April 28, 2019

Baixo Nivel





Sérgio Augusto, O Estado de S. Paulo


Quando ouve falar em cultura, Bolsonaro não ameaça puxar o revólver, no máximo aponta aquelas bisonhas pistolas imaginárias, que se tornaram a marca – a marca, não, a mácula registrada de sua campanha.
Bolsonaro não é Goebbels, longe disso, muito longe, por sinal. Pois, apesar de tudo, inclusive por nem sequer ser o autor original da frase “quando me falam em cultura, eu puxo o revólver”, Goebbels tomou duas ambiciosas providências ao tornar-se o uber-ministro de Hitler: convidou Fritz Lang para comandar a indústria cinematográfica da Alemanha e fez da exuberante Leni Riefenstahl a cineasta número um do 3.º Reich.
Ao contrário de Riefenstahl, que optou pelo opróbrio de ficar e dirigir os dois mais reputados filmes de propaganda nazista, Lang fugiu do país horas depois do convite, para só voltar 30 anos mais tarde.
Por essa e outras, sempre vi com desconfiança as hiperbólicas comparações que, no calor da campanha eleitoral, fizeram entre Bolsonaro e Hitler, Bolsonaro e o fascismo, Bolsonaro e Mussolini. O Reich nazista ao menos se esforçou para cooptar Lang e Riefenstahl. E Mussolini construiu os estúdios de Cinecittà.
Bolsonaro podia ter feito de José Padilha a nossa Leni Riefenstahl. (Nossa, não, a sua, dele.) Mas dormiu no ponto, preferiu ficar fazendo ameaças (extinguir o Ministério da Cultura, acabar com a “desgraçada” Lei Rouanet, promover expurgos no sistema educacional, tirar o emprego de todos os “comunistas” ao alcance do seu mando, etc.), selecionando a dedo os piores auxiliares disponíveis, fomentando o ódio, brigando com seu vice e os filhos, quando não disparando disparates no Twitter, a prova cabal de que seu avatar nunca foi Hitler, nem Mussolini, mas Trump.
Vai daí que Padilha teve tempo de se decepcionar e afinal se indispor publicamente com o bolsonato. Resultado: não teremos uma continuação de O Mecanismo, que os bolsominions aguardavam em patriótico suspense, quem sabe esperançosos de que dessa vez Padilha, ao exaltar na tela o triunfo da vontade de 57 milhões de eleitores, finalmente tomaria o lugar de Kleber Mendonça Filho nos festivais de cinema da Europa.
Algumas ameaças de campanha já foram cumpridas. Bolsonaro mostrou-se, até agora, um homem de palavra. Nenhum de seus eleitores poderá queixar-se ao Procon de que foi torpemente enganado. O fato de ele não ter prometido queimar livros de autores indesejáveis, em praça pública, distingue-o ainda mais de Hitler e Goebbels. Mas não tanto, vale notar, da ditadura militar (1964-1985) e do governo Collor.
Em seu curto mandato de dois anos, Collor inviabilizou nossa indústria de filmes, revogou a Lei Sarney (embrião da Lei Rouanet) e entregou os escombros da cultura à falta de tato e ao excesso de arrogância e ressentimento de um cineasta paraibano que a história sepultou.
O Golpe de 64 fez uma razia no meio acadêmico, consagrou dedos-duros de escol, como o reitor Eremildo Viana e o animador de rádio César de Alencar, apreendeu livros, censurou filmes e peças, prendeu e torturou gente, com tal ímpeto e apetite que a Revista Civilização Brasileira viu-se obrigada a criar uma seção intitulada Terrorismo Cultural, para nos manter atualizados com as contínuas agressões da ditadura ao livre pensar.
Mas, apesar de tudo isso e da matança de artistas, intelectuais e milhares de espectadores quase consumada num show de 1.º de Maio no Riocentro, em 1981, a ditadura tinha bem menos pangarés em seus quadros que o atual governo. E vários nem pangarés eram.
Cadê, por exemplo, o Roberto Campos, o Mário Henrique Simonsen, o Mário Gibson Barbosa, o Azeredo da Silveira, o Saraiva Guerreiro, o Severo Gomes – meu Deus!, o Severo Gomes – do bolsonarato? Nem direita temos mais; só uma extrema direita fuleira, fanatizada por um horoscopista encafuado na Virginia, um Lopez Rega de chapéu Stetson.
Precisamos, portanto, parar não só com as aliterações, mas também com as comparações inadequadas, sobremodo injustas com vários vilões do passado, excluídos os três mais abomináveis ministros da Justiça da história do Brasil – Gama e Silva, Alfredo Buzaid e Armando Falcão –, não por acaso serviçais da ditadura.
O general Castello Branco, o ditador 01, tinha gosto pela leitura. Os demais, à exceção de Geisel, eram de poucas luzes, mas até o folclórico Costa e Silva era bem menos tosco que o ex-capitão que ora nos aflige. À exceção de seu vice, que já revelou ter lido e apreciado o historiador escocês Niall Ferguson, conservador, mas de alto nível, o restante do bivaque nem se dá o trabalho de puxar um canivete quando ouve falar em cultura.
Indagado sobre seus hábitos de leitura por Pedro Bial, duas semanas atrás, o ministro da Justiça Sérgio Moro confessou sua preferência por biografias. Indagar sobre hábitos de leitura a qualquer integrante do atual governo é quase uma pegadinha. Tudo bem que o ex-juiz de fato prefira aquele gênero sempre citado por quem não é muito chegado a leitura (o segundo mais citado são os livros de história), mas pegou muito mal ele não ter ao menos decorado o título de um livro para saciar a curiosidade do Bial e dos telespectadores.
“O projeto do governo é exterminar-nos: artistas, intelectuais, cineastas, professores”, alertou há dias em seu blog Jean-Claude Bernardet. Como ele é artista, intelectual, cineasta e professor, por certo sabe, como sempre soube, desde a invasão da Universidade de Brasília em 1964, do que está falando. A história porém nos ensina que a cultura é mais forte e resiliente que qualquer governo. Quem sobreviver verá.

