I haven’t done a tag before but one of my favourite bloggers, the Orang-utan Librarian, sent this one my way and it looked like fun, so I decided I’d give it a go! Season 6 of Game of Thrones will be premiering very soon so this should help prepare me to  dive into Westeros again 🙂

Rules:

1. Mention the creator Orang-utan Librarian
2. Answer all the questions
3. Tag people and keep it going!

So here is the Ultimate Game of Thrones Tag in three parts

Part 1: Book Questions

“We do not sow”- A book you would not be willing to invest in

There are plenty of books I wouldn’t invest money (or time) in just because they’re not the kind of books I’m interested in reading… but if I narrow it to books I decided to read but didn’t want to spend money on, I guess I would choose Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I bought a copy second-hand, read ten pages, then took it back to the store and sold it on to someone else to recoup my money. So I guess technically I invested in it, but I very quickly un-invested!

“Fire and blood”- A book that produced strong emotions in you

A lot of books have made me emotional, or even had me in tears (I listed some a few weeks ago), but I’m going to have to go with Hyperion for this one. It produced not only strong emotions but also such a wide range of them: horror, fear, sadness, despair, hope, awe… it was an emotional rollercoaster of a book.

“Winter is coming”- Your favourite winter read

Perhaps this is cliché, but I’m a big fan of Christmas and I adore Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. It’s the kind of book you want to curl up next to the fire with on Christmas Eve or read to children around the Christmas tree (provided you’re in the Northern Hemisphere of course!).

“Family. Duty. Honour.”- A book about strong family ties

The Mists of Avalon, in particular for its mother-child relationships. I wouldn’t say the families in this book are ‘close-knit’ by any stretch of the imagination, but it explored the complexities, strengths and problems of female familial relationships in a way nothing I’d read before it had.

“Growing strong”- A book you had low expectations of but that grew on you

I’m going to say Daughter of the Forest for this one. The cover looked dated and unappealing to me but I bought the audiobook because I’d seen lots of good reviews. The start of the book was a bit slow and lacklustre, so I was thinking of giving up, but things picked up and the book got better and better. By the end I really loved it, and it turned out to be a much more complex and layered story than I was expecting.

“Ours is the fury”- A book that made you furious

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I know many people love this book and I respect that, but I am not one of them. To me the whole thing felt esoteric and meaningless and when I got to the end I was angry that it hadn’t really gone anywhere, not to mention dumbfounded: I couldn’t stop asking “why is this such a popular book??” 

“Unbowed. Unbent.Unbroken.”- A book you have unwavering devotion to

I’m going to have to say Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone simply because it has too much nostalgia and too many good memories attached to it for my devotion to ever waver!

“A Lannister always pays his debts”- A book you feel indebted to

Hmm… I feel indebted to too many books, so I’m going to cheat and list several here. Man-Eaters of Kumaon, because I cut my teeth on it as a young reader (a very weird book to read as a kid, I know, but I loved it); Obernewtyn and Harry Potter – because they were the two books that inspired an obsessive passion for reading in me as a young teenager; and Ender’s Game, because it was the first science fiction book that I adored and it opened my eyes to all the wonderful books that genre has to offer.

Part 2: Fan Theories

Who do you want to win Game of Thrones?

Tyrion Lannister, hands down. If “win” means “sit on and hold the throne” then perhaps that’s unlikely and he might not wish it, but I still want him to come out triumphant somehow in the end. He’s my favourite character and one of the only ones who seems to actually have a heart… and if he dies I am boycotting the rest of the series!

Who do you think will make it to the end and who do you think will die?

I really don’t know, as Martin seems to have no qualms about killing off important characters. But I think it’s likely that Tyrion, Daenerys, Bran, and Arya will make it to the end. Sansa, Jaime, Brienne and Cersei might live (I think Cersei’s too formidable and compelling of a villain to kill off soon… though perhaps at the end she’ll die). I think Rickon Stark, Littlefinger, Theon, Hodor, The Freys and Ramsay Bolton are likely to die.

Part 3: My Game of Thrones

Would you win or die?

I think I’d be the kind of character that would hole myself off somewhere where I could avoid conflict and notice until all the fighting and warring was over… so I wouldn’t win, but maybe I wouldn’t die. That said, I’m a pretty trusting person, so maybe someone would betray me and I would die anyway!

What house are you?

I used the what house are you quiz and it turns out I’m House Stark… which I guess means I’m one of the “good guys” but my days might be numbered. Here’s what the quiz said about me:

“The good news is, you’re a thoroughly decent human being. The bad news is, that is a very dangerous thing to be in Westeros. You are loyal, dutiful, and generally ill at ease among the toxic politics of King’s Landing. Either buckle down and learn to play the game, or get the hell out into more hospitable environments. The North may be freezing, but it also has notably less backstabbing which, bless your little heart, is not exactly your strong suit.”

I tag:

A Bibliophile’s Obsession

Magic of Books

Drunken Dragon Reviews

Leona’s Blog of Shadows

Art and Soul