The Freed Mind

"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. . . ."

It is not only when I sleep that my mind unravels the knitted sleeve of care or solves the problems that plague me during my waking hours, but when my mind is set free from the constant struggle of understanding the why and wherefore of everyday life. When I do mechanical or repetitious tasks and my fingers/hands are busy, my mind is set free to knit up the raveled sleeve of care or just simply go and solve puzzles and problems, answer questions that have baffled the world -- and me -- for centuries.

Or years.

Or decades.

Or just because. Things that make you go, Hmmmm.

It is at these freed mind times that answers come unbidden, like that 3 a.m. moment in the midst of deep sleep when you sit up in bed and cry out, "Excelsior!" or "Tom Hanks" or whatever the mind has been cranking away on when the answer was on the tip of the tongue and couldn't be grasped. Sherlock Holmes is still a virgin! Jon Snow is released from his vows. The skid mark is a result of men's favorite past time - farts! All the answers are clear at last.

I like to watch series that I've watched before and enjoyed. The second or third time through I pick up little details that have been lost in the overwhelming amount of input that happens on the first watching. Like Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch.

In series 3 when he has at last taken a girlfriend in order to get close to the world class international blackmailer it wasn't until Sherlock was in the hospital after being shot by Mary Watson that Janine mentions that they should have had it off at least once, which is Brit speak for, "We should have had sex at least once." Sherlock, or Sherl, is still a virgin and he has been a gentleman, although I'd rather say that Sherlock has avoided the messy romance stuff that goes on between the sheets. After all, he has been off cultivating a drug habit to convince the blackmailer that his pressure point is drugs when all the time it is and has always been John Hamish Watson, his best and onliest friend. I missed that still a virgin bit the first time through, but caught it on the second. The words and the Eureka! moment floated up to the forefront of my mind while cross stitching, or maybe it was when I was mindlessly playing solitaire online. Either way, the brakes were not engaged and my mind churched up that little titbit.

Then there were the skid marks, those unsightly fecal stains on men's underwear, the brown stain that freaked out Miranda on Sex and the City and have baffled women forever. It's a simple formula. Men fart. Men create games around farts. Men are unbridled and unleashed when they fart. It is during the fart that the skid mark begins. The sphincter loosens, the gas is released, and any fecal material locked within the sphincter's folds is also released to stain the pristine white of the Fruit of the Looms. Skid mark!

The only other possible reasons for skid marks have origins in less than fastidious wiping after BMs and rumps that have been ranged too vigorously and too often. Take your pick.

And that, fellow readers, brings us to Jon Snow's death at the end of the last season of Game of Thrones when his brothers in the Night's Watch unceremoniously, and I would say viciously, cut him down in the prime of his life.

When a ranger dies, his brothers eulogize him with "And now his watch is ended." I seriously doubt that Jon Snow will ever be eulogized since he had so blatantly and openly rescued the free folk from the King of Winter and let them through the gate to settle in the Gift on Night's Watch lands. That was a very unpopular move and his brothers expressed their opinions by stabbing Jon Snow almost as many times as the senators stabbed the tyrant Julius Caesar in the last days of Rome's greatness. Romans could not abide a tyrant, although dictator was an accepted position. Jon Snow was the Watch Commander and deserved to be Commander. He had been tapped by Mormont as Commander to be when he was alive, before the black brothers killed him. Mutiny they would have called it on the high seas, but it was unthinkable on land or sea, and even in the air if the Westerosi had the power of flight. Allowing the Wildlings through the gate when the Watch has been keeping them out for centuries was more than the black brothers could take, hence turning on the one man who can protect them from the White Walkers.

Jon's watch has ended. He is dead. Melisandre, the Red Witch, will bring him back to life because that is in her Lord's power.  R'hllor the Red God will grant Jon Snow a return to life to finish his job, but it won't be the job of the Commander of the Night's Watch -- or maybe it will - but Jon Snow is no longer bound by his oath. His watch is ended. He died. He was murdered by his black brothers and is now free to take a wife, bear children (maybe?), and sow his wild oats.

