In Which We Turn Our Face To The Light

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?

In Which A Bear Is Merely A Trifle To This One

What He Really Thinks Of Women

by DICK CHENEY

Thrones. "We're very complicated, you know. Pleasing us takes practice." Finally the truth, what GRRM really thinks about women. They can't be pleased or sated. They spend all their time in the nude, writing letters to their mother. They can't defeat a simple bear with a wooden stake. A dwarf defeated an army with some moonshine, but the largest female soldier I've ever seen can't defeat the bear from The Hotel New Hampshire and the David Mamet movie where Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins fall in love after the black guy from Lost stabs himself in the leg in the most racist scene in modern cinema?

The Edge was not a satire, or maybe it was, I haven't read the court transcript from either David Mamet's first divorce or his future one. Men who say women are simple are as devastatingly stupid as men who say women are complicated. It's not a man's place to say anything reductive about a woman, unless that women is permitting Simon Cowell in her bed. Then there's just one word for her.

theon greyjoy's nightmare is king joffrey's most carnal dream I can speak for men, however. Our first view of the opposite sex is usually determinative. It was Halloween, and I saw a girl I liked dressed as a hobo. She had red hair, and her parents moved her to North Carolina before school started again the next year. I never did tell her how I felt about her, but I did mail her a picture of Theon Greyjoy's penis.

brb one sec gotta gchat with someone in House Martell, you don't know this person
This week's episode began with verifiable proof that Robb Stark had one of those. In an elaborate postcoital scene in which his wife faked over three orgasms, the boy king kept going on and on about how his wife should put some clothes on lest he "attack" her. I guess he was trying to be playful? Since he never actually copulated with her again, he sounded like Renly Baratheon fawning over a woman so he would not actually have to go through with the more difficult work of maintaining his arousal.

let's just snuggle here forever and talk antibiotics; penetration is for lannisters

It almost made me empathize a little with Robb's wife that his pale, wrinkled mother disapproves of her, but we all know what's coming so it is best to focus on the Stormborn when looking to approve of a very tan woman from across the narrow sea.

P.S. If this sea is so narrow why don't they go visit the naked woman's mom right now? Hannukah is coming.

these gold bars are filled with eyeshadow
Daenarys' idle threats to a slave culture that precedes her entire civilization remains entertaining. Still, it's not a role that offers her a lot of chances to do anything other than free slaves. Spartacus is a similarly boring character. If I was the slaver with this eye-shadow, I would have just knelt. Someone will have to explain to me the economy of Astapoor and the yellow city. Real clever George, the yellow city.

Mama Stormborn's skin was looking a bit mottled, but I guess she's been crossing CGI for days at least.

You were no Dwight Schrute

As this episode was written by GRRM himself (thanks for taking time from your strenuous schedule of caviar and writing long passages about the Greyjoys that no one could give two fucks about), it had more than its fair share of YKNJS. Ygritte was not so fantastic in this episode; possibly Jon Snow's grimacing "you'll die when you fight a bunch of guys wearing black" took her down to his level. I miss Craster. The only thing less believable than their ongoing honeymoon beyond the wall is the idea any lord would apologize to a woman he compensates for sex.

jesus, doesn't anyone sit down and have dinner anymore
In the books we can actually believe Tyrion might care about this Shae, but in the cold light of King's Landing (soon to be renamed Hot Pie's Landing) we can see quite clearly that this is the last conversation he wants to have with this woman. Reassuring someone that you love them constantly is never fun, since slowly but surely you stop believing your own words. I think Shae's expectations are also a little out of whack; he offers her a house and clothes and she's like, "But what about an inground pool?" Just move on little guy, if she won't even do something with her hair now, it's only going to get worse.

that is one splendid fucking jerkin there bronn five stars

As ever, Bronn is the finest man alive. Why GRRM is putting out a ball-achingly embarrassing collection of Tyrion's "finest" "quotes" while Bronn's solid advice is diminished in contrast, I don't know.

GET IT? ORSON WELLES DID IT ONCE SO WE HAVE TO DO IT IN EVERY MOVIE AND TELEVISION SHOW FROM NOW ON GUYS

What you have to respect about Tywin Lannister is that he has never even tried to please a woman since his wife died in childbirth. His tact with his grandson further revealed the depths of his political skill. The cliche of him having to tower over Joffrey on his Iron Throne was a little heavy- handed, but the Lannisters are so far and away the best characters and actors on the show that you sympathize so much more with them than you do in the books.

Bran was literally there yesterday

Jaime's transformation from incest participant into the lion with a heart of gold I guess was a slow process. His sudden authority over his own life is all the more shocking. It's fun to watch someone change, even if they did not hate the person they were before. Changing yourself is loving yourself, because you care enough about it to do better or be better.

Is it wrong that it bothered me than Bran and Jaime were on the exact same set? I guess he did take the little lord's legs. I hope you're eaten by the biggest dragon in Westeros Bran.

Genry, you will be very happy now. Hot Pie, you will not.

GRRM wants you to think we are watching men and women save each other, as they must. But really, his underlying belief is that no one can be saved, which is something of a nihilistic attitude. Many times he has told us that his wife will not allow Arya to die. This knowledge ruined his creation, just as all fan service inevitably corrupts the original inspiration. If no one can be saved, then neither can Arya. Treating her differently than Hot Pie is misguided at best, sexist at worst.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He deleted at least five inappropriate jokes about Catelyn Stark from the preceding. You can find an archive of his reviews of Game of Thrones here.

