The University of Regina, which annually ranks among the top 10 universities in Canada in the Maclean’s poll, isn’t satisfied.
Apparently, it’s looking to go global.
As soon as word gets out that it’s offering Game of Thrones 101, the university’s fame will extend all the way to Westeros, the mythical kingdom in which the deadly game is played.
We can only assume that the English department, tired of teaching the works of old dead white guys, has decided to study an old white guy who’s still alive. In fact, Game of Thrones author George RR Martin isn’t even finished yet. Game is only the first in the planned seven-volume Song of Ice and Fire, and volumes six and seven, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, have yet to be written.
Fans of the fantasy series are exceedingly anxious that the books are so huge – each epic doorstop is well over 1000 pages – and it takes Martin so long to write them (he’s been at it since 1991), that it wil
l never get done.
And, of course, the HBO TV series based upon the books only concluded season three.
It’s like studying Shakespeare before he finished Macbeth or Hamlet, or Dickens while he was in the middle of delivering serial chapters of Bleak House to the publisher. How do you study something while it’s still being written?
None of this seems to matter to the university’s English department, and I suspect it won’t matter to the hundreds of scholars of sword and sorcery who will no doubt be lined up this morning trying to get into GOT 101. You think there’s a parking problem on campus? It just got worse.
Of course, they could always invite George Martin to explain why it has taken him 22 years and he’s still not done. As his fans like to complain, there’s nothing George likes more than a distraction, and being offered in a university syllabus along with Shakespeare and Dickens makes for a very appealing distraction: “Which figure in literature does Tyrion Lannister, aka “The Imp”, most resemble? Iago? Ebeneezer Scrooge? Pinocchio? All of the above?”
My dirty little secret is that I really, really want to take this course, because the most important question of the 21st century is whether or not Jon Snow is really … (sorry, I’m not spoiling that one). Or if Daenerys Targaryan can finally … (not that one either). I’m sure it will come in handy if I ever find myself looking for another job:
“I have a degree in Game of Thrones…and if I’m hired, I’ll make sure this company is ready for winter.”
Now all we need to do is make George write faster. Here’s an idea. We promise to give him an honorary doctorate at the U of Regina – just as soon as he finishes the damn book.