Mr. Thrones

And so it begins! That one TV show based on a fantasy series that I really liked has just started its eighth and final season, firmly leaving the books in its dust. My enthusiasm for Game Of Thrones has waned somewhat during its run, and I'm not quite as plugged into the fan community these days, but it remains one of my favorite shows and I'm eagerly looking forward to the remaining episodes.

One small little fan thing I did participate in was the /r/gameofthrones pool. The question this asks is "Who do you want to win the Iron Throne?" Notably, it did not ask who you think will win. There are a lot of names I like on there, but only one honest answer for me: Lyanna Mormont. As incredibly unlikely as it would be, it would be awesome to end the series with her in charge.

The question of who will win is a lot harder, and honestly I don't have great confidence in any particular theory. So here is my personal ranking of what I view as the most-likely to least-likely outcome of the show.

MINI SPOILERS

1. Nobody. I'm more confident that the books will end this way, and there's a decent chance the series will as well. This might include the Throne itself being burnt by dragonfire, or blown up with wildfire, or everyone in the series dying or fleeing to Essos.
2. Night King. Even if some of our heroes survive, I think there's a fair chance he will win. I don't know if the throne means anything in particular to the White Walkers, but it could be a trophy for them.
3. Daenerys Targaryen. She's the only person on this list who actually wants the throne at this point besides Cersei. She isn't especially cutthroat, but her ambition and resources and nascent alliances could put her on top.
4. Jon Snow. He seems a very likely compromise candidate in the same way Robert Baratheon was, with a claim to the throne and strong ties to important factions.
5. Cersei Lannister.
6. Tyrion Lannister. I have a hard time seeing him openly sit on the Throne, but (if you subscribe to certain book theories) he may have a strong claim, and he seems like he would be a good ruler. He's much more likely to be Hand again, though.
7. Sansa Stark. This name and all the remaining ones are significantly less likely.
8. Bran Stark. Only if everyone above him on this list dies. OR if he wargs into someone above him!
9. Gendry. Arguably the heir to Robert!
10. Jaime Lannister.
11. Arya Stark. She's capable, but I don't see her wanting it. She would make an intriguing Master of Whispers, though.
12. Lyanna Mormont.
13. Sam Tarly.
14. Missandei. She's #2 in my "want to win", but has no faction.
15. Euron Greyjoy. Realistically he should be much higher since he has ambition, resources, and ruthlessness; but narratively he's a late player and I don't see the TV series building to this.
16. Theon Greyjoy. Kind of the opposite as Euron: There would be huge narrative satisfaction in his redemption arc ending on the throne, but he definitely doesn't want it.

A few other names that aren't on the list and may be worth considering:

1. Young Griff. OK, almost definitely not, but it is interesting that they bothered to introduce the Golden Company in the TV show, so there's at least a small chance we're getting a late delivery of that plot.
2. Jaqn H'ghar. Possibly in the guise of one of the other characters; if so, probably in service to a third character.

END SPOILERS

Pretty crazy to think of all this speculation building up and then ending in just a few months. I'll be gone on vacation when the series finale drops and am already wondering how I can remain unspoiled until I safely return. 

Never Winter, Always Spring

Here's a mini-post on some works-in-progress games, plus various odds and ends from the wonderful world of television.

I'm cranking through Neverwinter Nights. I found an old forum post that said something like, "This game bores me to tears, but I can't stop playing it." That's a pretty fair assessment of my opinion so far. That's been a big part of why it's taken me so long to take another serious crack at it. From what I understand, the story gets much more interesting in the expansions, but my completist personality won't let me jump to the better stuff without suffering through the lengthy introduction. The fact that I was doing much of this for the second time made it all the more painful. I actually bought NWN back in 2003: to their great credit, Bioware released the game for Linux, and because I was at the height of my Linux fantaticism, I automatically purchased any major commercial game with a native Linux client (hence the reason why I have "Soldier of Fortune" and "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" on my gaming shelf). As I recall, they did a great technical job with it: the game ran smoothly on my PC, and I enjoyed playing it for hours.

That all changed, though, when I suffered a game-killing bug. In the Neverwinter Woods, I got involved in a quest with a witch and a nymph. I forget the details now, but the quest trigger was somehow broken: the person I took the quest from wouldn't acknowledge that I had accepted, let alone completed, the quest, and so I was stuck. Because I had violated the cardinal rule of RPGs and relied on my quicksave for most of the game, I would have lost days of progress, maybe going all the way back to the start of Chapter 2. I was absolutely furious, and swore off the game, eventually deleting it from my hard drive. In retrospect, I probably should have just done some research online and used the console to un-stick it; having access to the console is the best advantage we PC gamers have, and allows us to fix otherwise insurmountable problems. In all honesty, though, I wonder whether my subconscious had seized upon the incident as an excuse to quit a fairly boring, time-consuming game.

Once or twice before now, I've attempted to start the game over again. Unfortunately, the earlier you are in the game the worse it is. The tutorial introduction, while not terribly long, is mind-numbingly dull. All of Chapter 1 involves running through a dark, depressing city, endlessly crossing and re-crossing the same empty streets over and over again; this is broken up by dungeon crawls, where you descend through five or so levels and fight hundreds of nearly-identical monsters. There's a bit of story in there, but way too little to sustain the amount of time invested.

That's a repeating motif throughout the entire game, at least all that I've experienced so far (up to the start of Chapter 3). Everything needs to be done so many times! It isn't even, "You must go forth and find the MacGuffin!" It's, "You must collect four MacGuffins! One lies to the north, one to the south, one to the east, one to the west. Each lies in a separate dungeon. Each dungeon contains multiple floors. Each floor has a boss. Any one of those MacGuffins would feel like a perfectly fine quest on its own, but you won't feel like you've accomplished anything or advanced the story until they're all reclaimed." It's even true for frickin' side-quests! "Would you help me collect the Five Tomes of Sidequest? They are the Tome of Wind, the Tome of Fire, the Tome of Earth, the Tome of Water, and the Tome of Boredom. They are located in five separate towers, each with multiple floors, each guarded by a boss. Collect all the tomes and return them to me." It feels like an incredibly transparent attempt to increase the running time of the game without expanding the story at all. It also makes me feel profoundly appreciative for what Dragon Age accomplished, where even the side-quests seemed important, and could actually be something you did on a lark rather than investing hours of play-time.

Things start picking up more at the end of the first chapter, so I'm enjoying myself a bit more now, which is to say I'm enjoying myself at all. I'll save my comments on the story proper for my end-game write-up, so for now I'll just note that there are some mildly interesting plot turns and character developments. One of the biggest wasted opportunities, though, is with the henchmen. I remember how, even at the time, this felt like a huge step back from the immediate predecessors like Baldur's Gate 2, which had a rich and varied party system, with characters who not only had their own personalities and ambitions, but who would interact in amusing ways and occasionally interject themselves into your own conversations. NWN's henchmen, in comparison, are so dull. Each of them has their own story, some of which are better than others, but they all exist purely in isolation. You just talk with them, and your only dialog options are a nice, empathetic response or a mean, impatient one. Then you find an item and give it to them, and get another item in return. Over and over again. They don't even comment on the item when you find it. And they never have anything to say about anything going on in the game, even if it seems like they should. And, since you can only have one henchman at a time, you never see them interact with anyone else.

I increasingly think that BG's six-person party was kind of the best thing ever. What was great was, with six people, you could afford to keep one or two useless people in your party, picking them for their personality instead of their effectiveness. So, for example, there's really never a reason to have two thieves in a party, but if you like both of them you can take them, and not suffer too much from it. NWN, on the other hand, pretty much forces you to pick from one of the couple of viable henchmen for your particular character. For example, if you aren't a thief (single- or multi-classed), then you pretty much need to take Tomi or Sharwyn, and you're kind of screwing yourself (gameplay-wise) if you don't take Tomi. I really like the character of Sharwyn, and try to take her when I can, but since I play as a Rogue she is a poor match for my character. Linu is a much better match, and is also pretty fun to travel with. Hands down, though, the best companion is Daelan Red Tiger, who is boring but is so laughably powerful that I really should never bother taking anyone else. I'm serious: I've been in multiple fights where Sharwyn and I will die almost immediately; Linu and I will fight for close to five minutes, chugging multiple potions along the way, only to die near the end; and then I'll grab Daelan, and he'll just hit it with a stick until it dies, some fifteen seconds later. If the party was bigger, I'd be happy to take Daelan and someone more humorous, but as it was, I need to pick between who I need and who I like.

The other reason I keep taken Daelan is because the henchman AI is so poor, and a poor melee AI is far better than a poor archer or caster AI. Unlike Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, where the game runs your companion AI but you can always step in and issue specific orders, NWN takes a very hands-off approach. Outside of combat, you can assign some very broad guidelines, such as whether they should use melee or ranged weapons, and how frequently they should heal you. In combat, the only orders you can give are broad commands like "Stand your ground," "Follow me," and "Heal me." Other than that, they're on their own, and they're really stupid. Sharwyn will continue casting Fear on enemies who have no chance of succumbing. Linu will kill sixteen zombies with her mace, and once she's down to just one remaining, THEN cast Turn Undead. And they never, ever, ever disengage from combat. I just hate it when Linu is surrounded by a dozen weak enemies, doing fine, and then, once her health drops down to 49%, cast a healing spell on herself, which of course provokes an immediate Attack of Opportunity from everyone, so of course some of them hit her, so of course she loses her concentration and loses the spell. That's the sort of stuff that no intelligent human player would ever do. It just frustrates me that you can't even override the poor AI, since there's no option to say, "Go over THERE." And they're just generally wasteful. I don't totally understand how henchman consumables work, but I get the impression that they have a limited number of healing potions, so it drives me mad when Daelan will chug one when he's at 30% health, fighting the last enemy of a big group, who is down to Near Death. We're gonna rest as soon as he's dead, big buddy, so save that potion for the boss fight!

