Introduction - Who am I and what is this show about?

Welcome everyone to the very first episode of the Westerosi Primer. So, basically, in this episode, I'm going to cover three basic topics. First off, I'm going to introduce myself, which also explains why I'm qualified to talk about things related to the world of Ice and Fire, and also I will be explaining what the whole purpose of this podcast is. And then I am going to close out with a little bit about what am I covering for the next few episodes. So who am I covering for the next few episodes? So who am I? 

My name is Liz and I am a big fan of A Song of Ice and Fire. How did I get into this fandom in the first place? So picture this it is the year 2013 and I didn't have HBO at the time, which you could only get if you coughed up extra money to add on to your cable or satellite package. I was aware of this really popular TV show called Game of Thrones, but of course, as I said, I don't have HBO, I couldn't watch it and I just don't know much about it. 

My personal philosophy when it comes to media, especially things that are deemed popular I will usually give them a chance, because when things are popular, they either turn out to be really good or they turn out to be complete and utter trash. Now, what you deem as really good and complete trash is, of course, personal preference, but you end up feeling one or the other when you check out things that are extremely popular. So I was thinking to myself okay, considering I don't have access to HBO, let me read the books, because this TV show is an adaptation of a book series. So let me check out the books and find out whether or not I think the source material is actually any good. Because if the source material is actually any good, then I was going to cough up the money to buy the DVD box sets, which were going to be a lot cheaper and easier to get my hands on, versus coughing up extra money on the cable bill. 

Because for those of you who don't remember how things worked back, then the only way you could get stuff like HBO and Starz and Showtime would be you have to contact your cable company and have them add on to your package. Same thing with Satellite. It's not like nowadays, where a lot of stuff was streaming online and you just click a few buttons and, within five minutes or less, you get access to the stuff. That was not how it was 11 years ago. 

Okay. At that time, netflix was really one of the only streaming services of note at the time. It was just not easy back then. But at any rate, I also felt okay, let me see if I can borrow the books from the library, because I was not about to cough up money to buy books. If I wind up feeling like these books are complete trash, okay, because the novels are not cheap. You will never find any of the volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire on discount okay, unless it's a copy at a used bookstore or Public Works or Goodwill or something. Okay. 

So luckily for me, since I live in New York City, I had easy access to getting ebooks from the library. And to my shock, I discovered that there is a really long waiting list for the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series. And due to how many hundreds of people are on the waitlist for the books, I was only allowed to borrow the books for your standard period of time. And once your standard period of time, I would immediately lose access to the book. And if I wanted to reread the book or if I didn't finish reading the book, I would have to basically get back on the online queue all over again to borrow the book. Which meant that I had to be very efficient with my time and make sure that I read a certain number of pages every single day that I had access to this book. And make sure that I completed the book within that designated time period, which, amazingly, I actually did. It helped that again back in 2013,. I had to go to work Monday to Friday and also I had a very long commute to work and also a very long commute to go home. 

Plus, occasionally I would read during my lunch breaks and, of course, I also read on the weekends as well and very quickly I realized wow, this is a really well-written, interesting book series. I just have to read the rest of it, and I eventually got through all five volumes, and that convinced me that, okay, let me try watching the TV show now. Now, as of course you notice, I mentioned that I read the book series back in 2013, which, at that time, season three was about to be released, which meant that, yes, I did know about the Red Wedding way before TV-only fans knew about the Red Wedding, so ha. 

But, at any rate. Yeah, I am somebody who has been involved to some degree with this particular fandom since 2013. So I would say that being involved in this fandom for about 11 years gives me some credentials to do this show. With that said, what is the point of this podcast? My thinking was okay, there are plenty of Game of Thrones, slash, a Song of Ice and Fire podcasts out there already. Obviously, there have been shows about this particular series for at least 10 years more than that. But thinking about it, I realized, okay, considering how much content there already is in terms of podcasts, what could I possibly do or say in a hypothetical podcast that would differentiate me from all the others? What sort of niche in this fandom could I possibly do that other people haven't already done? At this point, clearly, I can't do a typical review commentary type show, because there are plenty of those already out there, okay. So then the thought occurred to me that one thing that I could try to do was do a podcast that is definitely accessible to people who read the books, like I did, but would also be a show that would be geared more towards those of you out there who watch the TV show but you have never read the books. You may be feeling like I will never read the books because George has not finished writing the damn series yet. So why should I emotionally invest myself in reading a book series when the TV show already finished and basically gave me the ending? So there are plenty of you out there who are like that, and that is completely fine, completely understandable. However, because you are not reading the books and you probably won't read the books, you actually miss out on quite a bit of world building that happened in the novels and also comes up in some of the other material that George actually did complete writing. 

