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Bran Is 40

by DICK CHENEY

It's been a hard year so far. It hasn't been as hard for me as it was for Bran Stark. First of all they didn't have the money to get Sean Bean to play his father again. Sean Bean is under contract with TNT so he couldn't come back and play a younger version of himself. Instead it was a guy who looked a lot more like the actor playing Ned Stark in Braavos, who I have to admit was suspiciously accurate in his portrayal and could he be the real N.E.D.? Second of all, Bran is aging at a rate of ten years per episode like Robin Williams in Jack.

Bran's stupidity and love for the dream world allowed him to learn a somewhat pertinent lesson about the Children of the Forest. Those magical creatures may have erred in turning some blonde guy into a White Walker. Given that these weird female children knew the principal weakness of the demons they developed to destroy the wildings, I don't know much of a threat these cold ones really are. Just burn them. It's easy.

Hodor's time travel moment was cute, but it is even better I don't have to hear his stupid grunting anymore. Apparently the white walkers got as far as that door and decided not pursue Meera and Bran. It was very nice of Summer the direwolf to go down fighting, which I believe means there is only one direwolf left. These important budget reductions give us all the CGI money HBO needs when you add it to the cash they saved by firing their head of programming.

I was enthusiastically looking forward to the drowning of Euron Greyjoy. I don't know why the interminable saga of the Iron Islands ever became important at the expense of houses with interesting stories and purposes, but wrapping up the entire saga in one episode was basically a mercy killing.

The dragon queen's tearful dispatching of Iain Glen to cure the gross rash he has on his arm was well done. They should honestly just pause the show here and give us a spin-off season of Iain Glen traipsing through Valyria and meeting another Targaryen, twisted by his environment into something resembling a scientist. As in all of my GoT fanfictions (don't tell GRRM), there are intense sex scenes where someone is always like, "Forget the throne, being inside you is all that's crucial at this juncture," to which their wintercourse partner inevitably responds, "Don't talk that way about the throne."

It was funny how Arya was gleefully laughing when watching the reenactment of a man who loved her father gored by a boar, but as soon as her own family entered the diegesis, the frown emerged. I'd say all things considered, this drama hewed closely to the truth, although I will always be seriously let down that Sansa didn't fall in love with Tyrion. In retrospect, there was no reason that should not have happened. Think of the fanfic!

Sansa clutched the dwarf's trembling paw in her hand and held it to her bosom. He tasted of whiskey and camomile, an overpowering combinationthat simultaneously repulsed and aroused her like nothing else. "Where do whores go?" she whispered to him. "Come on, what?" he replied, flossing her teeth with some string and eating what fell out. Tyrion could think of nothing better than to be this massive ginger's baby bird.

That's just my opening salvo for the characters. Eventually the story would have featured Sansa biting a chunk out of Shae's leg and whimpering like a direwolf when challenged by her tiny husband. People, certain people, would have really enjoyed my approach to this period in the history of Westeros. I would not have included yet another scene where we fully detail when and where Varys' balls were removed. I felt the previous eight hundred renditions of this piece of backstory were probably enough.

I'd suspect with no romantic prospects on the horizon the dragon queen might start having some intimate feelings for her own personal high priestess. As I said last week, the pure, unadulterated impact of fictional romances has become a way of all around living for me. That's why the interplay between Eric the Red and Brienne has spawned an entire novelette I call Climbing the Blonde Keep.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

"Sandy" - Nancy Wilson (mp3)