Chris Fritz's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"

Hey everybody, my name is Chris Fritz and this is the inaugural post on my writers blog. I guess I'll start out with how I became a writer. It all really started in college, I majored in filmmaking and one class really stood out to me was a class I took on script writing. In this class our big assignment for the semester was to write a full length screenplay. Once I wrote that one screenplay I quite enjoyed it. I ended up writing two more full length screenplays and several short ones. So it was shortly after I graduated college and I wanted to write another screenplay. I started brainstorming up one idea for my next story and the more I thought about it the more I realized that this one Idea was too big to be a screenplay but it might just work as a novel. Quite a long time later I published this idea into my first epic fantasy novel entitled the Universe Key. The Universe Key now available on Amazon. Ever since I published that first book independently I thought I might as well give this a legitimate shot at becoming a writer. I'm going to write this first novel into a series of epic fantasy novels so stay tuned for that. I'm currently working on the second instalment. I'm hoping this blog will help me build a fanbase and ultimately this will be a place where I can post short fiction that I work on and post updates on how my projects are going. So stay tuned and we'll see where the story takes us together.

I would be lying if I said the recent covid 19 pandemic hasn't affected my life in any way. When I'm not writing I'm a stand up comedian and all the comedy shows got canceled. That was the biggest bummer of my household. That job did involve a lot of writing so I think it runs parallel with my authorship. I also have a day job that I work at full time. Recently I got cut down to part time do to the pandemic. These two circumstances have given me a lot more time during the day to write. Before the pandemic my life was a precarious balancing act of work, stand up, writing, and somehow playing video games most of the time. With two of these activities pretty decimated it's given me more to write and play video games. I like to think some other authors have been given just as much free time and will use it to write some very compelling pieces of literature. I can say without hesitation that I'll release my second novel ahead of schedule. I wish I could say that the virus itself has inspired me to virus themed story but that is not the case here. From a narrative stand point I think it would be kind of boring to have a virus antagonist as it cannot be seen, heard, smelt, touched, or tasted. But maybe I'm being pedantic. I hope the general populace has had more time to stay inside and read more books. I even tried to sell my first novel by making a Facebook post that said stay inside and read my book so we can flatten the curve. Something like that. Now the only times I can go out into public are for work, groceries and black lives matter protests. With this imperative my next book will be done before I know it and it'll be a rip roaring and curve flattening read. Follow me on twitter if you can @chrisfritzcomic and I'll see you later.

I recently asked myself what inspired me to become a writer and tell fantasy stories. I remember growing up with the classics, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, all these were immensely popular when I was growing up. I can say this was the first era of inspirational stories that brought me into the world of story telling. Also there's one thing that has probably been my biggest inspiration for most of my life and that's the show Avatar: the Last Airbender. I could write for days about everything I love about this show but I think what really made me fall in love with it was how deep it was. How it combined a lot of different sources of inspiration to create a whole series that worked on almost every single level. It's bursting at the seems with eastern philosophy, social politics, and unique psychology. If you look deep enough there's even meta commentaries. I'll definitely talk about this show more on this blog in the future. I also grew up reading comic books from Marvel and DC. I recently heard someone describe the Marvel fandom as a religion and I could do nothing but agree with that statement. I think I was indoctrinated into that Marvel cult at a young age and now I couldn't get out if I wanted to. An important moment in my life was when the first avengers movie came out. I probably saw that movie 26 times in the theatres. I thought it was so good that I just wanted to watch it over and over again until I memorized every line of dialogue and every camera shot. Like I just went crazy for a while. At the time I thought that telling a story with that many main characters interacting with each other was impossible for super hero movies. Impossible until someone did it. Eventually I put it together that someone gets paid to make these movies and that's when I decided to go to school for filmmaking. I needed a career somehow. It put me on the path to now. As some more modern sources of inspiration I like the show Game of Thrones even though I became a fan of it after the show ended. I just bought DVDS and binged watched all the episodes. I also like the Netflix show the Witcher, a show called Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, as well as the reboot of Voltron legendary defender. As for what inspired me to write the Emilaba stories that I'm currently working on I had a million little pieces of inspiration that I latched on to and it take too long to go over them now. But this post has been a good place to start.

The road I went down to publish my debut fantasy novel the Universe Key was an arduous and confusing one. At first I tried the obvious route of traditional publishing. This lead to an extremely long and painful list of rejection emails from companies and literary agents. Oh for months it was just rejections as far as the eye could see. Mountains on mountains of rejections. If I had a dollar for every rejection I received then I could just skip publishing and finance a movie based on my novel. I think it could have been for the better though. I don't want just any run of the mill literary agent. I need an agent that understands my visions and wants me to achieve my goals. An agent almost as unique as me. That is just something that money can't buy. I also did talk to some vanity publishers with hilarious results. I swear all those vanity presses should be shut down, they're scams one and all. I did have the chance to show them how I really felt though. Any sleazy con artist who sent me an email or called me on the phone got a permanent headache worth of tolling from yours truly. So watch out for scams guys. Two companies I'll name are Dorrance publishing and Fulton books. Avoid them like they just tested positive for COVID 19. So with all my options seemingly exhausted where was I to go? It seemed like my last hope was indie publishing. I started off as a true novice in the indie publishing world. I only stumbled head first into how I could self publish on amazon. But the moment I hit the button and published the Universe Key I realized something. I absolutely love indie publishing. I love editing down and formatting what I wrote. I love designing my own covers and once I published the Universe Key I had this calming peaceful feeling wash over me. A feeling that told me now I can publish anything I want whenever I want to. That is the feeling of freedom. Now to end this blog post I have a message to the literary agents of the world. Get off your 15% taking butt and sign me already. So I can finally bring excitement, prosperity and wonder into your short meaningless life.

