[Ancalagon]

It didn't make me cry, but ASoIaF's Red Wedding...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

...definitely hit me hard, as I know it did many others. It didn't leave me emotional, but rather emotionless. I distinctly remember reading through the scene, reading, in disbelief, so fast that I missed swaths of what was going on. Without stopping to contemplate I turned back a few pages and began again, slower. And then a third time. Only then did it sink in. And all I could think was 'what the fuck...'

It seems lame to say now, but when I read The Lord of the Rings as a 12 or 13 year-old Gandalf's 'death' was pretty rough. I remember thinking in my head 'damn, what a badass', as he stood on the bridge and roared at the Balrog. Even now I can remember some of what he said 'I am a servant of the secret fire, wielder of the flame of Arnor. Go back to the shadow, flame of Udun!' Etc. My reveling in that bit of (nerd) awesome followed immediately by his fall was tough to take. Frodo's poem in Lothlorien made it all the more poignant: 'He stood upon the bridge alone // fire and shadow both defied // his staff was broken on the stone // in Khazad-dum his wisdom died'. My memory's not that great, but I remember that shit.