Oh, and the pathing! Ugh. It's horrible. Even for the PC, if I click on the other side of a wall, he often won't be able to figure out that he needs to walk around it, so I need to baby-sit him while clicking on intermediate points. And henchmen can easily get stuck not only behind walls, but even around doors, or in some cases behind chests. Once of twice I've actually saved and re-loaded a game, just because it's faster than going back and un-sticking my henchman.

The bad AI is a shame, because on the whole, I think the ruleset of NWN may be my favorite. Feats are really interesting, and make character-building a lot more interesting than it was in BG. I really like the resting system, which is more flexible (and safer!) than the camp system of BG, and more realistic than the regenerating health/mana/stamina of Dragon Age. The set of skills is wide, varied, and useful; as a Rogue I get to invest a ton of points in here, and even so I need to pick and choose between different useful areas. I think I actually prefer the more limited item set in NWN compared to the much broader selection in DA. Typically, you have a weapon, then +1, +2, and (I assume) eventually +3 versions of each weapon, which makes the upgrade path very clear. There are occasional artifact weapons, but they're fairly rare, and it's usually clear whether it will be better than the one you're wielding. DA has tons of weapons, with a much smoother upgrade path, and I end up spending a lot of time in that game trying to figure out whether a given item is better than the one I currently wield. Oh, and although I am a rogue and thus don't care about this, I do appreciate the flexibility of being able to bash open locked doors and chests, which opens up more options for combat-focused characters.

That flexibility is another thing to appreciate: while it seems incredibly limiting to have a maximum of two adventurers, the 3rd edition D&D ruleset makes it very easy, and potentially rewarding, to add multiple classes. So, while you might only have two people, you could play as a Thief/Mage/Monk, and travel with Linu as a Cleric/Fighter, and thus be prepared for any type of situation. That sort of dual- and multi-classing was also possible in 2nd edition D&D as in Baldur's Gate, but I prefer the style of NWN, which lets you pick each class as you level, and thus lets your character evolve over time, unlike dual-classing, which required careful advance planning, or multi-classing, which tightly and eternally locked you into a particular distribution.

One final complaint: the graphics. That shouldn't be surprising. The game came out a decade ago, after all, and we've come a long way since then; since I've most recently played Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2, it's particularly jarring to jump back to this, Bioware's first 3D title. What's weird, though, is that I think it actually looks worse than the earlier Baldur's Gate games did. That's a trend I've noticed. More primitive graphics often hold up much better than slightly-old graphics do. I can still play and enjoy ancient sprite-based games like Super Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy, and even (after a brief period of re-acclimation) Ultima. Those games are all incredibly ancient and low-resolution, but something about that blocky, vaguely cartoony style still works for me. On the other hand, though, early 3D games like NWN, the original Tomb Raider, the original Doom, and so on, leave me completely cold. Which is funny, because I still remember how when I first played them, back when they were released, I thought they looked great. Like, way, way better than those dumb old flat sprite-based games. Now, though, all I see is low-poly models, low-res textures, cheap or absent lighting, and it makes me want to claw my eyes out. Few things look grosser than the way NWN characters talk to each other, which is this weird little head-bobbling thing, where their hair seems to move independently of their skull, and the entire head is a total of maybe twelve polygons. Now that I know what 3D is capable of, I can't stand to even look at these early efforts.

All right, that's enough ranting for now. I think I got it out of my system, so once I finally beat the original campaign, I should be able to do a post on just the story itself. I'm looking forward to the expansions, which is whether it's supposed to start getting really good (and, I believe, finally let you bring along multiple henchmen at once).

Now, on to happier times: Sil! I continue to obsess about this game. I'm getting a little better every day. I had one character make it all the way down to 900', whereupon he swiftly died. I must say, this game is not very forgiving at all, and even a single mistake can prove almost immediately fatal. In my case, it wasn't even a strategic mistake, or a tactical one, merely a mechanical space: I meant to move to the upper-left, and instead moved to the lower-left, and so I was stuck, and so I was slain by Turkano, Balrog of the Hosts. It was fun, though!

I've been sticking with and refining my "archer assassin" concept. I've come to think of it as a high-risk, high-reward approach: only a handful of my characters survive past 400', but if they do, I have sufficient XP to put together an awesome set of abilities that make them virtually unkillable (provided I don't pick any stupid fights). That lets me survive for a long time, and I can usually find some really good pieces of kit that supplement my missing skills.

I'm sure this will continue to be refined as I hopefully figure out how to actually get down to Morgoth, and what I'll do once I get there, but for now, here's my basic approach:

I always roll a Noldor elf of the House of Feanor. This isn't so much for the Smithing affinity as for the extra point of Dexterity. Dex is the most crucial statistic for this character, so everything helps. I always end up going 2/5/4/3. 1 STR would probably be sufficient, given the bows I end up finding, but 2 is nice on the rare games where I find a good longbow, and on my very long game I did appreciate the extra carry capacity. Once I'm more comfortable, I think I might switch around the values for CON and GRA: CON has been a huge help as I learn the ropes, but the extra hit points become less important as I get better about avoiding dumb fights. I used to avoid GRA since I don't use much Song, and so Voice isn't important, but the skill boost would come in useful.

For skills, I put 2 into Smithing, enough Archery to get Precision, a little into Evasion, and everything else into Perception. At Depth 50, I take my free abilities in Precision and Weaponsmithing, although neither will be useful yet. I'll carefully explore all of 50' and 100'. If I find a bow, terrific; otherwise I'll make one at the forge. I'll also craft a mattock, then use any extra forge options on arrows. And, that's it. It does seem like a bit of a waste of my smithing skill, but it doesn't require any XP or stat points. (I did have one game where I found a bunch of forges very deep down, and spent a bunch of XP to get Jeweler and Artifice. That let me make a Feanorean Lamp, the only one I've gotten in all my play-throughs. It was awesome, but I do hate sacrificing stat points for it.) As I descend, if I find safe forges, I just make more Arrows.

My main goal is still to get Lore-Master. As I'd noted previously, this helps a ton with XP generation: you'll get a chunk back immediately from all the un-identified stuff in your inventory, and will automatically gain more XP as you continue to find new items. I've been pleasantly surprised, though, to find out that the other part of the ability, which I had just dismissed, is arguably just as useful: you can immediately see complete information about every new enemy you encounter. Typically, you only get some general information about your enemy and some flavor text, and further details are added as this particular character experiences them. So, for example, you won't know how many hit dice they have until you slay one, won't know how much damage they do until they hit you, won't know any special attacks until they use them, etc. Having access to this information is crucially important for an archer assassin like me. The first time I found a sleeping Cat Archer, I saw that it had 4D4 hit dice. I knew that I could safely take it out without waking the neighbors. When I found a sleeping Cave Troll, I saw it had... I forget, something like 8D12 hit dice. I could probably take one one-on-one, but not a group, so I let it go.

The single most important skill, though, may be Listen, which is yet another Perception ability. Listen lets you see where monsters are. You won't necessarily know what they are (though this information does occasionally pop up), but will usually see asterisks indicating their position. This information alone has saved my life many times. If there are no stars around, I won't bother sneaking, and will sprint around looking at everything. If I see a single star, I'll switch to stealth, and sneak up until I can check it out better. If I see a huge cluster of stars behind a closed door, I just leave it shut, and go on my way. Plenty of other fish in the sea.

Perception is hand-down my favorite tree of abilities. I would take every single option here if it didn't get so expensive. The other one I go for is Keen Senses, which lets you see enemies just beyond your pool of light (especially useful in early stages while you're still using torches) and makes it easier to find hidden enemies (although this is somewhat redundant with Listen).

After I get Lore Master and Listen, I switch back to building up the rest of my skills. I generally try to keep Archery, Evasion, and Stealth roughly equal up until around 8 or so. It's a slightly weird build... as a stealth archer, I don't have a whole lot of use for Evasion (my build is focused around avoiding fights, and if I get into one, running away as quickly as I can), but the abilities in the Evasion tree are very useful. Conversely, Stealth is incredibly handy, but most of the abilities in this tree are more melee-oriented, and not very useful to me. I actually tend to minimize Archery at this stage: by picking my fights carefully, I can usually kill a decent amount without needing a very high score just yet.

My next priority is the Sprinting skill from Evasion. After I get this, I start slowing down on Evasion investment; I'd love to get that DEX point, but there's no way I'm investing 20 points into the skill. At Stealth, I only start getting the good abilities above 8 points. Vanish, combined with Sprinting, lets me get out of trouble. I also always try to pick up Exchange Places. Honestly, I hardly ever use this... but if I use it only once in a game, it was worthwhile, because it's probably getting me out of a situation that would otherwise have meant (permanent!) death. It's critical for those cases where you're stuck in a room and a foe is blocking the doorway, or if you're trapped in the middle of a hall (though that rarely happens after I get Listen).

