Bran Stark - The Broken Prince of Winterfell

Aww Bran. It breaks my heart just writing his name. The little Lord of Winterfell who loved to climb until he was thrown out a window by Mr. Kingslayer because Bran saw him having sex with his sister. As if THAT wasn't traumatic enough! And then he almost get killed again because of the same issue. The Lannister twins are worried he might remember the grossness of what he witnessed. And then it didn't even matter anyway because now EVERYONE knows about the incest (not that they can prove it). Here is a picture of Bran before his tragic crippling:

Bran is portrayed by Isaac Hempstead-Wright and he is absolutely perfect for the role. Check out his twitter page here. A "Simpson and Spongebob enthusiast"..how cute is he?! Before Bran's big fall, he gets his own direwolf along with the other Stark children. He calls his wolf Summer and boy is he loyal! He loves Bran so much and saves his life several times throughout the series. Check out this scene.

Catelyn is also pretty badass in this scene

  

Reasons to love Bran: What isn't there to love about Bran really? He actually has a pretty good attitude after getting crippled. He mopes around for awhile, but then he learns to ride a horse thanks to Tyrion. He loves it until he is almost killed by some wildlings. But he has another transportation system in Hodor the stableboy. He is strapped in a basket and carried around by Hodor (who is quite large). Hodor is a a simpleton and very loyal, but sometimes he forgets Bran is in the basket!

Hodor!!

Poor Bran suffers a lot of hardships in his young life. As if it wasn't bad enough being crippled, he is left behind as his father and sisters all go to King's Landing. Granted, things don't turn out so well for them there (dead, a prisoner and a fugitive) but STILL! Bran really wanted to go. Then his mom takes off to avenge his window tossing. Soon after, his oldest brother Robb heads off to war to avenge Ned's death. So Bran is left as the oldest Stark living at Winterfell and he has to do a bunch of boring Lord stuff. He is only like seven or eight years old! And then, as we know, stupid Theon decides to take over Winterfell. This leads to poor Bran and Rickon having to go on the run. Not only that, everyone thinks they are dead! And Bran has to do all this being carried around by Hodor! But he always seems tobe fairly cool about everything and I love it! Oh and he has a "warg" connection with his direwolf, Summer, which is pretty cool. He goes into some weird trance and is able to "become" Summer! This actually helps out him and his friends quite a bit.

 Woof!

Reasons to hate Bran: There is no reason to hate Bran, but sometimes I question his decisions. I don't really want to go into it right now (mainly because I still don't quite understand the whole thing), but Bran decides to go find the "three-eyed crow" because he dreams about it. That darn Jojen Reed talks him into it. I really like Jojen and his sister Meera. They help Bran and Hodor escape from Winterfell and prove to be great allies (Rickon goes another direction if they are caught, the two Stark boys won't be together). But Jojen is impressed with the Bran/Summer warg thing and figures out that Bran dreamt of the three-eyed crow. So they all decide to go seek out this crow and they don't really know where it is! I guess Bran thinks it will teach him to fly or something, which I guess is pretty cool. But wouldn't he rather go find his family to tell them he is alive? I know that really, really mean people are searching for him, but he could maybe make it happen. Poor Catelyn could really use some good news. And the three-eyed crow lives beyond The Wall where all the creepy dead things reside. They even run into Sam! But he is not allowed to tell Jon Snow that his little brother is alive. The whole thing is just weird (including the warg stuff) but I am sure there is a point to it. I am a slooooooow reader and I am thinking that Bran finds the three-eyed crow in A Dance With Dragons.

High School: I am having a hard time picturing Bran in high school. I think he would just be a normal kid who got average grades and has lots of friends. He would most likely be in the school rock climbing club. Well, he would be until he saw the coach having an illicit affair and then he would get pushed off a rock!

Sticks Counterpart: Remember Saucer's post about Jeff Skinner? We have our Bran! Two "babies" who have a lot of heart and strength!

Bran is dreaming he is a hockey player

It came true! Perhaps Jeff is really the three-eyed crow?

