The Iron Throne and the Dark Tower

In this blog post I talk about the stories of both George R.R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. This post contains no spoilers as such, but if you wish to enter these fictional worlds completely blind – that is, without so much as a hint to even the structure or reception of a story – I advise you avoid this blog post.

My private reading over the last two years have consisted firstly of A Song of Ice and Fire and then of The Dark Tower. (I am aware that this is a long reading time, but I enjoy taking it slow.) And whilst at the time I was fully immersed in George R.R Martin’s fantasy world, I found that Stephen King ultimately captivated me more with his substantially less popular series.

When I put down the final book of The Dark Tower at 2AM this morning, I did so with great satisfaction, and with that tingling emptiness which only the greatest of fictional journeys can leave you. And, along this particular journey I had to stop and marvel and how I did not feel this upon closing A Dance with Dragons. This is, of course, mostly due to the fact that A Song of Ice and Fire is still an incomplete series, but it’s something more than that. Something closer.

My theory is that it’s because of the scale. Whilst GRRM’s epic spans through many contextually separated character’s minds and across a vast landscape all at once, Stephen King’s centerpiece always stays in the same location, focusing mostly on the same characters. And due to this, I found myself able to understand and enjoy these characters to a far greater extent. For example, take my favourite character in A Song of Ice and Fire, Tyrion Lannister. His journey through the world (of ice and fire, hurr hurr) was of great interest to me during my reading, but it was constantly interrupted with the narrative shifting to other, albeit equally interesting characters. (Apart from Catelyn. Sorry Catelyn.) And whilst I understand this is how this particular story was chosen to be told, that it is the right decision for this particular story, I also can’t help but feel that I was travelling alongside Roland Deschain and his ka-tet whereas I was only observing the Starks.

This certainly isn’t a criticism of GRRM’s storytelling, but an evaluation of my choice of favourite between two options. It is also laced with confusion; from what I’ve read and seen, The Dark Tower is nowhere near Stephen King’s most famous works. Hell, I’d never heard of it until I saw it recommended and found it at a car boot. Perhaps this is just because I don’t – didn’t – follow King as closely as some other authors. But even King himself acknowledges in his final editor’s note that The Dark Tower hasn’t been the most successful of his works, even if it is what he may have put his hardest efforts into. I suppose it’s interesting to consider how differently our creations are viewed from the perspective of ourselves as opposed to that of the consumer’s; I’m sure the author’s favourite is often never that of the public’s.

Apologies for this largely unstructured and altogether pointless blog post. Having finished two large series of books, I felt the need to ramble a little concerning my thoughts on the two. After going on two journeys of such epic proportion, I’m after something a tad lighter now, something more easy-going and requiring less of a dedication to the characters within. I’ve already chosen and begun my next story, but it probably won’t get a blog post when I’m finished due to it being a collection of short novels. Unless I have something to say about collections of short novels, at least.

About Myself, and Personal Content

I promised myself I’d write a blog post about why my blog lacks a little personality at times, so I guess that’s what we’re doing right now. If you’re not particularly interested then that’s fine, but I thought it’d be important to bring up.

I’ve been creating content on the internet for a number of years now… since I was around thirteen, in fact. This includes stories, Youtube videos, blogs, hell, even video game levels. It’s always been a hobby of mine, if you can call it that. And one thing I’ve finally gotten into my head after roughly four failed blog attempts is that, as cruel as it sounds, what goes on in your head typically isn’t interesting to strangers on the internet unless you’re unusually charismatic or already have a following from previous escapades. Also, probably first and foremost, I was a teenage boy writing like the world was about to buckle beneath my feet. Such self-centered teen angst does not typically encourage a large readership.

So that’s all well and good, but I’m nineteen-going-on-twenty now. (Oh no, so old, I know.) I must have a little more to write about than why school sucks. And it’s true, I do; if you’re a follower of my blog, you’ve already seen my rants about the many pitfalls of the human race, I’m sure. But there are a multitude of reasons (aren’t there always?) as to why I shouldn’t… as to why I won’t transform this blog into my own personal mindscape, barring previous failures.

First and foremost, this blog was created as an environment in which to stretch my non-fictional writing skills. (I know that sounds incredibly boring but stick with me, there’s a promise at the end of this blog post.) This includes life writing (allegedly), travel writing, and quite obviously blog writing, the platform in which I can note down my thoughts about the outside world. And yes, I refuse to shy away from the fact that this is also, quite hesitantly, a portfolio of sorts; if I ever need to refer my non-fictional writing capabilities to anyone in future, this is the website I shall link to. It’s incredibly important to have your own website for this kind of thing, and not only is it practical professionally, but it also feels like home, in an odd, virtual kind of a way.

A more personal explanation of my lack of personality on this blog is, quite simply, that I don’t particularly feel like opening my innermost mind up to strangers on the internet nowadays, especially now that I’m not hiding behind a pseudonym. Over the last few years I’ve met lots of awesome new people, and I’ve not opened myself up to any of them. I have trouble discussing my emotions with even my closest friends, those of whom I used to blatantly expose everything to. Back when I was a teenager I used to wear my heart on my sleeve, in most likely the most cringe-worthy of ways. But now I’ve reformed to almost the extreme opposite of my younger self, at least in that regard. To write about my emotions on a public space as I used to do so frequently would nowadays be to me an incredibly reckless thing to do.

And finally, the content of the blog itself. Believe it or not, one does get tired of writing about oneself to an audience of none after five or six years. (It may have been somewhat therapeutic to begin with, but after years of chasing my own tail I got a little dizzy and exhausted of that content.) Not only that, but it seems tiring to the reader before they even start their exploration of the blog. This is why in this blog, I only want to present my opinion about things, and make light of some things, and rant about some other things. This, I believe, is how a normal person would blog. I simply couldn’t see that five years ago. There’s a reason a diary isn’t written for an audience. It’s not interesting to other people.

That concludes my reasons for not writing personally on this blog, but fear not. I’m aware that I went slightly overboard on the faceless thing, and I’m working on changing that. If you read my previous blog post, you’d know that I’ve challenged myself to write not only more content for my blog this year, but also about less serious topics. Instead of writing stoically about society (which will probably still happen when necessary), I want to write stuff that I care about; write about shows and people and music and stupid things and remarkable things, about mannerisms and absurdities and delicious things I put in my stomach. I want to put myself into this blog, not the society-condemning robot which I come across as most of the time.

So in the interest of being less of a robot, I shall now end this blog post by mentioning I wrote it while listening to the album Permanence by Deathmole for the first time. It is rather phenomenal!

Thank you for reading! I am excited for the future of this blog. Of my university course, not so much. FRIGGIN’ DEADLINES MAN.