Little side note I'll give you guys an update of what I'm working on. I'm 80k words into the sequel to the Universe Key. I still have a lot to write so I think I'm going to hit 100k words.

I've written a sequel to my first novel. The new book is called the Well of Destruction and it takes place exactly where the Universe Key left off. This is my covid-19 book. I've been gifted with some extra time to write recently and this is the end result, congratulations lucky readers. I have to say that with this new book I think I've outdone myself. Critics might say that some sequels don't live up to the original but I say this objectively that this second book takes all the greatest things from the first book and cranks them up to eleven. You guys are going to have so much fun reading the continued adventures of Brilan, Clara and the rest of the group. Also in my writing process I've come up with a name for this series. I'm calling it the Magic Metal War. What do you think of it let me know in the comments. Now I'm not ready to release the book just yet, I need to go through my extensive editing process and I need to design a cover. But I am ready to give you guys a little sample of what I've been writing.

“Are we there yet?” Clara asks Brilan.
“No.” Brilan says shortly.
“Are we there yet?” Clara asks again.
“No.” Says Brilan
“Are we there yet?” Clara asks.
“No.” Brilan says.
“Are we there yet?” Clara asks.
“No. Are we there yet?” Brilan spurts out in a moment of reversal.
“No.” Clara says instinctually. “Hey you messed me up!” Cara says as her annoying farce is unraveled.
“Hey I can play games too. I can keep it up all day. Just try me.” Brilan tells his sister to put an end to her annoyance.
“But I’m bored and hungry.” Clara wines to her brother. “When are we gonna…” Clara tries to wine more but she is interrupted when a ten foot tall Ferean comes stomping out of the trees and into the path that the siblings walk. Adrenaline pumps through the hearts of the kids as they see the beast that threatens them.
“RRRRREEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!!” The ferean calls out as he finds his young prey.
“CLARA DUCK STAY HIDDEN!” Brilan yells to his sister as he draws the universe key and gets in between her and the ferean. Brilan pushes his sister away into a bush aggressively encouraging her to stay away from this horror. The monster swipes at Brilan with one of its claws and he bats it back with the universe key. The young Zaubator must quickly defend against the attacks, come up with a strategy to kill it and keep Clara safe all at the same time. He keeps bashing at the beast with his key but after a few hit he can’t keep it up. The ferean uses one of his claws to swipe Brilans feet out from under him. The boy falls to the ground as the ferean looms over him.

Pretty suspenseful right? I'm going to tentatively say that this whole thing will be out by the end of the year so you'll have to wait a little bit to see how this part gets wrapped up. I'll tell you right now it's worth the wait.

I started watching the show when it first came out in 2005. So I was there from day one. I can’t say that about too many things. I loved how kids were given these extraordinary abilities to bend the elements. I loved the animation style that built a world that you just want to live in. I loved the plot, the characters and the humor. I was so interested in seeing the extent of the bending abilities and I was entranced by the movement of the characters in order to use their elements. This show revolutionized the animated TV world with it’s depictions of martial arts. Back in the day I didn’t understand how television seasons worked so when I saw the season two finale I just thought the series was over and all the characters died. Twelve year old me was in a big state of shock back then. That show brought me up and took me down. It took me on an emotional rollercoaster. When I watched the series finale I had tears in my eyes. It made me feel so many things and to this day it still holds up as one of the best TV shows ever in my opinion.