He is also free to return next season with short hair and wow audiences while he joins with Danaerys Targaryen and the dragons to fulfill his destiny of defeating the King of Winter. This may or may not be what George R. R. Martin has in mind for the final chapter, but this does make sense, even though Martin tends to kill off his stars in the bloodiest manner.

Jon Snow may or may not be Azor Ahai, the prince of prophecy, come to defeat the White Walkers forever, but at least he will be in a position to fulfill his part of the legacy he was given since he is the son of Leanna Stark and Rheagar Targaryen. He is the union of Ice and Fire. Azor Ahai may be Danaerys, but she will need to unite with the Prince of Ice, Jon Snow, in order to beat back the Winds of Winter.

There are two times when my mind is most fertile and active. One is when performing tasks that leave my mind free of constraints to shuffle the data and latch onto answers such as those above. The other is that time between true sleep and waking when I doze and slip easily into REM sleep and my dreams are at their most vivid. I don't get much in the way of refreshing rest, but at least I finally have a path to the answers.

That is all. Disperse.

A Game of Fire and Ice

Fire and ice. That is what George R. R. Martin has been trying to reconcile for a few years now. I agree with spikesleman that Martin has been procrastinating not because he's  been gallivanting around the world, going to cons, and spending time filling his theater in Santa Fe with famous guests and great movies, not to mention bits of commentary on all things football and censorship, but because he doesn't know how to get to the end. He's stuck on a path between so many possibilities, many of which he created himself, and can't figure out how to tie it all together in a final book that solves all the problems, ties up all the loose ends, and ends the war he began. 

 

Maybe he intends to live another 150 years or more and wants to spin this out into a hundred years war like the one in Europe that claimed so many lives. He would have the benefit of a whole new generation or three of readers beginning the journey at Game of Thrones and follows it through to the end -- whatever that will be. Many, many fans would die in the interim years, not gifted with long life and endless patience, but there it is. What else is one to do with more than 200 years of life but live it to the fullest, if not only in books. This is why I am more and more reluctant to begin a series. The writer may never end it or I will get bored with the increasingly hackneyed writing and quit before I get to the end. That has happened with some really great series in film and books.

That is not why I'm here today. Martin does figure in this post, but only because he wrote the story (has almost written the story) and because I have been ruminating on spikesleman's contention that Lyanna Stark's reputation was sullied in A Dance With Dragons.

I spent a great deal of time today searching ADWD to find out what she meant about Lyanna's reputation being maligned, and also to ruminate a bit on what others have speculated regarding Jon Snow's birth. On that point, I have never had a single doubt that Jon's parents were Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. Not a single doubt from book 1 on. Ned tells Jon that he is a Stark, and not Ned's bastard by way of a romance on the wrong side of the blanket during the war against the Targaryens, and there are the many comments and memories from Ned that he promised Lyanna to lie beside her brother and father in the family crypt. There is a hint in that promise that Ned not only bury her body in the crypt, but also her secret, that Jon is Rhaegar Targaryen's son. Robert Baratheon would not have let Jon Snow live, so Ned protected Jon by letting people thing he had blacked his honor and betrayed his marriage to Cat.

I've no doubt that Lyanna loved Robert Baratheon, but she was a wise woman. She knew Robert would never be true only to her, no matter his love for he. Robert was a lusty man who couldn't pass up a comely wench or a well turned ankle, full breasts, lovely arse, and feminine parts. His love for Lyanna has made him forget that any other woman existed, but Lyanna was no fool, except where Rhaegar was concerned. She may have loved Robert like a brother, and even as a woman loves a man, but she fell hard for Rheagar when he laid the winter roses in her lap at the tourney, making her the queen of love and beauty. He was already married to a Dornish princess, Elia, which Ser Barristan thought was not a patch on Ashara Dayne, her handmaiden.

