Game of Thrones: Remembering tits and dragons

The Game of Thrones books will never be finished by George Martin, but we'll always have our memories of the TV show

Before I get into this post, I want to explain where the “tits and dragons” comes from in the title. Some of you might not have watched the TV series, and thus you might not be aware that Ian McShane got into hot water for giving away a plot point. Some GOT fans lost their minds, and Ian was quick to fire back at them:

“You say the slightest thing and the Internet goes ape,” McShane told the Telegraph. “I was accused of giving the plot away, but I just think get a f–king life. It’s only tits and dragons.”

Ha, ha. Gotta love Ian’s quick wit and balls; he never minces words. 😂

Okay, so now you know where it came from, and onto the rest of the post.

My favorite memories of Game of Thrones

I had read the Game of Thrones books before I ever sat down to watch the TV show. So I knew about the Red Wedding, and everything else that happened in Martin’s series. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the first five seasons of Game of Thrones.

Some of my favorite memories:

• Cersei telling her psychopathic son Joffrey that the truth was whatever he wanted it to be once he was king. That didn’t work out well for Cersei or anybody else.

• The exchange between Cersei and Robert when they discussed how their marriage was holding the kingdoms together, and Robert signed his own death warrant by admitting he never felt anything for Cersei, and couldn’t even remember what the woman he really loved even looked like.

• The scene after Robert is dead and Cersei rips up the will in front of Ned Stark and makes it clear that Joffrey is king now. The guards seize Ned Stark, then it’s off to the dungeon.

• The scene where Joffrey has Ned Stark’s head cut-off and Cersei finally begins to realize what a mistake she made by making as a psycho king.

• Tyrion and Bron try to get Joffrey laid, thinking it will make him relax and be more normal, and Joffrey tortures and kills the prostitute. Then Cersei throws it in Tyrion’s face as he sputters about trying to help Joffrey.

• The scene on the ship with Daenyrs where the dragons were growing and flying around, diving into the water.

• Robert on his deathbed, talking to Ned Stark. Great rapport between the two actors, and the guy who played Robert gave a great performance.

• Lady Olenna confessing to Jamie that it was she who killed Joffrey, after she drank the poison Jamie forced on her. Priceless!

• Littlerfinger’s “chaos is a ladder speech.

• Tyrion slapping Joffrey upside the head three times, and then again after the royal entourage is attacked.

• John Snow getting laid in the cave.

• Littlefinger pushing Lysa to her death, after telling her that her sister was his one true love. Savage!

• When Daenyrs finally gets on the back of one of her dragons, and the dragon kicks ass in the arena.

• When Cersei blows up the sept and kills Margerie and the High Sparrow.

  I could go on and on, but here’s a collection of great moments in Game of Thrones that you might have forgotten:

Here is one of my all-time favorite scenes with Tyrion and Cersei. The words Tyrion utters to Cersei here will be forever etched in my mind:

“ I will hurt you for this. A day will come when you think you are safe and happy, and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, then you will know the debt is paid.”

My worst memories of Game of Thrones

Along with the good memories, come the bad ones:

• The ridiculous fight between Brienne and the Hound, where she beats him. It never happened in the books, and the Hound would have destroyed her if it had.

• Melisandra being revealed as an old woman who then drops dead. She should have burst into flame and walked out to engulf the enemy in a sea of flames as she died, instead of just plopping down onto the ground.

• Arya kills the Night King. She never had anything to do with that plot, and the showrunners stuck her in as a feminist “twist” while John Snow was emasculated by having his path blocked by a dragon, so all he could do was just stand around. Just awful writing all the way around.

• Cersei and Jamie dying under a bunch of rocks. I don’t care about Jamie, but Cersei should have been killed by Arya for making Joffrey king and ensuring the death of Arya’s father. The dialogue between Arya and Cersei might have been great before Arya killed her. But nope, instead she and Jamie stood there while the rocks fell on them. Just dumb!

• The “Long Night” which lasted 45 minutes. Ho-hum. What a disappointment.

• The killing of two of the dragons because Daenyrs was too stupid to put armor on them during a war.

• The death of the second dragon, where it was taken out by a guy on a ship on water. The water must have been remarkably stable for the dragon to be hit multiple times while flying in the air.

• Daeynyrs as the savior of the people in Mereen. Cheesy and overdone.

There are plenty of other bad memories, but you get the idea. Here’s a video of some of the stupidest moments in Game of Thrones:

A few words about Joffrey Lannister

Joffrey was one of the most reviled characters in Game of Thrones, but when he was finally killed by Lady Olenna Tyrell, it was a huge loss for the show. Joffrey was psychotic, selfish, and a combination of clueless and ruthless, but he was also wildly entertaining. He was missed after his death, and the show was never quite the same.

Here’s a collection of Joffrey’s most evil moments:

And, of course, Joffrey’s death scene. The actor did an amazing job, and the entire scene was shocking to those who hadn’t read the books:

Who is your favorite Game of Thrones character?

Take the poll below and share why you picked that character in the comments. I’m going to go with Cersei as my favorite character because you never knew what she was going to do when she showed up onscreen. Book Cersei was even worse, and you know what I mean if you’ve read the books.

Please note that the poll only allows five choices. So I had to glom every other character into the Other choice. Take no offense at this, as I know the show and books have tons of interesting and admirable characters. Alas, Substack only provides up to five choices in poll.

Season 6: One of the worst endings in television history

As long as the showrunners had the books to draw from, they had excellent dialogue and a mostly coherent plot to work off in the TV show. But after season 5, the show ran out of book material, and the show runners had to wing it, and boy did it show!

I have to note this here, as it really ruined the ending of the show. By that point, however, the showrunners thought they were going to go do a Star Wars movie or whatever, but it didn’t work because they got dumped from that project.

It’s such a shame because so much of the rest of the series was done so well, but then we get to the end of season 6, and the “long night” lasts 45 minutes. It just didn’t live up to the quality of most of the rest of the show and disappointed the hell out of a lot of the audience, myself included.

As a book reader, I was appalled at the ending. Arya killing the Night King was beyond dumb, and Brand becoming King was also stupid and pointless. Don’t get me started about the Dothraki cavalry charge into the horde of the dead. Who in their right mind would even think to send them out that way, knowing that the dead would just tear them to pieces? AWFUL! 🙄

It’s a shame that the showrunners shit the bed in the end, but at least most of the rest of the show provided some wonderful (and some not so wonderful) memories for viewers. I’ll always remember most of it fondly, and I’ll do my best to simply forget much of the last season, especially the very end.

But what about the Game of Throne books?

I mentioned earlier that I thought George Martin would never finish the books. He’s getting too old to do so; he’s loaded with cash to spend, and he’s hopelessly distracted by other projects and activities. He cannot seem to focus his mind on the larger need to finish the series that gave him his wealth and fame.

Furthermore, he also writes at the pace of a snail, even at the best of times. The time between books has gotten larger and larger, and Martin himself has slowed down because of age. So I do not think he will ever finish the story himself. The Winds of Winter is still nowhere to be found, despite the fact that its predecessor, A Dance with Dragons, was released in 2011.

However, after he passes, it is entirely possible that his estate will hire another writer to write the rest of the books. There is simply too much money at stake to leave the series fallow because Martin didn’t finish it. Martin’s publisher will prod the estate into getting somebody to do it.

All the drama involved with Game of Thrones (TV show and books) makes me very glad that J.R.R. Tolkien finished The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit completely. I’m also glad he wisely avoided Martin’s mistake of blowing up the story with too many characters. Tolkien kept his writing tight, and kept everything focused on the main story, and it worked out very well for him and for his readers.

A pity that George Martin wasn’t able to do the same thing.

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