From then on, I try to get the DEX boosts from Stealth and Archery, and otherwise start shifting most of my points into Archery. I used to buy a lot more abilities in Archery than I do now: my last few long-running games, I've only taken Precision, Flaming Arrows, and Dexterity. Careful Shot isn't  useful if you're using Flaming Arrows. I found Versatility extremely helpful when I was first learning to play this character type (and Sil in general), but I don't really need it now. Thanks to my decently high evasion, I don't need to worry much about Point Blank Archery. I'm a bit intrigued by Crippling Shot, but I get the feeling that the monsters I'd really want to use it on are probably highly resistant. I haven't tried Rapid Shot yet.

On the one game where I made it to 900', I finally invested in Song. It took a lot, but I bought a ton of points (I want to say... 10, maybe?) to get the Song of Sharpness (from the Song of Slaying). This was to overcome a particular problem: how to handle Grotesques. These are fascinating monsters. That's another thing I love about Sil: there are dozens of enemies, and each one has a unique and interesting set of mechanics, whether it's the flocking behavior of giant bats or the patrols of orc soldiers or the weakening of violet molds or whatever. In the case of Grotesques, they basically behave like the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. They only move when you aren't looking, and so you can stare one in the face for hours without taking any damage, but as soon as you turn your back, you are in huge trouble. Worse, they are Mindless, and will never stop pursuing you after you encounter them, which of course can prove deadly. I'd gotten in the habit of simply running to the nearest set of stairs when I encountered one: they have ludicrously high protection, and are completely immune to criticals, so I couldn't damage them at all.

Well, the Song of Sharpness solves that! It lets you cut through armor - or, more specifically, it reduces the amount of protection an enemy has. For some reason, it didn't seem to work with my flaming arrows, but I think that may just be a math thing - I usually rely on criticals to do damage with my arrows. Instead, I start singing the song, and whack it as hard and as often as I can with my sword. It's always very close, down to one or two stars by the time my Voice gets down to the single digits. Twice I managed to destroy it in time (leaving behind a very cool pile of rubble). Once my voice gave out first; so I just sat down there and rested, never taking my eyes off the grotesque, not looking away, never blinking, until my voice was restored. Then I started hitting it again, and this time triumphed.

I haven't yet figured out the optimal rate of descent. I tend to be pretty thorough, and will try to explore every single room on a level (even if just peeking my head in for rooms filled with monsters). But I don't back-track, either. I used by be pretty close to my minimum depth, but I think that my 900' hero had a min depth of just 750' or so. The exception: if I happen to fall through a false floor, I'll usually head up the first flight of stairs I find. If the monsters on a particular level seem too difficult (where, like, I wouldn't even be able to beat one in a one-on-one fight), I'll head up a level. My goal is actually not so much to get more XP (which always has diminishing returns) as it is to find better gear. I'm usually well-equipped by the time I reach 500', assuming I make it that far, and looking to upgrade already-decent pieces. So far, the favorite gear I've found for this character type are:

• The arrow 'Dailir'. This may be my single favorite piece of equipment: it gives +11 (!!!) to attack. There's only a single arrow, but it's indestructible. Which means (mild exploit) that you can set it aflame for the extra die of damage, without destroying it. As a one-shot-kill stealth archer, it's absolutely perfect. If I'm in a room full of sleeping cat warriors, I can stand in the door, assassinate one of them, creep in, reclaim the arrow, creep back to the doors, shoot the second, and so on. Against tougher opponents, this is usually my opening shot, which can often get them down to 50-25% health. From then on I'll use standard Flaming Arrows; since I don't need to use my arrows for most fights, though, I don't really worry about ever running out if I have 'Dailir'.
• The Bow of... Celeborn, maybe? There are two really good artifact bows I've found; I forget which is which, but both have a little nice lore around them (one was from an elf who hunted with Orome himself). My 900' character found a bow that was (+1, 1d9) and slew wolves; it penalized Grace, but was still probably my best bow ever. Another great bow was (0, 2d7) [-1]. It slew... Dragons and Raukar, maybe? Sadly, I died pretty soon after getting that one.
• Shadow Cloak! I was ecstatic the first time I found one of these, at around 700'. Now I seem to find them on every sub-500' game, and often find many in a single game. They come in a variety of stats, but my favorite is probably [+3] <+4>, with a significant boost to Evasion and pretty much the best-ever boost to Stealth. The downside: it reduces your light radius by 1. This is sort of micro-manage-y, but I like to take the cloak off while I'm exploring, and put it back on when I'm approaching monsters. It's really cool how it is shrouded in darkness even when lying on the ground, which makes them hard to find in the first place, but also can make you realize that there MUST be a Shadow Cloak there (assuming you have Listen and know that it isn't a monster!).
• {item} of Clarity. I tend to run with very-low-Will characters, so the nice set of resistances this gives (I think it's Hallucination, Confusion, and... maybe Stunning?) are extremely useful.
• Brass Lantern of True Sight. My 900' character had this thing. Very useful. I still want to find a Feanorian lamp sometime, though.
• Rings. Any rings. I usually don't find any until I'm several hundred feet down. It's nice that you have two slots, so you can find and use multiple good ones.
• Dried Meat. You wouldn't think so, right? But (perhaps as a side-product of my habit of methodically searching every floor) I often run low on food. I've never actually run out while I was hungry, but I've gotten awfully close several times. I now tend to either use an {item} of Sustenance or invest XP into Mind over Body to keep afloat.
• Mail Corslet of Fingon. I agonized for ages over whether to replace a nice Leather Armor of Stealth [0, 1d6] <+2> with this. On the surface, it's horrible for my character, since it hurts my evasion and required surrendering some stealth. However, it boosts both CON and GRA plus it provides resistance to fear, which comes in incredibly useful when facing rauko and drakes on the lower levels. A+++, would loot again.

Of course, any given game will have a variety of cool and useful stuff. I generally prioritize equipment that boosts my stats, then equipment that provides resistances to negative effects, then equipment that boosts my useful skills (Archery, Stealth, Evasion, Will, Perception), and finally pick the best numbers, generally preferring lighter weapons over heavier. I still have trouble figuring out how to compare disparate items... for example, I couldn't decide whether a ring of evasion <+1> was better than a ring of protection [1d2]. I also need to do a better job of managing my inventory. By the time I get down to about 600', my pack is practically full, plus I like keeping a spare slot free so I can doff my cloak or switch to the mattock for digging. I tend to keep all the "good" potions I find: potions that boost stats, that heal, Miruvor (heal + clear conditions), or slow poison. I keep a full quiver, plus an extra stack of normal arrows and whatever other special arrows I have. (If I'm using 'Dailir', this means my Poisoned and <+3> arrows are in inventory.) I keep food. I'll have my Mattock. I'll have some spare light sources (torches or another lantern or flasks of oil). If I've found a useful trumpet or staff, I'll bring it along. (Staff of Light is useful, as is the Trumpet of Blasting.) And that's usually about all I can carry. I'd love just a few more slots, so I could carry an extra hand weapon for attacking Grotesques and some alternate pieces of armor, but there just isn't room. Heck, even weight got to be an issue at one point.

Oh, and a total tangent: I fired the game up on Sunday, March 31st, and my inventory brought a smile to my face.

Isn't that neat? Ordinarily those are labeled as "herbs", not "easter eggs". Very cool. I'm impressed that programmers would take the time to put in something like that, which will only be accessible 0.27% of the time. 

So! I'm still loving this game. The atmosphere is incredible, despite (or, arguably, because of) the nonexistent graphics. Returning briefly to NWN, this is another example of how sometimes less is more, and a little is worse than nothing. When I see primitively animated 3D models jerking around on the screen, it's impossible for me to suspend my disbelief. When I see that H standing still in the corridor, my heart freezes in fear. When I notice that v silently yet absentmindedly floating through the room, I give a little grin as I quietly draw back my arrow. And few sights seem as powerful or mysterious as sneaking into an isolated chamber and discovering a grey 0 at its center. When that 0 is golden, you know that the Valar smile upon you.

Moving from Tolkien to Martin... Game of Thrones premiere was Sunday night! I really liked it!

MINI SPOILERS for GAME OF THRONES S3E1, + STORM OF SWORDS

It was a more low-key episode, as you would expect: there's some scene-setting, introductions to new characters, and a bit of well-delivered exposition. (Dany's time in Astapor was particularly well done. It constantly communicated important information, while still feeling dramatic.) I'm still amazed at just how good these actors are. I think this is the first time we've seen Peter Dinklage and Charles Dance share a scene since Season 1, and it's incredible: it feels short, but totally captures so much about their relationship. Bronn gives fantastic line readings. And so on, and so forth.

I think it was very smart for the show to directly introduce Ser Barristan the way that they did. In the book, it's a more mysterious thing: a robed figure shows up, enters Dany's service, and we go through much of the book before learning who he really is. That works very well on the printed page, but not so much on the screen, where we the viewers would quickly be able to just see who he is. So, well done.

I'm very curious to see exactly what goes down in Harrenhall now. I wonder if they will move some of the stuff that happened in A Clash of Kings into this season, perhaps fleshing out (ha!) Roose Bolton's character a bit more. I was surprised (albeit pleased) to see that they included Qyburn; I'd thought they would write around him. Of course, with Arya gone, they can't just do all the Clash of Kings stories, so maybe they'll jump ahead? I dunno.