But everything changed when they made the movie. The movie came out when I was sixteen and I’ll admit I was excited to see the characters I loved show up on the big screen in live action. When I left the theater the most of what I had to say was “They got a lot of the stuff wrong.” I can write forever about how bad the live action movie but I think that’s a task for another day. I can sum it all up by saying like most of the fans I hate the movie. Some of the fans even deny its existence and I can’t blame them for doing so in the slightest. So we all moved on with our lives until 2012 when Nick announced they were making a sequel series called the Legend of Korra. Even though the movie was crap this new series was a clear departure. I really like Legend of Korra. It was nice to go back to the world of avatar and the new series got the taste of the movie out of my mouth. I originally thought that nick would just do one season of Korra and it would just be a way for the fandom to say goodbye to the series once and for all. I was taken for a loop when they decided to do three more seasons of Korra. I was also thrown for another loop when I heard the final season wouldn’t be on TV but instead it would be on the Nick website. I could write more about the series but I really liked it. Some of the fandom doesn’t like the series and I don’t get those people at all. Over the years I bought both of the series on DVD and re-watch them from time to time. I even watched the series when it came out on Netflix and I was happy when it soared to the number one show on the streaming platform. I can probably keep watching the show as an adult and keep finding new things to appreciate or new meanings to find in the text. For example in season two when the gaang takes down Azulas drill she comes back and uses their strategy to take over Ba Sing Sei. The gaang takes down the drill from the inside and Azula takes down the city from the inside. That plays into a theme of fire nation defeat playing into their eventual victories. Theirs also a meta textual reading I found in it. In the episode bitter work Iroh explains a new fire bending technique to Zuko. To start off the lesson Iroh explains to him that he find influence from other bending forms. To become more powerful he should take wisdom from many different sources. Wisdom from all across the world will make him whole. He does this to explain that he developed his technique to redirect lighting from studying water benders. Meanwhile in the real world Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino were heavily influenced by Japanese anime when creating the Last Airbender. To create their fictional world they took inspiration from feudal japan, china, Buddhist monk culture and the tribes of the Inuit. Even though they were American animators their animation style for this was heavily influenced by anime from Japan. They fused that influence with western animation techniques to create their own unique art style. In the subsequent years a new kind of animated cartoon that I’ve heard some fans call Americanime arose. Some shows that would fit into this genre would be Samurai Jack and Teen Titans. These guys took wisdom from around the world and it made them better artists. Helped them make this groundbreaking show that the fandom fell in love with. Wisdom from all across the world made them more powerful just like Iroh in their show. The same way Iroh use his diverse wisdom to create his revolutionary technique Michael and Bryan used that same principle to create Avatar the last Airbender. I’ve also found a meta narrative within the Legend of Korra. In season 2 Bolin goes on a little side adventure of becoming a movie star. In their world they call them movers but it’s the same thing. In the movers Bo Lin plays a character called Nuk Tuk the hero of the south. The character is a water bending hero from the southern water tribe. Bo Lin himself has no genealogical connection to the Southern water tribe and he is not a water bender. Now lets go back into the real world. The crappy live action last airbender movie was the subject of a lot of criticism. A major talking point in that criticism was allegations of white washing. Specifically they had several Caucasian actors playing roles that would have been more loyal to the source material if they were played by people of color. For example in the movie the characters of Katara and Sokka are played by Caucasian actors when in the show they are portrayed as people of color. If the movie wanted to honor its source material more then they probably would have cast non white actors to play these roles. This point is just a drop in the bucket of criticism leveled at this movie. Now lets go back into the the legend of Korra. In Bolins movers it probably would have been better and made more sense if the character of Nuk Tuk would be played by an actor from the southern water tribe or a water bender. But instead it’s played by Bo Lin who is an earth bender from the earth kingdom. It played into the plot of the show but one could say that this character went through the in universe equivalent of whitewashing. It sure was subtle but I found an instance in the Legend of Korra where the creators of the show criticized the live action movie in a meta textual way. Just one final middle finger to M. Night Shyamalan.
Also in the season two episode the Guru guru Pahtik explains to Aang the seven chakras of the body. They explain it accurately and exhibit a cornerstone of yoga and meditation that originated in ancient India. This makes the show deeper and more vital. I love things like that, it was interesting to learn about chakras in an interesting way that played in perfectly to the narrative.

Now a days I hear of a deal to make a new live action series on Netflix rebooting the Last Airbender. Now I’m not to excited to hear the words live action when I think about this franchise and I heard the news that the original creators were attached to the show but they recently left because of creative differences. That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in the upcoming series but I’ll probably watch it anyway. I don’t even really want a live action series that much I kind of want a third animated series following the adventures of the next avatar in the cycle. There’s a part of me that thinks stories should be updated and remade to relate to a new audience and a new generation. But maybe I’m straying away from that belief. I think the last Airbender is the Star Wars of my generation but the franchise has had a lot of missteps. It’s only until recently that I realized the stories and the Last Airbender and Star Wars are very similar.

Now I have to ask myself how has this story influenced my own story telling? I think the most important way is on a world building level. Like a said earlier the Last Airbender has a rich and vibrant world that feels so real. I even think that there should be an open world RPG based on the show. The world building is also tied in perfectly with the magic system of bending. Bending is integrated into the world in a way that it affects every character on the show. When I wrote the Universe Key I wanted to create a world that someone would love to live in and a magic system that had a major impact on the world as well as the people living in it. Both the Last Airbender and the Universe Key both have a war as their backdrop and my characters Brilan and Clara are loosely based on Sokka and Katara. Also I can’t help but admit the fact that some of the magic weapons spit out elements is based on bending. So I can say that the Last Airbender has influenced me heavily in my writing and my creative life. I hope that the franchise will become more popular in the pop culture zeitgeist. As time goes on I hope its influence will become deeper and richer.

