Do you swear fealty? Do you bend the knee? where are my dragons? oh there you are
well good day to you my lords and ladies and welcome back to love English now
guys as you may have guessed I am a huge fan of Game of Thrones and so today
we're going to look at essential vocabulary for understanding Game of
Thrones now Game of Thrones has been a hit all over the world but I wonder how
many of you are actually watching it in English or maybe you want to read the
books but you're thinking it might be too difficult now a lot of the language
in Game of Thrones is a little bit old fashioned and complex so today we're
going to be looking at 20 essential words that you need to understand the
sensation and scary but incredible ride that is a Game of Thrones- go away! before
we get started guys I do have a little spoiler alert for you and that is that
while I'm actually explaining this vocabulary I am going to be referring
back to events that have already happened in the story so if you haven't
seen Game of Thrones and you want to see it then don't watch this video watch
this video after the new season of Game of Thrones is coming out I don't have
any spoilers for that so don't worry about that at all but I am very very
excited the final season oh don't forget guys if you haven't already to subscribe
and click that lovely notification bell if you don't I'll set my dragons on you
okay guys so number one number one is revenge revenge which is of course a
noun it's probably the most important word in Game of Thrones as basically it
describes the whole series revenge is where you get back at somebody for
something that they have done to you so for example now I have Arya Stark wants to
avenge which is the verb she wants to get revenge for her father's killing for
the murder of her father Ned Stark so she wants to avenge this so verb a avenge
noun revenge number two is backstabbing backstabbing
backstabbing is just all over Game of Thrones a character will appear
to be loyal to one character and then will later tell their secret or have them
murdered or have them tortured all sorts of horrible things like this so to stab
someone in the back is the idiom and this means that you don't expect for
them to be disloyal to you you actually trust them but then they turn around
and they break your trust and they stab you in the back not necessarily
literally although in Game of Thrones it is very often literally there's a lot of
death and killing in Game of Thrones number three is ruthless ruthless if
someone is ruthless they don't really show compassion or pity for others they
are very hard or harsh person who doesn't usually show weakness so if you
say a king was ruthless it meant maybe that he had a very strong rule but that
there was a lot of people who suffered because of that because he wasn't
particularly forgiving and he definitely wasn't merciful if you don't understand
what mercy means that's coming next well the character that I would describe as
ruthless in Game of Thrones is Cersei Lannister so number four is to show
mercy to show mercy and this is where you do let somebody off the hook or you
do forgive them even when you can actually punish them where you have the
right to punish them you are in some ways forgiving so you aren't ruthless
it's really the opposite of ruthless my favorite of course the Khaleesi she does
show mercy at different times when she could punish people
she's merciful and she doesn't do her worst that's why she rocks and hopefully
she'll be on the Iron Throne tell them you live by the grace of her
majesty number five is to swear fealty this is very old-fashioned we don't
actually really say it anymore but we will understand it and basically it is
when you swear loyalty to someone usually a king or your Lord or someone
like that you swear your loyalty to them so you promise that you will be pledged
really to them as in whatever they wish you to do
you will remain loyal so in this scene here Daenerys is asking John Snow to
swear fealty to bend the knee meaning accept I'm your queen and be loyal to me
Torrin Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity
number six is an oath a oath and this is really a promise
so for example in many western courts of law you are required to swear an oath
on the Bible before you speak so if you give information they will say
you need to swear an oath on the Bible that what you say is only the truth so
it's a very serious promise an oath if you swear an oath to somebody you're
promising yourself to them really kind of like to swear fealty so if you swear
an oath of loyalty you're saying I promise I will remain loyal to you do
you swear on the Constitution of the United States to tell the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth - so help you God ain't no thing number seven is
allies and allegiance if there is one thing that you need in Game of Thrones
it is allies now allies are not exactly friends they're a group of people or a
group of countries that have agreed to cooperate with each other because they
are stronger together they have said we're in this situation
and so we're going to make sure that we are allied and we're going to work
together because we're stronger together so for example in the Second World War
England and France in America as well as other countries were allies they were
cooperating and working together number eight is a wildling so a wildling is
called a wildling because they are uncultivated and untamed for example if
we say that you've let your garden go wild it means you haven't cultivated it
the grass is growing very high and nature has really taken over so to be
wild means to be uncultivated in a sense to be free actually so for example a
wild animal isn't a pet it's not been tamed so that's why the wildlings are
called the wildlings because they refuse to conform to normal society they wish
to be free number nine is a maester a maester this is the old English version
of master a master so basically the
maesters are called maesters because of their scientific and intellectual
knowledge so it's the same way that we use the master today they have been
mastering all of their knowledge they've been studying so much that they can be
considered a master of it so today we use to master something as a verb
meaning to really accomplish it completely so if you've mastered English
this means that you can speak English perfectly people are usually a master of
something we can also say this phrase to master the art of for example to master
the art of being fashionably late or to master the art of cooking I've done the