~Beddee



Aeron Greyjoy - The Damphair

Saucer and I have agreed to do a post on characters/players that are not our favorites. So this post is dedicated to my least favorite character. I am not ashamed to admit that I would prefer to read chapters written from Joffrey's point of view than this boring priest or whatever he is supposed to be:

Ok I will admit he looks sort of cool here

Maybe I am being a little too hard on him, but Aeron Greyjoy came along at exactly the wrong time for me. I'm not really the biggest fan of the Greyjoys in general. It took me awhile to warm up to Theon's chapters. But his story did eventually become interesting. Plus, he interacted with familiar characters. It's not like I am racist again the Ironborn, but I just don't care so much about their plight or storylines. They are savage men of the sea and I really don't have a lot of interest in them. That said, I think their involvement WILL be important and I like Theon and Asha and am warming up to Victarion.

But back to Aeron. He is Theon's uncle and the youngest brother of House Greyjoy. He apparently used to be a big drinker and could win pissing contests (seriously)! But after a near-death experience at see where he almost drowned (not to mention held prisoner by the Lannisters), he had a spiritual awakening. He now follows the "Drowned God", has long hippy-seaweed hair and drowns potential followers. Then he attempts to "revive" them with an old school CPR method. If he succeeds, they get to be his followers, called the "Drowned Men". Aeron himself is called "The Damphair". As I was searching for pictures to use for Damphair, I realized that he was on the show last season! Look at this:

 

Well I'll be damned! Was I falling asleep during this scene or something? Note to re-watch Season 2 now! I appears as though he is attempting to drown Theon in one of his stupid ceremonies. I don't remember this happening in the book, but who knows. They are long books and Theon's chapters (especially the early ones) sometimes bored the crap out of me. But I still don't think Theon was drowned. It doesn't mention it on the wiki page so whatever!

Reasons I hate Damphair: Now that I wrote his background, he actually is kind of interesting. But as I said before, he couldn't have come at a worse time. After the amazing A Sword of Storms, I was super excited for A Feast for Crows. Even though I had prepared myself in advance for NO Tyrion, NO Dany and NO Jon Snow, it was still tough. I didn't get to hang out with some of my favorites and spent too much time with others (Sam and Brienne). And to top it all off, we get saturated with two new Houses (Greyjoys and Martells). Of course I knew who they were, but I wasn't prepared to jump into their heads. They had been more or less in the background before. And the very first unfamiliar POV chapter was the Damphair and it was so boring. I am sorry to say it, but it really was super dull. I don't think I am alone. I have read on message boards that there are people who skipped the Damphair chapters, but I don't do that. I love these books and feel that everything is important, even if it's not my favorite. Plus, I am glad I kept reading because both the Ironborn and the Martell storylines came through (but not because of Damphair) and I like their chapters now. But that doesn't mean I still don't hate the damn Damphair. He is a hardass and humorless and seems like a real Debbie Downer. He hates his brother Euron and he organizes that whole Kingsmoot thing. I am too tired to go into that one! It will have to wait for another post. But Damphair disappears after the Kingsmoot and his fate is unknown. Bad for him, but good for me. We haven't had an Aeron Greyjoy chapter since!

Awesome artwork of the Kingsmoot

Reasons I love Damphair: Ugh I don't really like him at all. But I suppose he would be helpful to have around if you were about to drown and needed to come back to the light!

The Rest: I am going to skip my high school and Sticks section tonight. Mainly because I am super tired but also because Damphair just isn't worth it. He is like some crazy born again dude who drowns people. It is hinted there is more to him, but we don't see it. And I don't want some poor hockey player to be stuck with Damphair as his Game of Thrones alter ego. That is just mean and unfair. Unless you can think of a good one? Saucer? Anyone? I didn't think so!

~Beddee

The Dragons - Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion

Ugh, I totally know that I have been a slacker with blog writings lately. There are lots of reasons behind this, mainly just plain being busy. Between my yoga/spinning classes and my birthday, I just haven't found time to blog. And..I am in the process of writing a book! I am so excited. Who knows if it'll be any good, but I am hoping for a hit! But there really is no excuse for my lack of blogging. And I got VERY inspired tonight because Saucer sent me the coolest gift ever. It is a crocheted Daenerys doll and her three baby dragons!! I would put a picture of them on here, but my camera is broken! I will post at a later time. So anyways, since I have already done a post on the Mother of Dragons, I have decided to dedicate a post to her beautiful babies.

