 Hello there! My name is Anna, and today I am doing a spoiler-free review of Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. If you follow me on Goodreads, you know that I finished this a few weeks ago. I have been traveling a reviewed Game of Thrones a couple weeks ago right after I finished it, but I rewatched and was trying to edit those clips, and I realized that I was just super tired. I sounded bored, I was bored. I was honestly just wanting to get the review over with, and that's really not how I like to do reviews. Oh my god, I'm so hot. If you have read the book or have watched the first season even, because they are very, very similar, I recommend you check out my non-spoiler-free discussion, which will be coming soon, so it's gonna be posted like probably a day or two after this. So let's dive right into it. If you haven't heard, Game of Thrones follows a series of characters who are living in a medieval, fancy world that has a lot of historical elements. There is a ton of political and social intrigue in these novels, which I think is fantastic. Something that I find really unique about Game of Thrones, despite the fact that it's complicated, is the really, really in-depth characterization of many of the characters in the book. Characterization is something that I've seen fantasy novels struggle with a lot. George R. R. Martin follows eight different perspectives, and to summarize exactly what the book is about would be hard without summarizing each different perspective, and so what I'm gonna do here is I'm going to talk about the perspectives that George R. R. Martin follows, and then the characters and what I liked, what I didn't, and do the review, and do the review that way. So first we're gonna talk about Daenerys Targaryen. Now Daenerys is probably one of the most famous characters on the show. I feel like people who say that they haven't watched Game of Thrones, they're gonna be like, I don't know Game of Thrones, I don't know what it's about, I just know that there's this dragon lady with white hair. That's Daenerys. Siri, can you Google how old was Danny in the Game of Thrones book? Searching Google for Harold was Danny in the Game of Thrones book. See, I have an issue. In the last review, another reason why I thought it was too low quality to post was that I kept calling literally every single character 14 years old. So Daenerys Targaryen in the book is at the young age of 13 years old, which is very different from in the show, where they definitely bumped up her age by a decent amount. Age is one of the few things in this book that is very, very frequently changed, like almost none of the characters, especially the characters that are young in this book, are the same age in the TV show. So Daenerys Targaryen's father was king, and he was known as the Mad King, and he was killed by Jaime Lannister, and now the Lannisters are basically in power and king's landing. So Danny and her brother Viserys were basically exiled, and they grew up in a distant area in the south. Danny has been abused by her brother Viserys for a very long time, and he threatens her, he says don't wake the dragon, which basically means don't get me angry. He has a huge tool, he's very entitled, and he feels like the throne is his birthright, and he wants to take it back by whatever means possible. Now one of these means is he needs an army. So what he does is he marries Daenerys off to a very powerful call in the Dothraki. Now a call is like a leader or king named Cal Drogo. Cal Drogo is an interesting man. He is very fierce, very terrifying, and honestly like very few emotions it seems like. The Dothraki are known for invading villages, raping, pillaging, killing. They are very, very violent, and Daenerys is thrust into this culture at the tender age of 13 and forced to marry one of the lead calls. Now of course this comes from some really freaky sexual situations. Lots of people argue that Danny in the book consented a lot better and a lot more, and the whole dynamic between Danny and Cal Drogo in the book is a lot better than it was in the TV show. However, you also have to note that Danny is 13 years old in the books, so it's still an incredibly uncomfortable, really dangerous situation for her to be in. Danny's entire story has to deal with how she fits in with the Dothraki, as well as how she deals with her brother and uncovers some secrets from her past. Daenerys' storyline is the one storyline that I can say without a doubt I really liked better in the TV show. A lot of this storyline here was just kind of really overdrawn, kind of awkward. The things that happened in the book were a lot less exciting than the things that happened in the TV show, and I don't think that's just because I saw the show first. Which is sad, because Danny is really great. She's been characterized pretty well, not the best I have to say, but pretty darn well, and I think out of all the characters you really get to see Danny grow into herself a lot in this storyline. Her brother is disgusting and terrible, and I hate him. You get to see her dealing with Jorah Mormont, who's a nice man with a big secret, and there are a lot of really interesting characters at play. Just not a lot of interesting plot developments happen super quickly, so it gets a little boring in comparison to the other perspectives. So let's move a little farther north and deal with Tyrion Lannister. Now, Tyrion's storyline starts when they visit the Starks. Tyrion Lannister is basically known as kind of a joke in his family, in the Lannister family, because he is a dwarf, but he is so incredibly wise and so smart, very book smart. He's very cunning, very flirtatious, and he has a lot of fun with women, but not in nearly as much of a way as he did in the show. Tyrion's ability