![]() When speaking with Jon Snow in-game, Gared Tuttle - one of several characters you can control - mentions the North Grove, after which Jon mentions the tales Old Nan told him as a child. However, this fabled haven has never been referred to outside of the game. Apparently immortalized in northern fairy tales, this forest-within-a-forest is illustriously described as a place where children become giants, or where the Children of the Forest hide from the watchful gaze of cruel men. The climactic end of the game series culminates in the fall of Ironrath, but perhaps more importantly refers to the mysterious North Grove. And that’s why Telltale’s Game of Thrones is an essential part of the universe’s extended media, regardless of whether or not its story is ever addressed by the series or books. Why is any of this important? Well, it shows that even minor Westerosi houses are significant in their own right. Years prior to this, Gregor lost his father during the Battle of the Trident after Ned Stark personally called for House Forrester’s assistance during Robert’s Rebellion. It’s actually remarked that Gregor’s men rode alongside Robb in the vanguard during his assaults, which testifies to their prowess as warriors. Under Ser Gregor Forrester, Ironrath followed the Young Wolf during the Northern Rebellion that was qualmed at the Red Wedding. However, they have a rich and undying history. Here, the Forresters are referred to as a clan, implying that they’re a minor house in The North. ".guides Lady Sybell had given them, trackers and hunters sworn to Deepwood with clan names like Forrester and Woods, Branch and Bole." Martin’s “A Dance with Dragons,” an Asha Greyjoy chapter - known as Yara in the series - mentions them in passing: ![]() ![]() In contrast to Conversations We Have in My Head, which avoids incessant badgering about cause and effect, Telltale’s typical nonstop hints ensure interpretation will be at a bare minimum.When Telltale’s Game of Thrones launched at the end of 2014, many long-term fans of the series thought that House Forrester was merely a fabrication of the game studio - but there was more to it than that. Make a promise to someone and the game says, “You gave him your word.” Have mercy on someone and the game reveals, “You chose mercy.” At one point, a character openly states, “We are defined by the choices we make.” One struggles to think of another developer of adventure games that has shown this much lack of confidence in the perception of its audience. As in their other series, players are inundated with constant reminders of the consequences of their decisions, from kissing a character to doing them a favor. Telltale attempts to sidestep any suggestion of fatalism with the marketing of player choice. Recalling Lee Everett’s slaying of his sibling with an axe in The Walking Dead game, the B-movie, slasher-flick vibe doesn’t attain emotional complexity because of the lack of depth accorded to Snow and his victim. Not to be outdone by the torture porn of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Telltale brings Ramsay back in a later episode to set into motion a close-up of guts spilling out of a man. In the game’s first episode, Telltale utilizes the one-dimensional Ramsay Snow (he makes the laughably shallow Bloody Mary from The Wolf Among Us seem charming) in a sorry bit of drama that results in the death of a young Forrester. Audience identification with the dignity of both families provides the fuel for easy shock value. It’s not surprising that the protagonists here, the Forresters, are close to mirror images of the Stark clan. The game begins around the time that the Red Wedding occurs, as if trying to give fans of the show more of what they want. This violent story isn’t a political critique or allusion to history so much as a dreaded affirmation of “hard reality,” encouraging the audience to become outraged at the predestined butchery of beloved characters, as when the Red Wedding took viewers by storm in the show’s third season. Rather than rise above mind-numbing sadism, the game sticks to the show’s pop culture-debasing premise: morbidly sentimentalizing the corruption that leads noble people toward doom. Telltale Games cartwheels into facile cynicism with its riff on the Game of Thrones television series.
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