Rewrite GOT
Like most of the critics I found the conclusion to Game of Thrones quite disappointing. Despite my better judgement I’ve re written the final episodes to try to improve upon what happened on screen. I’m going to be re writing outlines for seasons seven and eight because that’s where I think everything went wrong. Here we go.
We start off in Kings Landing where queen Cersei is having quite a hard time dealing with a group of rebels within the city. A large group of citizens that hate Cersei and don’t want to be ruled by her. They’re upset because she blew up the sept of Baylar killing thousands or maybe they just don’t want to be ruled by a woman. Whatever the reason they hate the queen and they are willing to commit several acts of violent terrorism to make that opinion heard. The knights of kings landing have a hard time keeping the peace against this threat.
Meanwhile in the north Jon snow consolidates his power and choses his council. He makes a controversial pick to make little finger the hand of the king but does make a sensible decision and makes Sansa the lady of Winterfell. He embraces his role as king in the north fully with the lives of his people resting on his shoulders. He must fortify the northern strongholds, like the dread fort, moat Cailyn, as well as the night’s watch at castle black. The northerners will be the ones to fight the army of the dead they need to be ready. After murdering the entirety of house Frey by poisoning Arya rides north to Winterfell for an uncomfortable reunion. On her way there she runs into the brotherhood without banners in conflict with the hound. They have an uneasy reunion because Arya thought the hound was dead and the hound probably thought the same of her. After this reunion they all agree to ride to Winterfell together. Once they reach the gates of Winterfell Arya is reunited with Jon and Sansa in a heartwarming reception. Again they both though the girl was dead and are presently surprised to see her still kicking.
Dany lands in Dragonstone with her iron fleet, her dragons and her overwhelming military might. Dragonstone is deserted so nobody stops her occupation. It’s not long until she marches her forces on kings landing. With Cersei and her forces at their weakest Dany takes the city in conjunction with the rebel forces of kings landing. With the minimal amount of dragon fire on her part. Unfortunately it comes with a price. The moment before Dany officially wins the battle over Cersei the queen of the seven kingdoms orders that the cashes of wildfire hidden in the city be blown up to take out Dany’s forces. Killing thousands in the process and leaving Dany with a scarred city. Cersei, Jamie, Bronn, Chyburn, Gregor, and a battalion of Lannister troops sneak out of the city just to hold on to their lives. They retreat back to Casterly Rock and leaving Daenerys to rule over a broken city. The last Targaryen has won the iron throne but it has come at a steep cost.
Bran Stark travels south to the wall and reaches the tunnel that leads to castle black. The nights’ watch receive him and take him to Winterfell to reunite with members of his family. He brings with them a grave warning. The night king’s army is gargantuan and it will kill all life if he’s not stopped. The night king wants Bran. He wants the newly found powers of the three eyed raven. With this power the night king can reach into the minds of every living thing and kill the minds of every living thing. He will double in strength and he will kill the world. Jon Snow is not happy to hear these words but they make his mission to defeat the night king more urgent.
Samwell Tarly is studying to become a maester when an unsettling fellow drops into his life, Jorah Mormont. The man is looking for a cure for the horrible affliction of grayscale. He thinks it’s a true challenge but Sam is willing to take it on. Sam cooks up his own half-baked cure and tries to sure the diseased man. Unfortunately it results in a horrible death for sir Mormont. Maybe an unsatisfying death but it would truly subvert audience expectations and might just make Gorge R.R. Martin proud. For this horrible failure the Maesters excommunicate him and cast him out. With nowhere else to go he heads to Winterfell to join his old friend Jon Snow.
News of Daenerys taking the Iron throne finally lands on the ears of Jon Snow. When he hears that she has three dragons he’s intrigued. Dragon fire can cut through white walkers like a knife through butter. So he needs her dragons to defend against the oncoming battle against them. Also she controls Dragonstone which has a gracious mine of dragon glass. With this stone made into weapons they can kill the white walkers. Many reasons for this queen to be an ally of the north. As fate would have it Daenerys needs the assistance of Jon Snow as well. She needs some relief and some aide to help rebuild kings landing and fortify her position on the throne and against the Lannister’s. With both parties finding themselves in need they come to the logical conclusion that marriage would be the smoothest and most efficient way for everyone to get what they want and benefit Westeros in the greatest way possible. So Dany’s council talks to Jon’s council and they hammer out the specifics of the deal. When negotiations are settled Jon Snow rides south for his wedding.
When he meets the mother of Dragons they get along quite well. Her three dragons, Reaghal, Vyserion, and Drogon Warm up to Jon immediately and accept him as part of the family. Once their wedding ceremony takes place and they consummate the marriage now their political alliance can move forward. There is one matter that Dany has to take care of first which is fulfilling a promise to the Greyjoys. Yara and Theon Greyjoy sail their fleet to the iron islands to wage battle against their traitorous uncle Euron. The two of them have one hundred ships but Euron has five hundred ships leaving them at quite a disadvantage. That would have been the chase but Dany and her dragons back the young Greyjoys in this fight. When he sees that his battle is lost Euron retreats with a handful of ships away from the Iron Islands. The good guys have won and Yara takes her place on the salt throne. Pledging loyalty to Daenerys Targaryen and commanding the Iron fleet.
While all this was going on the Lannister’s consolidated their forces at Casterly Rock. Even though they lost a lot of men to the dragons their force is still great. With this force they invade high garden and kill Olena Tyrell. House Lannister takes high garden for themselves adding to their power. Shortly after this Euron Greyjoy shows up at Casterly Rock in the hopes of forming an alliance with the Lannister’s. The alliance is agreed to and Euron helps them gain more power. He sails what few ships he has to Dorne transporting thousands of Lannister soldiers to the gates of Dorne. They invade the city and take it in the name of house Lannister. They kill the Dornish royal family and take more power for themselves. Now the Lannister’s have taken revenge on people who have betrayed them in the past and taken vast new amounts of power for themselves. Daenerys once had allies in High Garden and Dorne but now she only has enemies.
