Like Hansel and Gretel, we follow the trail of bearded men wearing printed t-shirts through the Wellington Park Hotel in Belfast. The smell of ale fills the convention floor. Groups of people wearing dark shapeless clothing huddle around small tables bursting with pint glasses.
Armed with little more than patchy Tolkien knowledge and Converse trainers, my trusty geek-curious friend Lynsey and I are attending our first-ever ‘con’ (convention). Fans gather at cons all around the world to explore common interests related to Speculative Fiction (SF), an all-encompassing label that includes science fiction, fantasy and supernatural horror. Our event of choice is TitanCon, focused on the epic fantasy adventure and cult HBO TV series Game of Thrones. With around 200 attendees, this is a more intimate convention and, as fans of the show, we hoped we would be able to fit in here, or at least hold our own in plot conversations.
To calm our nerves, and give us something to focus on, we decide on a game of ‘count the beards’. It runs out of steam when we get past fifty, so we decide to strike up a conversation with one of the beard-bearers instead. Dan is sporting a black Stetson and a pink t-shirt with a unicorn posing in front of a rainbow.
‘Why doesn’t he have wings?’ I point at Dan’s t-shirt.
‘Unicorns don’t actually have wings,’ he explains patiently, ‘you are thinking of a Pegasus.’
I attempt a retort: ‘Ah, but some unicorns do have wings; wings and horns are not mutually exclusive.’
‘True,’ he nods diplomatically, ‘but the wings are irrelevant to the definition of a unicorn. It just needs to have a horn.’ Everyone who has gathered around to be party to this conversation nods in agreement. I acknowledge my inferiority with a speedy retreat, glad to have learned an early lesson that I definitely cannot hold my own here, and I shouldn’t embarrass myself by trying.
The next day gives way to a series of panel-led discussions that typically fill up the daytime hours of a con. The panels help me realise that, although I am a fan of Game of Thrones, I am not a ‘convention’ fan of Game of Thrones. The former has probably not read the books but might tune in to the series with a glass of wine on a Wednesday night, and may even discuss the more shocking plot twists around the water cooler with colleagues the next day. The latter has definitely read all of the books, wears t-shirts with obscure Game of Thrones quotes scrawled across the front, can describe the family tree of each minor character in intricate detail and has the theme music as their ringtone.
Each panel lasts around an hour, during which guest speakers – cast and crew members from Game of Thrones, authors, illustrators and comic creators – discuss assigned topics and answer questions from the audience. I get the sense that the backstage gossip is all anyone is really interested in, probably because it’s all I’m really interested in.
The second panel of the day has the title ‘What is it like to die on stage?’ during which Ron Donachie recounts his twelve on-screen deaths, including Taggart, Doctor Who, Titanic and a gruesome beheading-scene-gone-wrong while playing Ser Rodrik Cassel in Game of Thrones. I bump into him walking around the fantasy art show after the panel.
‘Hi Ron,’ I say, all nerves in his broad, theatrical presence. ‘Can I ask you a question for a book I’m writing?’
‘Sure, go ahead.’ His smile is warm.
‘Do you find it intimidating to work in this genre? Given how…’ – I search around for a diplomatic word – ‘you know…’ – I decide to go for it – ‘obsessive the fans can be.’
Ron takes a few seconds to think about his answer. ‘Not really,’ he says, shrugging his shoulders, ‘because I am a massive fan of the genre too.’ He gestures around him at the hordes of people walking around us. ‘You become very well connected with the fans, and they start to feel like your extended family. You see a lot of the same people at the various conventions, and the vast majority are very complimentary, and good fun.’
He stops to study a painting of a winged female creature riding some sort of giant bug. I hang next to him for a while, trying to pretend I’m interested in it, when really, I just want to get back to the next panel to find out what kind of sandwich Emilia Clarke eats between takes.
Ron looks up at me, clearly still ruminating on my question. ‘I suppose it’s more difficult for actors who are not fans of the genre,’ he says. ‘They might feel a bit more alienated here, like it’s a club that they aren’t part of.’
Outside the art show, a long snake of people holding posters, books and photographs wait patiently for something. Finally registering the sign on the door at the front of the queue, I realise they are in line for autographs from the cast members. I spot someone being escorted to the back of the queue for trying to push in and watch the glares from the queuing masses with a suppressed smile.
‘I’ve got Bran three times now,’ one guy says to me, his Better Call Saul t-shirt covered in pin badges from previous cons. He unrolls a poster pasted with illegible black scribbles and points at one of them. His eyes glaze with a look of distant hope. ‘I wonder if he’ll remember me?’
