I've neglected this blog again for far too long. I've finished the BBC Languages course on German, and there really wasn't much to it, but I intend on reviewing some of what I've learned in future blog posts.
German learnings aside, I'm also tutoring two high school students in Math and English now. Perhaps when I'm in the mood to rant about the sad state of English, I'll discuss them further, but for now, I want to sound off and, more generally, sort out my feelings regarding something I just read.
As I'm on a co-op workterm right now, I have a lot more free time than I would have during a regular study term. This free time has resulted in my inner bookworm being awakened, which is fantastic. I've missed reading a lot, and so this brings us to George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. Most folks probably know this series as the "Game of Thrones books", which, in all fairness with regards to the HBO TV adaptation, is not untrue. I won't delve too much into the story, but before I go on about the particular scene I want to discuss, I will give a teensy bit of back story (though goodness knows, if you aren't familiar with the story, it is not going to help you with the rest of my post and I am warning you to turn back now).
Also, spoilers. Massive amounts of spoilers. You have been warned...
On the continent of Westeros there was a dragon king. The dragon king was betrayed by his guard and most of his family was killed, leaving his two youngest children alive, but exiled across the sea. The throne is taken by Robert Baratheon, who takes Cersei Lannister as his queen. Their children are not in fact theirs, but rather are products incest Cersei committed with her twin brother Jaime. In the north, the Starks live at Winterfell. After Ned Stark becomes King Robert's right hand man, he is beheaded upon learning the truth about Cersei's children. King Robert also dies as the Lannisters plot to take the throne and Joffrey Baratheon, product #1 of twincest, takes the throne -- the little git! This sends the kingdom into turmoil as Ned Stark's son claims himself to be King of the North and Robert Baratheon's brothers claim the throne for theirs as well. This essentially brings us to book 3, A Storm of Swords, the book that I'm currently in the middle of.
I knew that Robb Stark would die -- there was a lot of foreshadowing experienced by several characters about it -- but somehow I didn't think that it would happen like this, and I really have to give kudos to George Martin (hereafter known as 'GrrM') for providing plenty of hints, and yet still managing to pull the rug out from under me. I mean, wow. I'm going to go a little bit more in-depth so unless you've read until the Red Wedding in A Storm of Swords, I cannot guarantee that any of the following will be understandable.
The foreshadowing. Yes. It was there. And somehow I disregarded it. That's the beauty of GrrM's writing, I think. You get caught up inside these characters -- and after living chapter after chapter in their skin it's hard not to -- and while you're seeing things through his or her point of view, you can't help but want the best for this character, because they are so real and human. Robb Stark was going to die, but I didn't think it would be at the hands of the Freys (craven folk that they are!) nor did I think it'd be at this uncle's wedding! I think the bit about him leaving his wife behind at Riverrun was just another thing that threw me off. There were clearly defined hints that something bad was going to happen at Riverrun from the Arya chapters, and when I read that Queen Jeyne would be left there, I thought that she would be killed, and with Robb and Catelyn at the Freys', that would result in some grief on Robb's part, but already that was bad enough. I wasn't expecting the whole lot of them to die. That was just cruel.
Another aspect of the Red Wedding which made the slaughter all the worse was that Catelyn was already grief-stricken, thinking that her other children were dead. We were so close to seeing her reunited with Arya, so so so very close that we could almost taste it. Quite literally, Arya was just outside and maybe five minutes away. But alas, there are to be no happy endings for Starks.
It was really just so very craven of the Freys to do that. Granted, I adore the Starks for their strong belief in honour, but Catelyn's words about being protected by some hospitality rule had convinced me of their safety there as well. And even when Lord Frey's behaviour was uncharacteristically kind, I convinced myself that it was nothing. Nope, nothing amiss here. Just impending slaughter.
The thing is that I'm not the only one so devastated by this scene. If you search for 'a storm of swords red wedding' online, you will find many posts by horrified fans who were caught just as much off guard as I was. Everyone loves the Starks. They are the first family that we are introduced to and, for the most part, they are the only folks who concern themselves with trying to be "good", just, and honourable. We spend so much time with the Starks as narrators that it is hard not to love them. And as we love them, we know that we are resigned to having our hearts broken, a fact first hinted at with the Stark words "Winter is coming", and on to Ned's beheading. We want them to win, and we want them to persevere.
As one of my friends said, "You must keep reading if there are still Starks who live!"
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