The River lands is where Dany’s forces and the Lannister army clash in major battles. A truly vicious, bloody drawn out brawl with no end in sight. It gets worse when the Lannister’s reach out to the Iron bank for help and the bank gives them the golden company. Eventually this fighting reaches a plateau and peace must finally be negotiated. Varys and Little finger are sent to Casterly Rock to negotiate with Cersei and Jamie. Cersei gives them an ultimatum for peace if Tyrion Lannister is executed then a truce will be settled. They give this news to Dany and she rejects the offer valuing Tyrion’s life. Little Finger goes behind everyone’s back and tries to have Tyrion assassinated in his sleep. This assassination attempt is thwarted and Little Finger is found out. A betrayal of this magnitude can only be dealt with one way. Dany has Drogon burn the man alive. A truly sad day for everyone and an end to little fingers slimy schemes.
This big war between Dany and the Lannister’s goes on until Dany finally mobilizes her forces to move on Casterly rock. On a day that would be remembered as the battle of Casterly rock. The battle is truly epic Cersei will sacrifice all of her men to defend this place and Dany will march to defeat her enemies. On the Lannister side the ground forces are led by Gregor Clegane and Dany’s forces on the ground are led by grey worm the hound and Breanne. On this great battlefield Gregor and the hound meet face to face for the first time in a long time and for the last time. It takes a lot to bring down the mountain that rides but the hound does it with help from Breanne and grey worm. Eventually the tides of the battle turn and the Lannister’s are on the losing end. Jamie urges Cersei to surrender honorably but Cersei won’t hear it. She would rather die than lose Casterly rock. The woman goes completely mad with desperation afraid of what the enemy would do to her if they are captured. She wants to die with Jamie in her arms so she grabs a knife and tries to kill Jamie. In an act of self-defense Jamie stabs Cersei killing her. The two of them have now truly lost everything. Euron was there to see Jamie kill his sister and didn’t like that one bit. He attacks Jamie with a sword and Jamie has to defend himself once again. A fight between these two breaks out and it is tough for both of them but eventually Jamie defeats Euron and kills him. With his allies dead Jamie waves a white flag and surrenders to Dany’s army.
Dany is quite reasonable in the terms of surrender. Jamie must give control of Casterly rock to Tyrion and the Lannister army must fight against the white walkers in the long night. Speaking of which the long night is still coming. It starts with the knight king marching on the wall with his army of the dead ten million fighters strong. Even with all this necro power he still has to get over the wall. Here’s how he does it. He makes the whites stack themselves like an unholy monstrous human pyramid. These bodies climb and stack up the wall until they reach the top. What few men of the nights watch try to stop them from coming up the wall but they can’t stop it as much as they can stop the sun from rising. The night king makes it to the top of the wall then his dead army drops down on the other side sieging into Westeros. They start by attacking castle black and over running the nights watch. The long night has begun and the army of the dead marches against the living.
Our heroes must act quickly. The first thing they do is put Bran on the back of a dragon and fly him to kings landing this way they can put a thousand miles and the armies of the seven kingdoms in between the night king and Bran. Ready to defend Bran is Jon Snow, Arya, Breanne, Dany, the dragons and all of Dany’s forces. Jamie is there two and he has been given the valerian steel sword widows wail to fight with. A sword his son once used and now he will fight with it proudly. As the dead army marches south it arrives at Winterfell. An army of north men attack the dead but it is no use they are forced back behind the walls of Winterfell and the night king continues to march south. The same thing happens as they keep marching. Grand armies stand up to them and grand armies are pushed back. Carving a swath of destruction and that will leave Westeros scarred for eternity. All the way to Kings landing and all the way to Bran. The night king is drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
As the armies of kings landing prepare for battle Bran tells Jon a secret of his past. That Jon is not the son of Ned Stark, his father was a Targaryen and his mother was Ned Stark’s sister, Liana. His real name is Aegon Targaryen the rightful ruler of Westeros. This gives Jon a lot to think about before the long night. Sure enough the night king and the army of the dead lay siege on kings landing. The battle is epic and many lives are lost. Dany attacks and kills large swathes of the army with her dragons but they just keep coming and coming. Many brave warriors lose their lives in this battle. One of the most unfortunate casualties comes when the night king strikes down Vyserion with an ice lance. Dany weeps as the fearsome dragon is struck from the sky. Eventually the dead breach the walls of the city and raid kings landing searching for Bran. The night king is drawn to him and he’ll kill any man who stands in his way.
One of those men is Jamie Lannister. He fights bravely to defend a child that he once pushed out a window and crippled for life. Unfortunately the night king kills the king slayer and adds him to the army of the dead. The night king fights through every living thing in kings landing and eventually makes it to Bran. The wheelchair bound Stark is prepared to defend himself against this threat. The night king grabs him by the throat and tries to absorb his psychic powers into himself. With all of his mental might Bran resists his deadly magic. For a handful of precious minutes these two are locked in a silent battle of spells. To an untrained eye it looks like they just stare at each other intensely but in reality they are trying to get the upper hand on one another. One fight for all the power in the world. Bran uses their psychic connection to paralyze the night king.
This gives the brave warriors of kings landing time to slay the frost covered killer. The night king is stabbed by Arya, Breanne, Grey worm, and Jon Snow. When their swords thrust into his body the night king shatters into pieces. With him gone a chain reaction occurs and every dead soldier falls to the ground no longer a threat. The army of the dead has been defeated. But it came at a great price. It turns out that stunt Bran pulled to paralyze the night king cost him his life. When the night king died Bran died as well. When the dust settles and the living rise up to rebuild they have many people to mourn the passing of. All seven kingdoms must now work together to rebuild after the long night.