What really inspired me to go this route was actually back when the TV show was airing. Actually, quite a number of people that I work with at my day job were also fans of the show, so when new episodes of the new season was releasing, we would all watch it on Sunday night, just like you listeners were, and at a later date in the week we would get together during our lunch break and have a group discussion while we ate lunch together in the office conference room, and that was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun to nerd out together about a show that we were all watching. But, interestingly enough, our little group every week were split on how many of us actually read the books before and how many of us only watched the TV show, never read a single page of the novels. And it led to some interesting discussions where some of us who are book readers especially me, who was practically the office encyclopedia of all things Westeros okay, the discussions were really interesting because we brought up some interesting little tidbits that did get slipped into the TV show but you may not have noticed. And also we even talked a little bit about stuff that were in the books that did not get included in the TV show. Like some of us actually explained to a limited degree about why the hell we were so damn frustrated with the Dorn storyline. Okay, and those of you who only watched the TV show, you were probably annoyed with that Dorne's storyline because you were probably thinking what the hell was the point of any of it. 

Guess what listener On this podcast. I am going to eventually get into it and I will explain it in a future episode. Yeah, those lunchtime discussions are basically one of the inspirations for this podcast where I am going to deep dive, get into the series to the best of my ability, and there will be some of you listeners who are also super nerdy fans like me who will undoubtedly point out my own gaps and laps in my recitation of lore. If I have done so, which I probably will, but if I do, you are more than welcome to bring it up in the comment sections on the website, and you are also free to leave comments on the Instagram account that I set up for the show and also the threads, etc. But please remember that I am fine with accepting criticisms, but try not to be a rude jerk about it, because it's very easy to be very rude on the internet and not give a crap about other people's feelings, but let's keep things civil, okay With that said. 

So now that you know what I'm aiming to do with this podcast, what I've decided is that I am going to run this podcast in seasons, partially because it is a lot of work to produce a podcast, especially for someone like me who is both the host, producer and editor. Oh, and also I will be doing the maintenance of the website for this podcast, and I am also running all the social media accounts that I opened for this podcast. So when you are a person wearing all the hats, I have to invest a lot of time in producing this show. For my own sanity, I am going to do this in seasons. I am planning on doing two seasons a year, so I will be releasing new seasons in April and then in October. 

I've already pre-planned what topics I will be discussing in season one of this podcast, but for future seasons of this podcast, I will have surveys and polls on the show website where all of you listeners can give me your two cents and let me know what topics you would like me to discuss in the future seasons. Now, in these surveys and polls, I'm going to list some topics that I am willing and able to discuss and I will eventually cover them. However, I'm going to let you listeners decide which topics get the priority. Okay, which topics do you, as a collective, feel like you want me to discuss first, second, third? Blah, blah blah, and I'm going to update the polls so that way, you guys can let me know for the next season what you want me to discuss next. Sound fair Now for this particular season. 

So what I'm going to be doing for this season is that I dubbed this season one as Westeros 101. Basically, each episode I am going to have a discussion of the different regions and kingdoms of Westeros. I am even going to do a overview of Essos in an episode of this season as well. I'm going to basically explain a little bit about notable geography within the region or the kingdom that I'm discussing. I will also do a brief discussion of some of the notable families that are from that particular area, and this is very important for me to do because, of course, in the TV show we do meet a lot of important people and families in the eight seasons. 

However, what's not very clear necessarily for people who are TV viewers is why some of these characters are actually important and what are their significance in the grand scheme of things, because, again, some of these things do not necessarily get addressed Like. One very good example is when we talk about the North. There are a number of families in the North that are under the leadership of House Stark, and while there are a handful of families that do get some attention in the show, the show doesn't really get very much into the dynamics of these families. And the dynamics of all these different houses is extremely important and it really dictates quite a bit what happens in the story Because, just like in real world history, you have the royal family and you have all these nobles who are under them in a feudal system and some of the past history and the dynamics of all these different noble families and the royal family impact a lot of historical events that happen in Europe, Asia, etc. In our own world. So it logically makes sense that within Westeros, within the Seven Kingdoms, you have those types of dynamics and history happening and again, you don't necessarily get that in the TV show. So I will be discussing that to a certain degree in this first season. In fact, actually, depending on how you listeners feel. Okay, you may feel like okay, Liz, I think for season two you should get even more into this stuff, which I could do if that is what a whole bunch of you guys ultimately tell me via the poll. But yeah, so that is basically what I'm going to be covering for this season one. I will eventually create the poll on the show website so you get to let me know what you think I should cover for season two and hopefully for season three, four, etc. Sound good, okay, so I guess that is going to be it for this episode. 

Please check out the website for this show, which is thewesterosiprimer.com. You can also follow the show on social media if you have Instagram threads and X Also on the website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter. I have created a newsletter for the show, so when I'm actively releasing new episodes of the show, you will get some additional previews and information about the next episode and in between seasons you will get the occasional essay about A Song of Ice and Fire in some fashion, and, yes, that will also include things related to House of the Dragon. So if you're interested, again check out the website, thewesterosiprimer.com. I will see you next time when the cold winds blow, the snow falls and winter comes. Thank you, what did you think of this episode? Check out thewesterosiprimer.com and let me know what you think of this episode. If you have a friend or two that might like the show, make sure to share.