Welcome to Game of Thrones Lit 101, where we take our favorite Game of Thrones characters and insert them into classic literature.
Jon Snow Falling on Cedars
The land North of the Wall is so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to not mercilessly slaughter all of their enemies. Jon Snow, a young member of the Night’s Watch, arrives at the camp of Mance Rayder, intent on infiltrating and eventually killing the Wildling community. However, a torrid love affair with Ygritte, a Wildling woman who is “kissed by fire,” leads to suspicions against him, and endangers his mission. Torn between his duty, and his first sexual experience, it looks like duty is gonna lose out. However, approaching war changes everything, and it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man’s erection. For beyond The Wall, memory grows as thickly as White Walkers swarming on a baby, and may destroy Jon and Ygritte’s star-crossed love.
Podrick and Prejudice
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” So begins the tale of Podrick Payne’s search for a suitable bride. Tyrion Lannister’s squire, Pod had dazzled the working ladies of King’s Landing with his mysterious charms, but with false charges levied against his master, Pod flees into the service of Brienne of Tarth, who teaches him swordplay, and how to properly romance a woman. On their journeys, Pod gives his love to many a tavern wench or milkmaid, but never his heart. The perfect mate he imagines can never live up to the paragon of strong femininity he sees in Brienne. Alas, her heart belongs to another…
Lord of the Freys
When decrepit Lord Walder Frey finally shuffles off this mortal coil, it’s every Frey for themselves! With eight wives, twenty-two trueborn sons and seven trueborn daughters from his marriages, with an unknown number of bastard sons and daughters, and over a hundred descendants, succession becomes a very bloody affair. Red Wedding?? Big deal! We’re talking Red Birthday Parties, Red Cotillions, and even Red Tupperware Parties! All red, all the time. Because of all the Frey blood.
Sansita
Peter Littlefinger, a weak and sickly mid-level bureaucrat, becomes obsessed with the teenaged daughter of his childhood crush. In order to be close to her, the creepy pervert orchestrates multiple deaths and kingdom-spanning wars, resulting in orphaning the girl, who he nicknames “Sansita.” With the object of his affections finally within his grasp, and the newly won title of Lord of the Eyrie, Littlefinger takes her to his new mountaintop home, only to have the tables turned on him by the cunning ingenue. Revealing that she manipulated his pathetic desires in order to escape King’s Landing, she tosses his naive ass out the moon door while laughing evilly! Then marrying her simpleton cousin Robin Arryn (Westeros luurves incest), she marshals the forces of the North and the Vale, and takes back the Seven Kingdoms!
A Tale of Tywin’s Toilet
A tale of a man who lived a life searching for a comfortable place to shit. Battlefield latrines, commandeered peasant home privvies, *shudder* public toilets … none would suffice! But he never gave up. Day after day, he would sit his flabby, pale, old ass on a new commode, close his eyes, and pray to the old gods (and the new!) that this would be the one! Day after day, he pulled up his trousers disappointed, his hope a little more diminished. But he persevered! And one day, after scheming to win the Seven Kingdoms for his family, after vanquishing all of his foes, after finally dealing with his impudent children, he sits down in an out-of-the-way shitbox in the Tower of the Hand, and finds … perfection! The cool caress of the stone, the scent of smokeberries sweetening the air … he could spend the rest of his life sitting on this toilet. Oh, hello there, Tyrion…
Daenerys Quixote
After growing up hearing tales of a royal birthright denied to her, Daenerys Quixote determines to become a queen — by any means necessary! In the company of her faithful squire, Jorah Panza, her legend grows along with her name: Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons. Quite a mouthful. Her fanciful nature often leads her astray — she trusts vengeful maegi, as well as obviously evil warlocks — but Jorah Panza keeps her safe with cunning and unrequited love.
The Catelyn in the Rye
The Catelyn in the Rye narrates two days in the life of 16-year-old Catelyn, the sullen and cynical daughter of Lord Tully of River Run. Betrothed to a Stark brother and feeling a lack of control over her fate, Catelyn’s angsty attitude belies a longing for more innocent days playing along the Trident. Her wry observations about what she encounters — from her creepy sister to the desperately devoted Petyr Baelish — capture the essence of the eternal Westerosi teenage experience.
The Great Gendry
Self-made apprentice blacksmith Gendry fled from King’s Landing, ready to make a new life for himself. But tortured by his passion for a woman he could never truly have, the intoxicating Melissandre, he ultimately finds that she will bleed him dry. Literally, this Red Lady will bleed him dry.
The Call of the Wildling
Ghost, a massive and vicious Direwolf, was raised by Jon Snow behind the sheltered walls of Winterfell. When his master goes off to join the Night’s Watch on the Wall, he accompanies him, often fighting by his side and eating tasty Wildlings. When Jon is betrayed by his brother Crows, they are separated for almost a year, and Ghost embarks on an extraordinary journey to reunite with his master, proving his unbreakable spirit … and really sharp teeth!
The Picture of Theon Greyjoy
Noted cocksman and lothario Theon Greyjoy once bedded his way across the North, leaving pleased smiles and soreness in his wake. When Ramsay Bolton asks to make a painting of Theon’s apparatus (for future generations to marvel at), he immediately agrees. After viewing his own magnificence made art, Theon grows paranoid that one day he will not be able to get it up, and makes a deal with the devil, Tywin Lannister, to betray the Starks, in exchange for never-ending hardness (aka priapism). Delighted with his new battering ram, Theon continues to whore it up all over the place. When Ramsay inquires about his intensified debauchery, Theon shows him the painting, now depicting a limp and sad-looking member.
The Stark and the Hound
Sandor Clegane, known as the Hound, serves a brutal master who orders him to hunt down and kill every last foxy Stark still alive in Westeros. The Hound is very good at what he does, and he and the other junkyard dogs who serve the Lannisters hunt down and slaughter many Starks. But the Hound grows to hate his master, and runs off with the littlest Stark he can find, Arya. The Stark and the Hound wander the countryside, having many woodland adventures, until a more purebred knight grievously wounds the Hound. The Stark leaves her former adversary to die slowly and painfully, and returns to the forest. As an aside, the Hound’s former master chokes to death at his own wedding. Moral of the story: Never trust a Stark. And never drink anything at a wedding … or go to one. Just stay home.