I decide against the queue and instead buy a pint for Dave Lally, the recently retired chairman of the European Science Fiction Society and a regular of the con circuit. With light brown, floppy hair and a six-o’clock shadow, Dave wears a green ‘Sci-Fi London’ t-shirt, cream chinos and sensible brown shoes.
‘You have fantasy, anime, comics, manga, cosplay, gaming, SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and LARPing,’ Dave begins, ‘and they are all connected in some way. Nerds and geeks, they call us, and we all tend to get on very well.’ Dave talks in rushed and enthusiastic sentences, like a man who views stopping for breath as admitting defeat.
‘I call them my family; we all know each other and the different subjects we are experts in. I go to most of the European conventions, to socialise and catch up on all the gossip in the SF community.’
He takes a quick breath. ‘My work colleagues in London think I’m a bit weird. They can’t understand why I go off to all of these science fiction thingies. They all go off on their golf weekends or to their football matches, but to them, what I do is entirely different, and they just don’t get it. It all just seems a bit unfair.’
His head sinks, and as it does, he notices his watch, jumping up with a start – ‘Gotta go,’ he says, turning around and scurrying off to prepare for a screening.
I take the time to look around me and soak up the scene in the bar as I finish my pint. It strikes me that there are far more women here than I had expected. The balance isn’t far off fifty-fifty. I am surprised by this, probably based on the depiction of this community in popular culture. After all, the leading characters of the genre tend to be male; Tolkien had few female characters in his books, and only 19 per cent of the characters he names in his Middle Earth series are female. The usual depiction of women in fantasy literature of a speculative past is either as evil villainesses who need to be stopped by a male hero, or helpless damsels in need of rescue… by a man.
I guess I’m not too bothered by this when it comes to historical fiction; after all, we are led to believe that it was typically the men who had all the fun back in the day – the adventure, the gory deaths and the epic battles – while the women were stuck at home sewing birds onto hankies. But when it comes to modern-day SF, it seems archaic that the social advancement of women, and the fact that we get to do fun stuff as well now, is not proportionally reflected.
For example, the Bechdel test is now globally recognised as one way of measuring gender equality in movies, which are given a ‘pass/fail’ rating based on three criteria: are there at least two female characters, who converse with each other, about something other than a man? According to Ellen Tejle, who uses the Bechdel rating system in her Stockholm movie house, the number of SF movies that completely fail the test is staggering, including the original Star Wars trilogy, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and all but one of the eight Harry Potter films (although this last one is the subject of some controversy online).
However, the balance in the fan base and the wider community does seem to be changing in line with the rest of society, albeit at a slightly slower pace. A woman is co-chairing this particular convention, and more than half of the current British Science Fiction Association board members are women.
Feeling thirsty, I swing by the bar to pick up another Guinness and head back up to the room, where Lynsey and I begin the preparations for the much-anticipated Saturday-night Masquerade. Costuming, or ‘cosplaying’, is a big part of SF culture, and the Masquerade – an on-stage costume contest where people compete for nominal prizes by assembling and presenting their own genre-inspired outfits – is the pinnacle.
After an hour of perfecting our Daenerys and Missandei (two characters from Game of Thrones) look, and my pint of nerve-steadying Guinness, Lynsey and I emerge from the lift in our home-made costumes. I had re-enlisted my Morris dancing costume maker to knock me up the blue dress worn by Daenerys in series two (thanks, Mum), ordered a wig online and invested hours sticking around 800 drawing pins into three Styrofoam balls to create my dragon’s eggs. Lynsey needed an Afro for her character, so her preparation involved not washing her hair for a few days and sticking a few pins in a bed sheet to transform it into a cape. I had obviously picked the wrong character.
Once fully transformed, we walk self-consciously through the hotel and down to the bar, our confidence growing with every smile of recognition. What little confidence we have gathered by the time we reach the bar is suddenly sapped from us as we behold an entire Game of Thrones family of Lannisters, wearing period dress complete with full sets of lion-emblazoned armour. Tyrion has shoes sewed onto his knees, wears a shaggy wig and carries a book stuffed with Lannister family portraits. We had no chance.
Right before we are due to go on stage, Peadar, the compère, reminds us that we are supposed to have prepared an entrance skit. Shit. We haven’t. Without waiting for our response, he walks into the auditorium and begins our introduction while Lynsey and I whisper a panicked scrap of a plan behind the curtain.
Seconds later I walk into the auditorium, shaking with nerves. The room is dimly lit, apart from a spotlight following me as I make my way up to the stage. I look around at the expectant faces in the audience and channel all of my concentration into not tripping over my dress. Luckily my trying-not-to-fall-over face is identical to my I’m-a-regal-mother-of-dragons face, so it seems to work quite well.
Once on stage, I turn and stand still for a while, gazing into the distance. ‘Missandei,’ I boom with all of the authority I can muster, ‘where are my dragons?’
