Tag Archives: George RR Martin

Game of Thrones vs science

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The Mountain vs Prince Oberyn vs science: who will win?

First, this website is not a spoiler-free zone. Never has and never will be. I’m fine with spoilers. Sometimes I even seek them out (I was that kid who opened up his Christmas presents and then re-wrapped them). So, if you HATE spoilers, and aren’t up-to-date on Game of Thrones, stop reading now.

I love science, and I love fiction (and I also love science fiction). Fiction shouldn’t have to live up to the standards of science, especially when we’re talking about fantasy, sci-fi, or supernatural/horror, all of which require a level of disbelief. But sometimes it’s fun to see if what happens on the page (or screen) could happen in real life.

Let’s look at Game of Thrones and the epic battle between The Mountain and Prince Oberyn. Quick recap: Tyrion was accused of poisoning his nephew, the spoiled, vicious King Joffrey. Facing near certain conviction in a sham trial, he chose a duel to decide his fate. If his chosen fighter won, he would be set free. Cersei, Joffrey’s mother, who hated her brother Tyrion, selected The Mountain, a hulking beast of a man.

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Prince Oberyn, aka The Red Viper, a fiery, bisexual Dornish prince renown for his fighting skills, volunteered to battle The Mountain on behalf of Tyrion in order to extract a confession from the villain who raped and killed his sister years earlier.

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Well, the fight didn’t go too well for either man. The Mountain was mortally wounded, and Prince Oberyn got his confession, but that was just before The Mountain crushed Oberyn’s skull with his bare hands.

It was shocking and gruesome, even for a show like Game of Thrones.

This article asks the scientific question: could The Mountain really have crushed Oberyn’s head like an overripe watermelon?

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First the facts. The actor who plays The Mountain, Hafthor Julius Bjornsson, is 6 ft 9 inches and weighs over 400 lb. Bjornsson is the third-strongest man in the world and can deadlift 994 lb. The guy is seriously strong. The strength and size of Pedro Pascal, who played Oberyn, is irrelevant here, but this picture of the actors shows their difference in size.

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So could he do it? Probably not. Based on bike helmet crash data, it would take 2x the amount of force to crush a skull than human hands could muster, even hands as strong as Bjornsson’s. But, like much of science, this isn’t settled. One study suggested that it takes as little as 16 lb of pressure to fracture the skull, while another study pushed the skull-crushing requirement to 1200 lb.

My vote? Let’s get Bjornsson a skull to crush (not mine). Then we’ll see if George RR Martin’s words were based on scientific fact, or were pure fiction.

Game of Thrones: revenge is a killer

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I suppose I should blame George RR Martin, whose twisted head thought up all this deviousness. Or maybe David Benioff and D.B. Weiss who brought Game of Thrones to television.

No. I blame myself for not being able to turn away.

I got through Ned Stark’s beheading. I made it through Catelyn and Robb Stark’s undoing at the Red Wedding. And last night it was Oberyn Martell, the revenge-seeking bisexual Dornish prince’s turn.Game of Thrones

The writers titled the episode “The Mountain and the Viper,” so I knew the epic fight between Ser Gregor Clegane (aka The Mountain) and Oberyn (aka The Red Viper) would take place in this episode. But they pushed it off until the very last few minutes. Tension, nonstop, waiting for it. Genius.

And it was everything I thought it would be, even more. Oberyn was carrying around 20 years of anger for what Tywin Lannister, via The Mountain, did to his sister (raping and killing her and her children). Oberyn was a badass from his first moment on the show (and in the books). All he ever wanted was justice, but his justice slid headfirst into revenge, and that revenge, full of blind passion, was his undoing. He could have finished off The Mountain (and in a sense, he does eventually). But he had to extract a confession from The Mountain. In his rage he made a fatal mistake. He let the wounded hulk get hold of him. What happened next was horrifying as we watched Oberyn get his confession while meeting his end in the most gruesome of ways.

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It gutted me (figuratively, of course). Those of you who are fans of Game of Thrones know exactly what I’m talking about. For those who aren’t, you’re missing a whole lot of masochism.

I suppose the moral of this latest episode (if there is one in the Game of Thrones universe) is that revenge is a killer. Or, if you need revenge, at least get it cold rather than hot.

On the lighter side, here’s Lena Headey, who plays arch-villain Cersei, “reenacting” that fateful scene with Pedro Pascal, who played Oberyn. Sometimes it’s good to laugh.

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Playing the Game of Thrones

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I love this TV show, and I’ve read book 3 (mainly because I’m a sucker for spoilers) but I game-of-thrones-iron-throne-1024x576hesitated writing about Game of Thrones for two big reasons.

1) It’s more in the realm of fantasy (though with strong supernatural elements). I’ve never been big into fantasy — I struggled with the Lord of the Rings series.

2) Game of Thrones, both the print and TV versions, are deep and intricate. I don’t think my analysis, on an episode-by-episode basis, could do it justice.

Nevertheless I’m a big fan of all things Game of Thrones. I think it’s brilliant storytelling. ned starkThe show hooked me late in the first season, when Ned Stark, played by Sean Bean (the biggest name in the cast), met his fate. I knew then I was in for a wild and unpredictable ride.

On TV, the production values are excellent, the pacing is consistently solid, and the actors are all pros. My favorite, and I’m not alone in this, is Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion as played by Dinklage is the complicated heart of a complicated show. Catelyn Stark, played by Michelle Fairley, a woman who is smart and tough and willing to do whatever it takes to protect her family, is/was a close second.

TyrionIn the books, writer George RR Martin alternates character viewpoints as he bounces around the fictional world of Westeros and beyond — Daenerys, Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Catelyn Stark, Jaime Lannister, and Tyrion Lannister. Each of these viewpoints is utterly unique and fully formed.

But neither book nor TV show is perfect. The books are rambling. No, I don’t need listings of every Ser who fought in a certain battle twenty years earlier. And the TV show revels in gore and violence to the point of overkill. One blogger commented that the show uses rape as a set piece. Okay, I get it — this world is brutal.

These are minor points. Game of Thrones is great entertainment. Very few moments in recent TV history can top when Daenerys ordered her dragon to burn the evil Kraznys.

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And then there’s the infamous Red Wedding episode, where Catelyn, Robb and his pregnant wife weren’t treated very well by their hosts (huge understatement). Check out this link for some great reaction videos.

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Watch/read Game of Thrones if you’re up for some excitement. And for great postgame reading, the best I’ve found on the Internet comes from the A.V. Club. Their website has intelligent commentary, with articles geared toward those who haven’t read the books and those who have.

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