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Half Lowborn

by DICK CHENEY

Thrones. Watching an illiterate horse trader learn how to read, struggling over every word, reminds me of so many things, but mostly, it reminds me of Richard Nixon. He was the type of man who you could trust because he was exactly what he seemed. He wasn't elected president because of his charm. Still, he could surprise you with a remark, or a particular sign of warmth. You knew it was genuine because he was a complete dick the rest of the time.

Nixon had people like the Onion Knight, who counseled ethical behavior. He fired them, or made them feel unwanted. Our current president never had these people to begin with. The only advice he gets on a regular basis are answers to the question he poses again and again: "How can we use the murder of innocents for our own political gains?" Even innocents have enemies.

at least her small counsel can read

Relying on the counsel of yes men could get the Queen of Dragons in trouble. Ask Michael Jackson how things turn out when all you have is a group of admiring ninnies in your cause. You'll notice that there's not many shades of grey across the narrow sea. Every single person is 100 percent good or bad, and spends the entire day saying exactly what they mean. It is hard to find a liar in these Thrones, because with 242 characters, including over six Hot Pies, we'd never have time to distinguish the lie from the truth.

jeez New Hot Pie, it's a leech not a cobra

Oh new Hot Pie. You were forced to House Baratheon against your will. Melisandre throwing Genry the precursor to a hot bone was a nice gesture; I recall Henry Kissinger once doing the same thing for a boy he sacrificed to the devil. I do feel that there was a missed opportunity to not have Melisandre screaming, "New Hot Pie! New Hot Pie!" The reason rich men are usually the ones to lead us is because they're used to it.

you should really be bowing to the father of the realm there varys Joffrey's face during Sansa's wedding was absolute heaven. in politics we have something called facials, which is best described as the expressions you have in still photographs reproduced on Drudge. David Axelrod always looks like Goebbels, and in fact it turned out his administration targeted Jews in precisely the same way, which should come as no real surprise. The facials of the wedding party were just spectacular all around even though the event came off super rushed. I made over 3000 gifs and saved them to a flash drive that I labeled "not porn":

where was bronn during all this I don't know

The event thankfully went off without a hitch, an improvement on a wedding of a trusted colleague I attended last month where the only thing anybody could talk about was... You know what, I need to conserve all my wedding jokes for the Tully-Frey nuptials.

It made zero sense that none of Tyrion's friends were even at his wedding, but I guess I should be thankful that his valet wasn't quietly drawn off by Grandma Tyrell. 

I think I may have spotted her poker tell.

Everyone you know or love will let you down eventually. Watching Sansa tell Tyrion she would never want a hot bang reminded me it is time to make amends. I know I've been hard on Bran over these last months. But then, that's just when you start missing everybody. Bran is my little catcher in the rye; he will find a savage teenage love with his mossman, or at least that's what GRRM would do if he was actually interested in depicting real homosexual love instead of depriving repressed homosexuals of their affection for one another. Then again, Robb Stark was not in this episode.

margaery gets a psychopath, tyrion gets a wilting flower and cersei gets a gay. i don't think she can complain really

Cersei broke the bad news to her betrothed; that being that a life with her doesn't involve a whole lot of talking. She did not want to hear what Loras' father had to say, possibly because it was, "You know son, Lannisters can never be pleased sexually except by another Lannister." This she already knew. Somewhere, the joie de vivre of a state wedding was lost.

I could have done without that scene, as well as the pathetic interplay between whore and dwarf. Tyrion giving Shae a significant look when she took his post-matrimonial bedsheets away was so fucking hokey; I mean Jesus, throw Sansa a bone before Joffrey flays her skin in front of his fiancée and all their friends. Joffrey really needs to get Sans a back tattoo of his face with the caption "Killed Ur Dad."

"And just over that rise you will find an Arby's, little girl."

Having Arya be super bratty to the poor Hound really reduces my sympathy for her. Also, her thinking the Red Fork was Blackwater just reinforces the idea that women aren't capable of geography, a savage myth that ensured Hillary Clinton would never know how many countries border Uzbekistan. Reportedly Chris Christie did not run for president last year simply because he did not know his geography well enough, and also because he was worried it would come out during the campaign that he accidentally ate an endangered falcon.

If only frodo asked samwise to share his blankets as often as this poor creature does Samwell Tarly prevented himself from snapping at his impoverished friend when she criticized him for using the word "refer". He took the high ground and said, "It's just the way I talk," the exact same line David Karp uses whenever his mousy girlfriend asks him not to curse at her. Samwell made a critical discovery in the field of white walker killing; he is truly the David Ben Gurion of the Andals and the first men. In my mind I have named the blonde refugee woman's baby Bojangles.

For some unknown reason Game of Thrones eschews the traditional montage sequence which shows events occurring at the same time: for example, it is known canonically that at the very moment Jon Snow climbed an ice wall as he wept about not having a mommy, Hot Pie was slaving away over a tuna casserole, Theon Greyjoy was patiently examining the place his testicles used to be and Samwell Tarly was quietly thrashing himself as his lady friend slept before a fire. The proper music for such a montage was, of course, Green Day's "Good Riddance" or Weird Al Yankovic's forthcoming Riffraff parody.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can find an archive of his reviews of Game of Thrones here.

just remember: almost every man who ever lived has died

"Why Am I The One? (acoustic)" - fun. (mp3)

"All Alone" - fun. (mp3)

Gary?