Just as I am running out of steam with my looking-round-the-room-fraught-with-worry act, Lynsey enters, subserviently carrying my eggs. She pretends to drop them on the floor. I gasp theatrically, but she rescues them just in time and delivers them to me, bowing at my feet. Having no idea what to say, I settle on, ‘Well done,’ and pat Lynsey on the head like some sort of cape-wearing dog.
With that we are ushered to the back of the stage to watch the other entrants, including a belly dance by the ‘Sand Snakes’ and a funny skit from the Lannister family, who we convince ourselves must have had far more time to practise.
A few minutes after the final skit, hands shoot into the air as the members of the audience are asked to vote for their favourite. The officials count the votes and reveal that there is a three-way tie for first place.
‘OK, then it’s up to the judges,’ Peadar announces, gesturing towards the bar outside. ‘Will the judges please withdraw from the room to deliberate and make their final decision?’
The atmosphere in the room heightens as we await the final result, the excitable chatter building as Lynsey and I share a desperately sweaty hug. Within a matter of seconds, the room falls silent as the judges walk back through the door.
One of them walks over to the microphone, slowly, enjoying the drama. ‘And the winner is…’ he says, leaving another pregnant pause, ‘Drum roll, please.’
The audience hammer the tables with open hands.
He throws his hands in the air and in a booming voice yells, ‘Daenerys and Missandei!’
The room breaks into applause as Lynsey and I stare at each other in disbelief. This has to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me, I think. A sentiment perhaps influenced by the nerve-steadying Guinness.
The enthusiastic judge beckons us over to the microphone to make a victory speech. At some point between leaving my corner of the stage and arriving at the microphone, I make the outrageous decision to try and earn some geek points by attempting to talk in a made-up version of Daenerys’s mother tongue, Valyrian. I look out at the audience, in all their geeky splendour, and begin with an Elvish quote I remember from Lord of the Rings.
‘Natha dated dhaer.’
‘Thank you so much for bestowing this honour upon us,’ Lynsey translates.
‘Ichsvill hacker struntite,’ I desperately begin to make up words.
‘We… are… very happy to be here,’ Lynsey starts to struggle.
I panic about what else to say and end up wildly confessing, ‘This is our first-ever convention!’ Thankfully, the news is received with a round of applause and Lynsey and I retreat from the stage with a self-indulgent bow.
The room settles down again as we take our seats for a set from the Hardbitten Fleabottom Swingtime Band, a folk-blues group who entertain us with a rendition of the Game of Thrones theme tune, followed seamlessly by ‘Triffy, the Horny Prostitute’. After the ‘filking’ session (a musical performance inspired by the sci-fi genre, which we are reliably informed to be a favourite activity of the con scene), the night just keeps on getting better and better as we find ourselves passionately singing along to ‘Star Trekking’, dancing the Macarena (still in full Daenerys costume), and headbanging our way into the early hours with Rodrik Cassel, Myrcella Baratheon and Bran Stark, who have all emerged as if from nowhere to join the party. By 2 a.m. we collapse into a circle of chairs, drunkenly reciting quotes from our favourite shows and singing songs from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. It feels good to be able to discuss my theory of how dragons breathe fire with a willing conversation partner for a change.
It doesn’t feel quite as good when the alarm goes off at 8 a.m. the next morning for the early-departing coach tour of the local Game of Thrones filming locations. Nevertheless, morale is high, and the coach is filled with excitable chatter and stories from the previous evening. And so ensues a full day of tramping around the countryside to visit various filming locations, punctuated by scene re-enactments, fencing, archery and fire-eating lessons.
After a medieval hog roast in a banqueting hall lined with taxidermy deer heads and cast-iron candlestick holders, it is sadly time for Lynsey and I to make an early departure to catch our plane home. Peadar presents us with Game of Thrones action figures for winning the Masquerade, and we leave through the centre of the hall, taking the applause as our exit music and high-fiving everybody in our path to a great geekend.
*
A couple of months later, Lynsey and I meet Dan, Triffy and Phil – one of the event organisers – for a few pints and a catch-up in a London pub. It is great to see them again. Phil has travelled for an hour and a half to meet up with us, and I applaud his commitment as we walk to catch the train home.
‘It’s OK – I can have a lie-in tomorrow. I’m off work for two weeks now,’ he reassures me.
‘What are you up to?’
‘The new PlayStation comes out tomorrow,’ he says, in a ‘you really should know this’ tone, ‘and I have it on pre-order!’
‘You’ve taken two weeks off work to play computer games?’ I ask him, convinced I must have misunderstood.
‘Of course – the graphics are much better on this one.’
Of course, I think.