
The NOC’s Watch: The Last of the Starks
Without spoilers, what I’ll say is: Despite its many problems, I had hope that Game of Thrones would finish strong. That hope pretty much dissipated after I saw the last episode.
Spoilers below.
Without spoilers, what I’ll say is: Despite its many problems, I had hope that Game of Thrones would finish strong. That hope pretty much dissipated after I saw the last episode.
Spoilers below.
Welcome back, it’s your humble steward Anna, ever serving in the NOC’s Watch and ready to live tweet episode 2 of Game of Thrones! I’ve read A Song of Ice and Fire twice and have a dog named Daenerys The Frenchie so I swear by the old Gods and new that I am INVESTED in this show.
Continue reading “The NOC’s Watch: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”
Welcome NOC. Our long, boring wait is over, and it’s finally Game of Thrones time!
Last night, NOCs Alice (House Stark) and Julie (House Mormont) assembled to live-tweet the Season 6 Finale of Game of Thrones!
Here is a round-up of our tweets as well as some of our favorite reactions from the Twitterverse.
Continue reading “NOC Tweets Game of Thrones: She’s a Killer Queen”
Last week on Game of Thrones, most of the attention was focused on underground extremist movements in various parts of the realm. This week’s episode, “Kill the Boy,” turns the lens again towards those in power, especially Daenarys Targaryen and Jon Snow.
However, we at NOC know what’s on everyone’s mind:
Nah b, unsullied Obama can't be dead son… Nah #DemThrones
— Joseph Crack (@iamJCrack) May 4, 2015
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Dicks and Stones”
It feels like each episode of this season of Game of Thrones features an exploration of a different theme from week to week. Unlike past season, when plot machinations were paramount, season five has been able to be a little more artful in how it sets up each episode. Maybe that has something to do with the show finally diverging from the books in significant ways — I wouldn’t know having never read the books. If anything, this episode, “Sons of the Harpy,” was about how a select few radicals can bring down a whole kingdom.
Let’s start in King’s Landing.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Enter Sand Snakes”
More than any other series on television, an episode of Game of Thrones can often feel like 48 minutes of watching players set up a chessboard wherein, to paraphrase another classic HBO series, “all the pieces matter.” Last night’s episode, “High Sparrow,” was no different. And in the case of the dueling queens — Margaery and Cersei — they were literally moving a pawn around the chessboard in the form of King Tommen. But despite brief detours following the Lannister siblings’ plights in both King’s Landing and Volantis, the episode was mainly about (three of) the surviving Stark children and each one’s struggle to accept, reject, or reclaim their name.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: What’s in a Name?”
Last week on Game of Thrones, we witnessed various examples of people dealing with their demons, either literally (as with Dany and her dragons) or figuratively (Tyrion dealing with his new role as Dadslayer). This week’s episode, “The House of Black and White,” continues the first episode’s pacing and purpose: we pay visits to the characters we hold dear, but we also get treated to new glimpses of new countries and cultures.
If I had to guess at one overarching theme of this episode, I would say it was the struggle for female empowerment. Arya, Brienne, Cersei, and Daenerys took huge steps this episode into taking a seat at exclusively-male-dominated tables. Ellia Sand seems eager to lead an army to war. Even Gilly is learning how to read! It is becoming very apparent that the future of Westeros, no matter who comes out on top at the end, can very well rest in the hands of a woman.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Arya Gonna Go My Way?”
Or watch it control you.
“The Wars to Come,” the season five premiere of Game of Thrones, simply showed us the state of things. It set the scene for where these characters are and set them each on a journey. After watching the episode, I kept thinking about Daenerys’ dragons and her lack of control over them. She is now afraid of her own “babies.” Many of the other characters similarly have their own dragons: sources of personal power that they have lost control of. Cersei, Tyrion, Jon, and Brienne all need to regain control of something in their lives that has the power to destroy them. We’ll check in with those characters, then briefly discuss what else we learned in the premiere.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Control Your Dragon”
Episode Nine, “The Watchers on the Wall,” starts with an awkward discussion between Jon Snow and Sam Tarley. Sam presses Jon for details on what sex with Ygritte felt like and wonders whether the vows they took called for strict celibacy or just forbidding marriage and children. Jon, as per usual, mumbles and cannot express himself eloquently (nor properly dry his hair).
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: They Might Be Giants”
When we last saw Tyrion, he was spitting righteous vitriol at his trial. The seventh episode “Mockingbird” shows a softer, more introspective man: basically, he knows he just signed his own death certificate and merely wants to make amends before his trial by combat. He admits to Jaime that he fell in love with a whore, and he chose not to cooperate with the deal Jaime made with their father out of spite. At his most powerless, Tyrion was still able to take away some happiness from Tywin, who was thisclose to having Jaime back as his heir. Tyrion goes on to tease Jaime about his foibles and penchant for incest, and oh, by the way, Jaime, will you be his champion?
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Don’t Push Me Cuz I’m Close to the Edge”
Last night’s Game of Thrones whipped through Westeros (and Essos) almost as quickly as Aunt Lysa’s highly unstable mood swings. There’s so much to discuss and analyze — let’s get started, shall we?
The episode commences with a packed throne room, where the High Septon is bestowing blessings on Tommen as he crowns the spare heir of a King. The way Jaime Lannister watches the action makes one think that he wasn’t just participating as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. That was his son up there, the only son he has left. Was he feeling protective? Anxious? Distant, since his main connection to his three products of incest was his relationship with their mother the queen, who is now estranged from him? I know, these are a lot of questions, but I couldn’t stop noticing the way he was looking at Tommen as he was crowned.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: From Ice to Fire”
by Jerry Ma | Originally posted at Epic Proportions
If you read my blog with any regularity, you would HAVE to know about my strong love for Game of Thrones.
I’ve been slowly drawing these 12 characters all digitally in Photoshop. And now, I have this 12 button set to show for all that work.
I’m pretty pumped about these.
Continue reading “More Game of Thrones Buttons from Epic Props”
by Jerry Ma | Originally posted at Epic Proportions
So Comic-Con isn’t until June [Special Edition: NYC] and October here in New York. But I couldn’t help myself. I’m obviously a BIG BIG BIG Game of Thrones fan. So I have been wanting to draw and then press these buttons for literally like two years now. But since this obviously isn’t like… real “work,” it just had to keep getting pushed back until I had some free time.
Which I finally got.
Continue reading “Game of Thrones Buttons from Epic Proportions”