April 27, 2019

Why ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Means So Much to Game of Thrones Book Readers



  • By Sean T. Collins, www.vulture.com
    It started when Jaime Lannister stood and said, almost to himself, “Any knight can make a knight.” In that moment the butterflies started whirring around my stomach, my throat drew tight, my eyes started swelling. It concluded when Jaime bid his captor turned peer turned hero Brienne of Tarth to arise, “a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” That’s when I started bawling like a damn baby — big, ugly, snotty honking sobs of compassion and joy. By the time Tormund started applauding and Tyrion started toasting and Brienne started smiling — Brienne! Of Tarth! Smiling! — I lost it completely. Judging from reactions to “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” Sunday’s fantastic episode of Game of Thrones, I was far from alone.
    But it wasn’t just the inherent meaning of the scene for two of the series’ best characters — misfit woman warrior, Brienne, and her unlikely friend and recovering scumbag, Jaime Lannister — that got me.
    Did it mean a lot to see Jaime finally make good on the knightly vows he’d spent most of his life using as a shield to cover for his atrocious behavior? Yes. Did it mean even more to see Brienne — who’s been searching for a place in a society that has no room for her, growing embittered even as she clings to a code most actual knights barely pay lip service to — receive the acceptance she’d earned a million times over? Of course.
    But it was the dialogue that truly drove the momentousness of the scene home to me, because it was dialogue I recognized as a reader of George R.R. Martin’s Westeros saga. At a time when the show is operating on its own, “Any knight can make a knight” and “a knight of the Seven Kingdoms” are key phrases from the source material, in this case, a series of prequel novellas commonly known as the Tales of Dunk & Egg. Collected in a volume called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms — a title shared by the episode itself — they’re Martin’s most sustained look at what knighthood means, both as a way of life and in the hearts of those who wish to adopt it. Hearing those phrases on the show this deep into its run has a talismanic effect for book readers that couldn’t be achieved any other way.
    A bit about the source material, not that it matters that much. (Honestly! If you don’t know the short stories in question, that’s fine, you’ll get the drift.) Ninety years or so before the events that kick off Game of Thrones — give or take a few due to the slight timeline variations between books and show — there lived a hedge knight named Ser Duncan the Tall. Hedge knights are basically ronin, masterless swordsmen who supposedly live by the chivalric code that governs even the mightiest and most highborn knights in the land.
    In theory, this means they wander from place to place, lending their swords to righteous causes and leal lords in exchange for food, shelter, payment, and a shot at landing an official position within the forces of the lord in question. They’re the freelancers of the knighting world. In practice, this means a life of homelessness and hardship — they’re called “hedge knights” because they’re often forced to sleep rough under hedges and such for shelter — governed as much by finding the next meal and guarding their most precious possessions, their swords and armor and horses, as by defending the innocent. Indeed, some hedge knights are no better than bandits, using their weaponry and combat skills to mug travelers rather than guard them.
    Ser Duncan, or Dunk as he’s better known, is different. Though he was born in the King’s Landing slum of Flea Bottom and used his enormous size to bully other kids before being taken under the wing of an aging hedge knight named Ser Arlan of Pennytree, this towering but exceedingly awkward teenager determined to live up to the highest ideals of knighthood. This isn’t easy, especially when you get mixed up in surprisingly high-stakes battles between lords, and even rival claimants to the Iron Throne, as often as Dunk does.
    When one such caper ends in tragedy for the royal Targaryen family (this was still during their reign, remember), they are nonetheless so impressed by Dunk’s valor that they give him one of their own — a rebellious little prince way down in the line of succession named Aegon who goes by “Egg” on account of shaving his head to disguise his telltale golden-blond hair after running away from home — to instruct as a squire.
    The point is, Dunk is an enormously endearing character. He’s a sweet, book-stupid, occasionally street-smart kid who wants more than anything in the world to be a good knight and a good person, which to him are, or should be, synonymous. Read between the lines and you’ll discover why this is poignant and ironic as well as inspiring: Despite calling himself a knight in order to enter a high-stakes tournament for much-needed cash, it seems pretty clear that Dunk’s old master never knighted him before his untimely death (though he likely meant to). Dunk’s life, virtuous though it both seems and is on the outside, is a lie. Remind you of anyone, Ned Stark fans?
    Which brings us back to Jaime and Brienne. When Jaime says, “Any knight can make a knight,” he’s repeating the key phrase in Martin’s first Dunk story, “The Hedge Knight.” It’s the principle by which a homeless old man can turn his large adopted son into one of the guardians of the realm — or could have, had he lived long enough to do so. A great many shitheels have been knighted because of this rule, as there are a lot of shitheels with knighthoods out there — just like Jaime used to be.
    But Dunk, we learn from Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, became one of the greatest knights in history — Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, trusted friend to his old sidekick turned monarch King Aegon (that long line of succession got way shorter), and personal escort to both the king’s brother Maester Aemon (still alive during Game of Thrones) and Lord Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers (soon to become the Three-Eyed Raven) on their trip to the Wall to join the Night’s Watch. He eventually dies guarding the family during a fire at a castle called Summerhall, a tragedy that’s memorialized in “Jenny’s Song,” the tune Pod sings on the eve of battle and which Florence & the Machine cover over the credits of Sunday’s episode. So yeah, Dunk is all over this episode, even before you take into account fan theories that he’s one of Brienne’s ancestors. (They’re both very tall, you see.)
    And the more Dunk means to you, the more the things that mean a lot to him mean to you in turn. Right up there at the top: “Any knight can make a knight,” the principle that changed his life, and “a knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” his greatest hope in life and possibly his darkest secret as well. These phrases, uttered verbatim, carry enormous weight for those of us who know how much weight they carried for Duncan — a kind, tall, often ridiculed, innately noble warrior who wanted more than anything in the world to do the right thing for the right people per the oath all knights swear to uphold. Gee, does that sound like any women we know?
    Just as importantly, these phrases are a direct link to George R.R. Martin’s source material on the printed page from a show that has, for obvious reasons, moved far beyond it. After showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss moved past the point Martin’s legendarily delayed books had reached, the show naturally took on the air of … I hate to say fanfiction, since that’s used pejoratively, often by people whose main complaint seems to be that Benioff and Weiss have been feted and rewarded for their fanfic while the rest languish in obscurity. Whatever the case, the show is very much its own animal now, and its tone as well as its story line is not always in tune with Martin’s words.
    Whether that bothers you or not is immaterial. In Jaime’s “any knight can make a knight” and the proclamation of Brienne as “a knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” screenwriter Bryan Cogman weds two of the most powerful character arcs in the series — the redemption of Jaime’s sins and the recognition of Brienne’s valor — to two of the most meaningful concepts in one of the source material’s most beloved story lines. It does what all great adaptations must do: use the untapped strengths of the original to enhance the existing strengths of the adaptation. It felt much like the scene itself: One last meeting of old friends, before the end arrives.

April 25, 2019

Our 18 Biggest Questions About This Week’s Game of Thrones





  • By Alicia Lutes, www.vulture.com
    The Battle of Winterfell is upon us, so it’s no surprise the eighth season of Game of Thrones spent the majority of its second episode with everyone coming to terms with their imminent deaths. The biggest battle in television history is coming for us next week and is sure to bring a lot of devastation to Westeros, and probably kill more than a few of our faves in the process. (Sorry, Pod, you’re probably not long for this Realm.)

    But our biggest question out of this episode absolutely has to be: Why couldn’t this have been episode one? Two set-up episodes in a row — when we only have six total — feels incredibly frustrating when there’s still so much more to do and see! But while “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” gave us more resolutions than questions, we’ve still got plenty to talk about, so let’s just get right into it.

    Why didn’t Jaime tell Dany the truth about her father?
    Or Brienne, for that matter. They all know the truth about how messed up the Mad King was, how he wanted to burn the city to the ground, how he didn’t care if he ruled over ash and bone. Why the constant withholding of information that could make these two get along better? Why do these people just love to be at odds with one another?

