (who has brought the dragons to heel with the magic horn he's brought with him). She will overthrow Victarion and reject his marriage proposal, and meet Tyrion, who will tell her what he knows of Aegon(Griff), Jon Connington and the Golden Company. She and her court will then make plans to head west and take Westeros.

*In Oldtown, Sam will forge his maester's chain in near-record time, and with Pate/Jaqen H'Gar and Alleras the Sphinx (Sarella of Dorne) will learn that the horn he carries is the Horn of Winter. He'll leave Gilly with his mother and sisters, and bring the Horn back to Lord Commander Jon Snow in the North, realising that it has to be used to restore balance to the world, but he'll find Jon dead.

*Sansa/Alayne will remain in the Vale, cross Littlefinger and save little Robert Arryn, betraying him for his part in the downfall of her family and because she is genuinely kind. Littlefinger will be imprisoned, or go on the run.

*In the North, Theon Greyjoy will atone for his sins by helping Stannis Baratheon and the Starks defeat Ramsay Bolton, and then Stannis will execute him.

*Asha Greyjoy will return to the Iron Islands to discover that her favourite uncle, the Reader, has been murdered by his brother Euron Crow's Eye. She will decide to kill him in retribution.

*Pate/Jaqen H'Gar will return to the Faceless Men in Braavos with what he has learned in Oldtown, and will meet Arya again. As a result of their conversation, she will quit the Faceless Men, take Needle and head back to Westeros, either to warn Jon of something or to get revenge with her new assassin skills.

*The Wall will be brought down with the Horn of Winter, restoring balance in the seasons and freeing the dead Jon Snow from his vows. But it will come down too soon - the White Walkers and their army of undead will swarm across the North, bringing the full power of winter with them. The whole of Westeros will be threatened.

A DREAM OF SPRING


*Daenerys will arrive in Westeros with her army and dragons, and will be greatly impressed with Aegon(Griff) and his leadership of the armies that are amassed in the Crown Lands.

*The Faith will declare for Daenerys when she lands with her dragons, and will set upon Queen Cersei and little King Tommen in Kings Landing. Cousin Lancel will be told he can only atone for his treason and fornication by killing the little king born from incest.

*Rhaegal the green dragon will seem to bond with Aegon(Griff), and he will ally with Daenerys. Thus, the conspiracy to kill Daenerys and put Aegon(Griff) on the Iron Throne as dead Prince Rhaegar's presumed-dead son Aegon will be go awry as Aegon(Griff) first proves himself worthy of the throne and then joins forces with his main rival, contrary to the plans of the conspirators, who meant for her to die so that he could be named her heir.

*Arya will return to Westeros, cross paths with Brienne of Tarth and meet Sandor Clegane (the Hound), and go on to kill Roose Bolton and Walder Frey/warn Jon of a plot discovered by Pate/Jaqen H'Gar in Oldtown.

*In the North, Melisandre will kill Stannis Baratheon and the direwolf Ghost to restore Jon Snow to life, believing him to be Azor Ahai. Jon will thus have been separated from the outward symbol of his Northern heritage. He will have spent time as a wolf north of the Wall, and been with Summer, and so Bran is aware of him. This resurrection will make Melisandre confident in her powers as she has never been before.

*Bran will have seen various crucial pieces of information about how to defeat the White Walkers and about Jon's true identity through his time with the Three Eyed Raven, but will be saved from going too far down that path by Meera and Hodor. He will pass on the crucial information to Jon, and Sam will tell Jon all he has learned while forging his chain in Oldtown.

*In the Vale, Sansa/Alayne will declare herself, and the Vale will rally behind her. She'll send soldiers north to help Jon at the Wall. But things will go wrong, Littlefinger will escape imprisonment and attempt to exact revenge on her, and she'll retreat up to the Eyrie with little Sweetrobin and find herself beseiged for the remainder of the war. Sandor Clegane will go to her aid.

*Brienne will finally confront Jaime, but will find herself unable to fulfill her promise to Lady Stoneheart, and will let him go. She'll believe she has disgraced herself, and will wander, waiting to be caught by the Brotherhood Without Banners and killed.

