The Citadel

The Archive of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Lore

So Spake Martin

Vericon (Harvard University, MA; January 27-29)

Various characters and ghosts were hanging around one of those nebulous out of character bars. The leadin for the World of Westeros video was that Mellisandre was playing the new George Martin MMORPG, but she complains of how one incompetent player can ruin a whole raid. Cut to a complete re-enactment of the Leeroy Jenkins video. (This was also a clever use of props, as the actress was running the computer with the powerpoint show and video on it, and thus provided an in character explanation for why she had it.)

(In the original WoW video, a guild is sitting around in the middle of a raid on a dungeon, trying to figure out how to survive the next room. The plan they come up with is horrible, and their stats guy gives them a 32.33%, repeating of course, chance of survival, which is relative good for their plans apparently. During the whole discussion, a character named Leeroy is sitting with his "Away from keyboard" tag on. Suddenly, Leeroy speaks up, "Okay guys, I'm back, let's do this. LEEEEEEROY JEEEENKINS!!!!" Leeroy charges in, the raid sits there for a moment in stunned silence and then follows him, the leader crying for everyone to stick to the plan. Everyone dies. Video ends with the raid leader declaring "Leeroy, you're an idiot".)

For the spoof, someone rolled up a bunch of low level characters named after various Martin characters and recreated the video nearly scene by scene. Stannis was the raid leader, discussing their plan to topple Joffrey, Mellisandre was the stats person, and Ned Stark was the AFK NedJenkins, with a guest cameo by RobbStark, who also gets himself killed. It was pretty hard to catch all of the dialog, unfortunately. Maybe if we're lucky the Vericon folks will post the video somewhere. After the video ends, with Stannis declaring that Ned is an idiot, enter the ghost of Ned, who protests that he isn't that stupid. Everyone laughs, but he swears he had competition. Cut to Celebrity Jeopardy.

The contestants are:
Robert Baretheon, playing the Sean Connery role
Hodor
Arya Stark, who has added Alex Trebek to the end of The List.

Quotes and questions:
Trebek: And our last category, discussing Sam and Aemon's journey across the sea, Maester Boating!
Robert: AH HAHAHAHA!!!
Trebek: *sees double entendre* Uh... let's change that to World Religions.

Trebek: House banners for 200. This animal is on the banner of House Lannister. *picture of lion flashes up on screen*
Arya: What is the broken corpse of a rat snapped in two by the jaws of a wolf?
Trebek: Don't we all wish. Hodor?
Hodor: HODOR!
Trebek: No.
Robert: The Lannisters are a bunch of pussies!
Trebek: Judges? Yes, we'll give you that one.

Trebek: This man is the true father of Joffrey, who has fair hair and green eyes like all the Lannisters and unlike all of Robert's bastards. Robert: Who is me? Trebek: No. Anyone? The answer, surprizing as it might be to some is Jamie Lannister. *Cut across stage to Jaime and Joffrey* Jaime: What did they tell you about your father? Joffrey: They told me my father was killed in a hunting accident! Jaime: *deep voice* No, Joffrey. I am your father. Joffrey: NO!!!! It's not possible!!!! Jaime: Join me and we will rule Westeros together as father and son. Joffrey: Ack, can't get the image out of my head, no!!!!

Trebek: And now for Final Jeopardy. To give Hodor a fair chance, the question is to write your own name. All you have to do is write your name and you win. *music interlude* Alright, Arya, let's see what you wrote.
Arya's board: Nobody.
Trebek: No.
Arya: Cat? Salty? The Ghost of Harrenhal?
Trebek: Give up. Robert, what did you write?
Robert's board: others
Trebek: No, Robert, you're not a bunch of wraiths seeking to over-run Westeros. Let's see what you wagered.
Robert's board: *letters appear around the "others" to reveal* Your mother's a whore.
Robert: *laughs*
Trebek: *sighs* Hodor, I suppose we should see what you've done...
Hodor's board: Hodor
Trebek: Wow. I guess you do know how to to write your own name. Let's see what you wagered.
Hodor's board: Hodor
Trebek: I should have seen that coming.

There was also a segment where Mellisandre cast a spell to let the audience hear character's thoughts, Earshot-style. By far the best of these was Jaime's, which was just him repeating "Lancel and Osney Kettleblack and Moonboy too!" over and over again. :) Then there was a musical number "Lannister and Stark" to the tune of "Beauty and the Beast", as the obligatory fight breaks out. The show ends when the waiter orders everyone who isn't prepared to refrain from fighting to leave, pretty much everyone does, and suddenly the waiter falls over dead, shot by a crossbow for no apparent reason. The folks left on stage shrug, saying that people always die in George Martin tales.

I'm not sure if George Martin got all of the jokes or not, but he seemed to think the show was pretty funny.

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