    Hold on, Ghost is back? And that’s how they show us?
    How is this show just going to casually throw him in the corner of a scene and never even talk about it? How in the Seven Hells are you going to give every other character on this show a sweet, sweet reunion and not give us a moment between Ghost and Jon Snow? Give the people what they want, Game of Thrones! Which brings us to our next question …
    Are we rooting for Theon and Sansa now?
     
    It sure seems like it, doesn’t it? The look Sansa gave Theon when he arrived at Winterfell — and the one that he gave her over his queen, Daenerys — and their subsequent hang times after definitely makes it feel like this duo is being set up for romance. Sorry, Tyrion-Sansa shippers, looks like the series wants Theon and Sansa to be endgame. Which gives me a lot of feelings, none of them really all that positive.

    Are all those dead Starks going to come back to life next week?
    We’ve spent a bit of time in the crypts underneath Winterfell, where all the dead Kings of Winter and every body of every Stark is buried, but this week was the first time we were asked to worry about what they might bring — namely, the heartbreaking addition of more members to the army of the dead. After forcing all the women and children into the crypts for safety — and given how much of next week’s preview was set down there — there’s no way everyone underground is going to survive while the battle rages above, is there? Besides: This show LOVES to break our hearts, and watching the Stark children have to kill their undead father, Ned Stark, would certainly do that on several messed-up, deeply Thronesian levels.

    Can you believe Arya and Gendry did that?
    Before we get into it, let it be known: On the show, the Stark children are aged up from the books, which helps this go down a little smoother. But at the same time … oh my Old Gods, little Arya Stark just boned Gendry Would-Be-Baratheon on television. And like, good for her, get yours before everybody dies, but also: Oh my Old Gods, little Arya Stark just boned. 
    Which leads us to …

    How old is Arya?
    As mentioned, the show aged up the Stark kids several years — she’s about 12 in the books — so Arya is likely 18 to 20 at this point of the story, but I’m still really glad they didn’t show us full frontal nudity. That would have been too much.

    Do those scars hint that Arya is actually the Waif?
    It’s a very popular theory, but I sincerely hope not.

    Why isn’t Bran telling us everything?
    Bran dropped a lot of casual knowledge in this one: namely, that the Night King has been after him (that is, the Three-Eyed Raven) for generations and he needs to play bait if the Winterfell army wants to take out the Night King and all his followers. Why won’t he tell everyone what they need to know to win? Or does he actually want the Night King to bring about a night that never ends? Bran saying “How do you know there IS an afterwards?” to Jaime certainly feels ominous.

    What did happen to the other dragons that came North?
    During the episode, Tyrion makes an offhand comment about people remembering the last time the Targaryens brought dragons North. It felt odd, mostly because of its lack of clarity: Who are the people that would remember this foreboding-sounding event? He could be talking about the events of the season seven episode “Beyond the Wall” (which saw poor Viserion turned into an Ice Dragon), but saying “Targaryens,” plural, seems to imply some other time in Westerosi history.
    Could this be a clue? Looking into the lore, the last time we know that dragons came North was during the reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, who took six dragons with him to visit the Warden of the North. He brought his own dragon Vermithor while his queen, Alysanne, rode Silverwing. Four other unknown dragons also took the trip, but there’s no word about anything bad happening to Jaehaerys’s dragons; in fact, he was a long-ruling king people loved and thought was very wise. So what, exactly, is Tyrion getting at? And why does he make it sound so scary?

    Who is Jenny in the song Podrick sings?
    Settle in, folks, because this one is foreshadow-y as all get-out. Pod is singing “Jenny’s Song,” an old song about Jenny of Oldstones. But who is Jenny of Oldstones? Well, she was the wife of Duncan Targaryen, first child to Prince Aegon “Egg” Targaryen and his wife Betha Blackwood. He was named after dad’s good friend Ser Duncan the Tall — the two of whom are featured in George R.R. Martin’s The Tales of Dunk and Egg series of novellas — but would-be king Duncan “the Small” Targaryen fell in love with a common lass (sound familiar?) named Jenny of Oldstones, mucking up his betrothal to a female Baratheon child, and resulting in his abdicating the throne because his father could not allow such a marriage. Though some of the lyrics in the song are in the books, David Benioff stated in the post-episode clip that they made up everything beyond the first verse. There’s also a lyric video of the Florence Welch version of the tune that played over the episode’s credits:
    The lyrics, in full, are rife for speculation. (If you’re a fan of the “Dany becomes the Night Queen” theory, this one may have excited you greatly.)

    How has no one ever tried to kill the Night King with dragonfire before?
    Should we be worried about this? This clearly needs more investigation, and feels like an ominous mention — could it backfire?

    Is Brienne really the first female knight in Westeros?
    Yes, she is! Though there are many legendary warrior women in Westerosi history, women like Nymeria and Visenya Targaryen have been few and far between, and far from officially sanctioned heroes — until Brienne of Tarth, that is.

    What is Heartsbane, the sword Sam gave Ser Jorah, and why would he give it to him?
    Heartsbane is a greatsword (a.k.a. one that needs two hands to hold) of Valyrian steel that’s long been in the family of House Tarly. Valyrian steel, as we know, kills White Walkers in a deeply permanent fashion. For Ser Jorah to have it over Sam makes very little sense, so … he must have it for story-based reasons we’re going to see next week.

    Dany’s going to be totally chill about this Jon/Aegon reveal, right?
    Oh, you sweet, summer children.

    No, but seriously, how bad is this going to get?
    Very bad. Because Jon would likely happily relinquish his claim on the Iron Throne for the woman who really wants it — but it increasingly feels like Dany ending up on the throne wouldn’t be good for anyone.

    Where’s Howland Reed?
    Remember Meera and Jojen Reed, who helped bring Bran North of the Wall? Well, Howland Reed is their father and was actually there the day Ned Stark saved Jon Snow in the Tower of Joy. We know he and Meera, his daughter, are still alive, so why aren’t they here yet?!

    Why hasn’t the Night King just come through and ice dragon’d the shit out of everything?
    Sure, it would defeat the purpose of this episode-long build-up to an epic battle, but also: Wouldn’t it just be easier?

    What does that icefire do to people?
    We all have to be wondering this heading into the great battle, right? It melted the Wall, but is it cold fire or magic? It’s truly hard to know. According to A World of Ice and Fire, one of GRRM’s companion books, ice dragons are “many times larger than the dragons of Valyria, are said to be made of living ice, with eyes of pale blue crystal and vast translucent wings through which the moon and stars can be glimpsed as they wheel across the sky.” More to the point, they “supposedly breathe cold, a chill so terrible that it can freeze a man solid in half a heartbeat.”

    But so far, it’s all hearsay. According to that same text, “Archmaester Margate has suggested that many legends of the north — freezing mists, ice ships, Cannibal Bay, and the like — can be explained as distorted reports of ice-dragon activity. Though an amusing notion, and not without a certain elegance, this remains the purest conjecture.”

