Watch after reading: Got s4 report

RA Bartlett 

I have been tasked to do a blog post about this past Sunday's "Game of Thrones" premiere, on HBO. This is quite the long row to hoe, first of all, because so many characters' names aren't found in Spell Check. And secondly, I'll admit, I was hard pressed for subjects, because the nature of this season is that it's actually  the second half of the book, "A Storm of Swords." As such, there are less major  characters to introduce, except  for Oberyn Martel, who should be popular, but kind of controversial because as one of the most recent introductions, it means the largest number people who were introduced to Westeros through the show would still have the chance to picture him in their mind. As a result, a lot of Johnny-Read-Latelys who will always see Ned Star as Sean Bean will probably complain how different Oberyn is in the book. He's also very hard to talk about because his entire purpose is reliant on spoilers, and a couple of words that I'm not sure the fine folks at WBOB would appreciate being linked to via google searches. We'll also see the Children of The Forest, which is what I will imagine will have a lot of you saying, "And that is where 'Game of Thrones' lost me."

I guess I could do a recap, but recaps seem so pointless. "Hey, why I don't write about something somebody else wrote, as if to ride their creativity and fans' insatiable appetite like some kind of internet barnacle." Listen, a lot of Starks are dead, Theon doesn't have a dick and John Snow still knows nothing. YOU ARE ALL CAUGHT UP. As for Sunday's episode, I mean, it was a lot of exposition, and I think the actor who played Daenerys's boytoy last season was replaced. Man, I guess Jared Leto is off to greener pastures now. [Note: It turns out Jared Leto wasn't in Game of Thrones last season, and as the production takes months to shoot, March's Oscar ceremony would have nothing to do with it either way]. I could do one of those "Game of Thrones and Crimea" things, but let's face it, nothing is going to top that 'Game of Thrones/Election 2012' meme. I still don't know how the serendipity of Stannis Baratheon being introduced to the wider public the same year Mitt Romney ran for president was even cosmically possible. Just nowhere to go with that. (Except to mention that, OMG Vladamir Putin is totally Tywin Lannister!) Anyways, I just felt that, as there's a lot of material that the shows can never cover, I thought I'd introduce you to some of the lesser known houses in the realm. And I do mean "lesser" And just because I'm writing this on April 1st doesn't mean it's a joke. It'll probably be published well after, so these houses are the real thing, forever.

Noble houses even creepier than the Freys...

House Lebowski

House Motto: "That's like, your opinion, man."

House Insignia: A horned helmet atop an intricately patterned carpet.

Location: The Riverlands

A famously jovial house, who nonetheless seem to not get along with the local authorities. Which, being they are a fiefdom, and thus they are the authorities, creates a great deal of confusion. Which is really par for the course. The Lebowskis are said to have mysterious rituals where they see strange visions, but Lebowskis say "it's like no big deal." Their great allies are House Sobchak, which can sometimes get them into trouble. Sobchak insists they are constantly embattled due to anti-semitism. When pointed out there is no Judaism in Westeros, they will exclaim, "Exactly!" What was very interesting is, they had a feud with the Ironborn of the Iron Islands. However, the Ironborn ended up wiping out another family that just happened to be named "Lebowski", but it didn't really bother anybody, because nobody liked those guys anyways. For some reason House Lebowski is trying very hard to arrange marriages to House Tyrell. It seems they are in love with the idea of staying at "Highgarden".

House Copra

House Motto: "Weiners and Butts, Weiners and Butts

House Insignia: A uh, weiner...and a butt

Location: Where else...The Reach

Like Davos Seaworth, who took his mocking nickname "The Onion Knight" and made a badge of honor, House Copra were a recently ennobled family of sausage-makers who ran with the taunts others made at their expense. Perhaps ran a little too far, as House Copra has developed a reputation as the most, well the word most often used is "clownshoes". Many Bannermen throughout the Seven Kingdoms fear doing battle with the Copras, not so much for their renown as peerless warriors, but the indignities laid upon the defeated. When their fighters are known to get lucky, they will draw pictures of falluses on the foreheads of the fallen. And of course, their hand-to-hand combat is also formidable an infamous, as they deploy a move where they will grab an assailant's arm, slap his own face with it, and then remark "Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?"

House Ignatius

House Motto: "We will, we will rock you!"

Location: The Eyrie

House Insignia: A rock.

Well, it's not so much their banner, as everything they seem to hold up in their armies and castles are rocks. In battle, they just throw rock at their opponents. Or drop rocks on them. As you can imagine, House Ignatius is composed of very mighty, vigorous warriors. Strangely enough, they tend not to like using catapults or trebuchets in siege warfare. They claim it is because they feel siege weapons dilute the strength and purity of the rock, however, the Maesters believe it is because nobody in that house is quite intelligent enough to figure out the engineering schematics. Or even pronounce them. That being said, despite not being held amongst the particularly wise (or for that matter, cognoscente), and being descended from the Hill Tribes, Robert Baratheon quickly elevated the family to knighthood. He is said to have found them quite funny, and he liked their style.

House Phyre

House Motto: "Eye See You"

House Insignia: Horned Toad

Location: Dorne

Similar to how the Tagaryans are infamous for marrying within their own family to preserve royal, as well as their signature silver hair, House Phyre retains its incestuous couplings to preserve their ability to squirt a putrid liquid coming out of their eyes.  Even the Crannogmen of the neck, well known for eschewing the pretentious airs and conventional protocols of royalty, find them pretty repugnant. It doesn't help that the eye trick has very little practical use in battle. It also isn't something that can be done at will, or voluntarily. The goop kind of comes out of their eyes at the most inopportune moments, which is saying a lot, as there aren't any actual opportune moments. Perhaps the generations of incest has less to do with wanting to keep a recessive family trait, and more to do with the family being the only ones who will have them.

House Charanor:

House Motto: "We Will be Your Guests"

House Insignia: A leech surrounded by dollar signs

While by definition, the Great Lords are landed, Charanor's exact abode is a mystery to all, to the point I wonder if they actually have one. When pressed upon the issue, they insist whatever place is the most inconvenient for the enquirer at hand to travel to. What the lords of Westeros do know, however, is the Charanor family is a frequent guest at various houses throughout the realm, making up some kind of story about renovations or the weather. One may ask why they're not simply evicted, or worse. However, a very strange problem has arisen where the Charanors have infiltrated the courts so deeply and numerously with their squatting, it's believed the expenses and logistical problems of getting rid of them would be greater than just letting them stay around in their prospective castles for an indefinite period of time.