Rhaegar's marriage was a political one and he did his duty as all royalty must and do. When he saw the wild northern girl, Lyanna Stark, his heart was lost -- and so was hers. Robert may have believed Rheagar kidnapped Lyanna, but the truth is that she went willingly with him, forsaking family honor to be with the man she loved. Her decision set the war horns sounding and ended with the death of the Targaryens and their rule over Westeros, thus opening the door between Westeros and the far north, setting the White Walkers free from their imprisonment by the Targaryeans and their fire dragons. That set the stage for what Rheagar had been desperate to achieve, the coming of Azor Ahai.

The Red Woman, Melisandre,  believes that Azor Ahai is Stannis Baratheon, but it is more likely that Daenerys Targaryen is Azor Ahai, the Lightbringer, reborn. Dany brought dragons back into the world and with it came magic. Dany is also impervious to fire where her brother, Viserys, was not, as evidenced by his death by molten gold, the crown that he bargined for when he sold Dany to Khal Drogo to enlist his hordes to cross the bitter water and take back the throne of Westeros. Dany is the only Targaryen able to withstand the fire and command dragons again.

There has been speculation that Jon Snow is Azor Ahai. He does after all have Targaryen blood, but if he was impervious to fire he would nto have burned his hand when he saved Commander Mormont from the wight when he set it on fire. No, Jon is the blue winter rose Dany saw growing out of the wall of ice in her vision. He is her kin, her equal and opposite. He is the embodiment of his Stark blood through Lyanna and thus the mating of fire and ice in the flesh. He is the bridge between the worlds of the White Walkers and the Dragons, but how he will be that bridge is yet to be revealed. He is important and there is no doubt about that.

While Stannis has some Targaryen blood, he is not Azor Ahai, but at least he came to the aid of the Watchers on the Wall, the brothers of Castle Black and the defenders of the wall. He is not the king nor will he be the king in the end, though I do believe the leeches he fed to the fires took out his main opponents: Joffrey Baratheon (Cersei and Jaime's bastard), Rob Stark, and Balon Greyjoy. He'd already killed his brother, Renly, so he wasn't a problem. Stannis is just one more left over king, but not THE king of Westeros however Melisandre may deceive him, and has obviously misread the prophecies and deceived herself.

There it is in a nutshell. Daenerys is Azor Ahai (no one said the Lightbringer had to be a man) and Jon Snow is the winter king that his half-brother Rob was not. Being a man of the Night's Watch will not affect that since I do believe there will be  no more need for them after the final battle and the marraige of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen when the fire and ice dragons come together. There is also the possibility that Dany will give up the throne and go be with her unborn son and Khal Drogo, but inevitably it will be Lyanna and Rhaegar's son, Jon, who will end up ruling, and maybe not from the iron throne. One never knows with these things.

So, to recap, Lyanna was not really kidnapped and Robert started a war over being cuckolded before he was wed, but, as with most situations, his actions set the necessary gears in motion to bring about the end of the war between fire and ice and the dawn of a new age when the north and south (winter and summer) at last come together and end the war that has raged for 1000 years. As with all else in life, everything ends and from those endings new beginning spring.

By the by, Lyanna was not a wanton woman, but she was a woman in love. Love is not always wise, but it is always, as the Chinese say, the motive force that brings interesting times.

Btw, spikesleman, this information comes not from ADWD but from the boards. There was no mention in any of the books, or even a hint, that Lyanna was not as dutiful as was believed by Roberth Baratheon. I will, however, concede the point that she knew Robert could not be faithful to her or to any woman. She loved Robert like a brother and she would not have married him family or no, Rhaegar just happened to complicate matters. No, Lyanna was not kidnapped nor was she raped, but you know how rumors get started and how one's point of view changes what one sees when one sees and does not merely look.

That is all. Disperse.