April 23, 2019

Game Of Thrones drinks, talks, and readies for war in an all-time great episode





Alex McLevy


“The North remembers.” This was always a saying meant to convey pride. Pride in being a northerner, pride in refusing to ignore the past, pride in the warning it served to any who would dare cross swords or wits with those living in the upper lands of Westeros. But in the face of an existential threat, one that challenges the very existence of humanity, it has become something more. It expresses the essence of what all these people gathered at Winterfell are now trying to defend—the fact of history. Humankind has a past, and what defines the species is knowledge of itself. Sam puts it most succinctly: Memory makes people who and what they are. It’s the entire purpose of legacies, written accounts, and the passing on of stories, a means of enshrining and declaring that this happened. As long as someone remembers, a thing can’t be erased from the world. And the army of the living is here to remember.


That odd guy who sat around in the courtyard all last week has turned out to be not just the best hope for drawing out the Night King and ending his threat, but the avatar for the assembled hopes of every person making a stand at Winterfell. Brandon Stark (or the one who used to go by that name, anyway) embodies the very concept of history. “He wants to erase this world, and I am its memory,” the three-eyed raven tells Dany and her assembled counselors, and the declaration seems to awaken something in everyone who hears it. Memory of the past carries within it the hope for memory in the future, and if there’s anything they’re trying to preserve beyond their lives, it’s the possibility of a human world going on after they’re gone, and someone to tell the story. It’s what gives meaning to their actions. It’s the only thing that does.
Game Of Thrones has always been a story about stories, a narrative about making narratives, and an epic about the reasons we choose to act as we do, in hopes of contributing in some small way to our own story—our memories, and those of others. “A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms” takes that old reliable framework—the calm before the storm—and uses it to reflect on how and why its characters have all ended up in this one place, making a desperate stand against the dead. And what begins haltingly and piecemeal, in fits and starts as people attempt to really speak to each other during what might be their final hours, slowly coheres into one of the most satisfying and rewarding episodes in the history of the series. To call it “fan service” would be to do a disservice to what credited writer Bryan Cogman and director David Nutter have pulled off here: Summing up eight years’ worth of development in a way that does justice to this large panoply of characters without tipping into phony sentiment. These conversations were often baldly sincere, occasionally awkward, sometimes brittle, and downright mawkish at times...and not a single one rang false.



April 22, 2019

The arguments about women and power in ‘Game of Thrones’ have never been more unsettling

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    Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen in Season 1.
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  • By Alyssa Rosenberg, www.washingtonpost.com
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  • “Game of Thrones” is a series that embodies the tropes of high fantasy and subverts them. And in no area in the series has that been more clear than its gender politics. Women on “Game of Thrones” aren’t damsels, and while they are often in highly distressing circumstances, they’re largely tasked with saving themselves. Their stories have never been incidental to the narrative, either. The wars that have destabilized Westeros, the continent at the center of the series, were sparked by sexual violence and notions of female honor and autonomy. “Game of Thrones” has inspired intense debates about the difference between depicting sexual violence and sexualizing it, about whose perspectives matter in stories about rape and about consent and roleplay. But as “Game of Thrones” has entered its third act, and as its female characters have moved from the margins to become leading contestants for the Iron Throne, the show has begun to explore a new and highly relevant feminist question. Having established that rape is a cancer that can destroy a society from within, “Game of Thrones” wants us to consider what it would take to change that — and whether the empowerment of individual women actually means anything for the world they hope to rule. If “Game of Thrones” is a long-arc revenge fantasy about what happens when women who have been brutalized and raped gain power, the seventh season of the show has completed its transition from the first half of that scenario to the second. This transition began in the sixth season. In the North, Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) escaped from her tormentor, Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon), defeated him at the Battle of the Bastards with a surprise military maneuver and fed him to his own hounds, just to be absolutely sure he would never be able to come after her again. In King’s Landing, Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) carried out an act of domestic terrorism, burning down the Great Sept of Baelor with wildfire and killing both Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), her rival for the throne, and the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce), a populist leader who imprisoned and shamed her. And across the Narrow Sea in Essos, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) was taken prisoner for the last time before burning her enemies in Vaes Dothrak, taking command of the Dothraki and setting sail for Westeros. So, there you have it: Rape or enslave or shame a woman on “Game of Thrones” and she will plot your murder, curse your unborn child in your womb, burn your capitol city, bomb your place of worship, let you be torn apart by starving dogs or leave you to be blinded and tortured by a zombie knight acting out a grotesque pantomime of your own victimization. Intimate violence has always been a catalyst for many of the world-altering developments on “Game of Thrones,” stretching all the way back to the accusation that Rhaegar Targaryen abducted and raped Lyanna Stark. But now, many of the female characters who suffered so terribly have risen to lead armies and movements. And the question the show is posing about gender and governance has shifted. Rather than asking us to look at the toll sexual violence takes on overall political stability, “Game of Thrones” is pushing us to confront something more uncomfortable: the prospect that the personal liberation of the show’s female characters might not translate into much in the way of broader social change. The implication on “Game of Thrones” has long been that the cost of breaking free might permanently mark characters such as Cersei, Sansa and Dany, making it difficult for them to usher in new styles or systems of government. And the seventh season of the series has reinforced this message repeatedly. Cersei may have held out the promise of marriage to Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk) to enlist his help in harrying her enemies at sea, and exacted a highly personal revenge on Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) for killing Cersei’s daughter. But if anything, Cersei has generally ruled in her father Tywin Lannister’s (Charles Dance) tradition rather than forging a model of her own. She’s executed brilliant military attacks, one of which will allow her to live up to the idea that “a Lannister always pays his debts” on a grand scale. Cersei has transcended the restrictions long placed on her because of her gender to effectively become her father’s third and most accomplished son, rather than using the perspective she gained because of her gender to change the expectations for Westeros’s king or queen. Back at Winterfell, Sansa has taken an uneasy route to partial power: Despite the fact that she was Ned Stark’s rightful heir as his oldest legitimate child known to be living, the Stark bannermen seized on Jon Snow (Kit Harington) as the closest man available and dubbed him King in the North without much consideration. But when Jon skedaddled off to Dragonstone to mine the dragonglass that he’ll need for the war against the White Walkers, he left the North to Sansa’s administration. The temporary and tenuous nature of her position and the urgent need to provision Winterfell and provide for the Northern armies have kept Sansa too preoccupied for grand strategy. Transformation is hard when you’re tied up in the basic work of subsistence. And while Daenerys has always made the grandest claims to being a different kind of queen, someone who rules, as her adviser Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) says, not “because she’s the daughter of some king we never knew” but because “she’s the queen we chose,” her words are mostly wind when it comes to Westeros. It was one thing for enslaved and persecuted people to choose Dany as their queen when she marched across Slaver’s Bay in a violent war of conquest and liberation. But the people in Westeros are free already: In fact, slavery is punishable by execution there. It’s possible that Dany will be able to make a similar pitch to the smallfolk and the heads of great houses if she promises to defend them against the White Walkers, but given how few people know about or believe in them, she’s a long way from being able to make that a viable, widespread pitch. Since Dany got to Dragonstone, her campaign has mostly consisted of talk about her hereditary claim to the Iron Throne, ill-planned military missions and, finally, a fiery attack on Jaime Lannister’s (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) forces. Maybe after she proves her unquestioned military superiority, Dany will have time to make and execute a subtler pitch. But once again, revolution is difficult when when winter is swift on the march. I don’t mean to imply that Cersei, Sansa and Dany are bad or weak people, quite the contrary. Each woman has fought and clawed her way to personal freedom over tremendous obstacles and after suffering, in some cases, macabre personal violence. But if every woman in Westeros has to go through this process to free herself and change the world she lives in, “Game of Thrones” is going to need a lot longer than eight seasons to get to its climax. And if the alternative is asking a few extraordinary women to carry the entire burden of reforming a world, its institutions and its attitudes, well, that’s harder than asking Sansa to jump from Winterfell’s walls or asking Dany to walk into another wall of flame. It may be fun to cheer at the sight of Dany on dragonback, or Cersei sipping wine as her enemies burn, or Sansa’s stony face as her enemies meet their destruction. But we should be honest with ourselves that what we’re cheering for is a compromised victory that gives us a break from a grindingly unfair and brutal system — not for the end of that system itself. A renegade woman can be a pressure valve for a system that remains largely unequal. Enjoying the spectacle she presents is one thing. Bending the knee to her, and accepting all the changes that flow from that act if she thinks to ask for them, is quite another.  