*The plot to kill Daenerys will be exposed before it can come to fruition, and the plotters - Varys, Illyrio and Prince Doran of Dorne - will be imprisoned, executed or banished. Varys will be revealed as a Blackfyre, cousin of Daenerys and uncle of Aegon(Griff) - the 'Mummer's Dragon' - his sister being the wife of Magister Illyrio Mopatis of Pentos, Aegon's true father. It will transpire that Varys was made a eunuch because his Blackfyre blood/flesh held power. Ser Jorah will die proving his love for Daenerys, saving her from the betrayal, and she will forgive him.

*When word reaches Daeaerys and Aegon of the dire situation in the North, he will fly into war beside her, but will not have the control of the dragon that he will soon need.

*When Jon Snow is able to tame/control the unruly white dragon Viserion when Daenerys and Aegon arrive in the North, it will be revealed that he is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, having been raised by Lord Eddard Stark as his alleged bastard to protect him, at the dying Lyanna's request. The resurrected Jon will thus be the third head of the dragon. Viserion will be the most unruly of the three Dragons, but Jon will be able to control him through the unique gifts of his mixed Targaryen/Stark heritage. Jon will thus have traded Ghost (a symbol of the North, and the Old Gods' protection) for a dragon, a symbol of his true parentage.

*Cersei will flee Kings Landing and go to Casterly Rock with Tommen, to save him from the zealots who would kill him, but her cousin Lancel will follow them there, and will succeed in murdering Tommen. Cersei will thus have failed to save her last child - her own actions will have gotten him killed, and Maggy the Frog's prophecies will all have come to pass.

*The North, the lands beyond the Wall and Skagos will unite behind young Rickon with the aid of Osha, Ser Davos Seaworth and Lord Manderly, and will bring reinforcements to help Jon and his armies fight the White Walkers and the wights.

*When Melisandre plans something particularly terrifying, Ser Davos will sacrifice himself to kill her.

*Daenerys on Drogon, Jon on Viserion and Aegon(Griff) on Rhaegal will win the fight against the White Walkers and their army of undead, but Aegon(Griff) and the green dragon Rhaegal will die in the battle.

*Sandor Clegane will die defending Sansa and Robert Arryn from Littlefinger's lackeys. Sansa will be trapped in the Eyrie as winter rages outside, but will finally be rescued by Jon on his dragon.

*Jamie will go to Cersei at Casterly Rock and find her mad with grief, babbling about prophecies and confessing her every sin, and he will strangle her and then fall on his own sword. Tyrion will therefore inherit the Rock and become Hand of the King - his father's true heir, in an ironic twist of fate.

*Princess Arianne of Dorne will succeed her father.

*Asha/Yara will rule the Iron Islands and the Stony Shore from Pyke, making peace with the North.

*If Shaggydog dies, Rickon will become little more than a beast. If Rickon dies, he will live on in Shaggydog, out in the wild.

*Bran will become the Stark in Winterfell, married to Meera Reed. Summer will leave him, but they'll retain a connection, and he will warg into Summer in his dreams for years to come, running with Shaggydog/Rickon.

*Arya will reunite with Gendry and eventually become his wife, and the Lady of Storm's End, but neither will spend much time there. Nymeria and her pack will contribute to the downfall of the Freys, but the big wolf will eventually go north to be with Summer and Shaggydog, and so Arya will run with her brothers in her dreams.

* Jon will marry Sansa Stark, having always had a thing for redheads (Ygritte the Wildling, Melisandre the Red Priest and - on TV's Game of Thrones - Ros the redheaded whore) and being revealed as her cousin rather than her half-brother. She will have learned that heroes and knights are not always the same thing, and to look beyond his bastard status, having spent time posing as a bastard herself, and having gained experience at the Game of Thrones. He will have proved himself the sort of hero she always dreamed of, with the honour and bravery of her father and the command experience gained from his time on the Wall. They will leave Bran to restore Winterfell and head to Kings Landing to rule together, their strengths complementing one another.

*Jon Connington will die mourning Aegon(Griff), but not before he tells Jon and Daenerys all he remembers about Rhaegar and Lyanna.

*Littlefinger will be executed, Prince Doran will die of old age and illness, and Varys will escape.

*Lady Stoneheart will persist long enough to see her husband and eldest son avenged, and will learn that her other children are in fact safe, then will relinquish the last vestiges of life, saving Brienne from her wrath. The Blackfish will have died at Jaime's hand after rescuing Edmure Tully and his Frey wife Roslin. Edmure and Roslin will survive the winter and the war, rebuild Riverrun and name their children Brynden and Catelyn.