Among this period of spiritual rebirth some seeds of revolution are planted as well. Jon confesses to Arya to last piece of knowledge Bran told him. That Jon is a Targaryen and the rightful ruler of Westeros. As secret this big is too much for Jon to carry alone. Eventually Arya tells Sansa and Sansa tells Varys and the secret is no longer secret. It’s turned into information. Whispers echo through the seven kingdoms. Saying that Dany is a false queen and Jon should be on the iron throne. This narrative is very pleasing to the ears of the smallfolk and the noblemen alike. The entire north love John and he has a few supporters in the south. Also among some of the nobles inherent sexism takes place as some people just don’t want a woman sitting on the throne and they want a man instead.
Through all of these whispers a revolutionary coalition is formed. A campaign to dethrone Dany and put Jon on the throne. Dany hears these whispers and confronts Jon about them. He tells her the truth that he is a Targaryen and is the one who belongs on that throne. He has no affiliation with the coalition and doesn’t want Daenerys to be dethroned. Even though Jon Doesn’t want the throne the people want him to have it anyway. Soon some random acts of violence occur throughout kings landing under the banner of revolution. These forces won’t stop until Jon is on the throne. Dany issues an order to end the violence and keep her throne. She issues an order to kill Jon Snow. Jon escapes Kings landing with the help of an unlikely ally. Drogon comes to Jon’s aid and flies him away from the city up north. The wise scaly beast has taken a liking to Jon and in this moment he betrays the woman who raised him to assist the man.
When Jon flies back to Winterfell and brings news of what transpired the north is furious. They won’t take an attempted assassination on the rightful king lying down. They openly revolt against Daenerys and her rule. Arya won’t take such a thing lying down either. When she hears what happened she travels to kings landing in secret to kill the queen herself. First she sneaks into the city and ambushes Grey worm. She ambushes the poor man and takes his face. So Arya can walk around the city undetected and get close to the queen. She bides her time waiting for the right moment to strike.
Jon spends weeks trying to stop the open rebellion against Dany. He does everything short of killing random people. But eventually rebellious forces move on the south and revolt against the queen. Jon Flies Drogon down with them but violence ensues despite his best efforts. Jon gets there just in time to see Arya make her move against the woman who tried to kill him. Wearing Grey worms face Arya gets close to Daenerys and slits her throat. In her eyes she saved Jon’s life and now he can take the throne like everyone wanted. Unfortunately one of the queen’s most loyal supporters the large dragon Reaghal swoops in and kills the girl that killed his mom. The dragon eats Arya just before Jon can intervene.
In a fit of frustrated mourning Drogon flies in and attacks Reaghal. Drogon kills his brother for killing Arya. With all the killing that took place in this short period of time Jon is stunned into sadness. The bells ring out in the city and the violence stops. Kings landing I told that Daenerys has been killed and they all know that the only person in the land that can take the throne now is Jon Snow. Every person in the city bows to him as they rush to declare him the new king. Jon can barely comprehend what happened today and what the people expect of him. He is disgusted by everything that happened today and recently. He didn’t want Dany to die or Arya or Reaghal. He loved them all but now they’re all gone. When the people want him to take the throne he can’t even stand to look at it. He orders Drogon to burn the throne down in to the shock of the people of kings landing. Once the Iron throne is only a puddle of hot goo Jon addresses the people. “There will be no more Iron throne! The seven kingdoms will be just that, seven independent kingdoms. If I ever hold anymore thrones it will not be this one and I will not be on this day.” That’s the last thing he tells the people before he flies away on the back of Drogon.
The people learn to govern themselves in the absence of a king. They rebuild and achieve great things. Nobody ever really sees Jon again. Every once in a while they hear a story of a man coming down from the skies on the back of a dragon. People just whisper stories of seeing him or his dire wolf Ghost or they see Drogon flying through the sky. Some say he only comes down from the skies to help solve the problems of the smallfolk or to resolve conflict. He fades into legend ruling the land on his winged throne. The Man of Ice and Fire they would call him and if they ever write a song about him it would be a Song of Ice and Fire.
Well there you have it here’s an outline for how I think game of thrones should have ended. I have to admit this outline really got away from me. As I just kept thinking and thinking about what I should or shouldn’t write it got more and more complicated. I guess now in a way I’ve been through want the showrunners have been through trying to wrap up this series. I don’t know if I did the best job at it because I think my version would have taken up a lot more screen time and would have cost a whole lot more money. Now the real way this franchise could be redeemed is with the prequel series that is in the works with HBO. I’m really excited for that. I hope they don’t let D and D touch it. I think they have a really good set up for a series like this. The other way to gain some redemption is when George RR Martin releases the sixth and seventh books in the series. A lot of fans have made theories as to why he hasn’t released the sixth book yet. Some people think he’s not writing enough. I think the opposite is true and he’s writing too much. That man can write glorified bricks. So I can safely say that whatever he’s going to publish next is going to be over twelve hundred pages long. So all I can do is a imagine a situation where he just keeps writing and writing then he gives just stacks of pages to his editor or a team of editors. Then the editors have to filter everything based on criteria like continuity and logic within the bigger story. While that goes on George just keeps writing and writing more stuff that he wants to put in the book and all that stuff just piles up. Creating this gargantuan monster of a story and in turn a giant monster of a book. That’s just my theory anyway. What do you guys think? Will the last two books be great redeeming masterpieces or will we never even get a chance to read them?

