What is the best way to enjoy a story, Hermione or Jon Snow style?

Recently, I've started playing videogames for real, and my experiences with them got me thinking about a lot of things. One of them is how spoilers may or may not ruin your experience with a piece of fiction.

I remember when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released on the English-speaking countries: at the time, I wasn't fluent in this language, so I had to wait for the translation. To make myself less anxious during this time, I bought some magazines that had articles about the book to know more about it. Some of them had explicit description of the major spoilers, and I read EVERY SINGLE ONE. Even took the time to compare them to make sure there wasn't too much deviation between each, so that I'd know I was getting to know everything right. When I finally got the book in my hands, it was a great reading. I knew all that was going to happen, but the reading experience was great anyway, because I could enjoy every page nice and calmly.

Nowadays, however, I am a bit paranoid about getting this kind of information; I remember how it was an unique experience to read the Red Wedding chapters in A Storm of Swords without knowing ANYTHING about it. Last year, I read Macbeth, a many-centuries-old play which I knew nothing about, and I was completely absorbed by the plot. I want all my readings, watchings and, now, "playings", to be unique, I want to discover everything by myself, make up my own opinions about every detail, to be able to make up my own, particular involvement with the story. It's hard to do it when you get to know too many plot details.

Telltale's Game of Thrones: The Lost Lords

I didn't expect to write anything about the Telltale series for Game of Thrones since I've already done it, but the second episode, The Lost Lords, got me really hooked. I'd say I'm more excited about this franchise than with the TV show! The game creates an atmosphere of tension and fear that suits this world perfectly; and now I feel way more connected to house Forrester, specially after all these terrible things they are being forced to face.

The aspect I like the most is that we get to play with these new characters while having the original ones from the books and show in supporting roles. It's awesome to interact with them, and to see those people we know so well through different perspectives. I personally loved to watch how Tyrion can be both friendly and fearsome - he offers you help, but only if it is useful for him too. Plus, he won't move a finger if anything happens to you after this deal. It's a side of him that only-show people never get to know. We also meet Jon Snow for the first time in a distant, higher position, and I thought it was pretty cool. Finally, if I already liked Margaery before, I'm even more enthusiastic about her now (plus, Natalie Dormer is awesome even in pixels). 

About the story itself, I thought that we are in a well-paced development. I saw that many people thought it to be a bit slow, but we are in a situation in which the priority is to make connection and finding allies, so physical action is obviously limited. In fact, one thing I'm loving about this series is that there is no focus in fights nor mindblowing scenarios, but in the development of the characters in this tense world, where anybody can make you fall. This is what the A Song of Ice and Fire saga is about, and the Telltale crew got it just right.

Playing the Game of Thrones

I don't consider myself a gamer, as I only play a selected variety of games to which I am familiar with - some of them I've been playing for good 15 years now, without ever getting tired. Therefore, I'm not that familiar with this kind of gaming experience by Telltale, but I can say that I'm really enjoying their new release, based on the story of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Something that I immediately loved about this game is that we follow and control a Westerosi family that is unknown even for book readers, the Forresters of Ironrath. They were vassals of house Stark and supported King Robb during the War of the Five Kings. Oh, my blood ran cold when I saw that the beginning of the story takes place in the night of the Red Wedding... the Forresters lost their lord and his oldest son on this night, and even though we work very hard to make things better for them, the sense of doom is always lingering. To make matters worse, Ramsay Snow appears later in the story, and all you wanna do is to yell for the remaining Forresters to run for their lives.

Another great thing in this game is that we have the Point of View of the less powerful members of the family - we don't get the great lord (after all, he is killed within five minutes after pressing "Play") nor any of the other strong people around; we control the squire, the daughter in King's Landing, and the small kid who suddenly has to deal with ruling this house in despair. Also, the focus is far from being in fighting or killing, it's all about the choices you make - the fate of the characters depend on what you choose to do or to ignore; on what you choose to say, or on what you decide to conceal. Relationships, connections and important decisions are influenced by the paths you take, and I really loved it.

My choices

However... according to some comments I've been reading, it doesn't matter how different are the choices you make, as the main plot doesn't change as much as it should. That thing happens to him in the end of the episode despite how well the meeting goes, and that person is not able to do that other thing anyway. I may be wrong, but apparently there are no alternative endings, and knowing this was very disappointing to me... still, there are 5 episodes left, and a lot of things are yet to be developed. I do hope that we can tell more than one story with this game.

I'm still very excited about it! Already planning to play it again very soon; I want to see what changes if I answer differently and do something else in certain scenes. And I admit that I still have a bit of hope to change that desperate ending...