T w e n t y S i d e d

For the first time, I’m going to attempt to complain about Game of Thrones in a timely manner.
This is a momentous occasion. In the past, I’ve griped about things that I had months to process – episodes that I was able to watch at least two times, episodes that I had time to digest afterwards. Now, I’m trying to gripe about something that just happened a few hours ago (as I’m writing this). So it may be a bit sloppy, a bit undercooked. But never let it be said that rudimentary standards of quality got in the way of my can-do spirit. Here goes.

This Is Already So Dumb I Can’t Even

We start at the Twins. Walder Frey (not actually Walder Frey, it’s obviously Arya in disguise) is giving a speech to his assembled family. We can already tell that the murder of the real Walder Frey has gone undetected, as has the murder of two of his sons, as has the act of baking those two sons into a pie for Walder Frey to eat (or possibly just look at) before he died.

So while she wasn’t busy making two different disguises, murdering the Lord of a major house, killing his two sons, butchering them, and baking them into a pie, Arya also managed to find time to poison the wine of what looks to be at least twenty people without anyone noticing.

I’m tempted to ask all sorts of questions, like “how exactly did she pull this off?” and “how exactly DOES this whole face-swapping thing work, since that was never really explained,” and “seriously, how do the faces work, because Arya is clearly physically a much smaller person than Walder Frey,” and “how is she possibly going to get away with this, since presumably House Frey has guards, and she pulled her face-mask-thing off and admitted to her crime in front of a half-dozen (at least) witnesses, and she’s still inside the castle,” and other questions along those lines.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Timely Game of Thrones Griping 1: This Is Already So Dumb I Can’t Even”

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.

Picking up where we left off, the Great Sept of Baelor is now a pile of scorched rubble. The Queen, Margaery Tyrell, and her brother, Loras Tyrell, are both dead. So are Kevan Lannister (head of House Lannister) and Mace Tyrell (head of House Tyrell). So are Kevan’s son Lancel, small council member Grand Maester Pycelle, head of the Faith the High Sparrow, at least seven Septons and Septas who were to judge the trial, and dozens of nobles and other spectators. Oh, and then King Tommen jumps out of a window.

So that’s the King, the Queen, the heads of the two most powerful houses currently remaining in Westeros, both of their respective firstborn sons, the head of the continent’s dominant religion, and presumably a big chunk of both the religious and political leadership of King’s Landing, and, by extension, all of Westeros. All dead. Even by this show’s standards, that’s quite a butcher’s bill for one episode.

The most obvious suspect by far is Cersei Lannister, who was conspicuously not at her own trial shortly before it burst into flames, and whose son, the King, died in a highly suspicious way, with her giant murder-zombie as the only possible witness.

So the people of King’s Landing do the obvious thing and crown her queen.

The most common and plausible explanation for this turn of events I’ve seen given is that there’s no one left to challenge her. In a sense, that’s true – virtually every other named character in King’s Landing is now dead. But I’d always flattered the show’s world-building chops to assume that there are other non-named characters who, even if they’re not given specific personalities, would react to the destruction of almost the entire government with dismay.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game of Thrones Griping 14: Am I Watching This Show Wrong?”

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.