Nolite te bastardes carborundorum/Valar morghulis! Margaret Atwood, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Convention and Queen of Dystopia, is also apparently an amazing dork, and has written an essay for The Guardian dissecting the appeal of George R.R. Martin’s work and its influences in history and pop culture.
Here’s a sampling, because “Margaret Atwood getting excited about dragons” seems relevant to all of our interests:
A sidenote on the dragons. The past thousand-and-a-half years has given us a range of dragons, from the lucky dragons of China, to the tussling red and white dragons of Welsh lore, to the dragon of St George fame, substitute for Satan, to the Zen-ish, wise, riddling dragons of Le Guin’s Earthsea, to the hoarding, miserly dragons of Beowulf and The Hobbit. George RR Martin’s dragons are more like superweapon bazookas. They’re aesthetically attractive – more so in the books than in the series, where they have less delicate pink tracery and more scaly pterodactyl beakiness – but, so far, they don’t talk.
Luckily they’re in the hands of a character we can actually approve of, more or less. Daenerys Targaryen surely has the blood of Uther Pendragon flowing in her veins, and we expect she will live up to it. The hairstyle is a bit High Elven, but why carp? There are only so many high fantasy hairstyles to go around, and, unlike Cate Blanchett in the Tolkien films, she doesn’t have pointed ears. Not that Cate doesn’t look good in them, mind you.
To read more of Atwood’s thoughts on Daenerys (“May the Force be with you! We think you will make a dandy Faerie Queene, once you’ve obliterated those cold Snow King Others thanks to the fire at your command”) and the series’ influences (C.S. Lewis, The Wind in the Willows and Harry Potter, among others) head over to The Guardian.
In the meantime, Atwood should definitely have at least a cameo on the show now, right? Who would you like to see her play?
(via Winter Is Coming)
Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