Did you notice how the opening credits now show Winterfell burning? That's very cool, and very sad. No Theon this episode. I haven't checked to see if Alfie Allen is even cast this season. He disappears from the books entirely at this point for quite a while, but given what they did with Jaime in Season 2, I suspect that they will check in on Theon to show what he's up to. This could have some... powerful resonance with later events this season.

Mance Rayder seems very well-cast. My brother and I both noted what a great job they did at his introduction, which plays out basically like it did in the books, but so effectively that we both were "fooled" by it.

And, there's a ton more to come! Based on what I've read, we'll also be meeting the Reeds, Thoros of Myr, a new Berric, Stannis' wife and daughter, Olenna Martell, Edmure, and (finally!) the Blackfish. It's incredibly cool that HBO has brought in so many beloved characters who were cut from the earlier seasons. Since they've given themselves two seasons for Storm of Swords, they should have time to tell their stories now.

END SPOILERS for GAME OF THRONES / STORM OF SWORDS

I also caught the finale to The Walking Dead. It was good. This season was hands-down my favorite of the show so far. The show has always had brilliant episodes, but they've often been surrounded by episodes with too much whining or pointless digressions. This season has been fantastic, with a steady dose of action, lots of tension, huge moments, character deaths and evolutions, and arcs that were both satisfying and disturbing. It's an incredibly bleak show, but one that's very well done.

MEGA SPOILERS for THE WALKING DEAD

Man, they sure did a great job at pulling off Andrea's death. The way the episode played out, I was sure she would escape... the way Milton tried to kill the governor, then the way he set up her release, and the close timing between cutting her bonds and Milton reaching her... it was shocking to realize that she'd been bitten after all, after all of that. It's a repudiation of how we expect these stories to play out, and I'm always happy to be surprised.

I've never really understood the dislike for Andrea that so many fans have. Next to Michonne, she's probably my favorite female character. She's capable, and a great shot, willing to work hard and willing to speak her mind. She got her rude awakening early in the first season, and has been part of the "survival faction" since then. Sure, she has made plenty of bad decisions along the way, but no more than, say, Rick has.

I'm happy to see Tyrese back together with Rick's group. Tyrese was one of my favorite characters in the comics, where he was a presence for much longer than he's been on the show. I can't believe it took me this long to figure out that that actor is the same guy who played Cutty on "The Wire" - now I like him even more! His character is somewhat different from the comics, though, and the stuff with Woodbury was very different. That whole arc ultimately felt a little anticlimactic; I was expecting there to be more dramatic consequences to his time on the inside of Woodbury. I suppose that might come into play in the next season.

Speaking of which: I'm not sure if I totally understand why the Woodbury survivors would move into the prison, instead of the prison folks moving into Woodbury. Given everything that has happened this episode (fence torn down, gate busted open, walls and guard towers shot with a frikkin' bazooka), the prison hardly seems the strong, defensible place it once was. In contrast, Woodbury's infrastructure seems intact. I'm not even thinking about the quality of life, just the height and strength of its walls. But, there may be tactical considerations I'm overlooking here. Maybe Woodbury requires a larger military force to man all the stations than the prison does, and the demise of the Woodbury army could mean that there are no longer enough bodies to maintain it. I dunno.

END SPOILERS for THE WALKING DEAD

That's it for now!

The Starveling Cat! The Starveling Cat! Louder than a dog! Taller than a rat!

Some random thoughts:

There was a surprisingly interesting profile of Ben Stiller in a recent New Yorker article. I'm a little ambivalent about Stiller, and I was surprised to see that he shares my ambivalence; specifically, he isn't a big fan of the franchises that have made him famous, like Meet the Fockers, and seems to often wish that he had ended up as a lower-tier director, working on small projects that he felt passionate about. As long as he's rich and famous, though, he's trying to use his powers to create good movies on his own terms. The main focus of the article was his film of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a fairly big-budget movie that Fox is backing, after an extended period of wrangling with Stiller over the budget. I was most intrigued, though, by a little snippet where he revealed that, for the past 15 years, he's been trying to make a movie out of George Saunder's phenomenal "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline." He's been able to attract a lot of talent to the project, including Sean Penn and Owen Wilson as the leads, but hasn't been able to raise the money to make it. The article includes this great quote from Saunders:

"It was the reverse of the cliche about the pandering movie guy and the noble fiction writer, because I would absolutely have sold out to get the movie made -- added car chases, a puppy cluster, whatever -- and Ben always insisted on returning to the darkest, oddest version of this story."

So, I'm a little bummed that Saunders' genius will continue to be hidden from broader American society; but, it's also encouraging to see that people are looking out for the integrity of his art.

Speaking of movie adaptations: Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash seems to be finally moving forward. It's still a long ways off from getting green-lit; a guy named Joe Cornish plans to write the adaptation and direct it, so there are still a lot of ways this could get derailed. In a recent Reddit AMA, Stephenson said that he's chatted with Cornish, but will be staying out of his way and letting him make the thing. That seems like a good approach to these kinds of projects: pick good people, then trust them to do good work with it. Stephenson also had some wise words in response to the predictable fears that people would ruin his book: "I think that fans' expectations can get out of whack when they use vocab like 'the book is being made into a movie,' which kind of implies that the book reaches some kind of apotheosis in the form of the movie, and ceases to exist as a book. That's not what happens. The book isn't going to change. It'll always be there. In addition to the book, there is going to be this other thing, a movie." That did give me pause. I often approach cinematic adaptations of literature with a mixture of excitement and dread. I enjoyed reading The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen so greatly that I have gone to great lengths to avoid the movie, out of fear that it would pollute my appreciation of the work. The Lord of the Rings took one of my favorite stories of all time and created one of my favorite movies of all time. I think part of the reality of the way my mind works is that I'm not great at compartmentalizing different aspects of a single work. I can watch Blues Brothers and enjoy it, but I'll also periodically cringe, because parts of the movie will remind me of Blues Brothers 2000 and how awful that was.

That said, as long as the new work is a net good, I'm in favor of it being created, even if it isn't as good as its predecessor. That probably also explains why I'm so grateful that REM stuck around as long as they did - just because they didn't create another Green or Automatic for the People didn't keep them from improving the world by giving us lots of great new songs. Snow Crash: The Movie might not contain all the awesomeness of Snow Crash: The Book, but as long as it's a good movie (either because it's interesting, or it's amusing, or it's exciting, and hopefully some combination of those virtues), I'll be glad to see it added to the universe.

Continuing to topic-hop... Louis CK is continuing his iconoclastic entrepreneurial sprint. After the rousing social and financial success of his Live at the Beacon experiment, Louis has revamped comedy touring with his upcoming shows at the end of this year. He has cut out the middlemen and gotten rid of the universally loathed TicketMaster: he is now selling tickets directly to consumers, through his website, and only playing at venues that will accommodate the way he wants to do business (no scalping allowed). In San Francisco, that means that he'll be appearing at Davies Symphony Hall, possibly the most gorgeous performing space in a city that has many to recommend. Buying tickets from Louis is such a refreshingly enjoyable experience: no extra surcharges, ticket handling fees, delivery fees, facility charges, or other cruft piled on top of the price. Just a flat $45 per seat, anywhere in the country. (We acted as a team here in the office to snag our tickets. Zac got the email announcing the tickets, and forwarded it on to Eric and me. By the time we had opened it, Zac's session had timed out so he was locked out, but Eric and I were able to proceed with the purchase. Each person is limited to buying 4 tickets, so we got 8 between the two of us, and - drum roll - we'll be in the 4th and 5th row at Davies. Nice!)

On the whole, I'm madly in love with Louis's approach. It's great for the artist, and great for the fans. However, I do wonder whether this is paving the way for a better future (a world where Ticketmaster doesn't exist and artists get to charge less and keep more), or if it's going to be a peculiar outlier that can only be offered by people at the top of their field. There's an easy analogy to make here to Radiohead's In Rainbows experiment: that was a media bonanza for them, and ended up making them a fair amount of money, but they only got away with it because they're Radiohead; other, smaller bands still need the support of record labels to publish new albums. Basically what I'm wondering is, do middlemen still have a role to play, and are we losing anything by cutting them out? Will it be harder for newer bands or comedians or authors to get big and recognized if there are no more record labels or tour promoters or publishing houses? I hope not - my ideal vision of the future is one where a wide variety of artists can connect directly with passionate fans - but I'll admit to a strain of pessimism.

Then again, there may be reason for optimism. Other comedians, like Aziz Ansari and Jim Gaffigan, have followed in Louis's footsteps with online DRM-free video sales and seem to be doing pretty well. I'd been concerned that Louis's was successful only because it was novel and got a lot of free coverage - it was reported on NPR and other surprising sources. It looks like there's a real appetite out there for honest sellers with a quality product, though. Similarly, I was very excited by the successful Kickstarter by Tim Schafer's DoubleFine, and thought that it was largely because of the novelty of old-school games making a comeback; that said, newer projects like Shadowrun have continued to do well, which makes me cautiously optimistic that the direct funding model may be a viable path forward.

Oh, on the topic of Shadowrun: Jordan Weisman is publishing a serialized story set in Shadowrun's 2050 world. The first entry is now available. I highly recommend it! I felt weirdly nostalgic when reading it; given that I had played the Genesis game for the first time only a few months ago, I shouldn't feel that level of warm familiarity with Julius Strouther and the Sega CTY-360 and Renraku Pyramid. So it goes. This kind of storytelling makes me very happy for the story-driven Shadowrun game!

Quick TV roundup:

The new season of Louie starts tonight!

I finished watching both extant seasons of Party Down. It was incredible, and I can see why people love it so much. The only downside is that, now that I've finished watching it, I have a harder time getting behind the Ben/Leslie romance on Parks & Recreation. Don't get me wrong, they're an extremely cute couple, but Adam and Lizzy had such amazing chemistry on that show that anything else is bound to feel inferior.

Game of Thrones ended on a phenomenal note! I absolutely adored the Blackwater episode, and barely minded that they got rid of the chain. That's probably the single most impressive TV episode I've ever seen. I'm actually kind of tempted to check out the director's movies now; I've wanted to see The Descent for a while anyways, and what he did here was just phenomenal. (If you like the series, or just the process of directing, I highly recommend Neil Marshall's interview with The Empire about making this episode. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that his budget for this episode is about the same as the budget he's had for his feature movies. Go, HBO! Also, there apparently really is an HBO executive whose job is to get as much T&A into each episode as possible.) The finale was also good; I felt a little let down, but mostly just because I wanted more, which is probably a good sign. (TV AND BOOK SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH): I was really surprised that they wrapped up the destruction of Winterfell into this season; I had thought that they would delay it into season 3, just so they could introduce the Bastard properly. I'm really curious to see where they take that plot from here, and if they rejoin the book's continuity or go in another direction. I missed the awesome crazy visions that were in the book's version of House of the Undying, but the couple of scenes we got in the TV version were gorgeous. I wonder if the TV series is doing anything with Rhaegar, though? He seems pretty important in the books, and has barely even been mentioned in the show. Oh, yeah: and that final shot that closed out the season was just amazing. Army of ice zombies FTW! I was pretty impressed by the CGI there.

Finally, from the I-can't-believe-that-I'm-only-now-getting-into-this-show department, I'm filling my post-GoT depression by finally watching Deadwood, and finding that it does a surprisingly good job of filling that void. Both shows are very dense, with sprawling casts, intricate plots, surprising story turns (including a willingness to kill off major characters), sex, and violence. I now totally get why everyone reveres Ian McShane the way they do. Early on, I thought Bullock was the noble hero, and Al Swearengen his charismatic villain. Swearengen is just SO magnetic and fascinating, though, that partway through the first season he eclipses Bullock (who is hardly a slouch) and becomes the center of the story. I've loved everything, but the final episode of the first season in particular was jaw-droppingly good. It whirls and spins through a staggering number of plot threads, yet feels like a close character study at the same time. It even provided some very welcome catharsis in the form of Doc Cochran and Jewel's treatment. (Man oh man, Brad Dourif is one of the many astonishing things on that show. I've always vaguely thought of Dourif as the creepy character actor; his depiction of Doc is incredible.) The show somehow got even better in the second season: the writing, which was already good, became even more elevated, to the point where it feels like I'm watching a Shakespearean play. EB Farnum and Mr. Wolcott regularly deliver soliloquies, Farnum often also acts as a Polonius figure, and Richardson is a perfect Fool. I feel like I'm witnessing some sort of fever dream whenever I encounter that unique blend of elevated dialog and base profanity. (This show has turned the compound c---s----- into a flexible and surprisingly powerful phrase.) I can't wait to check out the third season, and am already anticipating the sadness I'll feel that HBO ended the series.

Turning away from digital entertainment... summer in the Bay Area is amazing as always. I've been ramping back up on my cycling, and have finished my last few trips up Kings Mountain Road barely breaking a sweat, so I think I'll soon be ready to make my first 2012 loop trip to Pescadero. I'm also loving the Bay Area's rich bounty. Figs are now in season! Yum! Peaches are near their peak, too; I made a Peach Puzzle a few weeks ago, and I think I've finally nailed the exact right degree of ripeness to make that turn out best. (Freestone peaches are also a crucial component.) I've been doing a fair amount of baking in general lately. I've made what may be the ultimate chocolate-chip cookie, based on the New York Times recipe. I splurged and bought some Valrhona chocolate discs for my first batch, which is pretty expensive - that stuff is about $20/pound, compared to the few bucks I normally spend on a 12-ounce package of chips - so I won't be using it often, but I have to admit that it does make them even more tasty. The cookies are so huge, though, that they're pretty absurd to eat. I love having them in my repertoire, but even if these are the ultimate cookie, there's still an opening for the ultimate PRACTICAL cookie.

I'm finally starting David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. It's pretty good so far, but I'm curious to see where it goes.

Still loving Fallen London. (Slight gameplay spoilers follow for the rest of the paragraph.) I'm continuing to build up my character's primary qualities, although I haven't acquired much equipment lately. I've come to realize that it's almost always better to hold on to your goods rather than sell them, and it often costs 12 echoes or more for a simple +1 piece of equipment with no negatives. You can advance quickly enough as-is that it doesn't seem worth the expense, and besides, it's much more fun to unlock an option in an Opportunity card with your 500 rats on a string than it is to sell them and try to pick up some clothing. I've encountered a glitch in the game that game me a massive undeserved boost to my Dangerous quality; I now have a Dangerous of 79, while all my other stats are in the 40s. I've gotten much better at managing my Menaces. Early in the game, while I was trying to open the way to the Forgotten Quarter (i.e., the Fourth City), I went insane while studying the London streets. That was actually pretty cool, but made me very cautious about how I manage my negatives. Unfortunately, I'm now trying to increase my Watchful, and I'm finding that Nightmares are hands-down the most difficult Menace to keep under control. With a low Scandal, you can start doing "Attend a Church Service," which usually succeeds and not only lowers Scandal but also increases your Church connection. You can Attend to your Wounds, which usually succeeds as well. There's a Storylet in Spite that lets you blackmail a Constable to lower your Suspicion, which also increases your Shadowy progression. With Nightmares, though... the only storylet in your lodgings is "Confess your Fears," which requires (1) a Sudden Insight, which I tend to immediately and unintentionally consume while raising my Watching; and (2) a willing Friend, who is penalized and receives no benefit for their help. After your Nightmares get up to 5, you can try to Ignore the Cheery Man, but this only has a 50/50 chance of working, and no other benefit whether you succeed or fail. Anyways... as a result, I'm extremely cautious when increasing my Watchful, which has me sticking to very easy challenges, and also using extreme care to keep my Nightmares as low as possible. I don't want to get into the story here, but it's been a lot of fun. There's an astonishing variety of mini-arcs, and you generally get a fair amount of choice in how to complete each one.

I've picked up Mass Effect 2, and am absolutely loving it. I'll probably do a full write-up later on about the story, so for now I'll mostly restrict myself to the gameplay. I'd heard before that Bioware had streamlined it, and for the most part I'm very happy with how that turned out. They've gotten rid of the most tedious micro-managing aspects of the game: there's no longer any inventory, no more omni-gel, and no selling anything. As a result, the game tends to move much more quickly; it's kind of astonishing just how much time I spent clicking through a list of 50 weapons in the first game. Powers have also been simplified a great deal; I think that in the first game, most characters could build up 8 powers, which each had a maximum level of, um, maybe 12 points; Shepherd had 12 powers available. In ME2, each character has only 4 powers available, with 4 levels for each. It's a bit easier to manage, but I'm a little disappointed at how similar the progression is for the powers. In most cases, the final level 4 is a choice between "This attack has a wider radius that affects multiple enemies!" and "This attack does more damage!". A few powers like Overload have more interesting choices at the top tier, like choosing a form that makes robots explode.

I generally like the structure of the game, which has changed from a largely free-roaming experience in ME1 to a more focused series of linear levels in ME2. That's in contrast to my usual preference for open worlds in games like Ultima and Elder Scrolls, but Bioware takes great advantage of these crafted levels and makes them a lot of fun. My big complaint here is that they've put crucial power-ups in each level, sometimes in places that aren't very easy to find, and since you aren't allowed to re-visit levels afterwards, I end up being way too OCD on these levels: instead of just having fun and moving forward, I'll defeat a group of enemies, then comb over every square inch of the room to make sure that I'm not passing up a new Heavy Pistol or a Biotic Damage research project. In retrospect, I kind of wish that Bioware would give you some way to acquire items that you missed on your initial run-through, perhaps by letting your purchase them at another location or having them show up in later levels.

 Oh, and the worst part of the game is definitely the rare but infuriating bugs. Specifically, there are some cases where enemies get into invisible locations where you can't kill them and they can't hurt you, and there are some cases where you'll get stuck against a pillar or outside the geometry of the map. In both cases, the only solution is to reload your last save and try again. Much like the problem with hidden research projects, this keeps me from enjoying the action of the game in a long and fun burst, and instead drives me into the OCD behavior of maniacally saving after every successful fight, to minimize the pain of running into bugs. Granted, I've only gotten stuck this way a half-dozen times, but it's made me change the way I play every aspect of the game, which is a shame. It seems like it would have been easy for them to fix, too... just some equivalent of the /stuck command in SW:TOR that would put everyone back into a valid map location.