Objects May be Closer Than They Appear

Game of Thrones: The King's Road was on last night and I was not disappointed at all; I was intrigued. Daenerys Targaryen turned out to be a bit of a surprise. From frightened almost rape victim to woman in charge was a quick turnover and I see echoes of dreams of dragons in her eyes. Bran who fell to his death last week is not dead and his mother, Catelyn, has lost her wits a bit. She feels betrayed and abandoned by her husband, Ned Stark, and hates her husband's bastard, Jon Snow. I think he's intense but definitely an interesting character. Sansa, their oldest daughter, is a preening brat who is destined to marry the king's son, the crown prince Joffrey, who is the nastiest piece of work next to his mother Censei and her twin brother Jaime. I rather like Lord Tyrion; he's interesting and a bit of an imp, but still much more likable that his siblings, both of whom remind me of something wicked and nasty slithering on the ground. I'd say snakes, but I wouldn't demean the species by comparing the two.

The show and the books are new to me, but I do frequent a few blogs that discussed the show and what they thought would happen, like Bran's third eye opening as a result of the fall. In fantasy, as in the common reality, the opening of the third eye means becoming psychic. Being able to see a three-eyed crow that presages the awakening instead of the death of Sansa's dire wolf Lady would have been more interesting, but where are you going to find a three-eyed crow?

The whole series is fascinating and there are hints of so much more that will likely not make it to the screen. I don't mind discovering books from movies or television -- I've discovered quite a bit of good literature and some favorite authors that way -- and I look forward to reading all the books in the series. I don't have the time now since I have a stack of books to review, but I may have to take a short leave of absence to catch up on my personal reading. After all, eight years without a break is a long time. The chance of becoming stale or burnt out is great and, since I've had no vacation in eight years of reviewing, I think I'm entitled to one now, especially when there are books like George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire awaiting my attention. The series is good, but I want to read the undercurrents and dangerous rip tides that Martin wove into the fabric of his tale.

Some books, and some authors, stay with me and I remember the details as if I had just read them long after the echoes have faded. One such was an anthology I was reviewing. The stories were a mix of good, mediocre and not baked long enough and through the stories was the continuing story of a baby whose eyes had been pecked out by crows. Snippets of the child's life as she grew and the appearance of crows, usually a few lines, were enough to raise the hairs and goose the flesh, and I still remember those interwoven bits of a dark tale even though the details of the main stories are forgotten. I only have so much memory space as it is. Even now I can easily conjure those blackened pits where eyes once were as I delve into the brain of an evil woman determined to bring her dead master's plans to life in my own book. It's not so much about possession or devil worship, although there are several darker elements in the Victorian gothic tale I am weaving, but a genetic gift met with the sharp scientific scalpel that ends with the creation of one of the most evil periods in Whitechapel history. The foundation is being laid and from that solid mass will come the nuances of a future battle for the soul of a man and hints of a terrifying future. That should be enough to whet the appetite -- at least for now. The rest remains for me to write and you eventually to read.

Discovering something new by whatever means is always fun. I finally managed to see The King's Speech and I disagree with those few critics who called the movie boring. It is painful, but only in watching the Duke of York struggle to be heard and understood. He had a horrid stammer and no wonder since he was abused as a child and forced into a mold not of his making, like being made to be right-handed when he was left-handed. Yelling at a child and demanding he conform is no way to inspire obedience or acquiescence. Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush, one of my favorite actors, was quite ingenious, despite the lack of formal education and titles, and he reminded me of Sister Kenny and her treatment for polio, a treatment that was effective in almost all cases she treated. Too bad the doctors didn't figure that out and follow her methods. The same was true of Logue's methods for helping Bertie overcome his stammer; they were unconventional and treated the problem with wonderful success, instead of filling poor Bertie's mouth with so many marbles he couldn't speak. It might have worked for Demosthenes, but I doubt he had so many marbles in his mouth or that they were so large. Nothing like indiscriminate treatment following an old method without any real understanding of how to apply it.