to be super cunning and clever is ultimately what made me really love his perspective. But another reason I really loved his perspective is because Tyrion, especially in the first part of the show, I didn't really know how I felt about him. He seemed kind of sexist and a little gross, and just overall a very emotionally closed-off person. The thing about books that I love so much is that you can see what's going on on the inside more than you could ever see what's going on on the inside in a TV show. Tyrion is so vastly different in the books because you actually get to know what's going on inside of his head versus what's going on just in general, like how he's acting, which made such a big difference. It made all the difference for me. I really, really liked Tyrion in the books. There were parts of his storyline that I felt I really didn't like, but that's more that because it intersected with another storyline I didn't like. I don't want to say who's because it's kind of a spoiler. You do get a little bit of insight into Lannister culture, but I hate the Lannisters, so that wasn't like the biggest plus, but know your enemy, I guess. And surprisingly enough, out of the eight perspectives, those were the two perspectives coming from people who aren't Starks. Now, the Stark family is an incredible family with very poignant traits. The Starks have a lot of traits I really admire. They're incredibly loyal, incredibly dutiful. So at the beginning of the book, all of the Starks reside in a place called Winterfell. It's a really cool place very far north. Northerners have some really interesting traditions that are very different. I love the world building in this book so much. You get different gods, you get different religions, you get so many different cultures, and the Starks definitely bring another really interesting culture to the table. I will start with Ned Stark because I feel like his perspective really kicks things off for the Starks. Ned Stark is approached by King Robert Baratheon, one of his close friends, someone he fought with in battle with alongside a man named John Arryn, because this man, John Arryn, died. John Arryn was the hand of the king, which is basically like the guy who kind of does all the work for the king while the king just sits there. So Robert needed a hand in the literal and metaphorical sense. He goes to his friend Ned. Ned is a very interesting character. He really embodies what a Stark can be. He's tough and honorable. He honestly just wants the best for his family and friends and that's why he eventually decides to agree to go to King's Landing to be the hand of the king, even though that does mean separating from his family. Why? Because the death of John Arryn basically might not have been that big of an accident. So he's kind of going to scope things out as well as help out his friend. Ned ends up taking his two daughters, Arya and Sansa. Sansa, who was set to marry Prince Joffrey in a couple years when she's old enough. Ned's introduction to King's Landing instantly brings a ton of political intrigue to the table and I think Ned is definitely the most hefty politically as far as chapters go and I absolutely loved it. You discover so many different things about the people living in power and Ned himself is really fearless when it comes to finding out the truth. He's all about getting to the bottom of what happened and the bottom of what's going on politically in King's Landing. He did bring some really great cards to the table and I really appreciate his perspective. His daughters who joined him are, as of right now in the tv show, my two favorite characters. I absolutely love them. However, Sansa I do not love. For the first few seasons Sansa was terrible and same with the book. She is absolutely a nightmare right now. Of course she's raised in a very patriarchal society so she is so all about how our prince is gonna come for her and he's gonna be this knight in shining armor and he's gonna save her from any sort of harm. I think it's amazing how George R. R. Martin can go from a perspective like Dany's to a perspective like Sansa. The way he wrote Sansa was actually kind of unbelievably on point just because I didn't like- I don't like Sansa. That doesn't mean that I didn't really enjoy her perspective. You see her go from spoiled child to a kind of traumatized one because she ends up going through a lot of experiences. In fact if I have to pick I'd say Sansa's it might be one of the saddest perspectives of this novel. It's just really harrowing because you know how ignorant is. The reader knows how ignorant she is and just watch and watch and watch as her whole world is kind of destroyed. So huge kudos to Sansa's chapter. I absolutely loved her. Aria. Aria was my favorite character when the show started. My favorite character in the book and currently my favorite character. I love Aria more than anything. She is a very big fighter of the Stark and just in general medieval patriarchy. She was given a sword by Jon Snow, her half-brother, who basically told her to stick him with the poignant. So Aria ends up taking sword lessons from a guy named Serio Ferrell and ultimately she has really really hard experiences in King's Landing. She ends up hitting it there very very early on. She has definitely one of the most horrific chapters and I knew it was coming. It's at the very beginning. However Aria is still a young child and she finds herself in situations that are really scary and dangerous for a kid to be in, but ultimately end up really boosting the level of political intrigue that you see in the novel. Some people might think that having three perspectives of three family members in the same place would be such overkill, but it really isn't. In fact it adds to the novel so much because it