The Game of Thrones Book Tag was originally created by Claire Rousseau, and although I was not tagged, I’ve decided to do it. I actually picked my answers and filmed the accompanying video back in May, but since that was pre-Rowling boycott, I’ve had to change two of my answers and cut those sections from the video in order to avoid promoting Harry Potter properties, as I will not be featuring Rowling on my channel anymore.
For those who are curious, the cut answers were McGonnagall for question #6 and Snape for question #8. Below you’ll find an embedded YouTube video with my surviving 8 original answers, followed by all 10 questions answered in written form, complete with replacement answers.
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Arya – A characer that’s all about revenge.
The Fool (a.k.a. Beloved, Lady Amber, etc.) has been tortured within an inch of his life countless times by the people who raised him to be the prophet he is. There’s an “unexpected son,” a wild-born White Prophet out there in the world, and the Whites of Clerres know that Beloved or his catalyst, FitzChivalry Farseer, have something to do with it. Now he’s free, seeking to find Fitz before the Whites catch up with him. He wants to find the unexpected son first, and when he thinks she (yes, she) has been taken, all is lost. The Fool is fueled by revenge in this trilogy. He needs Fitz to follow him to Clerres and help him burn it to the ground at all costs.
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Varys – A book featuring political intrigue.
The Savior’s Sister by Jenna Moreci is the second book in The Savior’s Series and the companion novel to The Savior’s Champion. It’s an adult dark fantasy romance set in Thessen, a realm based on ancient Rome, where the country is ruled by a magical queen called The Savior who will always have only one heir, always a daughter, who becomes the next Savior. Upon the young Savior’s 20th birthday, the Sovereign (her father) holds The Sovereign’s Tournament, a month-long battle-to-the-death style competition in which 30 men compete to become the next Sovereign and win her hand in marriage.
Unfortunately the current Sovereign, Brontes, has no plans to surrender his power to his daughter Leila, who has recently come of age. He arranged the murder of his wife, the late Savior, during her pregnancy. To his dismay, his daughter was retrieved and survived. In the last 20 years he has been building fortifications around his position of power, and has amassed a senate who “democratically” makes all the decisions to be made in the realm, and Leila is always outvoted. Brontes will stop at nothing to keep his power, even if that means he must arrange the assassination of his own daughter…
Grab a copy of The Savior’s Champion on Amazon: US | CA | UK
Grab a copy of The Savior’s Sister on Amazon: US | CA | UK
Joffrey – A villain you love to hate.
Iago in Shakeseapre’s Othello is the best part of the play, and will forever be my favourite villain. I was in the “Honours” stream of English classes in high school, so while we did read some Shakespeare plays, we didn’t read the ones our peers were reading. We read this one while everyone else was reading The Tempest, and then we went to a live production. I’m honestly not sure if it’s the way Iago is written or if it’s the strengths and weaknesses of the actors cast in that particular production, but Iago stole the show.
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Jon Snow – A coming of age story.
Fitz is a young boy ripped from his mountain home when his unwed mother no longer wanted him around and sent to his father’s home in Buck. To Buckkeep, specifically, because his father is king in waiting Prince Chivalry Farseer. In his grace, Chivalry acknowledges the boy, gives him his name (FitzChivalry), and then abdicated his right to the throne and runs off to Withywoods to live in semi-exile. This leaves the young royal bastard in the care of the stable manster Burrich and the royal assassin, Chade. Assassin’s Apprentice is the story of Fiz growing into his tarnished birthright as an assassin, sworn to do his grandfather’s bidding in secret.
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Jaime & Cersei – A ship you just can’t get behind.
Katniss and Peeta in The Hunter Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. It starts off as a fabrication for the cameras to gain them (mostly Katniss) favour among the wealthy potential patrons watching the games. That I like.
What I don’t like is that both characters fall in love for real, but not at the same time, and by the time they’re both able to express mutual feelings they’re far too emotionally damaged to conduct a healthy relationship.
I don’t necessarily think Katniss deserves Gale either, but Gale loves her, and for that reason I think Gale deserved a chance at that potential romance between games when life was supposed to return to normal.
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Lady Olenna – A kickass older character.
(Original cut answer was McGonnagall)
I was a huge fan of the Jedi Apprentice middle grade series when I was a preteen, and because of these books Qui-Gon Jin is my absolute favourite Star Wars character even though he dies in Episode I in the films. This series follows Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan during their master-apprentice years, from their first misadventure together as Obi-Wan is about to age-out of the academy without being selected right up until the events of Episode I.
My favourite book in the series is The Defenders of the Dead.
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Dany – A book featuring dragons.
Eragon came out in 2002 when I was 14 and author Christopher Paolini was just 19. I remember being thoroughly impressed with how young this successful author was, but I’m not sure I read the book right away. I definitely tried to read the rest of the Inheritance Cycle series, but I definitely didn’t pick up the final book (I was 20 and busy with college in 2008).
Now that I’ve had a chance to ARC review Paolini’s new adult Sci-Fi novel To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (review coming on release day, September 15th!) I find myself wanting to revisit and finish Inheritance.
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Sansa – A character you grew to love.
(Original answer was Snape)
Bob from Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series. I can hear it now. You’re screaming at the screen because how could anyone not instantly adore Bob? I was introduced to Dresden through the one and only season of the TV series, where Bob was made into a fully formed ghost character who could appear, move about the apartment, and interact in limited ways with the world. When I first read Storm Front (and then started devouring the rest of the series) I was taken aback to find that Bob was entirely contained within his skull and couldn’t do all the things fully formed ghost Bob did in the show, and for that reason it took me a while to accept Jim Butcher’s version of the character. Blasphemy, I know. Rest assured, by the end of Storm Front all was forgiven and I now truly love the book version of Bob as well!
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Melisandre – A favourite magic system.
Mercedes Lackey’s The Elemental Masters series presents a classic but uniquely-spun take on elemental magic. Those born with any level of natural talent for elemental magic can interact with the creatures (elementals) of earth, fire, water or air, but only one. They have magic flavoured by their element, and can borrow from the elementals they befriend.
The thing I find particularly interesting about Lackey’s version of elemental magic is that if an elemental mage goes bad, his or her magic and elemental comrades shift to the opposite end of the spectrum. That’s not to say an evil fire mage becomes a water mage; they don’t change elements. They change to the far opposite of the essence of their element. Fire is heat, the opposite is cold. An evil fire mage works in ice.
My favourite book in the series is Reserved for the Cat. Grab a copy on Amazon! US | CA | UK
Tyrion – A character whose weapon is his mind.
Kvothe in The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss most definitely satisfies this prompt. True, he uses real weapons at times. He also uses magic and music. But most importantly, his mind is a weapon like no other. He has such a strong mind that he’s able to split it into parts and hold thoughts, beliefs, and plans secret from himself. There’s a scene I love where he’s playing a training game. He has split his mind in two and one part of his mind it supposed to hide a pebble in a shared imagined room that the other part of his mind must then find. In this particular scene he’s mad at himself because after hours of searching he realized he hadn’t hidden the pebble at all!
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