Like most of you guys out there I’m a big fan of the Marvel cinematic universe. They’ve given us so many different female characters with exciting backstories and personalities. Like Black Widow who was captured at a young age and forced to be a badass fighter, or Captain Marvel who was captured at a young age and forced to be a badass fighter, or Gamora who was captured at a young age and forced to be a badass fighter, or Scarlet Witch who was captured at a young age and forced to be a badass fighter. Wait a minute. Oh my god they just made the same character four different times! So with repetition like this I asked myself a truly deep question. How can someone create a strong female character and actually have it be a strong female character? More specifically can a strong female character be strong not in spite of being female but because she’s female? In my contemplation on this subject three characters came to mind. They are all from the same TV show and that show is Avatar: the Last Airbender.
As fans of the show know it is filled with really good female characters but right now I just want to focus on three. They are Toph, Katara, and Azula. Three character that got a lot of screen time and were flushed out the most. Let’s start out with talking about Toph. Toph is a twelve year old blind girl and her character is truly a unique departure in the evolution of female characters and comes at writing female characters from a completely new angle. For Tophs character the writers took masculine traits and mapped them on to her. This makes Toph relate to the boys more because she doesn’t play into feminine stereotypes. She rejects things like putting on makeup, doing her hair, and bathing regularly in favor of getting dirty, laughing at bodily functions, using rude language. She rejects the feminine activities and replaces them with masculine actives. Also rejecting traditionally feminine traits in favor of traditionally masculine ones. This is the way I generally see most of the stereotypical strong female characters and it can be an easy path to go down from a writing stand point. At a certain point I do think the strong female character with masculine traits becomes a parody of itself. I can probably think of dozens of strong female characters that fall into this category so if you want an easy way of writing strong female characters this is probably the way to go.
But some people demand more from their strong female characters so let’s move on and talk about Katara. Katara is a unique strong female character because her strength comes from a place that most people wouldn’t see as a place to draw strength from, your mom. Katara displays the strength of a mother. She acts like a den mother to everyone in the group. So much so that Sokka almost forgot the face of his real mother and whenever he tries to think of her he can just see Katara. At some of her most powerful moments she cries out like she is scolding her opponents. In the first episode the inciting incident for the entire series happens because she scolds Sokka. Sounding very much like a mother disciplining her child. At times when the group is mentally and physically exhausted Katara is the only one to hold them together. Like a mother guiding her children. Also in the last episode of season two there’s this one shot where she’s holding Aangs dead body and it invokes the image of Michelangelo’s pieta statue where Katara would be the Virgin Mary the mother of Jesus. Just as Mary was the mother of Jesus so is Katara the mother figure of this group. She is a good example of being strong not in spite of her femininity but because of her femininity. Being a mother is a feminine role and it’s where she draws her strength. I’ve seen very few characters like this so in Katara I find something very unique.
Now let’s take a trip over to the dark side and talk about Azula. Azulas character is an interesting development in strong female characters and it comes from a very dark place. You see in a general sense women have a high capacity for emotional intelligence than men. This means that generally women can recognize their emotions and even control them better than men. In the show we see Katara as a very emotionally conscious character for example. But what if that emotional consciousness turns into emotional manipulation. That is the strength of Azula. There is a time in the show when she gets into a fight with Zuko and doesn’t have to through a single punch. She just dodges and hurls emotionally scarring insults at him until he tires himself out. She repeats this strategy multiple times throughout the show when fighting. She manipulates the emotions of her opponents. Wasting their time, wasting their energy and throwing them out of whack without even touching them. She uses her higher emotional intelligence to manipulate her enemies and her allies. It’s a generally feminine trait that has devastating consequences in this instance. Once again she is not strong in spite of her femininity but because of her femininity.
So what’s the lesson here? I think it’s this. A female character doesn’t have to give up female traits in order to be strong. If you really want to step things up make a female character that’s strength and femininity intertwine with one another. Because women can be feminine and strong at the same time they don’t have to choose between the two. I’ll end this by saying call your mom, she misses you.

