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Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 10:43AM 
Bannermen
by DICK CHENEY
The time between when you make your wish and when it is granted comprises everything. As a mere hooligan who only cared about the marginal income tax rate, I did not understand this, so I would keep on wanting the thing. To stop needing to do whatever it is — sleep, eat, summon a dark spirit — is incredibly difficult, but if you do not stop, then afterwards you end up discarding your heart's desire. If you really wish something, you must have it then and now or not at all.
My wish was for Westeros to become alive. Sadly, I wished this in 2007.
What do you do with a show after you kill off its best characters? Without the considerable presence of myself and the last president in the public discourse, The Nation has resorted to slandering black people and mocking Mormons. ("Why Can't We Make Fun Of Mormons?" If you have to ask, you're probably not a liberal magazine.) Sure, my jabs about Katrina vanden Heuvel having two silver spoons embedded in her sizable cheeks are all in good fun, but when you look to who benefits, you can see that Victor Navasky's secret plan is for Romney to be elected. It means his entire bottom line.
The deaths of Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon were also bad business. Not quite Scarlett Johanssen when she's Lorraine Bracco-ing a Norse God bad, but horrible nonetheless. Unlike in The Avengers, where they kill off even incidental characters with gaudy, funereal music, the HBO series felt the need to stay faithful to the novels on which they were based. And everyone dies. Hopefully they haven't read A Dance of Dragons, because there is still a chance to get this right.
She's going through a thing right now
Try watching Game of Thrones with someone who isn't emotionally invested in whether Arya Stark lives or dies on her journey up the King's Road. It's just a series of increasingly disturbing scenes; actually the show is a deep departure from the novels where a twenty page chapter was spent leading up to said scene. Here we just get: rats crawling into men's bodies, the theft of teenage dragons in onesies, the slaughter of babies, the rape of Khaleesis, the austere birth of a shadow. Everyone in the Seven Kingdoms possesses a mid-sized or larger tongue.
The real problem is the focus on the two most boring families of the Seven Kingdoms, the Baratheons and the Greyjoys. The Baratheon's squabble/Clash concerns two feuding brothers, one gay and one impotent, who seek to inherit their oldest brother's birthrights. The words of House Baratheon are "Ned Stark died for this?"
tyrion is peeking during at lease 18 percent of all his screentime
The Greyjoys are somehow worse, if this is even possible. I hate you Theon Grejoy. You look like a jack-in-the-box, you can't act worth a shit, and you didn't even say goodbye to Robb Stark.
The words of the Greyjoys are "incest boating." The ancestral home bases of the Greyjoys are the Iron Islands, and if it did not look so glorious, the scenes set in these environs would be even more execrable than they already are. The set design in Game of Thrones borders on magnificent. The show must cost twelve fortunes. You can easily watch the show without the volume on and get the basic point.
"I came from nothing." "That's the sixth time you've said that."
Game of Thrones uses the word 'only' a lot. At some point, you begin to doubt the singularity of the subject. The dialogue mostly concerns the following:
"Remember our words."
"It was only a dream."
"I am only a maid."
"It is my duty."
Ser Loras, I'm coming!!!
"I cannot, my lord!" (He can.)
"He has to pay the iron price."
"It is only my duty."
"I am your king!"
During a recent episode the takeaway point from seven straight scenes was, "You can't avenge him from the grave." Because most of Game of Thrones' compelling characters have already died off or are about to, much time has been dedicated to establishing new villains. The process is long, and there are a lot of them. Littlefinger actually seems like a super guy compared to most, and young creature playing Sir Loras is a star in the making.
But that's the only thing marking time between when a twee Tyrion is twinkling like Santa's elf about some decision he's going to make that will turn the tide of war. How lovely to imagine how many bannerman will be consumed by the wildfire. In the North, Jon Snow is contemplating throwing a bone to one of the maids from Downton Abbey. It's hard to know who exactly to get behind.
My disgust for the Onion Knight knows no bounds. He can't even read. It's laughable.
you kowtowing little maggot
Someone needs to do a theatrical release of all the Arya scenes. See you later.
Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to this Recording. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here. He last wrote in these pages about Magic City.
jon snow is the only one permitted a pet for some reason
"The Lost Buoys" - Clock Opera (mp3)
"Move to the Mountains" - Clock Opera (mp3)
Ways to Forget was released on April 23rd.
inside The Nation's editorial offices
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