You Win Or You Die

Cole Gaynor
George R.R. Martin
A Game Of Thrones

You Win Or You Die

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” 

In both fictional works and real life events, the question of who rules has been a complicated, messy thing. Why wouldn’t it be? High stakes are always in place, and nothing but death befits the loser of such a game when their adversary is crowned. In the opening book of George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series, A Game Of Thrones, these are precisely the stakes.

 The first drop of the series is tinged with a horrifying sort of mysticism: three men, alone among a wintery wasteland, encounter the reanimated corpses of people they saw dead with their own eyes. After Martin’s chilling entry, the story moves away from the magical for a while, and the slightly overwhelming multitude of characters begin to stream. We are introduced to the Starks of Winterfell in the North, of which there are the family’s two parents, two of their daughters, three of their sons, and one illegitimate son. The time it would take to introduce all of these characters would be tremendous, especially as the book progresses. Instead, I’ll introduce them as they become significant, as happens in the book. From the very beginning, something sets the books apart: the children are given a direwolf, both a symbol a power in the frigid north and the symbol of their family's house. The author turns this rather inconspicuous happening into a landmark for the whole storyline and attributes significance to these direwolf companions of the Stark children. Later on, as the themes become more developed, this becomes more apparent. It also expertly sets the mood for the book and lets the reader understand the characters better by giving them something, however strange it may seem, relatively relatable. 

Meanwhile, as if readers weren’t already overwhelmed by what had previously been introduced, another storyline entirely is revealed. Daenerys Targaryen and her brother, Viserys, have been driven out of the Seven Kingdoms, where their ancestors were kings. Viserys plots to get it back by marrying off his sister in return for an army. The Dothraki, the fiercest fighters on the continent, are not in a hurry, however, to help Viserys, and his impatience (and impertinence) are later to cause him trouble.

Switching back again to the story of the Starks, the king, a childhood friend of Ned, the lord of the Starks, asks of his friend to be the Hand of the King. This would mean him leaving his home, wife, and half of his children to go down south to the king’s court, where many more occupying characters and plots await. However, as some of these characters are revealed to be plotting sinister plots, the death of several characters truly explode into a spiral of ever-increasing intrigue and mystery, the cleverness of the characters so immense it is hard to believe they are born from an author’s mind in an entirely different world. With all of the nation’s tensions springing loose at once, however, one thing is bound to come: war. 

This book is undoubtedly a legend of heavy duty fiction that I thoroughly enjoyed. It almost overwhelms a reader with all of the information on people, places, and history. The complexity of the book, however, is in my opinion masterfully balanced with the memorable writing of the author. Whatever the reader needs to remember, Martin makes sure they will. Character names alone would inevitably become a mess in a reader’s mind, but Martin doesn’t often let a character’s depth stop at their name, even at their first mention; there is always some trait that the reader can attach to a character. This really goes for everything in the book; all of the places have either a memorable name, something memorable about them, or both. This is a mark of a genuinely in-depth work of literature. Another of Martin’s strengths is his ability to use details and make them subtly connect to the reader amidst seemingly unrelatable things. While many don’t have older brothers that must lead an army at 15, we can connect to characters feeling insignificant in their shadow or lost without their sibling’s attention. Overall, I would recommend this to audiences who are already interested in fantasy and want a long-term, tight-packed series. With a total of 4,228 pages in the entirety of the series and every minute of it pushing the reader toward the next, this is not a read to be taken lightly. Those who have already seen the TV series might find this book a little less marvelous. The writings, while fantastic in style, hinge heavily on unexpected plot twists and developments. If you’ve seen the show already, it’s a bit like watching a mystery movie twice. However, I would still say that the books are worth reading, even after the show. The wordings of a book can never be equally expressed, so this certainly won’t waste your time. Also, be fairly warned that the book is for mature readers, similarly to the show. Most under the age of 14 would find that aspect of the series detracting from the book. But for those who are mature and want a complicated legend to make their brains work extra hard as they read, always anticipating what happens next, I recommend, at least after the first book, George R.R. Martin’s A Game Of Thrones.