As most of you know I’m a big fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I was really excited when I heard they were making a sequel series called the Legend of Korra. Unfortunately the sequel series didn’t live up to some fans expectations and didn’t get the same critical praise that the first show got. So with the series long wrapped up let’s ask ourselves what went wrong. How could a show that tackled such complex topics such as racism, communism, police brutality, the societal repercussions of advancing technology, religious extremism, civil war, war profiteering, propaganda, anarchism, monarchy, fascism, and PTSD possibly miss the mark this badly. There are little things that happened that I could just pass off as the root of the problem like Nickelodeon cutting their budget, or not having enough episodes to flush out their stories or being generally disrespected by their network. But I think the problem goes deeper than that.
I think it’s this the Legend of Korra punishes the fans of the first show for liking the first show. It all started in the first season. The villain Amon uses a technique to take away a person’s bending. A technique that the audience had seen in the previous show by Aang in the final episode of the series. He used it for good and to save the world but Amon used it for evil. It was twisted for nefarious purposes. The first time I watched Amon use it on the show I was devastated that something so sacred could turn into something evil. The audience was being punished for connecting to that technique from the original show. The next part of this comes in season three. The next thing that gets inverted is the nation of Airbenders.
Going back to the original show we actually learned very little about the air nomads. We were told that they were a nation of monks who loved meditation, spirituality and pacifism. They had vegetarian diets and great senses of humor. Their genocide was a tragedy but we learned about them through Aang. What little we learned we could deduce that the air nomads where nice people. Fast forward to season three of Legend of Korra and we are introduced to Zaheer. A villain who was given the power of air bending and he was well versed in the philosophy of the air nomads. This villain takes the philosophy and goes off the edges with it. He turned the Airbender philosophy of freedom and turned it into anarchy. He imposed this anarchy onto the world by assassinating world leaders and trying to kill Korra. Everything the audience loved about the airbenders and subsequently about Aang was twisted by this villain and turned rotten. Once again the show is punishing the audience for liking what happened in the original show.
My last piece of evidence is the biggest. It has to do with something that Niche would call the death of god. On the original show Aang traveled all over the world. Almost everywhere he went he could tell people that he was the avatar and people would love him. They would respect his authority and help him in any way they could. Even though they hadn’t seen the avatar in over 100 years they loved him and he gave people hope. Needless to say the audience parroted this sentiment and favored the avatar. Knowing the avatar is a special savior whose authority is respected. Now all throughout the legend of Korra this belief in the avatar is slowly eroded away. With every villain Korra faces her authority as the avatar is dwindled slowly but surely. Amon came in the beginning and convinced a large portion of the population that benders are evil and the avatar is the ultimate evil. When President Reiko takes power in republic city he doesn’t do anything to help Korra at all. He doesn’t recognize her authority. Unaloc tries to replace her and turn himself into the dark avatar. This true death of god metaphor is ilustated when Unavaatu tears down that giant statue of Aang in the bay of republic city. When the spirit vines take over republic city the entire city blames the avatar and her approval ratings go down to single digits. At this point the entire city hates her and Rieko kicks her out. Later on the earth queen puts a bounty on her head just for doing the right thing. Essentially the entire earth kingdom hates her.
When she goes away for three years the world essentially moves on from her. The average world citizen doesn’t think the world needs the avatar and Kuvira convinced all of her followers of the same. So watching this series is like slowly watching the god and savior of the fandom die. Even Korras duties to the world fade away. The avatar is supposed to be the bridge between the physical world and the spirit world but when she opened the spirit portals she doesn’t need to bridge them anymore. She combined them into one world. The avatar is supposed to have connections to their previous incarnations to access the wisdom of the past. But when she went through harmonic convergence she lost her connections to her previous lives. She’s supposed to be able to bend all the elements but by the end of the series the military has mech suits that can spit out fire and lightning bolts. It starts to become possible that even non benders can gain the powers of the avatar using enough of their advanced technology. By the end of the whole thing the audience could question what being the avatar even means. With all this it does kind of alienate the audience that fell in love with the last Airbender and maybe it had a hard time gaining a new audience at the same time. But what do you guys think? Is the legend of Korra a misunderstood masterpiece or did it fail to live up to the expectations of the last Airbender?

Attention all! Attention everybody! I got some good news for you. My second fantasy novel has been published and is available now on amazon. It's called the Well of Destruction. It's a sequel to my first book the Universe Key. It picks up right where the first book left off following the grand adventures of Brilan Clara, Ignis and more. We also get introduced to a cavalcade of new characters as they navigate a plot filled with mystery, action, intrigue and a whole lot more. I wanted to put this book out in late 2020. I finished up the writing in maybe September of 2020 and the editing process took me way too long. So in the future I'm going to work on streamlining my editing process.
Aside from that I think this is one of the best things I've written so far. I'm definitely excited about this new book expands the world and themes that I set forth in the Universe Key. This is my second book in the Magic Metal War series. There's going to a third book in this series. I don't know when the third book will be out but my most optimistic predictions would say that maybe the end of 2022 but for now have fun digging into all the good parts of the Well of Destruction. Available here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092P78SKJ