Thrones of Her Own: The Women Who Changed Fantasy Forever

A Series Introduction

I’ve been having these amazing conversations with Hal lately on his blog about historical drama. We bounced around a lot of obscure references, mostly things only Hal has ever heard of, so I got tired and gave up trying to take notes.

I know I mentioned Hilary Mantel and we went on a bit about what made Thomas Cromwell so magnetic and why Mark Rylance didn’t pull it off so well. Then The Tudors came up, but we quickly abandoned it because it started driving me a bit mad, and not in the fun way. So, Hal threw in one of his effortlessly hilarious analogies with a random turn onto Game of Thrones avenue.

And then:

Listen Babs, why don’t you write something on that obsession of yours: female roles in Game of Thrones? It could be a series. The perfect excuse for your rogue Now TV subscription – consider it your Westerosi Writer’s Residency. Let’s make it count. You could start with the Sand Snakes. (Before I knew I was going to be made redundant and won’t be able to afford it, I took out a Now TV subscription and tied myself in for something like six months. I’ve been beating myself up for it ever since because I’m not even using it.)

I should confess now: I haven’t read the books. I’m not going to. I know they’re probably full of extra Dornish complexity and lost wolf siblings and maybe even a timeline that makes sense, but… anyway, I just won’t! I’m here for the televised version, in all its maddening, glorious, dragon-flamed imperfection.

The Sand Snakes, for instance? Hal is going to be disappointed because he even had a subtitle ready for them: The Avatars of Wrath. He was so excited about how cool it sounded, and I was even going to use it. But here’s the thing about the Sand Snakes: Glorious entrance. Gorgeous weapons. Gone in a blink.

I have read up on them and they probably deserve pages of analysis. But we’ll have to count them as a near miss and move on, because writing anything worthwhile about them would mean reading the whole book series, and if I do that, I’ll never get anywhere with this.

So, this is going to be about Thrones of Her Own—the women who changed fantasy forever by actually surviving the edit.

So who do I pick first? Decisions, decisions.
I think I’m just going to let the dragons, daggers, and deadly glances guide me.

Episode One: Coming soon.

I just need a bit more fire and blood in my bloodstream first.

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