first one not the latter number ten is to slay to slay this is an old-fashioned
English word which actually is kind of come back into fashion lately
basically to slay means to kill or to destroy something for example in fairy
tales you might read and the Prince slew the dragon so slew is the past of slayed
but actually today you'll often hear Slayed now I mentioned this word guys
because obviously there is a lot of slaying in Game of Thrones but also
Jamie Lannister is known as the Kingslayer this is because he killed the
mad Targaryen King however today if you hear the word slay it can also be that
something is really cool or something is really amazing like if you say ah this
song slays you mean it it's amazing it's awesome number eleven unsullied this is
the word that we still do use in English and if something is unsullied it means
it is not spoiled it is still pure it hasn't been made imperfect in any way
the verb to sully means to ruin or to make something dirty to take away its
purity for example so the unsullied are called the unsullied because they
haven't actually been allowed to have any sexual relations essentially they've
been trained just to be perfect soldiers with no
distractions not a very pleasant way to live I'm sure so you could say their
perfectly clean new house was sullied by the house party number twelve is
superstitious superstitious this is an adjective and the noun is superstition
there's a lot of superstition in Game of Thrones and rightly so there are lots
of things to be superstitious about basically superstition is where you
believe in something that is not necessarily logical or not really proved
for example if you won't leave your car until the black cat has gone you're
superstitious and this is for example when we say something bad that hasn't
happened yet like for example I haven't been ill yet or I haven't caught the
cold yet and then we would say touchwood and we need to find wood to touch so by
touching the word we're kind of stopping the bad thing from happening we're
saying okay I better not be too sure about this I better not be too arrogant
so I'll touch wood to make sure it doesn't happen
what superstitions do you have in your country please do comment below and tell
me they're very very interesting number thirteen is eerie eerie and this means a
place that gives you a funny feeling or feels mysterious or scary in some way if
you say the atmosphere in the forest is eerie you feel that there's something
that you can't trust in the forest you feel there's something a little bit spooky
we might also say a bit scary and giving you a spooky feeling or a creepy
feeling number fourteen is a trial by combat combat this is where people are
actually attacking each other or fighting in some way so a trial by combat is
where two people decide to fight each other in order to decide who is right in
the situation maybe there are no witnesses and things like that so they
decide the best way to find out who is the one that is in the wrong is a trial
by combat so for example Tyrion Lannister requests a trial by combat and
he gets Bron to fight for him if you remember guys Bron wins the fight and
therefore Tyrion is released he's declared to be the winner and he cannot
be punished number 15 is very similar it's a duel a duel and a
duel is a fight between two people traditionally this has always been with
swords and this is where two people decide that they're going to compete
against each other in a fight usually it's for some kind of reward
so either not to die or to get the princess or to get a prize of some kind
next one guys is a warden a warden for example Ned Stark was warden of the
north warden of Winterfell and this means like a guardian a person who looks
after a particular thing so for example you can have a prison warden a person
who looks on to the prison it's their responsibility to care for it and you
could also have a warden of a nature reserve and things like that number 17
is a rather depressing one it is to be doomed now if you are doomed it is
certain that whatever you're doing or you yourselves are not going to have a
happy ending in some way something bad is going to happen so for example the
poor princess Shireen she was doomed because unfortunately her father was
pretty crazy all he wanted was the Iron Throne so he
sacrificed poor little Shireen or that was so so
horrible so basically she was doomed number 18 again super common word in
Game of Thrones and this is a traitor a traitor a traitor is somebody who in a
big way has betrayed someone or has stabbed them in the back so basically it's the
person that betrays another that can be called a traitor
however we will of course still use this word today to describe somebody who we
thought was going to be loyal to us and who suddenly appears not to be loyal to
us and as a joke we might say ah you traitor you should be loyal to me so in
Game of Thrones Ned Stark if you remember was accused of being a traitor
and that was why he had his head cut off so number 19 is treason this is
very related to being a traitor so treason is the name of the crime for
plotting against the government or the King so basically it's the crime of betraying
one's country trying to overthrow or bring about the downfall of the king or
the government so you are then called a traitor but the actual name of the crime
is treason you stand accused of murder you stand accused of treason number 20
slightly more positive one and this is to surrender usually we use this word to
say when we for example accept defeat so if we say okay you're the winner I'm the
loser I can't win against you so I will
surrender okay guys I really hope this lesson was useful and that it encourages
you to watch Game of Thrones in English of course you can watch it with the
subtitles on or maybe even to read some of the books if you're a big Game of
Thrones fan you can get them downloaded to a Kindle and things like that please
comment below and tell me your favourite characters from Game of Thrones and also
your predictions for what's going to happen in this final season also guys I
have a little bit of homework for you to do I have a final word
I could definitely apply it to Game of Thrones but I'm not going to tell you
the meaning I want you to find it out so it's my favorite word please comment
below and tell me what you have found out it means it is skulduggery
skullduggery in Game of Thrones there is a lot of skullduggery so it's your
challenge guys to find out what it means and comment below and even use it in a
sentence that's all from us today guys and take care out there because winter
is coming