80 tiros e uma carta



Flávia Oliveira

 ilustração de andré mello

Querida Luciana,
Escrevo para expressar solidariedade à sua dor, para repudiar a brutalidade a que você e sua família, principalmente o Evaldo, foram submetidos. Eu já engravidei e tive um chá de bebê. Já celebrei a chegada iminente de filhos e filhas de mulheres que amo. O carro de vocês foi fuzilado, e seu marido perdeu a vida, a caminho de um chá de bebê. É particularmente cruel encontrar a morte ao se deslocar para um evento de celebração à vida.

O sentido do chá de bebê é presentear a criança que se avizinha e a mulher que a gera. É quase o ritual de viagem dos Três Reis Magos para festejar, com Maria e José, o nascimento do Menino Jesus. Lanço mão da metáfora cristã, porque assim as autoridades que hoje comandam a cidade, o Estado do Rio e o Brasil se denominam.
Para mim, Luciana, é incompreensível, inaceitável uma família, a caminho de um chá de bebê, ser atacada por militares do Exército com 80 tiros. Pior ainda, testemunhar o silêncio, a omissão, a indiferença de governantes autoproclamados cristãos. O presidente da República, um capitão reformado, não comentou o assassinato de Evaldo, informou o porta-voz Otávio do Rêgo Barros. O ministro da Defesa, general Fernando Azevedo, classificou a barbárie como incidente. O governador do Rio, Wilson Witzel, se permitiu não “emitir juízo de valor”.
O carro branco da sua família foi alvejado por brasileiros com atribuição constitucional de zelar por vocês, por nós. No desabafo tomado da forte emoção pela perda do seu marido, do seu melhor amigo, como declarou, você fez o diagnóstico correto. Sob a mais aguda dor, foi capaz de lembrar que disse ao Evaldo: “Amor, calma. É o quartel”.
Você, Luciana, aprendeu e acreditou que as Forças Armadas e a polícia existem para proteger, não para metralhar, cidadãos brasileiros. Já os militares que mataram seu marido foram ensinados a atirar e a mentir. Depois de executarem Evaldo Rosa, 51 anos, músico, pai de família, homens do Exército imputaram à vítima a culpa pelo crime. Dispararam 80 tiros, mataram seu marido e, por fim, tentaram executá-lo moralmente, acusando-o de ser um criminoso que atacara a patrulha.
Eu sou uma mulher negra casada, como você, há mais de duas décadas. Três semanas atrás, Luciana, vivi uma experiência assemelhada à sua. Era noite de sábado, nas imediações da área portuária. Estávamos num carro de aplicativo. O trânsito parou, e o motorista, sem entender que havia uma blitz, tentou cortar pela faixa da esquerda. Um policial de roupa camuflada nos apontou o fuzil.
O motorista freou, acendeu a luz e gritou o nome do aplicativo. O policial, fuzil apontado, ordenou que baixássemos os vidros. Ao ver o meu marido, o agente nos autorizou a seguir viagem. Ele não pediu documentos, não revistou os ocupantes nem o carro.
Os militares atiraram 80 vezes contra vocês, porque viram um homem negro ao volante, e supostamente havia criminosos em fuga num carro branco. O policial permitiu que o automóvel em que estávamos seguisse, porque dentro dele estava um homem branco. Além do assassinato do Evaldo, vocês foram vítimas do racismo que sustenta o sistema jurídico-policial brasileiro.
São suspeitos-padrão os jovens e os homens negros; aos homens brancos, a presunção de inocência. É por isso que o acusado do assassinato da vereadora Marielle Franco e do motorista Anderson Gomes pode morar no mesmo condomínio do presidente da República. É por isso que brancos (51%) e pessoas com renda superior a dez salários mínimos (58%) confiam mais do que temem as forças policiais, segundo pesquisa do Datafolha. É por isso que jovens (53%), negros (55%), indígenas (60%), pobres (54%) e mulheres (55%) mais temem que confiam.
Outras Lucianas perderão seus Evaldos, Brunas ficarão órfãs de Marcos Vinicius (o filho morto de uniforme, a caminho da escola na Maré) e Rosilenes de Marias Eduardas (a filha assassinada dentro da escola em Acari), até que a sociedade brasileira se convença de que nenhuma nação se sustenta na brutalidade e no racismo institucional. Eu espero, Luciana, que esse dia chegue logo, para que não tenhamos de ver nenhuma outra brasileira chorar como você chorou.

Meu abraço,

 

 

April 21, 2019

Who is most likely to end up on the Iron Throne in ‘Game of Thrones’?



  • By Travis M. Andrews, www.washingtonpost.com
    As Cersei Lannister famously said, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.”
    That’s not exactly true, hopefully. Otherwise, Season 8 will just be a string of deaths (which, come to think of it, wouldn’t be that far off from any other season). But it’s likely someone will sit on the Iron Throne when the final credits roll. The only question is who.
    Many names have been tossed around, including unlikely contenders such as Gendry (technically the sole living heir to King Robert Baratheon). But some theories are more sound than others.

    This piece is predicated on the hopeful notion that the White Walkers and their Night King don’t destroy all of Westeros and kill/convert everyone living there (which would actually be a fitting end to this story). In theory, the Night King could end up on the Iron Throne, but I can’t imagine he’d have much use for it. That throne was created by the world’s human residents and, thus, is symbolic only to them. If the systems upholding it all disappear overnight, then it just becomes an uncomfortable chair.
    Here are the top contenders for the throne.
    As always, this post contains a multitude of spoilers. Otherwise, it would be very short.

    Jon Snow
    Were this just about any other television show in history, Jon Snow would end up ruling Westeros. He’s nearly unwaveringly virtuous, likes to stare off into the distance thinking of Important Things and would look pretty good with a crown.
    He also began as an underdog (being falsely presented as Ned Stark’s bastard child), who overcame his (supposed) past to run the Night’s Watch and eventually the North. Now it’s slowly coming out that he was the child of secretly married couple Rhaegar Targaryen (son of the Mad King and brother to Daenerys) and Lyanna Stark (Ned’s sister), who are both dead. There’s an incredibly strong argument that this makes the Iron Throne his birthright.

