A Song of Growing Up with “Thrones”
Welcome to The Podcast That Drinks and Knows Things’ Drowned Word! The Drowned Word focuses on topics discussed in the most recent episode of the show. Today I’m talking about S08E06 Is That A Knife In My Heart or Are You Just Happy To See Me.
Well, friends, this is it. Game of Thrones is officially over and now we don’t have to speculate about who will sit the Iron Throne, whether or not we’ll get Cleganebowl, and who will care about Jon’s parentage.
Turns out the answers are Bran, yes, and no one.
The Podcast That Drinks and Knows Things delivered a wonderful episode breaking down the final episode of the season and the series, and I would highly recommend you stop reading this blog and go listen to it. But if you’ve already listened to it, please stick around and read my thoughts on myself.
Though there are certainly Thrones watchers who are newer to the show, a lot of us have been with it from the very beginning.
Season one of Thrones aired in April 2011. At that time, I was nearing the end of my freshman year of college and I worked as a front desk attendant for my dorm. This job involved taking guests’ college IDs and writing their names down in a book so they could hang out in residents’ rooms. The hours were great – I worked 2 AM to 6 AM on Friday nights. People typically stopped signing into the dorm around 3:30 AM, which meant I had another two and a half hours of time during which I had to stay awake and alert. After somehow hearing I needed to watch this show that was based on books I didn’t know, I illegally downloaded the pilot and watched it at the desk (side note: I was only caught illegally downloading videos ONCE in college and had my internet suspended for a week.).
I vividly remember watching seasons one and two (which aired in April 2012) while seated at this desk, pausing the show to sign in guests who would sometimes ask what I was watching and enthusiastically discuss it with me. These were always male guests who were being escorted into the dorm by female “friends” who would wait patiently while we chatted, though once a resident curtly said “I’ll be upstairs” to her friend and left him talking with me.
When season three aired in March 2013, I was a junior. By this time I had met Liz in Adolescent Psychology. Liz and I were both studying to be English teachers, so we ended up in all the same classes right up until graduation. We had a mutual love of Thrones and since I was still living in a dorm at this point, now a resident assistant, I spent season three curled up on Liz’s couch with her and her roommates. Sadly, we’d all gone home to our parents by the time The Rains of Castamere aired, so we had to watch the Red Wedding in our childhood bedrooms.
I graduated college on May 17, 2014, right in the middle of season four. I spent that night celebrating with my friends and when Sunday rolled around, Liz and I decided to stay in our little college town one more night so we could watch episode seven together on her beat-up couch; one last Thrones viewing before we went off to new adventures.
The summer after I graduated college, I worked at a summer camp and met the love of my life. We lived almost four hours apart, which meant that when season five premiered in April 2015, we were a few months into a long-distance relationship. He shared his HBO Now password with me and we video-chatted each week while watching the episodes. Some of my strongest and fondest memories of long-distance are of watching the reactions of a tiny face on a screen.
By April 2016, I had moved to where my boyfriend lived, so we could watch the entire season together, no extra screens required. Every Sunday night, I would go over to his dad’s house and watch the week’s episode with them. As a full-time graduate student, I could afford to stay up late Sunday and sleep in on Monday.
When season seven premiered in July 2017, my boyfriend and I invited friends over to the apartment we now shared. We crowded the 70s-era furniture he and I had inherited and everyone laughed when Ed Sheeran popped up on screen. I had finished grad school two months before and I was anxiously awaiting a call offering me a teaching position for the next school year, but thankfully the show distracted me from that for a bit.
In 2018, my older sister decided she finally wanted in on the Thrones action. Maybe the year-and-a-half hiatus had inspired her to give it a shot. My sister had been living in a different state for a few years at this point, but we decided we’d watch the show together. Between the airing of seasons seven and eight, my sister and I watched every single episode of Thrones – her for the first time and me for the second, third, or fourth, depending on the episode (well, I didn’t tell her this at the time, but one or two episodes I just let play while I did something else. I didn’t need to see some of those Ramsey scenes again.). This became a tradition and now every week my sister and I watch something “together,” a ritual that has brought us closer than ever.
In April and May of 2019, the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones aired. By this point, both my sister and my dad were invested in the show and every Sunday night we’d text our thoughts on the episode after I’d watched it with my boyfriend: what did you think of Jamie and Brienne? Did you like Pod’s song? Was the battle too dark on your screen? Why did Dany go mad? Who’s going to die THIS week?
And all around the world, millions of other people were discussing the show too. A show that’s been part of some of our lives for close to a decade.
When Game of Thrones started, I was a week away from my 19th birthday. I had just changed my major from Drama to English Education and I was working at the front desk in my dorm. I was three years away from meeting the person who would change my life, six years away from choosing sobriety, seven years away from abandoning teaching and later running a marathon. Eight years away from writing blog posts for a podcast network.
What attracted me to Thrones was, of course, the story. The journey the characters were on and the world in which they lived. I have always loved fantasy, especially high fantasy. I knew I would like this show from the second I started the pilot, but I didn’t know it would become such a huge part of my life. So even though I have my problems with the last season and maybe I’m not 100% sold on King Bran, I can’t help but look back at all my experiences with this show and marvel.
Like Tyrion said, there’s nothing more powerful than a good story. My story isn’t as good as Bran’s (I GUESS), but it’s good enough for me. Thank you, Game of Thrones, for being awesome and bringing me so much joy. For bringing me closer to my family, my friends, and myself. And thank you, Drinks and Knows, for covering this show faithfully over the years. Our watch has truly ended (for now).
Until next time, thanks for reading The Drowned Word. What is read may never die.