I think this is way cool artwork

Okay, so in ASOIAF dragons are the coolest. I'm sorry, but House Targaryen has the coolest mascot. I mean, direwolves and lions are pretty awesome but they can't top freaking dragons!! In the land of Westeros, dragons have been extinct for hundreds of years. And even then they were pretty rare. They belonged to House Targaryen who used them to conquer the Seven Kingdoms. They ruled Westeros for as long as anyone could remember. Even after real dragons became obsolete, the Targaryen's sat the Iron Throne until Robert Baratheon "stole" it. The only remains of dragons left were skulls and skeletons which were kind of like dinosaur bones. Oh, and there were also some dragon's eggs that were petrified into stones. Dany received three petrified dragon's eggs as a gift for her wedding to Khal Drogo.

Okay I am going to cut this short. Those dragon eggs don't stay eggs for long! I think Daenerys always knew they would hatch. Spoiler Alert: Our Khaleesi manages to hatch the eggs by putting that bitch Mirri Maz Duur on (sniff) Khal Drogo's funeral pyre after Mirri completely screws her over. Both her unborn child and Drogo are gone and Dany has nothing to lose. She sets the whole thing on fire (with Mirri Maz Duur alive) and steps into the flames herself. Because she exchanged life for life, the dragons were born! This scene is one the best in the whole series (my opinion).

Reasons to love Dragons: These little baby dragons are adorable. We have the following:

Drogon: The black one who is the largest and named after Dany's beloved Khal Drogo. Of course, he is also the most aggressive.

Rhaegal: The green one who is named after her brother Rhaegar Targaryen (who also was gone too soon).

Viserion: The cream colored one who is named after her other brother Viserys Targaryen. Even though Viserys sucked, Dany felt that he still deserved to have a dragon named after him.

As babies, all of the dragons are pretty easy to take care of and Daenerys can travel around with them without them being too dragon-like. Even though the dragons represent the Targaryens' and Dany's rise back to power, she still has a lot to do before heading back to Westeros. The dragons faithfully travel with their mother past the Red Waste, to Qarth and to Slaver's Bay. With the help of her dragons (especially Drogon) she manages to free a bunch of slaves and they think she is just great. Many of them decide to stay with her and be part of her army. Daenerys and her dragons are now in the city of Meereen where she is practicing being a Queen for her inevitable return to get her throne back. The dragons are an integral part of this. Without them, she would probably have a much more difficult time getting people to follow her.

Traveling through the Red Waste with dragons

Reasons to hate Dragons: As much as she needs the dragons, they also cause a lot of grief because people want to steal them all the time. Or they want to marry Dany because they want access to dragons and power through her. Because a girl can't rule alone! The dragons are also kind of hard to handle as they get older and larger. I am not too far into A Dance with Dragons but there is a rumor going around that Drogon ate a small child. I personally don't believe it, but I guess it could be true. They are dragons after all! So Dany has to chain up the other two while Drogon flies off in a teenage hissy fit. That's about all I know at this point (I am trying really hard not to spoil myself but oh well). I hope everything turns out okay with these guys because I just love dragons!

Dragon Prophecy: So there is a prophecy that states that the dragon has three heads and this will conquer Westeros. One head is obviously Dany, but who are the other two who will help her? And will they ride the dragons into Westeros to take the Iron Throne? This is very fun to ponder and I am hoping the other two are Jon Snow (who may have Targaryen blood?) and Tyrion! That's my theory and I am sticking to it.

High School and Sticks: I am totally going to skip the high school section tonight. These guys are dragons and there really are no counterparts to them. They are mythical deadly creatures and I don't think they would go to school anyway. I guess they could be weird Beavis and Butthead pyromaniacs who light things on fire in the Chemistry Lab. But other than that, no Dragon High (unless they were mascots).

Which brings me to Sticks! Like I said in a previous post, I think the Detroit Red Wings would be the closest thing to a dragon mascot. Drogon even has red spinal plates!

~Beddee