westerosorting | win or die

Name: John
How did you find out about the community? If it's through an LJ user, please tell us who it is: You can blame Lina.
Age: 22
Location: Earth
Occupation: student, freelance bum

All About You

1. Describe your ideal house/home. Please go into as much detail as possible, and be sure to include your ideal geographical location in the description!.
A cozy big old manor out in the countryside, probably some Tudorbethan or Gothic Revival thing, with huge lawns and gardens and lots of trees. There should be many acres of land attached to this house; I like to go for walks in the woods, and I also like to be far away from other people. I also enjoy a bit of camping and boating. I don't care much about the innards... something suitably luxurious and comfortable, of course, but I'm not very picky. Some nice furniture, some tasteful decorating, and I'm happy. The only major exception is that I would love a Roman-style bath, with lots of marble and tiles and some awesome mosaic art.

As far as location goes, I would prefer someplace hilly or even mountainous, but also not far from the sea. Winters should be cold with lots of snow and summers should be pleasantly warm but not hot. There should be a major city within driving distance, but far enough away that I don't have to deal with crowds, traffic, suburbs, etc.

2. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain.
a. Oh God sharks. Motherfucking sharks. They have a billion teeth, they've barely changed in millions of years, they've got those tiny black soulless little eyes... What's not to be afraid of? You are fucked if you're out in the open water and those beady-eyed bastards get a whiff of your blood. They are nature's killing machines.

b. Mirrors in the dark. I always kind of have to avert my eyes if I need to get up in the middle of the night and walk by a mirror. Why this fear? Probably has something to do with the fact that I can see a shadowy, moving figure, but there isn't enough light for me to tell that it's just my reflection. I know that it's my reflection on a conscious level, but this fear is obviously the subconscious, reptilian kind.

c. Irrelevance. Everybody wants to do something important and great, but I think I have it worse than most people. I've got this damn compulsion to do great things, this nagging sense that I am capable of great things, that just bugs me. I keep having the thought that I want to be remembered long after I am dead. The thought that I will live a normal life and be forgotten in a hundred years fills me with some kind of strange existential horror.

3. What is your favorite aspect of your physical appearance and why?
I guess I have to be cliche and say my eyes. They're a good warm brown color and they look nice and blahblahblah. Yeah, I don't really care much about physical appearance. Sorry.

4. If you could change one thing about your physical appearance, what would you change and why?
I would change my inability to grow real facial hair. I grew up in a pretty hairy family; when I was little, I thought (and kind of still do think) that part of being a man meant having a beard and moustache--or at least the ability to grow them.

Due to genetics, I can't grow anything beyond a rather unsightly patch of scraggly hair on my chin and under my nose. It's thick enough that I need to shave, but it just looks too pathetic to let it grow. Worst of both worlds.

5. Imagine you’re given the classic opportunity: a genie granting you three wishes. What would you wish for? Wishing for more wishes is not permitted!
Does that mean I can wish to change the rules so I can wish for more wishes?

a. I never want to sleep again. Fuck sleep. Such a waste of time. Seriously, 1/3 of your life spent unconscious, because our puny organic bodies can't deal with the stress? That's bullshit, and I will have no more of it.

b. Immortality. I always hated that cliche about immortal people becoming miserable or bored. There's so much stuff to see and do, I don't understand how you could come to hate being immortal. Just in case, though, I'd stipulate some kind of escape clause, some way for me to kill myself if I do get bored.

c. Money, lots and lots of money. Yeah, I know. Not very original. But there's a reason it's not very original.

6. In your life so far, what accomplishment are you the most proud of? You can list more than one if you have trouble deciding. ;)
Getting my act together and going back to school. I had a... you could say contentious relationship with schooling when I was younger, which resulted in my dropping out of college for a couple years. Now I'm back in school, a few years older (and hopefully wiser), and I'm doing much better.

7. Which of the following is most important to you: Love, Money, Knowledge, Family, Friendship, Adventure, or Pleasure? Which is the least important to you?
Love, family, and friendship are all of a piece. My friends are family to me. Similarly, I think platonic and filial love are just as important as romantic love.

In other words, I would consider all three of those things to be most important to me, because I can't separate them.

Least important is probably pleasure. I certainly like pleasure, but out of that list it's probably the first thing I would dispose of in a pinch. I have a fairly stoic and laid-back attitude to begin with, and it's easy enough to have pleasure in any set of circumstances: all you need to do is change your standards or viewpoint.

8. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values?
"The happy life is thought to be virtuous; now a virtuous life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us."

9. How do you manage your money? On that note, how important is money/financial security to you?
I watch my finances like a hawk and spend as frugally as possible. I never allow myself to be indebted unless it is for a specific purpose. In general, I would say that financial security is quite important to me; not only is it a great relief to not have to worry about money or live paycheck-to-paycheck, there are so many more things you can do when you are solvent. Money, or at least credit, is probably the most important resource of modern times.

10. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office?
Like many of you, I enjoy reading. In terms of fiction, I enjoy specfic (obviously), historical novels, and
sometimes horror and spy/detective stuff. I also enjoy quite a bit of "real" literature, even if I don't always agree with the distinction. Half of what I read for pleasure is non-fiction, and that tends to be history, economics, politics, and sometimes science and philosophy.

I listen to quite a lot of music, in most modern genres (and pretty much every non-modern one). I also (badly and intermittently) play guitar. I'm not very good and I can't play many songs, but hey, it's fun to mess around.

Also like many of you, I do a bit of writing every now and then. Nothing published or even completed, but it's fun and I often daydream about my stories when I'm at school or commuting.

Oh, and I guess I browse the Internets and play video games like every other young man on the planet, but I don't know if I consider those hobbies.

11. Name (and elaborate on) your top three BEST and top three WORST qualities (personality-related, not physical).
My best qualities:
a. A good sense of humor. I am able to laugh at all kinds of jokes, it would take an act of God to offend me, and I love genuinely smart or witty humor. Of course, this isn't always a good quality. If you've ever tried to tell an offensive joke to a room full of uptight people, you have known a very special kind of awkward.

b. Rationality. I might summarize this one as being reason, critical thinking, skepticism, and things like that. Important in any person, and I hope I don't need to explain why. Everybody claims they possess this quality--or suite of qualities--and a vanishingly small number of people do. I'm not going to try to convince you that I do. I am just pretty damn sure. (And like everybody with this quality, I sometimes have doubts.)

c. Kindness. What I mean by kindness is a lack of cruelty or maliciousness. I'm not a saint or anything, and in most situations I won't go out of my way to do nice things for people... but generally I am non-judgmental and willing to give people second (or third or fourth or...) chances. I tend not to think mean thoughts about people unless they've actually done something appropriately bad/stupid to deserve such thoughts.

My worst qualities:
a. Stubbornness. This is sort of the negative side of my skepticism: it can be hard to budge me from my established beliefs and habits. I don't necessarily consider this a bad quality, but it seems to bug everybody I know!

b. Unfriendliness. I don't really care for social niceties, and I don't really care much for other people to begin with. I enjoy being alone. As such, other people have said I can come off as cold or emotionless.

c. I can be pretty moody. I do a lot of brooding or sulking when I'm out of sorts. My general unfriendliness can make it hard for others to judge how I'm feeling. Again, not necessarily something that I consider bad, but rather something that seems to bug other people.

A Song of Ice and Fire Related

1.Which is your favorite book of the series so far? What about your least favorite?
My favorite is probably A Storm of Swords. It's where the entire situation, the meta-plot of the books, becomes impossible to repair, where shit hits the proverbial fan. There's lots of major character deaths, lots of chaos, and I think it's the best book in the series for giving readers a visceral taste of the consequences of war and power politics.

My least favorite is probably A Game of Thrones. It's kind of weird to say, especially since I think it's probably the best book from a technical standpoint, but subjectively it's just really hard for me to go back to it after all that's happened in the series. It almost seems too pure and naive. Does that make any sense? Probably not.

2.Who are your favorite three characters in the series?
Man, I hate this question!
a. Tyrion. You are pretty much set up to like and sympathize with Tyrion, though I think I sympathized with him more than most people. History's my major, so I know all about the Sword of Damocles situation he was stuck in; it's an extremely common motif in our past. Oh, and he's made so many great burns. Who doesn't love a good retort? I almost put Renly on this list for that reason.

b. Sansa. While I would have somewhat more ambivalent feelings about her as a real person, Sansa is a very realistic and compelling character, and also a fairly unique one in epic fantasy. I wasn't one of those who hated her from the start, and my opinion of her just went up as the series went on.

c. Jaime. Most people seem to forget that he's a monster, or if they do remember, they brush it off like all he did was jaywalk. 'He killed Jory just to spite Ned? Whatever, Jory was a secondary character. And so what if he threw a kid out of a tower window! Bran lived, right?' But his monsterhood is what makes his (probably futile) attempt at redemption so compelling. Plus, for a vain and arrogant lord's son, he is strangely likeable. (Possibly because I am somewhat arrogant myself.)

3.Who are your least favorite three characters in the series?
You know, there aren't many characters I really hate. I sorta like them all. Even monsters like Gregor and Walder Frey. They all add something to the story.

I guess a "love to hate" or "hope they die soon" list would be topped by the aforementioend Gregor and Walder, with the third spot going to that damn Ramsay Snow. But I wouldn't say any of those are my least favorite.

4.#1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far?
Tyrion kicking Joffrey, maybe, or 'No one wants you for their king. Sorry.'

5. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end?
Bronn is crowned king after a swift and bloody ascent up the feudal pyramid.