Another week, another episode of HBO’s original series, Game of Thrones, and another raucous, somewhat-focused Electric Hydra podcast. As we discuss in the second half of the episode, there’s a certain appeal to a structured life: watch; record; edit; post.
For better or worse, though, our Game of Thrones discussions must needs come to an end with the culmination of season 1. And with that realization comes a certain amount of retrospective angst: How are Brad and I, admitted noobs in the TV podcasting game, supposed to say something new and cogent about the series that a.) we haven’t been saying all season or b.) hasn’t been said by other, better critics?
Or, to put it another way, I’m disappointed that I’ll never get the chance to publicly announce how badass Septa Mordane is in episode 8, or how genuinely melancholy I get thinking about Hodor.
There is a related, though staunchly different, fear creeping into my soul as we move deeper into the Song of Ice and Fire cannon — the further into the story we get, the higher the critical stakes climb. Brad and I have, justly or not, tasked our selves with sussing out something important about these books. That something can be different things: exploring some turn of phrase or unexplored symbol, some structural detail, some thematic element.
Our job is to be, if not insightful, then at least illuminating; and that job is getting harder and harder, not easier. In the same way that the Game of Thrones finale interrupts my weekly plan, George R. R. Martin’s insistence of expanding, not contracting, his saga is making it more difficult to find the cosmic structure of the whole enterprise.
In other words, I keep looking for the strand to untie Martin’s Meereenese Knot, but real-life time constraints and the weekly addition of even more convoluted bullshit keeps getting in the way.
In any case, all this belly-aching is really just a way of saying, “Hey, we’re trying to do a cool podcast and we hope you like and if you don’t, please just be nice about it, thanks.”
In any case, the rest of Storm of Swords and the first eight chapters of A Feast for Crows (through Cersei II) are on the docket for episode 11. If you’re unsure which chapter in Feast is the eighth one, check here.
Book Club — A Song of Ice and Fire — 10
Image via Sir-Heartsalot’s deviantart page
