Final Thronesings
by DICK CHENEY
Game of Thrones
creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff
I try, on occasion, to imagine the kind of person for whom the events of Game of Thrones are deeply personal. I found myself crying the other day during a hot rewatch of a Ronald Reagan speech. He looked so handsome, vibrant and alive that it was hard to believe he was dead less than a decade later.
This is like the Breakfast Club without testicles.
Death comes quicker than we can imagine. I find it entertaining mostly, what a great mystery we make out of death. When I was a kid I had an uncle with an inoperable tumor on his spine. He became very ill with the measles at the same time, and one illness offset the malignant properties of the other. He lived five more years after that.
"Somehow, I have lasted this long," Tyrion says of his surprising survival. That was the first part of the Game of Thrones season finale. The rest was rather oblique references to the man named Jesus of Nazareth. As she pranced to the Red Keep, it seemed quite likely that death was going to come to Cersei Lannister. Death is only meaningful on this show when is it unlikely.
laying the biblical imagery on hard. A Mel Gibson cameo would have made my hands clammy.
As excessively silly as Cersei's walk of shame was, I could have watched this endless sequence all night if I didn't have to hear any more whining from Dany. She knows her dragon doesn't understand English, right? Try Valyerian, anything except crying about how ungrateful she is that the poor thing saved her life. I don't understand how the dragons are going to take back Westeros when they couldn't defeat a few unorganized enemies.
"Do you like my dress? Do you want to go to Chili's? Are you even listening?"
No one really cared that Shireen died except her mother. The girl was always bragging to illiterate people about her natural talent for reading. Myrcella is about the same story. She was dumb enough to kiss a Sand Snake; she did not deserve to live. It's more fun to see dead people brought to life, although the coming resurrection of Kit Harington annoys me to my core.
This was the least sly assassination in history. I hope you get gout.
If I was going to bring someone back from the dead, it would make more sense to accomplish the feat on someone in their prime of life, as opposed to Catelyn Stark, who looked like Kathy Griffin's corpse.
Surviving is generally assumed to be easier than dying and coming back to lfie, but it feels like our dwarf did both. "I missed you," Tyrion says to his friend Varys. You just end up missing everybody. I would bring back Barry Goldwater and the guy in Blind Melon.
I'm sensing they just didn't want to pay Varys for the full season.
There is a good reason we cannot speak to the dead, and that is because we might end up trusting them more than the living.
My wife Lynne told me she thought that the Thrones finale was very sad, actually. When Ned Stark died, she cheered because he was such a casual prick. When his wife went down at the Red Wedding, she did not feel a thing. But even I have to admit: it's a very sad thing for the people left behind, like Jaime and Samwell, to be all alone in the world like orphans.
They really need to use more R&B on this show. "Whatta Man" would have been perfect for this moment.
Arya's first straight-up murder was also a bit depressing. It's nice that she has her revenge and everything, but it felt a bit cruel. I mean, all that fellow did was whip a few girls and kill her fencing master. Every fencing master knows he is pretty much taking his life in his hands when he takes up the profession.
It was very sad to see Jon go, even if we know it isn't really for good. It would have been better writing if we had seen the Watch's point of view: unfortunately, it only seemed like Jon had no choice and they were a bunch of racist pricks. I would be lying if I said a part of me wasn't relieved to end Mr. Snow's practice of talking in that stupid, borish accent about how hard it was to be a bastard.
Stand tall, Stannis. You did absolutely nothing at all wrong.
Things felt eventful last night, but nothing really shocked me or Lynne. Stannis seemed doomed from the moment he left for Winterfell; him reclaiming the North was a narrative cul-de-sac. What excites us even more than random deaths of minor supporting characters would be someone showing a little gumption and intelligence. This person would need to come up with a plan for changing the world.
The masterminds didn't really show up last night. Tyrion was begging to go on a search and rescue mission, Samwell was like, "Jon Boy, I want to be a maester!", Littlefinger was nowhere to be found and Melisandre's face looked like that of her horse. Killing off heroes and heroines demands new ones be found to replace them. I really hope it's not Theon Greyjoy.
Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.
"Shipboard Cook" - Third Eye Blind (mp3)
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