*Daenerys will decide that her place is not in Westeros after all, it's not her home. Having won the Iron Throne, she will abdicate, leaving her sole surviving relative - Jon Snow - on the throne, with his beautiful wife Sansa beside him. Daenerys will return to Essos to continue her work with its reformation - ruling from Meereen or Volantis. She will keep Drogon with her, but not her other two dragons (one of which is dead, the other of which has flown off somewhere). When she eventually dies, Drogon will return to Valyria, and with the Targaryens and Blackfyre lines extinguished, dragons and magic will disappear from the world.

Some Random Fantasy Art I Like

Some Random Sci-Fi Art I like

Click or open in another tab to enlarge, the names of the artists and the individual works are in the file names. All images found on deviantArt, except for the last three, which are by the late, great Jean Giraud, AKA Moebius.

I'm In Love With A Robot

I'm dead keen on robots, mechs, AI, androids and cyborgs. Perhaps I should clarify what's meant by these distinctions.


ROBOTS

Robots are artificial, mechanical, computer intelligences and thus a sub-set of AI (but not necessarily full Artificial Intelligences - see below), with a definite body that may or may not be human-ish in shape. There are literally thousands of examples I could include here - Robbie the Robot (top picture) and R2D2 being probably the two most famous examples, not to mention Wall-E, Johnny-5, all the Transformers (both Autobot and Decepticon), K-9 the robot dog... all these are robots, plain and simple. They're a staple of popular science fiction, ubiquitous and much beloved. The Jetsons had Rosie, Lost in Space had B-9 (above, more commonly referred to as just 'Robot'), Futurama has potty-mouthed, alcoholic Bender B. Rodriguez and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had Marvin the Paranoid Android. Disney's The Black Hole had space hick V.I.N.CENT, reliable old B.O.B. and the evil Maximillian. They come in all shapes, sizes, and temperaments, and I love them. I have plenty of favourites, but I plan to do individual posts later honouring my all-time great robot loves.


MECHS

Distinct from robots in having no intelligence of their own, they really are just machines, albeit a very particular and cool type of machine. Because they're not just can-openers, they're giant fighting machines. People drive or fly mechs, across the stars and into battle. My all-time favourite has to be Voltron here (the original lion version, not the awful vehicle version that came later) - five giant mechanized lions that combine to form a towering warrior-mech with a massive sword (more on Voltron later, there's SO much to say). I'm also very fond of the Zords from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, which do essentially the same thing but with less style and more camp value. Note: various distinct parts coming together to form a greater whole is not necessarily a feature of mechs, Devastator and other combiners from Transformers and the Mighty Orbots don't count as mechs, because the different parts each have an intelligence and don't require piloting. Gundam, on the other hand, does qualify as a mech, and doesn't consist of separate components that come together in a greater whole. A mech is basically a ship (or ships) that move about like a robot. More on that later.


ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES

By these I mean super computers that behave as if alive - Hal 9000 (above) from 2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps the best known example, with Auto the Autopilot from Wall-E being a blatant rip-off/tribute to the original psychotic AI. Artificial intelligences do not necessarily have 'bodies' - they may be fully integrated into a vessel or station computer. Most ship computers like that of the Starship Enterprise and Mother from Alien don't quite count as AI, however, because they merely react and respond to the instructions of their crew and lack a sense of self and instinct for self-preservation. A true artificial intelligence has self-awareness, it has memory, an awareness of the passing of time and the ability to extrapolate and project into the future. It can think, plan and weigh alternatives, it will take initiative rather than merely react, will interact spontaneously with other life-forms and will seek to protect itself from deactivation. It's worth noting that many robots share these qualities and thus count as artificial intelligences, but that not all do, as many robots have only limited cognitive abilities and no sense of self or instinct for self-preservation.


ANDROIDS

A sub-set of AI, androids are very human-like in form and appearance but nonetheless completely artificial, as distinct from cyborgs or human-shaped robots. David, Cal, Bishop and Ash from the Alien and Prometheus films are androids, as are Data (seen here about to get freaky with Lt Yar) from Star Trek, Maria from Metropolis and David from the Stanley Kubrick/Steven Spielberg film AI. C3PO from Star Wars is not an android, being merely a vaguely human-shaped robot. An android is almost (ALMOST!) indistinguishable from an organic life-form in both appearance and behaviour. Androids are generally superior to robots in engineering and cognitive function, and inspire a mixture of fear and fascination in a way that ordinary robots do not. Where we humans have no difficulty consigning robots to second-class citizenry, we find the same treatment of androids troubling. If they are so very like us in form, intelligence and behaviour, what right have we to exploit, own or define them? Some of the very best science fiction has revolved around the ethical dilemmas androids confront us with.


