House Stark

ISSUE #47

We're only a month away from the biggest finale we've had in media in quite some time. Binge culture has made it common for shows to get their flash-in-the-pan moments, but nothing has been as colossal as Game of Thrones, aided by it's old-fashioned weekly schedule that helps it linger in the air for months. The last show to have a finale this hotly anticipated was probably Breaking Bad? The next could be Stranger Things, but who can say. While book-readers may lament the show's decline into high-budget fan-fiction since it left the books behind, it's still some bombastic film-making to witness, and it's always exciting to watch a cultural freight train try to pull into the station.

As a superfan (by fate, not by choice—I tried my hardest to resist at first), I thought I'd make some definitive House Playlists for us in the weeks leading up to the final season. For this one, I'm going to keep it spoiler-free, but I'll clearly mark spoilers in the future.

The songs in the playlist apply to the Starks as a unit, but I also want to shed some light on what exactly the kids would've been listening to back in Winterfell:

• Robb — Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Killers, Ween, Nirvana, Primus, Wu-Tang, Tame Impala

• Sansa — Lana Del Rey, Halsey, Billie Eilish, HAIM, Troye Sivan, Francis & the Lights

• Arya — Pallbearer, Judiciary, Bent Life, Deftones, Morbid Angel, Deafheaven, Elder

• Bran — This Mortal Coil, Brian Eno, Zola Jesus, Philip Glass, Yves Tumor, Tim Hecker, Grouper

• Rickon — JPEGMAFIA, Denzel Curry, BROCKHAMPTON, Death Grips, Vince Staples, JID

• Jon — Chastity Belt, Cherry Glazerr, Great Grandpa, Bully, Speedy Ortiz, The Julie Ruin

By personality alone, I'd probably be a Stark, as basic as it sounds: my reticence, my gloomy tendencies, and my preference for cold. Physically, I feel more like a Tully—an auburn-headed boy from a land of rivers—but maybe we'll get to that in later weeks. For now, bundle up! Winter is here.