isn't overkill because you can see so many different sides of this conflict and come out a lot more knowledgeable about what's going on. Just a quick note, you know this doesn't really fit in with any perspective but I do want to talk about the characters and the culture of King's Landing. We meet some really interesting characters. Most of them I can't stand. We get Varys, who is fine. He's literally just fine. Like I still don't really have an opinion on him. He's kind of cunning. He's a eunuch and then the rest I just can't stand. We have Littlefinger who is absolute trash. Littlefinger is a manipulative little shit. He really just doesn't have good qualities. Yeah sure he falls in love but we also are introduced to the absolutely disgusting Searsie and Jamie. Searsie and Jamie are just freaking gross. Oh man but like not knowing why they're gross is gonna make it that much more shocking when you realize why. Very power-hungry, very entitled. They think they deserve everything just because of their family name. Rart. I think most people feel that way about him just a kind of meh and I kind of agree. He's kind of gross, kind of weird. No one really likes him that much. The thing that you do end up liking about Robert though is that he isn't evil. You'll end up valuing that a lot. Then of course in King's Landing you get Prince Joffrey. Now it makes me sound like I hate a lot of characters but trust me these are all Lannisters. Lannisters are the worst. Prince Joffrey is a spoiled brat who basically is so power-hungry. He's like I'm the future king. I can do this, this, this. I can balance this around. I can kill this. I can kill her. I can kill him. He's a nightmare. It's very evident very early on that if he becomes king things are gonna be really bad for basically everyone. So hot in here. Now let's go back up north and talk about Catlin, Bran and Jon. Catlin Stark, I'm gonna start with her because she is kind of the mother or the lead figure in this story. I personally never liked Catlin. I would like her if it weren't for the way that she treated Jon, who is Ned's bastard son. I think she took the fact that Ned cheated on her out on this boy. Catlin makes really rash assumptions that are really frustrating and make her perspective really difficult to follow or like because she just does so many things and you're like, Catlin, no. I don't really like her perspective. I didn't pay much attention to her perspective to be honest. I just think it really dragged on in some places and because I don't like Catlin it made it that much harder. Catlin and Ned's son Bran on the other hand, I have always loved Bran. I feel like he's really undervalued as a character. Bran goes through a lot within the first like two chapters. The first thing to happen to anyone except for like the prologue where someone where something else happens is Bran. So like Bran is such a forefront and such an important piece in this story. Not just because of what happens to him that triggers like an entire series of events but because Bran is able to see and understand things that most people don't aren't able to understand. Trust me, Bran has some really interesting things to say and to see but you also get to watch a young boy. I'm not going to specify why but he is very limited one can do after what happens to him and learning to live with what has happened is really fascinating to watch. I liked Bran's perspective but I didn't love it. Not necessarily because there's anything super wrong with it but I just feel like not a lot happened. Like the first couple chapters were like oh my god and then it was kind of like wow. Moving on to Jon Snow. In the story is Jon decides to join the Night's Watch as Ned leaves for King's Landing because he doesn't really have anywhere to stay because he doesn't he can't stay with Catlin who hates him but the Night's Watch is a huge commitment. The Night's Watch is basically this this band of men who are protecting the inner kingdom from what's outside the kingdom and guarding this massive attack on Titan-esque wall. What's beyond the wall some people say White Walkers which are really really terrifying zombie like super zombie like creatures. So when Jon gets there he instantly makes friends with this boy named Sam who really struggles with being in the Night's Watch. He did not want to go but his father wanted him to do it because of all this like honor crap and he gets picked on a lot. And so does Jon because Jon is a bastard, he's young, he's small and things really aren't easy for him. But not only that when Jon gets there something happens to his uncle so he's really determined to find out what happened to him. I like Jon. I'm not one of those people who's like the biggest Jon fan ever but Jon is really great and that brings a lot to the table because there's not much else that was brought to the table in this perspective. I think it was a really good story other than the pace like there were some parts that really did not need to be included but ultimately I do get it as far as like setting up the rest of the story goes because the Night's Watch is going to be very critical in the rest of the story. Just now it just seemed like it was a little slow and probably a bit unnecessary. I hope that this review really encouraged you to go out and read Game of Thrones. So anyway that's all I really had to say. I hope you enjoyed this. I am so sorry it was so long. Please feel free to like and subscribe, follow me on snapchat and instagram. Those are my two most used social media. I don't really use twitter. Also follow me on goodreads if you want to. I will leave a link to all of my social media in the description. Remember to keep writing, reading and doing whatever else you're doing. I will see you in the next video. Bye!