OK, Dumbies, I’ll Explain GOT 4 U
Allow me to “Connect the Dots”
Should I start by flashing my fontasy (not “fantasy” — “Fontasy” is the kewl wai to spell “fantasy”) cred, or with a rant about referring to Game of Thrones Episodes by their titles? Let me try to do both:
The last episode of GOT was called “The Iron Throne,” but it should have been called “The Iron Throne Room” because D&D dumped a bigger pile of crap in it than Peter Jackson did when he tried to ruin the Hobbit.
How did I do?
Not that good? I know. I’m kind of off my game. I blame the bad coffee I’ve been drinking. I discovered that if you buy a big can of Maxwell House and brew the coffee at home, it costs about six cents a cup. That a $2.44 savings PER CUP. The only downside is you end up drinking six cent coffee.
This didn’t start well. Maybe we should stop here.
One of the rules of “Soul Blogging” is that “we never stop here.”
I read the books.
I am not new to complaining about Game of Thrones. I was unhappy watching the first episode. Of course I had an erection during the first episode because a set of books I had read was being made into an HBO series, but that didn’t stop me from complaining. I think I was muttering “dire wolves should be bigger and not so furry” some time around the four minute mark. After the first episode ended I wasn’t screaming “holy shit, that sucked” (that would come later), but I’m pretty sure I did ask “Where’s all the weird lesbian sex and descriptions of banquet food?”
Watching Games of Thrones has made my blood pressure rise for years. During the last episode my head nearly exploded because NONE OF IT MADE ANY SENSE.
The last episode made clear that not only did it not make any sense… THE WHOLE SERIES DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. Now I’m afraid that the books might not make any sense.
I can make sense of things. I can. I’ve looked at enough contemporary art to “find meaning” and a “systematic rebuttal of meritocracy as a concept” in things that look, to you Philistines, like wads of twisted tissue paper. I figured out the lyrics to the Grateful Dead’s “China Cat Sunflower” and Dylan’s “Gates of Eden”.
I eventually found “meaning” in “A Song of Ice and Fire” too. It took a while. That’s why this is a luke-warm take. I needed to ruminate. Now I’m going to save you trouble by barfing up the silage I was so kind to break down.
The “Others” or “White Walkers”: Are the Chinese. A winter of totalitarianism is coming. Our “firewalls” are no match for their “re-animated”, “slave/thrall” 5G routers. The “Night King” is Xi Jinping, who can throw an ice spear through the heart of our dragon (Donald Trump) without making a face. Craster’s Keep represents Hong Kong. The Wildlings are the Russians, with Putin as the “King Beyond the (Berlin) Wall.”
The Lord of Light (R’hllor): Is either the Eighth Dynamic of Scientology or the Zhen-Shan-Ren of Falun Gong. The Flaming Swords of the Red Priests are Mormon “magic underwear”. The resurrection of Caetlyn Stark and Berick Dondarrion are references to the Conciliar Period of Roman Catholic history.
Am I going to fast?
The Dothraki: The Dothraki are gamers. A“Khal” is a sub-reddit like /r/myskindisorder.
The Unsullied: The Unsullied are robots. That’s obvious, because who else would fight for their masters without rebellion, follow their liberators across the sea, stand at attention in the cold without food, get attacked by Chinese hackers, sack a city, and then decide to give up that city in exchange for… farmland… I think. The Unsullied were paid with farmland, weren’t they? So, they’re bots. Black bots, to be sure, because I guess Westerosi have an easier time ignoring the needs and desires of faceless black robots than the robots on West World.
Daenerys Targaryen and Her Dragons: Daenerys Targaryen represents American pop culture and the “#MeToo” movement. The big dragon is either Harvey Weinstein or Cher, I’m not sure which. If Daenerys Targaryen is American Media, then her uncle, Jon Snow, represents all the good-looking, overly sincere television news anchors in the world. So, when Jon is beyond the Wall talking to Mance Rayder, it’s just like Anderson Cooper sitting in a boat during a hurricane asking some old lady in slippers about her cat. His battle with the ice dragon is the fight for ratings against bad reality television shows like Botched, Alaska Gold, and Flip This House (i.e. “zombie entertainment”).
Blood Magic: Is benzodiazepines.
Margaery Tyrell: Represents the baby-sitter we all wish we had.
Yara Greyjoy: This one was tough, but it came to me in the shower. I mean, what is something you can watch, and watch, and watch and it seems to make sense and maybe you’re even a little bit interested in it, but then at the end you have no real idea what it is about and you get a slightly sick feeling when you are reminded about how much of your life you devoted to thinking about it? That’s when it hit me. Yara Greyjoy represents financial annuities.
Cersei Lannister: Is middle school. This one really makes sense. The wine, the bad sex, the big idiot behind her that stops you from kicking her ass. Now, I can show you how this works. If Cersei Lannister is middle school, then Tyrion must be…. that’s right! College! Easy, right? So, let’s go on. If Cersei is middle school, and Tyrion is college, then Jaime Lannister is Elementary School, and Tywin Lannister…. is? What’s Tywin Lannister? The Oracle Database Administration Certificate program? The Iowa Workshop MfA? I’m not going to do ALL the work for you.
Winterfell and the Starks: Medium is Winterfell and we, the Mediumans, are the Starks. Isn’t that great? Who wants to be Rickon?
Walter Frey: This is where the good joke should go. You save the best for last and it’s called the “button”, but there is no “best” here because none of these ideas are good. You know, this whole gag seemed better when it was just an “idea”. Sorry you had to find out this way.
If you want to read something worthwhile about Game of Thrones, you should read Lon Shapiro’s breakdown of the last episode:
