Geeklings, if you recall it wasn’t too long ago that my sister Jen and her husband Paul started watching Game of Thrones. This had been something I was pushing for about five or six years. I even got Jennifer to try and read some of the book but she claimed that there was “too much” going on which I took as sister speak for “I’m really not interested stop pushing this on me“. And then the most miraculous thing happened, Jen and Paul had a baby and that’s what made them start watching Game of Thrones. That paternal instinct kicked in hard and they realized, “if we’re going to be good parents then we should really know what this Game of Thrones thing is all about”.  #parentingwin #dontbeastannis Or they just had a lot of free time between feedings and changing diapers. I prefer to believe it was the good parenting thing.

Their reaction post to season one was a really big hit for this site, and while I had hopped for more, they machine gunned through the series too quickly to have it done. The long and the short of it is, six seasons in less then a month and a bit of an obsession for my sister. Paul to a degree too but he obsesses differently then Jen. For Jennifer it was one of those time bomb obsessions, the one you can see coming but the person isn’t fully aware of it until some emotional peril happens that makes them realize just how much they love the show. For Jennifer this came with the season five finale.

I don’t want to go into spoilers, I am slowly getting my mother into Game of Thrones and we’re only on season three, but you all know what happens at the end of season five. Yeah, that thing with the thing and the blood and the “what what what”. My sister is always great for television reactions when she’s heavily invested and she did not fail with this. Warning there is some harsh language and emoji use ahead.

There was also a dramatic comparison to a window covered in ice to her heart. It was all rather brilliant for me because it had finally happened. The obsession time bomb had gone off and Jennifer finally understood just how invested in Westeros she was.

Now let’s fast forward to Thursday when the Game of Thrones Faceyspace page was set to announce the starting date for season seven. Something I found to be super exciting because with those announcements there is always the prospect of a trailer. I remember going on to Faceyspace during one of my water/bathroom breaks at work, they go hand in hand because of how much water I drink, and saw the link. There was this huge block of ice with something in the center, the release date (duh), and if you typed fire then you would get said date. Naturally I typed fire but nothing happened. It quickly dawned upon me that you had to type fire a lot and that there would be no bathroom/water break conclusion. I resigned myself to the idea that I would check in periodically to see how much progress was made and if there was indeed a trailer.

Luckily I didn’t even have to do that. Jennifer was alllllll over it. I received a text that read “did it tell you??? I typed fire and got nothing”. I explained to her what I think the show was trying to do and then something magical happened. My sister, the person who couldn’t be bothered with the books or watching the show, started sending me texts in thirty second to two minute intervals explaining what was happening to the block of ice. I got such gems as “it’s gonna take days till it melts!!!”, “the guy who plays Jamie said we’re close and we’re gonna want to see what’s in the ice AHHHHHHH”, and my personal favorite “133.8 k are watching this right now!! Insane” as Jennifer didn’t even think to include herself into that group of thousands.

I also got picture updates of her computer screen and of her watching her computer screen

Jennifer sat there and watched this block of ice melt for two hours. Think about that. Two. Hours. She kept her laptop running, probably typing in the word fire, and not so patiently waited for the date to be revealed, and I sat at my desk at work and laughed. Mostly internally but a couple of times vocally. Because in this moment I was proud. My sister, who is a geeky person to begin with, had kind of switched into a different territory. She was visiting my domain. The obsessing, need to know, have to have it now, give me any info you got about the things territory. And as Jennifer dove deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, I sat at my desk and smiled at the wonderful work I had done…

Oh! For those of you who didn’t stick around for the ice to melt, season seven of Game of Thrones will premier on July 16th. That info might have been kind of important.