How the World Should Work

In an effort to continue the palpable degree of Thronely enthusiasm generated by this weekend’s Con, I’ve decided to start a new work in progress. So today I announce my new project, aptly titled Thronesify My City.

It’s pretty simple. All I plan to do is associate as many parts of Nashville with its most correlative region in the Ice and Fire universe. You know what I’m talking about – we all have little areas within our cities (assuming you live in a city of course) that tends to represent a particular subculture or demographic. For each connection I make, Ill follow with a brief explanation as to the thought process behind why I think there’s a resemblance. 

So! With that I shall get started. And please, if anyone has a suggestion or critique, I’m very much open to ideas. Let’s make this fun!

Nashville, TN

Kings Landing: Downtown Broadway

• So this one, in my opinion, is the most obvious one. Kings Landing, as we are all abundantly aware, hosts a majority of the “official” governing activity in Westeros. Broadway, as the city’s most popular/busiest area (ew, tourists), mirrors KL’s relevance and capital importance. Not to mention the glaring, impossible-to-ignore fact that there’s a LOT of sexual or otherwise nefarious activity going on that originates in these two locations. Giggity. Perhaps an abbreviated version of my point here is this: these places are where “the shit goes down”. 

Winterfell: Midtown

• I struggled a bit with this one, but hopefully this’ll make sense. So Winterfell, as I imagine you’d agree, is a place tucked away farrrrr from the constant chaos of the mainland. It’s also filled with some of Westeros’ finest; people like the Starks. Those hard-working, down-to-Westeros guys and gals who generally tend to be laid-back, considerate folk. Well, for those not from here, Midtown is the primary watering hole for us locals. It’s nicely folded into the Demonbreun and Division area, a solid mile and a half-ish from the tourist-laden chaos that is Broadway/Tourist Landing. So the way I see it, not only does Midtown’s somewhat secluded location make this a fitting pair, but most locals in Nashville tend to display a similar aura of laid-backedness. Now, obviously you run into douchebaggery every now and then, but let’s be real – Theon was a bit Winterfell resident for quite some time, right? Suffice it to say, nowhere is perfect – but these two are close enough. And I assure any of who disagree on this one, I’m always objective. No bias at all…right?

Beyond the Wall: (Way) East Nashville

• So after a bit of thought, I take back what I said earlier. This is without a doubt the easiest connection to make. In fact, I hardly need to explain what the deal is on the GoT side here. I mean not only are there Wildlings (who I daresay more than deserve their recent assimilation), but now we’re all clued in on the (for lack of a better term) twisted, God-only-knows-what-the-fuck-is-going-on sort of shit out there past the Wall. As far as my (ridiculously awesome) hometown, however, I suppose a more detailed explanation is warranted. Particularly so, in fact, because I’m going to use East Nashville again later. To put it simply, East Nash is split into two markedly different (this is where our PC culture annoys me bc I have to think of a diplomatic way to say this)…socio-economic demographics. See, East Nash is essentially the ghetto.  And to clarify, because I know what some are likely thinkin – I’m not speaking of race here. I assure you that we have a melting pot of societal leeches in this otherwise wonderful municipality. What I do mean is that the far reaches of East Nashville are rough. Like, the “Matt literally got his wallet and iPhone stolen at gunpoint two years ago and even though they caught the bastard and made him plead restitution to pay me back and even though the D.A. promised the money would be obtained somehow Matt never received a fucking dime so he’s obviously bitter and hates the justice system but really needs to digress” kind of rough. Anyway…faced with this problem, a few years ago our city planners decided that they wanted to transform the area into somewhere that would generate productive economic activity. So little by little, they changed municipal codes (among other stuff like replacing cheap housing with hipster stuff like dog parks) in an effort to push the “undesirables” and replace them with peeps like aspiring music types. So (see there’s a point here after all) that’s a long-winded way to say…the undesirables are, for all intents and purposes, our city’s very own weird creepy White Walkers. Makes sense now, doesn’t it?

 Qarth: Green Hills

• Mk, after that last one I’m gonna keep this short. We all know Qarth is all about the Benjamin’s. Rich, pretentious, slaving bastard-fucks. The Green Hills area, for the most part, is where you go in Nashville if you get that “I feel like blowing a completely unjustifiable amount of money on embarrassingly pointless vanity items so I can feel like I’m better than the plebs” kind of feeling. See? Short and sweet.