CYBORGS

A cyborg is a fusion of machine and organism. Doctor Who has given us two of the most famous, the Daleks (squishy fascist tentacle-critters inside small personal tanks, above right) and the Cybermen (humans who've progressively swapped their organic bits for machine parts and turned Communist, above left). The writers of Star Trek The Next Generation took the Cyberman idea even further in creating Trek's uber-villains the Borg, an aggressive, hive-minded super-species bent on assimilating all sentient life with bonus body-horror. Inspector Gadget is another good example of a cyborg - he's still got many of his fleshy bits, but has been augmented with various mechanical appliances. Likewise Robocop. Note that merely having an artificial limb, eye, tooth or similar does not qualify someone as a cyborg - Luke Skywalker is not a cyborg, with his artificial hand, but his father Darth Vader is, with his almost entirely artificial body. It's only when the organic and synthetic are so fully integrated that the whole ceases to function when either is damaged or removed that one can be considered a cyborg. This disqualifies the Terminators - terrifying machine skeletons wearing a flesh disguise - the machine parts don't actually need the organic parts in order to function or survive, and the T-1000 series has exactly ZERO organic components. On the other hand, a regular human with an artificial heart DOES count as a cyborg, because she would die without it.


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As a side-note: in Fantasy such as Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, golems have some interesting parallels with robots - they generally have limited intelligence and are not particularly life-like, however this varies from story to story, franchise to franchise.

Jurassic Park

I remember when Jurassic Park came out in theatres - I think I was twelve or maybe thirteen at the time. And my mind was blown - the special effects were astounding, the music was stirring. More importantly, the T-Rex and Velociraptors were terrifying, the scene when Dr Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) and Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill) see the Brachiosaurus for the first time was beautiful, the climactic showdown in the tourist centre was thrilling, and the final scene with the the pelicans was the perfect coda. It had a huge effect on me.

Shame all the dinosaurs are wrong.

I didn't realize at the time, but real Velociraptors were about a quarter of the size as depicted in the film, I now know that what we actually see in the film are Dromeosaurs, or Deinonychus. Velociraptor was a whole lot smaller. And feathery.

Not so terrifying now, huh?

But those original film 'Velociraptors' (or 'Raptors') were frightening - fast, intelligent and co-operative, they changed the way most people thought of dinosaurs forever. They were TOO successful, because now people love them so much they don't want to accept the real thing.

The Raptors acquired a sort of tiger colour scheme in the sequel, which I personally liked much better. I bought several of the striped toys and built my very own Raptor pack. The second movie only brought back Jeff Goldblum as Dr Ian Malcolm but was actually still pretty good, the intro with the little girl and the Procompsognathus ('Compies') was creepy, the reveal of the Stegosaurs was fantastic, the 'dino-roundup' was spectacular and the T-Rex rampaging through San Diego was one of the coolest things ever. It was nice to see the kids and Mr Hammond from the first film in the brief cameo at the start, too.

The third movie kind of sucked by comparison, but it brought back Sam Neill as Dr Alan Grant and gave him a pretty-boy sidekick (Alessandro Nivola), so, points for that. It also brought back Laura Dern as Dr Ellie Satler near the end, which was a nice (and unexpected) bonus. But T-Rex got bested by Spinosaurus, and nobody wanted that. And a lot of the other dinosaurs looked ridiculous - the Pteranodons are goofy looking (they had to hide them in the mist), the Brachiosaurs have a bizarre motley thing going on, etc. I did like the Raptors from this third installment, however - the female lead raptor especially.

I've since become a little obsessed with tracking down images of more scientifically accurate (read: avian, colourful, feathered) dinos. I've come across some really great artwork, and I'll be putting a number of these pictures on this blog in future. Here's just a few to start off:

That last one is a camouflaged Plesiosaur, rather like a carpet shark. I particularly like the shaggy Protoceratops streaking by like a bullet and the 'Yak-like' Alaskan Pachyrhinosaurs below it.

More later.