    Jon Snow becoming the king would be the logical conclusion of the hero’s journey, but “Game of Thrones” is all about subverting narrative norms. With that in mind, the best argument for why Jon Snow could sit in the Iron Throne is the fact that he actively doesn’t want to.

    Daenerys Targaryen
    Meanwhile, the sharpest argument against Daenerys ending up on the throne is how badly she wants it. Ever since the end of Season 1, she’s had one primary goal: reclaiming the Iron Throne.
    That small point aside, though, she would be a sensible queen.
    For those who don’t remember, she’s the daughter of Aerys II Targaryen, a.k.a. the Mad King. Aerys was assassinated by Jaime Lannister and succeeded by Robert Baratheon, which ended a 300-ish-year rule by the Targaryens, so many believe the Targaryens still have a rightful claim to the throne. Because Daenerys (like most people) doesn’t know Jon Snow’s true heritage, she seems like the only Targaryen left to claim said throne. (Obviously, things are a little more complicated in reality, something only compounded by the fact that Jon and Daenerys have entered into a romantic relationship).
    Also, she has dragons. These creatures are how the Targaryens conquered the Seven Kingdoms in the first place, so there’s certainly some precedent for reconquering it with them.

    Bran Stark
    Oddsmakers currently have Bran as the betting favorite to sit on the Iron Throne, which might raise the question, “Wait, what?”
    The chance of this unlikely scenario playing out — the brainchild of some truly devoted fans — seems unlikely. But oddsmakers tend to be pretty careful, so let’s take a look.
    Bran has no particular claim to the throne, and he has two living siblings who might take umbrage with the young man ruling Westeros instead of his extremely qualified sisters. But the fan theory is far more complicated than him coming in and taking over.

    Essentially, some believe that Bran and the Night King either are or will become the same person. The argument goes that Bran keeps traveling back in time, trying to stop the Night King (i.e., the first White Walker) from ever being created. Instead, he accidentally becomes him. And, in this theory, he ends up taking over Westeros.
    Another smaller theory is that Bran and the Night King end up being opposites, good and evil, and they end up as the final contenders in the final battle. This doesn’t make a ton of sense — it seems almost assured that Jon Snow will battle the Night King — but again, “Game of Thrones” is all about upending expectations.

    Sansa Stark
    When it comes to the Starks, Sansa seems most likely to sit on the Iron Throne. Her hellish journey has taken her from wanting to be a princess to learning the cold truths of a ruthless world. Though she doesn’t agree with Cersei’s morality, she did learn a great deal from the current Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, enough to eventually outsmart Littlefinger.

    When she returned to Winterfell, she showed a desire to lead, clashing several times with Jon Snow.
    Plus, Sansa might be the strongest character on the show. It’s not like anyone’s had it easy, per se, but Sansa arguably faced the most hardship, save for maybe Theon. But Sansa somehow only grew more confident, more intelligent and more empathetic. That’s the kind of ruler this land could use.

    Cersei Lannister
    No. She might have it now, at least in title, but soon she’ll be too drunk to even sit on the darn thing.

