Game of Thrones – season 7

Game of Thrones – S07 Episode 1

Every time a new season of Game of Thrones starts I’ve been meaning to do a series of blog posts which follow along, talk about what we’ve just seen and speculate WILDLY on what might happen next. As Season 7 has just started, now’s the time!

WARNING: spoilers for episode 1 of season 7 (and possibly all of the previous seasons) follow!

Did I really need a spoiler warning? Perhaps.

Assuming you’re still reading, here follow some very random thoughts on the first episode.

As soon as Walder Frey appeared, I suspected Arya. Yay Arya. One less family to keep track of. I like her style.

Ed Bloody Sheeran. He’s everywhere. That whole scene just felt a bit pointless and jarring. Arya discovering that Soldiers Are People Too just felt a bit… off, I thought. “I’m off to kill the queen”, “lolz”.

I absolutely loved (and therefore fear for) Lyanna Mormont, kicking ass and taking no prisoners. Putting Lord Percy in his place.

Sam going to Hogwarts (assume everyone has made that joke) and sneaking into the restricted section despite what Slughorn said. Though why were only half the books chained up? That was totally a thing, but if you’re going to do it for some, they’d do it for all. Books (and therefore knowledge) were valuable. And how come he’s got his own little house? All the Maesters seemed to be in a dorm, with terrible plumbing, and even worse digestive systems.

I probably need to rewatch season 6. I’m not entirely sure why Jon was all suddenly OMG DRAGONGLASS IS TEH AWESOME. I don’t remember him ever using it, though he did have a swordfight with an undead dude, though I think that was at the end of season 5.

I also loved Euron. Cocky swine. “Yeah, I’ve killed my brother, and got two hands.” *suggestive eyebrow raise* “Right, I’m off to get you a present.”

Who will be the present? Tyrion?

Also, why was Dragonstone completely empty? Sam’s discovery of OH LOOK, DRAGONGLASS ON DRAGONSTONE (who’d have thought it?).

It’s all there. So she owns the world’s only dragonglass mine (really, is that a thing?) and the dragons. Loved the giant throne room. Have we seen that before?

And The Hound can see stuff in the flames. That was unexpected (I’ve not read the books, so it might be entirely expected).

Next to die: Davos – he can’t be long for this world. He’s too nice. There are still entirely too many characters moving into place, given how few episodes are left. I know we can’t expect them all to be killed off (though given past form, I wouldn’t be entirely suprised)

Random thought: I’d love to see the last two standing as Brienne and Tormund. They’d walk into the throne room in King’s Landing, see the Iron Throne, look at each other and go ‘nah’, then run off to have adventures. Possibly with Lyanna Mormont. PLEASE MAKE THIS A THING.

F is for…

Firefly.

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© 2011 Peter Verrant, used under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license

It all started, as all the best stories do, many years ago. Some of my Minnesotan chums were talking about this show they all loved called Firefly. We got to chatting, and I made vague comments about maybe checking it out, or adding it to my rental list or something.

This went on for a little while, until one day there was a weird reply to one of my blogposts where we were discussing it and whether I needed to see it before I went to see the movie Serenity for the umpteenth time. It went something like

Oh, just watch it, you’ve got the DVD

or words to that effect.
I was mystified – I’d just said that I might get it at some point, so clearly didn’t have a copy.

All became clear a day or two later when a parcel arrived from Amazon.com. My lovely Minnesota posse had finally tired of me putting off getting this thing and had clubbed together to buy me the box set.

Have I mentioned that I have *awesome* friends?

Fell in love immediately. The antics of Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his motley crew aboard the Firefly-class ship Serenity. Jayne Cobb and his love of guns. Kaylee. Oh lordy. They were all wonderful.

And Fox cancelled it.

Idiots.

Fourteen episodes was all we’d got.

Then the sales of the box sets soared, and that lovely Mister Whedon managed to persuade the studios that he really could make a film for not that much really, and so Serenity happened.

The thing I love most about the show is the love that surrounds it. The actors clearly loved making it. Joss loved making it. The fans loved everything about it, and the Browncoat community is still going strong, all these years later. They even made a film of their own, Done The Impossible.

The actors turn up in different roles, in different places. But there’ll always be a bit of Firefly to go with them. Case in point, Nathan Fillion’s wonderful Castle, a series about a famous author who helps the police department solve murders. In season two, episode six (sorry, Castle geek), we get this lovely little scene:

Which you just know was Nathan’s idea.

There are Firefly references scattered throughout Castle – my favourite of which is that in the above clip, you can see the catalyser from the Firefly episode ‘Out of Gas’.

Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Summer Glau, Adam Baldwin and Sean Maher all reunited at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2012 for a 10th anniversary panel. Ten thousand people turned up to get into the panel.

There’s a lot of love out there in the ‘verse for our Big Damn Heroes. If you haven’t seen it yet, then you must. You can thank me later.

Oh, and the photo up there? They’re the littlest Big Damn Heroes of them all and the kids of some of my friends who bought me the DVDs, all those years ago.

Browncoats, forever.

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