Happy New Year! Today, we present our final podcast of 2015. Appropriately, it’s our Year in Review Episode covering the many essays, podcasts that we wrote/recorded as well as some of the things that we loved from the ASOIAF community over the year. Finally, we talk about some things in store for the future in movie-trailer voice!
Listen to us here or at:
Here’s some of what we cover in the podcast:
New Developments on Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire
- Nina joined the blog
- The “BryndenBFish” name went the way of the dodo bird
- We wrote 53(!) essays
- 12 podcasts
- We started a tumblr blog
- Stats, baby, Stats.
Some of our Favorite Pieces to Write
- Hamish: Brightflame and Bittersteel
- Nina: Loves of the Dragon, Mothers of Chaos (Part 1, Part 2) & the Winter Queen (Part 1, Part 2)
- Jim: Unlikely, Unwanted Crowns: A Political Analysis of Aerys I and Maekar
- Jeff: Blood of the Conqueror, Part 5: A Conquest That Lasted a Summer
Our Favorites from Each Other
Jeff
- Nina’s “The Merman’s Ambition”
- Jim’s “War and Peace: A Political Analysis of Daeron I, Baelor I and Viserys II”
- Hamish’s “The Curious Case of Domeric Bolton”
Nina
- Jim’s “Unlikely, Unwanted Crowns: Aerys/Maekar”
- Hamish’s “The Great Black Dragon & the Curious Case of Domeric Bolton”
- Jeff’s “The Dragon’s Mercy, Part 3: Blood for Blood”
Jim
- Jeff’s “Blood of the Conqueror, Part 4: The Exile”
- Nina’s “The Ladies of Fire: Rhaenys”
- Hamish: “The Man Clothed in the Bittersteel”
Hamish
- Jeff’s “Blood of the Conqueror, Part 2”
- Nina’s “The Merman’s Ambition”
- Jim’s “Daeron the Pretty Good”
Some of our Favorite Concepts/Theses of 2015
- Nina: The Wrangling of the Wolves
- Jim: The Aegon Doctrine
- Hamish: Aerion’s murder of Haegon Blackfyre and Aerion’s potential as a Blackfyre double agent
- Jeff: Daenerys burns Old Volantis
Favorite ASOIAF moments outside of WaPoIaF
- Nina: Turtle-Paced’s “A Waste of Time”
- Jim: Poor Quentyn’s Essay on Tyrion & Aegon on the Rhoyne
- Jeff: Radio Westeros’: The Lion of the West
- Hamish: BookShelfStud’s King Broken-Smile & Lady Gwyn’s The Boldest Sellsword of Them All
Our Favorite Podcast Episodes That We Did
- Nina: Three Heads of the Dragon
- Hamish: Fan Questions and Answers
- Jeff: The Book That Never Was
- Jim: The Murdered and the Missing
No podcast episode would be complete without a few comedic moments and laughs too. So, we share things that made us laugh this year like:
- Jim doing his best impression of Viserys I folding his royal flush
- “It ain’t easy bein’ green.”
- “Valyria? More like Gary, Indiana.”
- Long Dawn Silver
We wrap up our episode by talking about what’s in store for the future of the blog and podcast and each contributors’ plans for the future.
Follow us on facebook, twitter and tumblr and follow us individually on twitter at:
Thanks for a great year! See you all next year!
Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire 
Hey guys, just finished listening to this podcast (outro music still playing) and just wanted to say how great of a job you all are doing. I also wanted to request a topic from you all. Westeros has one political and military mastermind… Cersei Lannister. ;). Almost everything she touches turns to shit, or already is. Perhaps a look at all of her political moves and decisions (and what she actually should have done) will help us all see her arch in Winds of Winter in a new light. Thanks guys. Keep it up!!!
This podcast reminded me that my 2015 basically began with bryndenbfish.wordpress.com as it was back then. I found this blog on new year’s eve a year ago and spent the whole night gobbling up on all the posts until it was like 5 in the morning of a new year by the time I was done. Pretty nerdy way to spend New Year, but you folks made sure it was totally worth it. I’ve been addicted to this ever since. So, keep with the great work, I wish you all an amazing 2016.
!!! That’s a great story and helps us feel that what we do is worth it. Thanks for reading and listening! Happy 2016!
Thanks for this, really enjoyed how you guys pointed out each other’s favorite essays. I only recently started keeping up with your posts so that helps me prioritize what to read first.
Really enjoying these podcasts, thanks for all the interesting discussion.
Just want to point out that there are many, many examples in real-life history of individuals of high birth renouncing their station (and the attendant pageantry) to perform service to humanity and escape from the perceived frivolity of their peer group. Women as well, incidentally – plenty of Catholic saints started out as noblewomen. I find the strident indignation over Talisa really funny, especially couched in terms of “no one in the real medieval world ever did this.” There’s a huge difference between a reigning queen like Elizabeth I, and a noble’s daughter, too. Elizabeth certainly had a reason for creating spectacle, but if Talisa’s ambition is to become a healer, how does pageantry serve that end? I agree that Talisa was somewhat out of place in the GoT world, like a weird visiting Civil War nurse warped into the War of the Five Kings by some kind of glitch of the weirwood space-time continuum, but we have to allow that people are not automatons being pulled along like puppets on the strings of their culture. People act out of counter-societal conviction, and defy gender roles, all the time, across history, and GoT is full of people striving against the constraints of their culture. I find this argument about sentiments that are “too modern,” which is also frequently deployed against Daenerys and her anti-slavery stance, tiresome. There’s research that suggests that so-called moral revolutions tend to happen pretty quickly, and those start with a few individuals. So the fact that some individuals have convictions or aspirations that defy the expectations of the culture in which they’ve been raised makes the characters and the world more convincing and engaging, not less.
Anyway, thanks again for all the analysis.
The RSS feed seems to be end. Is there a new rss feed?