Dropping Some Eaves

GTL: Games, Thrones, and Laundry

I was on vacation last week at the Jersey Shore (The real Jersey Shore and not the appalling televised version.) However, while I was relaxing on the sands I was fortunate enough to overhear one of the most entertaining book summaries of my life. So I submit for your entertainment: Game of Thrones as explained by the Italian-American gentlemen sitting next to me at the beach.

"So Sheila, got me this book... you know that HBO show... Crown of Thorns... Throne of Swords... something like that. Whatever, we don't have HBO but we heard it was good. I tell you this book is the most confusing thing I've ever read. There are so many damn characters I have to reread pages like two or three times to remember who everyone is."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard that was good though..."

"Oh it is. I can tell you I knew this was going to be a good book when I got to this part where this kid was climbing on the castle, and he's a good climber, but he's climbing this castle and he sees the Queen banging this guy, and this guy ain't the king. So he's climbing, like really high up, and he sees this in the window and then he almost slips, but the guy who was banging the Queen catches him. So he's hanging out the window holding onto this guy and this guy is like, 'You know who I am?'

"The kid does, because he knows that's the Queen, and the guy turns and looks at her and is like 'The things I do for love,' and then he throws the kid out the window."

"No sh*t."

"Yeah, and you know who the guy was with the Queen? It was her brother. He was fricking banging his sister, man."

"So he just killed that kid?"

"Nah, but they try to kill him again. This guy comes into his room while he is still out cold from the fall and tries to kill him. His mother, who is another queen, tries to fight off this guy who has a knife, but then the guy totally gets ripped to hell by the kid's direwolf... that's like a really big dog, like bigger than a fricking horse."

"Sounds like a good book."

"Yeah, the only one I can't figure is the one king's bastard, Jon. I just don't know what that guy is about. He goes off to stand guard on this giant wall, where he trains be like a warrior, but he can't ever have sex again."

"That sucks."

"Yeah, but when he is training, the one instructor guy tells him that he is arrogant, and its true. You don't really think about it, but he says to Jon like, 'You're arrogant. All these other boys are the sons of farmers and poor people.' They'd never touched a sword before they went there, and this Jon character was trained by his father the king. He's the best fighter but its easy to beat a bunch of shmucks who never knew how to fight before.

"I can't figure this Jon character out. I don't know if he is going to be a good guy or a bad guy. I haven't finished the book, but I don't know how he's going to turn out."

"Is it a good book? Forgetaboutit."

"But its a good book?"

"Fricking good."

"Maybe I'll pick it up."

That is about where the conversation ended and moved to other topics that interested me less, like sports. I write this not so much because I found it amusing, (I did,) but because it only further illustrates a point I made in a previous blog, nerd culture is becoming more mainstream. I never thought the day would come when I overheared a conversation about a high fantasy book series talked about in voices closer to that of Tony Soprano than Eddard Stark.

If my two beach neighbors had glanced over at anytime during their conversation they would have found me with a grin wider than my face. Somebody should tell MTV that the Jersey Shore is little more nerdy than they may think.