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Littlefingered

by DICK CHENEY

Wow, Rickon Stark is so completely stupid. A man one hundred yards away is shooting you with arrows and your best effort is the whimpering trot that is a straight line. Rickon Stark, first of his line, King of the Andals. It only took half the amount of time Ramsay Bolton spent on tossing up his arrows for Theon Greyjoy to sail to Mereen.

While there, Theon was unable to sample any of the local flavor. I imagine we're all a bit tired of the main fact of each Game of Thrones character being brought up in every scene. It just reminds me how bad Tyrion's dialogue is. I mean, we get, you're somewhat on the short side. Is it really productive to make your life all about how small you are? I think we all understand that Theon is supporting his sister — so why did he talk and she stand there smirking like some kind of disturbed loon?

Fanfiction depicting the various intimacies that will transpire between Yara and Daenerys is all well and good. It's nice to see a proper lesbian relationship, one based on the common interests of taking power away from siblings and relatives and wielding it for yourself. It kinda felt like Sansa was one-upping Jon Snow a little bit. She completely undermined his battle plan and waited until most of his forces had been killed to enter the fray.

The battle itself was the best and possibly most expensive set piece the show has ever done. Jon's inability to die after Melisandre's pronouncement of "the god we have" was amusing, although I could not help but notice that Kit Harington never changed his expression once throughout this entire episode, not even after he was pounding Ramsay's face like he once did that wilding girl who told him he was in an idiot in that cute cave.

It was a great day for the North, and even Littlefinger put in an appearance. Ramsay's death was a little unsatisfying and perhaps even pleasurable for him. It didn't make sense that his dogs would attack him and perhaps secretly I was hoping they would turn on Sansa. The reason all the animals have been written out of Game of Thrones is largely financial and practical.

Speaking of animals, I guess the slavers of Mereen temporarily forgot that the Queen of Dragons had, you know, dragons. Unrelated, but did Tyrion really think that Daenerys didn't realize her father was going to burn down King's Landing? And in hindsight, would it really have been all that big a loss if he did? That moment was nicely paralleled with Ramsay's sacrifice of his own troops.

Ramsay Bolton was a masochist. People who enjoy inflicting pain on others usually aren't so averse to suffering it themselves - that's why torture is so prominently an aspect of their self. Ramsay came off as a bit ineffectual in the end, and I found Sansa's disturbed smile as he was being mauled rather disconcerting. I'm not sure all that much was accomplished last night, but at least I never have to watch the Illiterate Knight negotiate ever again, as this seemed to wrap up his arc completely.

Great episode. Now I'd like to address a lot of e-mails I have been receiving about the upcoming presidential election. Here is one I have received a number of times in different versions, one of which called me a "decaying piece of shit." Naturally I reported him to the police, but the question still stands:

Would you really consider voting for Hillary or will you just vote for the Republican by reflex?

The campaign is so incredibly far from over right now. Sure, Trump has said a variety of disgusting things, and I'm sure he meant a good twenty percent of them. But you have a woman whose husband is a sex offender who might be indicted before the fall. This is hardly a cakewalk and the Clinton campaign knows it.

I would never vote for Donald Trump, since I don't believe there is anything wrong with a Muslim immigrating to the United States. I have many Muslim friends, and a variety of leatherbound volumes. But whatever he says now, he can just change later on in the debates.

Well, you say, won't that make him look fractious and inconsistent? Uh, sure, but isn't that a whole lot better than looking like a xenophobic psychopath?

Do you think Donald Trump is a bad person?

Honestly, no. We have this profoundly awful tendency to demonize our enemies. Calling Trump a Nazi because he offers unpalatable solutions to very real problems is immensely troubling. You would have to really not understand what the Nazi Party was to say something so completely disturbed and offensive about Donald Trump. Trump has operated under the laws of this country for decades and he has never professed a desire to murder anyone. When we treat adversaries in a democratic system like they were demons from hell we are no better than the bloodthirsty crowds in the Roman Coliseum. I think Hillary understands that if you treat Donald Trump like anything other than what he is — an intelligent, successful, misogynistic American businessman — you are giving him way more power than he deserves.

Who should Hillary choose as her running mate? Who should Trump choose?

I don't think the running mate really matters much, and picking someone who is notably successful or appealing can even undermine the focus on the main candidate, like Hugh Laurie did on Veep. I think in the end Hillary won't choose a man. Why bother? Elizabeth Warren appeals to a lot of key people within her party and it just seems less exciting when you see Hillary and some guy up there next to her signaling no other capable women could be found.

If you're going to make history, make history.

Trump should choose me. I've changed a lot. Just read my Game of Thrones reviews, ty. I appeal to women annoyed by Sansa Stark, men who think Kit Harington is the worst actor in the last hundred years, and people of both genders who enjoy Yara Greyjoy erotic fanfiction.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.