Colin Firth was brilliant and deserved the Oscar for his performance and I was quite surprised by Helena Bonham Carter's portrayal of the Duchess of York, Elizabeth. I remember reading that she seldom spoke in public even though she was a very intelligent woman. She said that it was best to remain silent and supportive than to be heard. Carter's performance was easily heard with quiet dignity and unflinching support. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire movie, even though I was surprised to discover that King Edward VIII was so feckless and irresponsible. Wallis must have been one heck of a woman or have been able to contort so effectively during sex that the king was utterly and irretrievably besotted; there is no other explanation for how he handled things. He was the wrong monarch at the wrong time, and I doubt there was a good time for a monarch such as he, although history is riddled with examples.

One thing I have learned is that I cannot rely on all critics to enjoy the same movies I do. I read reviews, and write quite a few of them, but I trust my own judgment, which is surprising considering my own vocation. Bad reviews intrigue me until I must see the movie and discover what all the fuss is about. I've been disappointed on a few occasions to find the critic was right, but I do sometimes agree with others. Reviews are guidelines, as I see them, and should not be the last word on anything, including mine. I have some experience and background in literature, but I am not the last word either. I am one person judging books and movies by my own taste and predilections, a sort of arbitrary rear view mirror: some objects may be closer than they appear.

Game of Thrones is my pick for fantasy of the year and The King's Speech is a quiet and marvelous character study I will eventually acquire for my own library, but I'm a critic, so judge for yourself. Use my views as a guideline not the last word.

Dueling Criticism

Ginia Bellafante talked back to fanboys and fangirls who sent her numerous emails and tweeted, blogged and in general caused a furor over her review of Game of Thrones, and she wasn't half rude.

Ms. Bellafante admits she doesn't know a single person who enjoys or writes fantasy and opines that there are few of those fantasy lovers "...who worship at the altar of quietly hewn domestic novels or celebrates the films of Nicole Holofcener or is engrossed by reruns of “House.”" Once again she is wrong. I write, review and enjoy "quietly hewn domestic novels" and I have seen Nicole Holofcener's films. As for House, I am a faithful watcher who enjoys the reruns and I understand House's axiom that everyone lies, including Ms. Bellafante.

I agree that Ms. Bellafante was the wrong audience since she obviously had her mind set before she watched HBO's Game of Thrones. She openly admitted in her review that she does not like the current trend in HBO programming since it has moved away from socially relevant themes and toward what she considers common fare in the mold of The Sopranos. "Like “The Tudors” and “The Borgias” on Showtime and the “Spartacus” series on Starz, “Game of Thrones,” is a costume-drama sexual hopscotch, even if it is more sophisticated than its predecessors. It says something about current American attitudes toward sex that with the exception of the lurid and awful “Californication,” nearly all eroticism on television is past tense." With that kind of attitude, how could she write anything but a pan of the series and the whole genre, relegating women who watch such shows as "fanboys?"

Since Ms. Bellafante seems to invite commentary on her preferences in literature and entertainment, I would like to offer mine on Nicole Holofcener's Just Give.

There was sufficient "sexual hopscotch" in Holofcener's quiet domestic drama, Just Give to render it in the same vein as The Tudors and The Borgias. Since most of the sexual hopscotch was portrayed by Oliver Platt casting his considerable "talent" on Amanda Peet's obviously uninterested and petite body, it was painful to watch and somewhat boring, and so was Ms. Peet since she leafed through a magazine while Platt was plowing her furrow, and this from a man who was supposedly committed to his family and family values. Catherine Keener's misplaced and often rude attempts at charity were even more painful that Platt's plowing. She even breaks down while checking out a local center for mentally and physically challenged young people, crying in the bathroom while one young woman with Down syndrome stands outside and asks if she is all right.