As long as I'm complaining... while ME2 has largely gotten rid of the tedious and time-consuming aspects of ME1, it introduced a new burden in the form of scanning planets. This is technically optional, but if you want to unlock the full capability of your weapons and squad, you'll need to do A LOT of scanning to gather the resources necessary for research. Each planet can take a minute or more to scan, and it's mind-numbing: sweep your cursor back and forth, back and forth, listening and watching for spikes, then launch a probe, wait for it to land, then resume sweeping.

The hacking mini-game is also a bit annoying, but mostly just because I'm coming off of the awesomeness of the hacking games in Deus Ex and Shadowrun, so ME2 feels like flim-flam in comparison. The two games here are no worse than the "get to the middle" mini-game of ME1.
That's pretty much it from the complaint department, though. While levels are linear, your overall progress through the game is pretty much wide open, and you can pick which planets to visit and when to go to each. Resource management is a breeze. I really love the squad combat in this game; it was already good in ME1, but it's been further simplified in ME2, so you no longer need to select which weapon each teammate is using during a fight, and they're good about using their powers at appropriate times. (The "go to" commands that you can trigger by pressing Q and E seem pretty awful, since as far as I can tell they'll go to that location and then just stay there, no longer entering cover. So, I just don't press those buttons any more.) On the whole, I think ME2 does a fantastic job of letting you focus on the most fun aspects of the game. Heh... there's even some in-game commentary on this from a nerdy Salarian on the Citadel who runs a game store. At one point he says something like, "The new RPGs aren't as good as the old ones. Today's games are all about big choices and character customization. I preferred the old games where you needed to remember to drink water, and it took five hours in real-time to fly somewhere."

That's it for now - more anon!

Hedge Fund

I'm pretty surprised that it took me this long to read George R. R. Martin's Tales of Dunk and Egg. I'm a huge fan of his series A Song of Ice and Fire, but I haven't been too tempted to check out his other works, like Wild Cards or his early sci-fi stories. (That said, a recent A. V. Club "Gateway to Geekery" article does make me think I'd at least enjoy the sci-fi stuff.) I've recently learned that his Dunk and Egg stories are more connected to the plots of ASoIaF than I'd assumed. Since I've got another ten months or so until my next fix of the TV show, and several years until my next fix for the novels, I decided to take them in.

Unfortunately, they're pretty hard to get. Each is published in a separate anthology, and so contains a bunch of stories by other authors as well. I hope that eventually Martin will collect them all in one volume, but I suspect there may be one or two more entries before he completes and collects them. In the meantime, you can find them if you look hard enough. They should be read in order to avoid spoilers: The Hedge Knight comes first, then The Sworn Sword and finally (for now) The Mystery Knight. (Apparently, at least a few of these have been adapted into graphic novels, but so far I've just read the original novellas.)

They're excellent stories. They're very well-written, with a few deeply drawn characters. Each stands on its own well as a short story, and I think that even someone who hasn't read any of the ASoIaF books could totally understand what's going on... they're very heavily tied to recognizable medieval concepts (tourneys, chivalry, squires, etc.), with a couple of references to standard fantasy tropes (dragons and sorcerers, neither of which has a very direct impact on the plot but colors the narrative). Unlike ASoIaF, there's a single point-of-view narrator, and basically a single narrative thread, although we do also learn in passing about some wider events taking place in the Seven Kingdoms and bump up against a few other plots along the way.

Specifically, these stories take place approximately 100 years before the start of A Game of Thrones, and about 200 years after Aegon the Conqueror's landing in Westeros. So there are no characters who appear in both works, but we do get to see the ancestors of some major characters, and learn more about various large and small Houses.

MEGA SPOILERS (for all stories and the novels)

Martin does a good job at maintaining mystery. Either that, or I'm really stupid. I'd suspected early on that Egg was a Targaryen - Dunk notices that his eyes look purple - but I had no idea that he was actually a prince or any kind of nobility. I'd sort of assumed that he might be a bastard offspring of a Targaryen king. I was wrong, of course, and what's worse, I've actually argued in the past that the Targaryen genes are highly recessive (much like the Baratheon genes are dominant), which explains the rareness of their coloring and the reason for their interbreeding. Purple eyes probably means two Targaryens, which probably means royalty.

After finishing The Mystery Knight, I pseudo-cheated and looked up the Targaryen family tree to see just where Egg belongs. And - historical spoiler alert! - it looks like he will actually become the King, specifically King Aegon the Unlikely. Unlikely indeed. His brother is Aemon, who I think of as Aemon the Awesome. I mean, seriously, isn't the dude, like, over a hundred years old?

As is his wont, Martin has a fairly realistic bent to his writing. Dunk is the hero, and a very likeable person, but he's also pretty stupid, and fails at much of what he tries to do. Dunk is absolutely enormous, nearly seven feet tall (what is with Martin and ginormous men?), and because of his height he's an effective fighter, but he isn't, like, the most skilled knight in the land or anything too dramatic like that. He's trying to do the best he can.

Oh, yeah, and as to the ASoIaF connection: I can't take credit for this, but a keen observer has noted that the "Aegon" of A Dance with Dragons, who supposedly is Rhaegar's son who was rescued and spirited away before the Sack of King's Landing, may actually be a Blackfyre.  Blackfyres have the exact same coloring as Targaryens, so he would fit in well; and it certainly explains why he would pop up in Essos, consorting with the Golden Company. "Aegon" himself may or may not be aware that he isn't actually Rhaegar's son. Anyways... one of the best parts of these stories is learning more about the Blackfyre rebellion, which adds even more color to an already intriguing plot.

END SPOILERS

One of the things I most enjoyed about these stories was getting a better look at the life lived by the very lowest end of nobility. The world of Westeros is a very caste-centric world, and most of ASoIaF is concerned with the lives of people at the very top of that world: the kings and princes and their hand-picked champions. Starting with A Feast for Crows, we've started getting a better look at the life lived by the smallfolk: much like peasants in our own middle ages, their lot is far worse, and Martin gives us some inkling of their lives, dominated by fear of starvation but also helplessness in the face of arbitrary power.

Dunk is in between those two worlds. He's fortunate enough to be a knight, which gives him a certain position and certain rights; however, he has no land, and no possessions other than what he carries with him; his horses, sword, and armor are basically the entirety of his wealth. He has a degree of freedom and autonomy that no smallfolk have, but he must follow the rules of his caste.

The stories are quick reads, and would probably be perfect introductions to ASoIaF for new readers. Well, I guess that the TV series is actually the perfect introduction... but these stories are still a great entry point, rewarding without being overly complicated. Veteran readers like myself will not only enjoy a deeper immersion into some aspects of Martin's world, but may also gain an insight or two into the main series.

Seven Devils

I like TV! Here's what I'm currently watching, very roughly in order of preference!

Game of Thrones' second season is even better than its first! Clash of Kings is harder to adapt than Game of Thrones was - it's a longer book, adds still more characters, and doesn't have really obvious points of trimming. But, they've done an absolutely fantastic job at translating it to the screen. (SPOILERS FOR BOOK 2 AND SEASON 2 FOLLOW FOR THE REMAINDER OF THIS PARAGRPAPH .) The biggest example I've seen so far has been their streamlining of Arya's arc. Yeah, the book is better - we get an extended period with her on the run, witness the full breadth of depravity shown by Gregor Clegane's ruthless band, and more heart-stopping reversals as she's tossed to and fro. But they've managed to distil her plot down to capture the most significant beats (Jaqen H'ghar, her witness of the Tickler, her quick thinking and resourcefulness under pressure, her entry into the world of revenge), and even added some amazing new stuff; I believe her scenes with Tywin were invented for the show, but they've been some of my favorite stuff this season. (Tywin: "I'm cold." Me: "Yes. Yes, you are.") And oh man, Melisandre's shadow baby? Crazy! It's one of the only times in my life when the on-screen version of a monster ended up being stranger and scarier than what I'd imagined when reading a book. Even the stuff I didn't like much in the first season has largely improved. I didn't think much of the actor playing Renly in the first season, but the character has grown into the role. They've fortunately tamped down on the sexposition, while not getting rid of it altogether. I was happy to see that they didn't pretty up Asha/Yara or Brienne the same way they did Osha (and I must admit, I'm quite happy with how Ygritte looks, even with her perfect teeth). All of this, and we haven't even gotten to the Blackwater yet. Awesome!

I caught Sherlock shortly after it aired in the UK, but it's showing now state-side on PBS, and if you haven't seen it yet, you should watch it there! (Do watch the first season first; it's only three episodes long. If you're pressed for time, you can skip the second episode.) Everything I loved about season one is back in force: phenomenal acting from Cumberbatch and Freeman, excellent style, gorgeous cinematography that captures a dynamic modern London, extremely clever dialog, genuinely surprising plot twists, deeply disturbing (and sometimes disturbed) villains.

I forget now who recommended Party Down to me, but whoever you are, thank you! No, this isn't a new series, but it's new to me, and I'm about halfway through the first season and loving it. It's the freshest take on the "discomfort comedy" genre that I've seen since the original UK version of The Office, and the acting cast is just incredibly good. The chemistry between Adam Scott and Lizzy Caplan may be the best that I've seen on television. Most of the other core cast are just amazingly talented at being awful people; Roman in particular is a delightfully hateable character.