"Grind or Die" - Eve (mp3)

"Mama in the Kitchen"  - Eve ft. Snoop Dogg (mp3)

In Which We Journey To The Jacuzzi Beyond The Wall

A Weird, Complacent Feeling

by DICK CHENEY

Thrones. Right before something you will remember occurs, or immediately after it happens, there is a sensation. Previously undescribed in the literature outside of Kathy Acker and, at some length, Proust, this urge contains two parallel desires:

1) To undo what has taken place, in order to restore events to their previous berth;

2) To go wild in celebration at the very simple idea that the world is changeable.

It's always like that for Jaime Lannister. He's a punch bowl full of regret, a lion with eleven manes. He loves saying the word wildfire even more than his beneficent little brother.

Quickly, before you know it, something hard becomes very soft. A politician (any politician) enters office with the promise of closing an infamous prison, where criminals in an ongoing war are incarcerated because of presumed danger to society. When this politician hears of their tales, he could end their lives with dark purpose, prolong them with an even greater absence of mercy, or set them free.

People are always whining about Ned Stark's lessons, but at least he picked one and went through with it. Tywin Lannister, at his core, is a similar creature. When Tyrion asks Grandma Tyrell to fund the wedding, she changes her mind and agrees to pay half the cost. Tywin would never make such a concession, no matter its actual merit. It's more important to say what you're going to do and go through with it; that's the type of person that can really be trusted.

the hand of the king's office leaves something to be desired

Tywin Lannister and Grandma Tyrell had an extremely high level meeting. For some reason they had never actually met before; do you find this believable? As believable as someone caring enough about Bran Stark to find him in the wilderness and guide him to his bastard half-brother? As believable as the idea that Littlefinger's revenge on Catelyn Stark now extends to marrying off her identical-ish daughter to the only bookkeeper in King's Landing worth a damn?

"...you're marrying an accountant."

Tyrion had to break the bad news to his girlfriend and his wife at the same time, which is never easy. He should have led with "where do whores go" or maybe his material about Jamie telling everyone his betrothed was a prostitute, god knows he hasn't got enough mileage out of that story. Peter Dinklage's arsenal of resigned or cautious facial expressions will be sorely tested with this engagement.

I think there's more on redtube along these lines
It's always a pity when the only glimpse of Joffrey we get is him putting a crossbow bolt through Varys' ginger spy. The guy's had like three lines of dialogue; usually all they let him do is giggle when he sees blood.

Along with the Freys, Joffrey gets the most unfair rap of anyone in the Seven Kingdoms. I mean the guy repels Stannis Baratheon's fleet, is able to make a very generous and inquisitive woman attracted to him, and he didn't have to throw his daughter's illiterate best friend in the dungeon to make it happen.

boo hoo you have to marry a beautiful, generous gay man, he is betrothed to a ginga

Rhetorical questions are the refuge of cowards. I had an instructor, when I was first trained in intelligence work, who told us to never ask a rhetorical question, because it was a distinctly Western appendage. In other parts of the world, the person who asks a question they don't want answered is considered relatively rude.

still trying to get the memory of Stannis Baratheon's wife stillborn babies out of my head

On occasion, a question that appears merely a polite gesture can have greater significance, most often when it is asked of the god. It's unclear who exactly Melissandre plans to bring back from death; maybe Aegon Targaryen? If not, the concept of "light" has never been a more confusing symbol in any fictional work, applied as it is to about half the factions in this Thronesing.

bran this will be you. shut your face bran.

Thoros of Myr is identified as Peter in early Christian literature. The Brotherhoods Without Banners stuff is not to be trifled with, these guys all have serious long personal backstories. They care for each other maybe a bit too much. It was weird how Melissandre read Arya's fortune, doesn't she usually charge for that? "We will meet again" is pretty dumb.

do they not have foreplay in the south Jon Snow???

Actually a far worse symbol was a never-ending, phallic wall that the wildlings climbed, at length. Jon Snow, to me, really elevated his acting skills. He basically used a grimace as his main featured expression and agreed with whatever his ginger girlfriend was saying the rest of the time. There was still a lot of loneliness there. I guess she felt like she couldn't trust him. I wouldn't know.

"YOU WAS ALWAYS A CROW"

The political machinations surrounding Littlefinger's departure from King's Landing eluded me. Clearly something very bad is going to happen there, something to put his own life at risk. He wanted to take Sansa with him; but he wanted even more so to punish her for not wanting to be with him. There's a Chris Brown joke there somewhere, but I'll leave the racist and bigotry to Howard Kurtz because it comes more naturally to him.

It's hard sometimes to realize that Sansa and Arya are of the same uncaring and uncooperative mother, who basically allowed them to flee to the winds of time for no reason. Despite the fact that she's been in King's Landing for years now, Sansa is not even the least bit wiser. This is proof positive that GRRM has never met an actual living teenage girl, who can sniff bullshit out more quickly than her dire wolf.

"put Hot Pie's belly out of your mind"

Meanwhile, Arya is telling an archer how to shoot arrows, or a priest about how to show mercy, or a smith about how he should be her family. Her emotions are just everywhere, and yet she gets a noticeably better reaction from the surrounding world than her passive creature of a sister. If you want something, it's best just to take it. It's because of the sensation I described; the very human urge to see what happens. People, even the best ones, get tired of both saying and hearing the word No.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He has composed a steak sauce meant to mimic the blood of Theon Greyjoy. It was roundly mediocre.

"The Three Of Us In The Dark" - Carly Simon (mp3)

"Take Me As I Am" - Carly Simon (mp3)