April 18, 2019

The Horror of Game of Thrones Goes Way Beyond Jump Scares




  • By Sean T. Collins, www.vulture.com
  •  
  • The screaming started before I realized what was wrong.
    I’m at Radio City Music Hall, surrounded by thousands of nattily attired critics, HBO employees, and cast members both living and dead (fictionally speaking) for the world premiere of Game of Thrones season eight. By this point we’ve all sat together and watched around 50 minutes of wish fulfillment. From Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen going on a dragon-ride date to Arya Stark meeting her old friends (if that’s how you describe your first crush and a dude you left for dead) Gendry and the Hound, it’s been one of the most fan-friendly, and just plain friendly, GOT episodes ever made.
    Are things starting to get a little spooky, what with Tormund Giantsbane and Beric Dondarrion and “Dolorous” Edd Tollett traipsing around an abandoned and quite possibly zombie-haunted castle by torchlight? Yeah, sure, but it’s nothing we can’t …
    Ah, okay. So the White Walkers murdered a child, little Lord Ned Umber, and pinned his body to the wall surrounded by the severed limbs of other victims, the way normal people would thumbtack an important memo to the side of their cubicle in between family photos and Cathy comics. That’s … yeah, that’s … Jesus, alright, that’s fucked up.
    Still, like Tormund says, it gives them a clearer picture of where the Night King and his army of the dead must be. If these guys move fast, they can …
    Suddenly, people in the audience are screaming. Why are people in the audience screaming? What just …?
    Oh God, the dead child is awake.
    I’ve walked you through this reaction not to humblebrag about attending the premiere — though sharing air with both Eddard Stark and Khal Drogo was a can’t wait to tell my kids someday moment, to be sure — but to put one of the most important weapons Game of Thrones has in its storytelling arsenal on full fiery display. Though it’s often been easy to overlook amid the politicking, sword-fighting, quip-trading, and sex-having that have come to characterize the show in the minds of many viewers, horror has been integral to the series since before the opening credits on the pilot even rolled.
    And not just any kind of horror, either. Game of Thrones’ approach to incorporating this most visceral of genres into its overall realist epic fantasy is not primarily one of creeping dread, or innovative monster design, or emblematically evil monumental horror-images, though it certainly has utilized all that and then some. Rather, horror on GOT is about intimacy and violation, not just the taking of life but the perversion of it. And the final scene in the season-eight premiere reads like a textbook case of that approach.
    Central to its horror — literally central, given the deliberate positioning of his corpse — is the dead child, Ned Umber. Watching him revivify in the background while our oblivious heroes go on chatting makes for a good jump scare, as everyone screaming in their seats at Radio City could tell you. But jump scares are easy pickings: Just a minute or two earlier, the show got a good one out of Dolorous Edd nearly attacking Tormund. What’s truly upsetting here, of course, is the murder of a child as part of an obscene art project, killing an innocent for the sheer pleasure of it and arranging his body to maximize the terror and despair of the people who discover it.
    Game of Thrones goes there time and again throughout its run, beginning with its opening sequence and the zombie child who confronts the members of the Night’s Watch who’ve made an ill-advised journey beyond the Wall. Child wights also figure prominently in “Hardhome,” the White Walkers’ highest-casualty assault on Westerosi humanity to date. The Walkers themselves are created by converting human infants, as we learned to genuinely disturbing effect in “Oathkeeper,” when one of the infant sons of the incestuous wildling Craster has his young life annihilated onscreen by the Night King’s council.
    Killing kids makes for guaranteed cheap heat in horror movies and television, but Game of Thrones isn’t content to do it for shock value. Think of the slaying of King Robert’s bastards, the crucifixion of child slaves as a warning to Daenerys, Theon Greyjoy’s murder and public display of two local kids to cover for the disappearance of the young Starks, the execution of Rickon Stark by the psychopathic Ramsay Bolton, and the hanging of a young mutineer by Jon Snow (the hero of the whole damn show, no less): Human characters have proven no less adept than the White Walkers at taking young lives in grotesquely symbolic fashion. As with the show’s bracing and disturbing approach to sexual violence, the point is that when the high lords play the titular game, the violence necessarily and inherently flows downstream and hits the most vulnerable among us — children, women, the poor, ethnic and religious “outsiders” — the hardest, just as it does in real life. The zombified children use the language of genre and metaphor to drive this point home.
    Now, take a look at what poor Ned Umber is surrounded with: body parts, and lots of them. The White Walkers are infamous for their sadistic artistry in arranging the corpses, or parts of the corpses, of their victims. Whether there’s some higher purpose to this or if it’s simply their equivalent of a house sigil, the effect is much worse than simply seeing bodies lying where they fell. Humans, their bodies, life itself — to the Walkers and their wights, it’s all just so much meat. This postmortem objectification hits our long-standing cultural assumption that the dead should be afforded dignity hard, and in so doing calls into question whether such shibboleths are, frankly, bullshit. The White Walkers see us as not as people, but as raw material. What if they’re right?
    Once again, it’s an aspect of GOT horror that makes the connection between supernatural and human evil clear. Consider two of the show’s biggest battle episodes, “Hardhome” and “The Battle of the Bastards.” In the former, the reanimated soldiers of the White Walkers’ army plunge down the face of a cliff en masse — a literal avalanche of corpses. In the latter, the slain warriors of House Bolton and the combined forces behind Jon Snow pile up in enormous heaps — a sea of death in which Jon nearly drowns, a mountain of cadavers he must climb to survive. There’s something spectacular to the horror in both cases, an effect that’s stronger and more upsetting than the sum of their (body) parts. I’d imagine the Night King and his minions create their dismemberment art projects with a similar effect in mind.
    But the worst thing about the army of the dead and each of its individual members isn’t what they do, or who they do it to, or what they do with them afterwards — it’s that they’re able to do anything at all. They exist, and by existing they issue one huge collective FUCK YOU to all that the living characters’ hope for the future and all they hold sacred from their pasts. Whoever you used to be before the White Walkers get to you and kill you is gone when they bring you back. Your existence is cruelly prolonged, but you’re as mindless and dangerous as a sword in their hands.
    This is easily the most ineffable aspect of GOT horror, and it requires a certain Potter Stewart “I know it when I see it” mind-set to grasp. But again, think of Ned Umber, this adorable kid who started the episode by awkwardly attempting to be as polite as possible to the very intimidating ladies and lords in charge of Winterfell. That he deserved better than to be murdered and nailed to the wall is obvious. Yet when he opens his eyes and starts flailing and screaming, and when he keeps screeching as he’s slowly burned back to death, you get the sense that something really awful is happening here, something worse than just a standard crypto-fascist Walking Dead zombie kill.
    When I watched this scene, I didn’t reach for zombie movies or shows for a point of comparison at all. Instead I thought of the passage from The Lord of the Rings that explains that orcs and trolls were created as a “mockery” of Elves and Ents, races that were generally wise, kind, thoughtful, and caring of the world around them. Morgoth, the original Dark Lord of Middle-earth, saw them and decided to show his enemies exactly what he thought their innate freedom and nobility was worth: a bunch of hideous ravenous sadistic idiots who thrive in darkness and eat people alive.
    I thought too of how Bram Stoker and Stephen King describe vampires in Dracula and Salem’s Lot respectively. It’s not just that they’re mean-spirited, bloodthirsty, and possessed of dangerous powers. It’s that they’re wrong, somehow, in a way the humans who encounter them feel in their guts. They’re not just scared of the vampires; they’re disgusted by them. They find them somehow lascivious and obscene in their persistence after death. In both books, the protagonists seem to want to destroy their undead enemies not just to be safe from them, but to be rid of them — to avoid ever having to look at their fanged faces or hear their sepulchral and somehow bogus voices again.
    The obvious analogue here is, once again, “Hardhome.” After Jon Snow escapes to the sea with the few living humans (and one giant) who survived the onslaught of the dead, they look back at the battlefield, where the Night King stands triumphant. But he’s not done with them yet. Staring right at Jon, the Night King raises his arms — and suddenly all the people who’d been slaughtered during the chaotic struggle we’d just witnessed simply get back up and stare at Jon along with him. All those people were once alive and free, with their own hopes and dreams and fears and biases and hatreds and loves. The Night King murdered them. Then he raised his arms and brought them back, erasing everything they used to be in the process. It’s an awesome sight, in a near-biblical sense: a complete and total perversion of the tragedy that has just taken place, on a scale that visibly boggles the survivors’ minds.
    All three of these tactics — the slaughter of the innocent, the desecration and objectification of the human body, the perversion of death into a mockery of life — are nailed right up there on the wall of the Last Hearth for all to see. The creators of Game of Thrones have developed a unique favored strain of horror with which to offset both the grandiosity of the show’s fantasy trappings and the down-and-dirty realpolitik of its story line, one that speaks directly to its core ideas about our common humanity and the way we threaten and betray it. Tormund & Co. can burn it away for now, but Game of Thrones is all but guaranteed to return to this well before the closing credits roll for a final time, and drink fuller than ever.
     