Parks and Recreation is continuing a really nice serial arc. The only other time I can think of when the show did this was back during the budget crisis / harvest festival arc. The show is super-funny, and as usual, it's the terrific characters and the show's heart that keep me attracted to it. In some ways, I feel like Parks & Rec is to TV like Vonnegut or Pratchett are to novels: there aren't any true villains, only oppositional characters. Paul Rudd's Bobby Newport is a great example: in any other show, he'd be the bad guy, but here, even though we're rooting against him, we can't help but like him: he's just so guileless and charismatic, even though he would be absolutely awful at his job. Similarly, Jennifer Barkley is a terrible person (duplicitous and immoral), but I can't help but like her, and I think that she genuinely does like Leslie and the waffles in Pawnee.

Community has been pretty great as well. The "Law and Order" spoof they did a while ago was one of the funniest things I've seen this year, even though I've never seen an episode of any of the franchises; I imagine it's even funnier to people who are familiar with that show's tropes and tics. I am feeling a little lost about the overall season-long arc; based on the pilot, I was expecting to see a lot more John Goodman and Omar this season, and while they've been great whenever they show up, it doesn't feel like the show is too committed to their (and Troy's) stories. Still, there's time left for the show to wrap everything up together, and in the meantime, we're still getting plenty of funny and clever shows.

Archer finished its third season a while back. It was excellent, and kind of a pure indulgence of Archer's fantasies (super-sexy spy car! fighting bad guys IN OUTER SPACE! etc.). Nothing quite touched the giddy highs of last season's "Terms of Enrampagement," but it was still a terrific season.

I'm mostly enjoying 30 Rock; I was thinking that I might stop watching after this season (it seems like the show is running out of stuff to do), but it's now looking like the next (abbreviated) season will be its last, so I'll probably go ahead and see the show out. When it's doing well, it's fantastic; the Leap Day episode was just incredibly good (despite blatantly ripping off Andrew Hussie).  Every episode can make me laugh at least a little, but other than Donaghy it doesn't feel like any of the characters are really evolving, which makes it harder to stay interesting.

I was underwhelmed by the second and final season of "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret." At the end of the first season, I had a rough idea of where the show was going to go; I turned out to be largely wrong, which is good in and of itself (I enjoy being surprised), but I didn't enjoy where it ended up. There are still some really funny bits in it, but as the mystery is stripped away, and you understand what's going on, it feels mean, petty, and not as much fun as I'd hoped.

So, what do I have to look forward to? Louie's third season starts in late June. I'm kind of astonished that I still need to wait another year for the next season of Venture Brothers. I'm getting tempted to FINALLY catch up on (i.e., start watching) Breaking Bad so I can chat about its new season when it airs in July. I feel similarly guilty that I haven't watched any Mad Men. The advantage, of course, is that I know I have some quality TV options in the bag that I can pull out whenever I want something good to watch. That's a nice predicament to have!

Und now is zhe time on Sprockets vhen ve dahnce!

I had pre-ordered a copy of A Dance with Dragons from Kepler's, an awesome independent bookstore in Menlo Park. I swung by after work on July 12th, picked up a northbound Caltrain, and cracked open the book. I took my time getting into it - after all, these books don't come out too often, and I wanted to savor it. I read Martin's foreward, lingered over the maps (which include some new territory), and started in on the prologue. A fellow passenger noticed what I was reading. "I have to ask, who is the first point-of-view from?" he queried. I flipped ahead past the prologue, saw the name, smiled, and told him. Good to be back on that ground again.

Everything I want to say about this book is spoilery, so before I get into that: this book isn't as crazily mindblowing as A Storm of Swords, but I enjoyed it a lot, and would definitely rank it above A Feast for Crows. Martin famously took a long time writing this, and it has paid off with high quality. Some of the plot points may annoy me a little, but the storytelling is very strong, which, after all, should be the purpose.

Okay, let's kick off the

SUPER ULTRA MEGA SPOILERS

Tyrion. That's the first POV chapter. This made me happy, since Tyrion is my favorite character, and I had missed him since he shot Tywin in the gut at the end of A Storm of Swords.

I've also greatly enjoyed the new HBO series, and Tyrion is my favorite character there, too. I've come to realize, though, that the two Tyrions are fairly different. I'd forgotten that in the books, Tyrion always waddles everywhere. Peter Dinklage never waddles: he strides. Like many other characters from the books, some of Tyrion's rougher edges were sanded away. I'm glad that they kept his whoring and his strong instinct for self-preservation, but I never really wonder whether the TV Tyrion is a bad man. In contrast, in the books, even while I'm fascinated by him and cheer him on, I still keep wondering just what evil he's willing to do.

I have two minor stylistic gripes with the book (and maybe the series) that I want to get out of the way. First, Martin has an annoying habit of ending a chapter with the POV character POSSIBLY dead, but not DEFINITELY dead. Granted, he's earned this right: unlike with other series, there's always a chance that Martin has actually killed off this person. That usually leads to a re-reading of the last page or two, to try and look for key phrases that will show whether we need to worry. I've grown somewhat inured to this, and so when Martin did it to Tyrion (he falls off a boat and apparently drowns), I just yawned. Yeah, it sounded like he was dead, but it just made no dramatic sense to kill off such a major character in such a pointless way. Sure enough, a few chapters yet he was back, healthy as ever (though the same could not be said for the Griffin).

The other minor gripe: the same details are re-presented over and over again. Tyrion always waddles; Varys always titters and has powdered hands; Stannis is gaunt and stern. A bit more variety would be nice. That said, I've come to accept that, with the series now running north of five thousand pages, it's probably impossible for many casual readers to keep even major characters straight, and every bit of personal detail probably helps.

On the other hand, while repeated characterization details can annoy me, repeated thoughts do not. I thought this was done very effectively in this book: the POV characters have lived through so much, and experienced such trauma, that their minds have started to seize on and worry over details and thoughts that they can't get past. Tyrion has a parcel of good ones now. He re-lives the slaying of his father over and over again. He asks of everyone he meets, "Where do whores go?" His mind drifts back to Tysha and her ordeal. Tyrion is brilliant (is it just me, or did he just pick up cyvasse in this book? And become a grandmaster?), but a large portion of his brain is devoted to digging these ruts deeper and deeper.

Arya is similarly scarred. Her list of revenge subjects sounds like a rosary. Ser Gregor, Raff the Sweetling, Queen Cersei. She is trying to push this cycle out of her head with a new creed: "I am nobody."

Jon Snow knows nothing.

Theon has to remember his name.

You get the idea. There's a cool cumulative effect from this sort of repetition, and I think it really drives home the things that these characters are obsessing over.

Oh, another thing I liked: Martin still uses the POV names to separate his chapters, but for some characters whose identity has become particularly fragmented or damaged, the POV title changes as well. The biggest example of this is Theon, who probably goes through four or five names from Reek on the way to eventually reclaiming the name Theon. Also, we don't get any POV from "Arya", but we do meet "The Blind Girl", and instantly know it's her. It's interesting that Barristan doesn't use his name, nor any of Dany's suitors; they all go by their titles or roles instead.

Let's have some fun with speculation!

Jon sure seems dead, doesn't he? Even if he isn't, he's for sure out of the Watch. I kind of think he might be dead for real, though... those men mean to kill him, and he doesn't have many friends nearby.

I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I do like Jon a lot as a character. Because he's so major, it would be a huge, Ned-esque blow to have him die, which would almost make it worth it. Stepping back from it a bit, though, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean... in all honesty, we've now had five books (well, four with Jon) where he's being tempted to abandon the Wall. He always leans toward it, and always pulls back. I just don't get why he would finally abandon it now. Granted, Ramsay is a great manipulator, but really... if Jon didn't leave for Ned, and didn't leave for Robb, and didn't leave for Bran, then why would he leave now? WHO would he leave for? He seems to like Mance, but Mance was supposed to be dead already, and in any case isn't crucial to his plans. He knows from Ramsay's letter that Theon and "Arya" are gone; it's not like he has any realistic chance of finding them. Jon might be out for revenge... but again, if he hasn't revenged himself before, what's so much worse about now?

I've re-read the end of that chapter a few times, and will be curious to see where that plot thread goes. The book says that he and Tormund talk for two hours before they descend to the dining hall. What, exactly, did they talk about? Just the splitting of forces, or something else? I kind of wonder and hope that there may be some other scheme at play, something that will further involve the wildlings in whatever's going on.

While I'm sad that Jon is apparently dead, I also totally understand it. He's preaching desertion. He's abandoning his Watch. He swore an oath, and is breaking that oath. It's wrenching when Bowen Marsh stabs him, but I'm sure Bowen felt just as pained at what his Lord Commander was doing.

Oh, and one more thing: it would be kinda perfect if Jon is dead, because so many fan theories revolve around Jon: who he is, who is parents are, and what role he may have to play in the Ice and Fire to come. This is a series where so many prophecies have proven false, where so many interpretations have failed, and I love the idea that we as readers are no more or less skilled at predicting the future than Melisandre is from looking into the flames. I feel like we have a broader perspective than anyone within the series (well, except maybe Bran, now), but not a terribly deep perspective, and can easily miss things, and base our plans for the future on what we want to be true.

Moving farther south... I'm also very curious to find out just what happened (or is happening) at Winterfell; I was sure that we'd get at least one more chapter out of there. I strongly suspect that Ramsay is lying in his letter. Well, he's almost certainly unmasked Mance, and may have flayed the spearwives as well. But I kind of doubt that Stannis and his host are dead just yet. Ramsay is probably provoking Jon, and might even have predicted what he'd do and how the Watch would react. Anyways, there's a lot of ways that could go down. Winter could win, destroying both armies, within a few days' walk of each other.

