The Red Wedding

The Red Wedding. It did something to me. Emotionally, mentally, physically. No television show has ever evoked that sort of reaction from me. It was brutally brutal.

Rob.

My poor, sweet Rob.

What did they do to you?

He was the hero we needed, but didn’t deserve. I was there when Rob called his father’s banners. I was there when Rob won the Battle in the Whispering Wood and captured Jaime Lannister. I was there when Rob’s mother told him of his father’s execution. I was there when Rob met Talisa, fell in love, and got her with child. Well, Game of Thrones was about to decide to take my hopes and dreams, cut them off, and feed them to the goats.

Stab. Stab. Stab. Stab. So much stabbing. Whatever amount of stabbing you’re thinking of, it was more than that. To be fair, there was a lot of ways in which some of my favourite characters were being brutally butchered. Rob was being turned into the Westerosi version of a dartboard. That boy was getting lit up. And then they stabbed him saying some bullshit about the “Lannister’s send their regards.” Talisa is just lying there on the ground in her own blood clutching her stomach. She was like a gray-green colour—didn’t look healthy. To top it off they sliced Catelyn’s throat and they roll the silent credits. THE SILENT CREDITS. Are you kidding me? Well played, but damn you Game of Thrones gods, whoever you are.

From that day forth, I developed a severe addiction to the world of ice and fire. I needs me some ice and fire. I had just got to AStorm of Swords by the time The Red Wedding took place on the show. By the end of the summer, I had finished the remaining two books and started rereading them again. I’ve read them four times now, once on audiobook, and own numerous other titles from the world of ice and fire. Currently I’m reading Fire and Blood and it’s one of the best books yet. Want to hear something sexy? My grandmother gave me The Lands of Ice and Fire, a collection of maps from the series for Christmas last year. I’m 29.

The Red Wedding taught me a hard truth. That this is a world, much like ours, where things happen and people get hurt and there are consequences to actions, but sometimes there’s no consequences and people get away with stuff, but sometimes justice is served, but what is justice and does it even exist? My point is what makes A Song of Ice and Fire so good is that characters you fall in love with can be brutally killed in horrific, calculated, or untimely ways. There are real stakes in this world and death is a common occurrence in this series as we all well know. Everyone is on the same level playing field and it’s intense. Unless you’re on a dragon, in which case you’re above the field and the field is on fire.

This series has blurred my views on what’s right and wrong. Are there truly good and bad people, or do people do good and bad things? I think it’s the latter. At least that’s what Game of Thrones has taught me. I have mixed feelings on how it ended, as I think most people do, but can we all just take a second—breathe—remember the Red Wedding? God damn that was a lot of stabbing. A lot. The Mountain crushing Oberyn’s skull was good too. Everyone blowing up in the Sept of Baelor… so many great, gut-wrenching scenes we all experienced together.

But now my watch has ended, valar morghulis.