April 17, 2019

I Was Told the Golden Company Had Elephants



  • By Andy Daly, www.vulture.com
  •  
  • Holy crap! The eighth and final season of Game of Thrones has finally arrived. How long have we waited since the last season of this show? I’m not great with numbers. One year? Nine years? Whatever it really was, it feeeels long. My memories of last season are pretty sketchy and I guess I could have rewatched it before this season started, but honestly, I’m not even sure I’ll have time to watch these six episodes and I have agreed to recap all of them for a major online publication! There’s a definite chance I will write one or more of these without having watched the episode. We’ll see if you can tell.
    But I watched this one! For serious I did.
    For starters, one thing I do remember about last season was that it ended with that zombie ice dragon making very short work of the mighty “wall.” After seeing that I went on record with the prediction that humanity wouldn’t last for more than five minutes of the new season. Well, I guess the Night King and his dragon went on a quick spa retreat or something because I was wrong. Those guys are not even glimpsed in this episode, which concerns itself mainly with complicated romances, troop movements, and burning children. Let’s get to recappin’!
    The season starts with a child pushing his way through a crowd to watch an army of — again, not a numbers guy — a million soldiers(?) marching to Winterfell. All of your favorites are here: Arya Stark, Daenerys, Jon Snow, that blacksmith who I think was an illegitimate son of the king who got gored by the wild boar. Or not. I don’t know. Then we see Tyrion and Varys riding in a coach having some good-natured repartee about the fact that Varys was castrated as a child by a wizard. Ha ha! That Tyrion is a wit! Right after that, Game of Thrones, cheekily reveling in the great number of characters on this show who have had their genitals removed, cuts directly to Grey Worm, who’s riding alongside, and flirting with, Missandei (Yeah, I looked up some of these characters’ names. I’m taking this seriously!). Then a hundred dragons swoop down and everybody freaks out, including me.
    Then we have a little scene where Jon Snow is psyched to see Bran and the newspaper editor from Downton Abbey is there and we have some nice introductions and then Bran throws cold water on everything and basically says what I was thinking: WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR ALL THIS CHIT CHAT! BECAUSE MONSTERS ARE COMING! At that point in the episode, I honestly thought the zombie dragon was about to blot out the sun and destroy everything but no — it’s time for a big meeting!
    Yep, it’s another one of these Winterfell meetings where everyone is grousing at the Starks and being completely unreasonable and ill-informed. It’s like any small-town council meeting pretty much. As usual, that one incredibly ballsy little girl sticks it to Jon Snow hard. That little girl doesn’t give a fuck about anything. She will knife you to your face. I’m not sure she’s ever actually won one of these arguments she’s constantly initiating but she goes all in every time and you have to respect it. I always look forward to the choruses of rustic people mumbling agreement through their beards in these scenes, and this one did not disappoint. This meeting ends with Sansa pointing out that people and animals require food, and it’s apparently something that no one else considered up to then. How are these dumb-dumbs supposed to defeat a zombie army? It is not looking good.
    Then we see some dragon glass being loaded off of some wagons, which is a little reassuring. There’s a plan it place. Kind of. Then we have a little scene between Sansa and Tyrion. Mostly old business, except, correct me if I’m mistaken, but I don’t believe these two were ever officially divorced. So they’re going to want to either take care of that or figure out how to live together. I’m fine with either thing.
    Next up, a tree with a face. Seems to be sleeping. If we’ve seen this tree with a face before, I don’t remember it. What’s up with that? Is it always sleeping? Does it get pissed off when you try to pick its apples? Am I thinking of a different tree with a face? Jon and Arya have a nice reunion and she’s all coy about the fact that she’s the most frighteningly trained assassin in the world. Arya claims in this scene that Sansa is the smartest person she’s ever met and, well, she did remember that people eat so maybe?
    Then we pop in to King’s Landing, where that creepy old dude who brought the Mountain back to life (Or was that a different guy? Who cares.) tells Cersei that the dead have breached the wall and she says “good,” so first-time viewers know right away that this lady is bad news. I’m not sure why she thinks it’s good that the wall has been breached. She thinks the zombies are going to defeat the armies of the north and then come to King’s Landing and she’s going to stop them there? How? Seems like half a plan at best. So far, Sansa is looking like the smartest. Arya’s right.
    Then we head out to a boat where Yara Greyjoy asks her brother (or cousin or uncle?) why she’s still alive and the answer is, honestly, not great. Euron Greyjoy says he likes having her to talk to because he has a crew full of mutes. Is that literally true? Are they like the Unsullied except with vocal chords? It’s not a bad idea I guess. Nobody wants a chatty navy. Also, it would be a rare instance of budget consciousness on the part of this TV show. They don’t have to pay anybody in the whole Iron Islands navy for a speaking role. Good thinking!
    Then Euron and some guy named Captain Strickland of the Golden Company(?) have an audience with Cersei. Has Captain Strickland ever been on this show before? Because he did not ring any bells. And I don’t think we’ll need to get too used to him either because apparently he promised Cersei Lannister elephants and did not deliver. And she was NOT HAPPY. There was a period of several months when the elephant habitat at the L.A. Zoo was under renovation and visitors couldn’t see any elephants, and my children got over their elephant disappointment quicker than Cersei Lannister can. Much later in this episode, we find her still ruminating about these damned elephants. It makes me think that as long as the Night King shows up with a couple of elephants, she’ll just hand over Kings Landing without a fight. In fact, that’s my new prediction for how this season is going to end. Mark it down. The last scene of the season will be Cersei Lannister frolicking with elephants on the beach while everyone else in King’s Landing gets slaughtered by zombies, and a string ensemble plays a mournful version of Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk.” Count on it!
    After that, we have probably the worst sex scene in the history of Game of Thrones and then Bronn gets hired to kill Tyrion and Jamie and he pretty much seems to kill whoever he sets out to kill so I guess that’ll happen. Oh well, I’ll miss those guys.
    Euron says he’ll put a prince in Cersei’s belly (presumably by way of fucking, but he doesn’t specify), Reek rescues his sister from the Crew of Mutes, she announces her plan to take back the Iron Islands, and Reek says he’s headed to Winterfell to bring his trademark occasional bravery to the zombie fight. All sounds good.
    Then we’re back to Winterfell for a Council of Schemers meeting between Tyrion, Varys, and Davos, who suggests a Joe Biden–Stacey Abrams arrangement with Jon Snow and Daenerys, and then we join those two lovers for a bunch of flirty chit chat that Bran would say we DON’T HAVE TIME FOR and he would be RIGHT!
    After that, Game of Thrones takes its season eight CGI budget for a spin and gives us an early glimpse at what the eventual Game of Thrones theme park ride will be like as Jon and Daenerys ride dragons through a winter wonderland then make out by a water fall like they’re in a commercial for mink coats. Oh and hey, don’t forget they’re also brother and sister!
    Then Arya and the Hound have a tête-à-tête, and this brings me to my next big prediction for season eight: At some point, the Hound and the Mountain are going to have their big fight the way everybody wants them to and we’re all going to assume that the Hound will ultimately prevail because he’s the less awful of the two but no! In a dramatic conclusion, the Mountain will kill the Hound and everyone all over the world will gasp in horror. And then! the Mountain will take off his helmet and then … he will take off his FACE and reveal that he has been Arya Stark throughout this whole fight because Arya Stark killed the Mountain and then became the Mountain in that way that she knows how to do. Again, we’ll hear the mournful “Baby Elephant Walk” because why not? Count on it!
    Sam learns that his asshole father and his brother (who I don’t remember but was probably a dick) were killed by Daenerys. He runs into Bran, who says he’s waiting for an old friend, who I’m thinking is probably the Night King but who knows with Bran? He’s so cryptic and weird. Sam goes and tells Jon Snow that he (Jon) is the true heir to the Iron Throne, which is awkward and messy. His real name is apparently Aegon, which is also awkward and messy. Stick with Jon, my two cents.
    Then we see a bunch of guys who I thought would have died in that big ice dragon attack last season but whatever, it’s nice to see them. They stumble upon the dead body of a child impaled on a wall and surrounded by, I don’t know, giant crab legs? They hatch a plan to beat the zombies to Winterfell by riding horses (smart!) and then the boy comes back to life as a zombie and gets burned alive (dead) by that eye patch guy’s flaming sword. Fun stuff.
    And finally, a bearded Jamie Lannister arrives at Winterfell and we’re invited to imagine how awkward it would be to run into a kid you tried to murder by pushing him out a window because he saw you and your sister having sex. Pretty awkward, I say!
    Well all right, I would say that I have successfully recapped this episode of Game of Thrones and now, as my reward I will watch Veep which, in my opinion, is even funnier than Game of Thrones. And unlike Game of Thrones, Veep had the good sense to put me in it this season. Seriously, not even one episode of Game of Thrones for Andy Daly. Can you believe that? Here, this’ll be fun. For each episode of Game of Thrones this season, I’ll tell you the guest role I would have been good for. This episode: sleeping tree.
    Okay, thanks for reading! See you next week!