So, yeah. Just who WAS that blowing the horns outside Winterfell? It seems like it couldn't have been Stannis.  Is there some other force coming into play now?

The Feast for Crows POVs start popping back in near the end of the book, although we don't get much there; I think there's a single chapter for Jaime (a good one), and maybe two or three for Cersei. The south is a mess; the Lannisters are consolidating their hold on power, but they have lost so many forces, and have made so many high-priced allies, that they only tenuously rule.

I was pretty bummed about Dany's storyline in the book. Not because it was bad, just because it didn't seem to go very far. I guess that's part of the point - she's gotten bogged down in ruling a city, and dealing with the drudgery and pain of governing an unruly populace - but it isn't all that fun to read. I enjoyed getting Barristan's POV too, although he's stuck in the same slow-moving plot. Dany does eventually fly, which is pretty darn cool, but still, it seems like we could easily have gotten where we needed to in just a few chapters. I kind of thought that Martin was trying to synchronize his storylines: he needed Dany to spin her wheels for a while so he could bring Tyrion over from Westeros and join the two of them up. I'm no longer sure if that'll happen, though... after all, Dany is now in the Dothraki Sea, and Tyrion is rallying forces outside the city wall. Will we see yet ANOTHER Battle for Meereen? If so, what will be the point? I don't see Dany spending the next twenty years of her life serving as Mother Queen or whatever... it makes more sense for her to use Victarion's ships and head back to Westeros. Which is exactly what everyone's been asking her to do since the beginning of the book.

I'm not sure yet how I feel about Aegon. It felt a bit cheap for him to still be alive; the series has gotten SUCH great dramatic mileage out of the Sack of King's Landing, and Ser Gregor bashing in the babies' heads, that for him to just show up, seemingly out of nowhere, tends a little too much towards the deus ex machina for me. That said... it does put another fascinating wheel into motion. We'll see where it goes.

Eh. I'm probably failing to anticipate something really cool that'll happen in the next book which will only be possible thanks to the time we've spent in Meereen so far.

Okay, random thought time!
* Favorite POV character: Tyrion, still
* Least favorite POV character: Cersei
* Most agonizing POV character: Reek/Theon. I never thought I'd feel sorry for this guy, and remember feeling glad that he was going to get punished. Well, I take it back. I'm not glad to have learned how he was punished.
* Favorite plot thread: The bank foreclosing on Westeros. I'm not even joking. This is AWESOME!
* Coolest character evolution: Bran. C'mon, we've all been expecting something like this since A Game of Thrones, right? I love how Martin does magic, though. It isn't tricks or arcane flash like in other fantasy series. I thought Bran had a magical destiny, but I never imagined it looking like this.
* Favorite death: Hmmm. Books 1 and 3 had the best, it'll be hard for anything to top those. Here... I probably cheered hardest for Janos Slynt's; it wasn't particularly crazy, but it felt so right, and like a kind of justice.
* Favorite new character: Maybe Wun-Wun?
* Hodor: Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor!
* Places we didn't see in this book that I'm most curious about: The Eyrie and Oldtown. Something big is happening in both places, and I can't tell what.

I can't even begin to predict what'll happen next. I really hope that Dany heads westward - but, wouldn't it be cool if it turned out that the climax won't be in Westeros after all? The civil war in Westeros seems set to become even more confused, as Varys has untangled the Lannister/Tyrell alliance, Aegon begins his conquest (how, exactly, do they plan to take Storm's End?), and Dorne seems poised to enter the fray. Still, sooner or later the Walkers will cross the Wall, and so it seems like all of that needs to be sorted out quickly, or else it will be sorted for them.

END MEGA ULTRA SUPER SPOILERS


That's all I've got for now! This is a meaty book, and I'm still chewing over it mentally, so I may drop an updated post later on. If anyone has thoughts of their own, I'd love to hear 'em, just mark spoilers appropriately.

A Game of You

Here are a few random thoughts on A Game of Thrones. (My background: I've read through the series, and have watched the first six broadcast episodes, but haven't yet seen the seventh episode that's streaming from HBO.) Consider this post MEGA SPOILERS for the first six episodes, not the books.

• This may be the most beautifully shot television series I've seen. They've finally moved out of the predominantly gray and overcast surroundings of Winterfell, and the new areas look absolutely sumptious.
• Most of the casting is quite good. Sean Bean seems just a bit old for Ned, but he's totally nailing the character.
• This is a writing complaint, not a casting complaint: the characters seem much more sympathetic and likeable on-screen than they did in the book. In particular, I really disliked Cat, Jaime, and Cersei when I was at this point in the books; here, Cat is almost entirely heroic (if a tad tragic), Jaime has a roguish charm, and Cersei, while still more or less positioned as a villain, comes off as much less of a schemer and more of a victim. This isn't necessarily bad, of course; but, by starting these characters off in a more positive light, the creators are limiting the available arcs.
• Oh, and probably the biggest example: Sander Clegane. In the first book, The Hound is downright scary: he's aggressive, pointed, opinionated, dangerous. We eventually get to like him, but he isn't a nice guy. On TV, the only thing at all scary about him is his scar; his personality seems entirely quieted and somber.
• That said, I've come to understand and, to some degree, appreciate that the show has completely discarded the Point-Of-View technique that George R. R. Martin used in his novels. POV worked great in the books, but doesn't serve much purpose on the screen. And, since almost all of the POVs from the first book were Starks, it makes sense that we'd get a somewhat skewed view of the situation prior to the introduction of alternate POVs. Essentially, revelations and attitudes from the later books have been retconned into the first installment. Nothing wrong with that - it's different, but not worse.
• Example: Arya's overheard conversation in the skull room. In the books, the identity of the two speakers is a huge mystery and a plot point that takes several books to track down. Here, it's rather straightforwardly shown to us (although Arya and Ned don't know who they are). This provides a different sort of tension: instead of us being kept in the dark, we're given more knowledge than the characters, which increases our own stress as we see them approaching danger.
• The show has gotten quite free at creating scenes that don't appear in the books, but that we know occurred or that fit within the larger plot. This is a Very Good Thing. In the books, we're often treated to dialog or storytelling from other characters that explain what's happened in another part of Westeros; here, we get to see it as it happens, which just works better in this medium.
• Least favorite casting so far: Renly. I really hope they improve the character in future seasons, but right now, he seems much too whiny.
• Least favorite character so far: Sansa. I didn't exactly love Sansa in the book, but I sympathized for her; she's a bit like Juliet in R&J, in that I feel like smacking my forehead when she makes poor decisions, but I can't get mad at her. In the show, though, she's overly petulant and petty.
• Most improved from the book: Hard to say so far, but I'm leaning towards Viserys. I didn't care for him much at all in the books, where he seemed distant, cold, angry, and ineffectual. Here... well, he's still many of those things, but comes across as a more tragic figure.
• Weirdest presentations: Bran and Theon. Bran is probably the most intriguing character in the first book other than Ned: his dreams, his encounters with the strange events around Winterfell, and his hard-fought recovery have a particular drama. Most of that stuff is internal, though, and so far we've mostly just seen floppy brown hair and a three-eyed raven. (Not the actor's fault - you just can't do too much on television with Bran's first-book material.) Theon was kind of weird in the first book, too, but it didn't stand out as much there. Here, whenever he shows up I wonder, "Why is he in this scene?", even though I know what the answer will eventually be.
• Favorite character: Tyrion, of course! He eventually became my favorite in the books as well, but at this stage of reading them, I was still very unsure of what to make of him. Peter Dinklage, though, has managed to stand out in an already crowded field of talent, and every second that he's on-screen is absolutely riveting. He gets the best lines, gives the best deliveries, has amazing facial expressions, and even in his quiet pauses he holds your attention.
• Favorite environment: I've been most impressed so far by the Eyrie. 
• Favorite sex scene: Gosh, how can one choose from so many?
• Are there going to be any GRRM cameos? Have I missed any? I really want to see him in this thing.
• I don't think I've ever re-read the first book, so some of my memories of events are a bit hazy. This is a good thing - I'm not exactly surprised at anything that's happening, but neither am I paying too much attention to what's book-canon and what isn't.
• Have you noticed that the opening credits are slightly different each time? They cover the cities and regions that are featured in that episode. Nice touch. I can't wait to see, say, Braavos get its own treatment.

Stuff has finally kicked into high gear with the last two episodes, and it'll be non-stop action for, well, the next three and a half seasons. A miniseries was definitely the right way to tell this story; even there, I find myself wishing for more time. It seems like there's an incredible amount of plot that needs to happen in the four hours we have left. It would be awesome if HBO bumps up the episode orders for future seasons - say, thirteen episodes instead of ten. That would give the show a little more time to breathe and explore all the characters and minor plots that make up the whole. That said, so far I'm impressed by what they've kept from the first book - lots of individual scenes are missing, of course, but I don't think they've cut any significant characters, nor omitted any plot threads. (For example: the tournament was really abbreviated, and I would have LOVED to have seen the melee, along with some more of the knights who jousted. That said, they kept the joust itself, and the most important events that happened.) I'm happy with what they've given us so far, and am hoping for more of the same quality.