Keener and Platt are owners of a high end antique store and they supply their stock by checking out the obituaries and offering to buy whatever antiques they find worthy from grieving family members. They have bought the apartment next door to theirs in a co-op building but have generously allowed the tenant, an elderly woman about to die at any moment, to live there until she finally does die and they can scoop up her antiques and break through the wall between apartments to enlarge their own space. Peet is one of the old lady's granddaughters and she's in it for the money, having already established herself and self-involved and downright mean where her grandmother is concerned. Peet is stalking the woman who replaced her in her previous relationship and talks incessantly about her fake boobs while she wonders just exactly what she has that Peet lacks. How about compassion and a likable personality for starters?

Keener feels guilty about her wealth and privilege and tries to give it away to people on the street. In one instance, she offers money to a black man waiting outside a fashionable restaurant who turns out to be a patron waiting for a table just like she and her family. Constantly apologizing for her wealth while she scopes out the obituaries and whining about giving something back while she refuses to buy her daughter an expensive pair of jeans is disingenuous at best and patently absurd. Is Holofcener pointing up the hypocrisy of the nouveau riche or is she celebrating the sangfroid of the rich and privileged? All I do know is that the movie did nothing to improve my opinion of such poseurs or their false charity and guilt while scooping up some unfortunate family's treasures at a bargain, nor did Platt endear himself by pretending to be the misunderstood husband while sneaking out to cheat on his wife. All in all, if this is the kind of entertainment that Bellafante finds socially relevant, I feel better about disagreeing with her assessment of Game of Thrones.

I would also mention that I had seen Just Give a few months ago and was unimpressed, hence my assessment of it here.

Criticism is an art form and should have some substance. I find Ms. Bellafante's review and her subsequent defense of that review to be rude. As for what I think of the first episode of the series after having seen it twice, I'd have to say my views are somewhat changed. I enjoyed it thoroughly and have watched it twice now. I've also bought the whole series of books and plan to enjoy those even more. Seeing Game of Thrones a second time gave me a chance to pick up nuances I had missed the first time around and I will likely watching it again.

Fantasy: It is for Intelligent Women, Too.

Thousands of fans, male and female, have been bombarding, tweeting, and blogging about how wrong Ginia Bellafante is when she characterizes “Game of Thrones” [a]s boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half," obviously meaning that women would not watch the epic fantasy unless there was sex involved. Not only does Bellafante throw a slap in the face of intelligent women everywhere who actually read and enjoy fantasy, but also hits back at HBO for "... ventur[ing away from its instincts for real-world sociology, as it has with the vampire saga “True Blood..." for pandering to such a low common denominator and forgetting that HBO, like all television, is also about entertainment and not just social commentary.

Viewing from her lofty perch, it seems Ms. Bellafante was the wrong person to review and comment on George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones since she has no understanding of or love for anything that veers away from the real world, a world she must inhabit alone without the touch of women who actually get fantasy and enjoy it, with or without the sex. What a bleak and colorless world she must live in.

What amazes me is how Ms. Bellafante could have missed the women who also write fantasy fiction, intelligent women who have put their mark on fantasy and on the science fiction genre for many decades, women like Anne McCaffrey, C. J. Cherryh, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Julian May, Andre Norton, and more contemporary authors like Elizabeth Hand, Elizabeth Moon and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. I guess they don't count either, and I could go on naming names and pointing out the rich and fertile female minds that create believable fantasy worlds and situations and even forgo hot sex and bed hopping. Ms. Bellafante needs to go back to the books and take a good hard look at what is and is not fantasy instead of pointing at the current trends in adding lots of sex and naked bodies in order to lure people into a world that has already been well received and championed by women. She mistakes the idea that sex makes everything better, including fantasy, when fantasy has done very well without such devices. The Borgias, The Tudors, Rome and other cable network fare would have been just as compelling and interesting without the sex as with it. Don't mistake a corporate decision to sex things up for the well written and complex fantasy of Georrge R. R. Martin or any other fantasy author.

While George R. R. Martin is wise enough not to respond to reviewers, at least his female fans, and they are legion, are willing to take up the banner and speak out for intelligent women everywhere that they are readers and writers of fantasy and they're not ashamed to say so.