Why I love Game of Thrones despite its stupidity
Ted Berg writes the Morning Win newsletter for For The Win. Yell at him on Twitter @OGTedBerg or via email at AskTedBerg@gmail.com.
I'm taking a brief break from proper sports this morning because Sunday night marks the long-awaited Season 8 premiere of the mega-popular HBO show Game of Thrones, which we cover a lot at For The Win. But it's still sort of sports: On Thursday, we even did a fantasy draft in anticipation of the final season, athletes reference and tweet about the program all the time, and a bunch of what happens on screen requires obvious athleticism.
Also, I wrote a post earlier this week titled "I heroically watched all 67 episodes of Game of Thrones so I can tell you why it's dumb," and a bunch of people who only read the headline and didn't get its inherent joke got very mad at me online. So I want to make clear before I spend the rest of Season 8 writing regular Iron Throne power rankings that I really do enjoy the show. Like I said in that post, I can love something and still think it's kind of dumb. Heck, in this case, I can think something is kind of dumb for a lot of reasons and still believe it's excellent and artistic and occasionally beautiful for other reasons. Things can be more than one thing.
If you don't watch, I heartily recommend Hemal Jhaveri's survival guide for not watching Game of Thrones. What follows are seven reasons I find Game of Thrones totally awesome and cool, to appease those offended that I called it dumb. I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers, since I realize this is arriving in a lot of people's inboxes without fair warning.
1. The production value: Thisis the main thing.Game of Thrones is a massive production that's perfectly executed on so many levels. The scenery is incredible. The sets are incredible. The hair and makeup are incredible. Theexplosions are incredible. Every single episode is something close to a full-blown, big-budget movie production, so you get an hour ofLord of the Rings-caliber grandeur every week. Dragons, bruh.
2. All the sex and violence: It's kind of crazy to me that Game of Thrones is as popular as it is, because the show is unspeakably gory and full of incest and tons of other foul topics. I'm not a violent person, but I've always had the stomach for extreme violence in my movies and television. Game of Thrones gives you Reservoir Dogs levels of blood and torture on a weekly basis, which can be disturbing but also enjoyable intense. It is also not at all afraid to kill off main characters, which I love. I hate when you know the good guy's going to survive and win in the end. That's not guaranteed at all here. That's how you know George R.R. Martin is a Jets fan.
3. The world-building: Our man Henry McKenna was able to put together a ranking of the best athletes on Game of Thrones because the world it presents is so comprehensive and so well fleshed out that we know all the strengths and skills of so many different characters. It's almost too detailed, but it's a pretty incredible achievement. You even get a really good sense of the geography of this totally made-up world. It helps to keep a Game of Thrones wiki open while you're watching so you can pick up on what you're missing, because there's just so much one can learn about Westeros and its surroundings from the details provided.
4. The morality plays: Even Kobe Bryantwants to learn the 'art of story' from Martin. Because they live in a brutal and unforgiving world,Game of Thrones face plausibly impossible choices all the time, and for as many decisions are dictated by vague "oaths" and "honor," there are plenty in which a character must legitimately choose what he or she believes is the right thing to do in inescapable dilemmas. There are a handful of flat bad people and good people and crazy people in the show, but most of them are somewhere in the grey area. When there's fighting, there are almost always characters you like on both sides of the violence, participating in it for reasons that make sense to you and them.
5. Uncle Benjen: What's the deal with Uncle Benjen anyway? SPOILER ALERT: You meet this guy in the first season, he seems pretty dope, then he just disappears for five years and comes back in some ( SPOILER ALERT) weird half-dead form. Stuff like this helps drive the show along - you never know if a minor plot point is going to matter several seasons later, or if it's just a random red herring or ultimately extraneous detail. It goes back to the world-building thing: The scope of Game of Thrones is so tremendous that you can rank 21 contenders to rule Westeros by the finale and still leave some people out.
6. The bro-downs: Oh, there are some epic bro-downs. And the multiple storylines ongoing in every season and every episode mean there are a bunch of pretty big characters that rarely meet each other. Then, when they do, we know exactly how they'll bro it down. Hey, that is how Tormund Giantsbane and the Hound would interact, isn't it? You know, Jon Snow would ( SPOILER ALERT) offer Jorah Mormont his dead dad's sword back.
7. The anticipation: People want to know what happens so badly that there are betting odds all over the place online and April Fools jokes on Jimmy Fallon go full-blown viral. And stuff like Uncle Benjen (SPOILER ALERT) returning after a long absence suggests there has been some sort of endgame in mind from the start. I hope so much that this isn't another Lost. I'm going to be so mad if it ends in a cop-out or some nonsensical conclusion. I have way too much invested in figuring out what happens.
Thursday's big winner: Tiger Woods
Did Tiger have the best first round of anyone in Augusta? No. But he shot a two-under 70, he birdied the 440-yard 14th hole, and he's by far the most famous golf guy so I'm more or less obligated to mention him while the Masters are going on. One of the main things everyone knows about Tiger's game is that it tends to improve throughout events, so sitting four shots back of the leaders puts him in a great spot to contend on Sunday.
Quick hits: Torts, Roethlisberger, Embiid
- Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella helped inspire his team to a big playoff comeback over the Tampa Bay Lightning with a fiery speech after they went down by three goals in the first period. Torts later called out the media for having body odor, which is tough but fair. I've stood in a lot of press scrums in my life, and they're rarely pleasant-smelling.
- Former Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall joined a chorus of ex-teammates complaining about Ben Roethlisberger, accusing the quarterback of racism before backtracking a little bit on his claims. In response, Steelers players took to social media to urge other players to keep their beefs off social media.
- Charles Curtis argued that the fate of the NBA's Eastern Conference playoffs rests on Sixers big man Joel Embiid's knee. It's an extremely large knee, but it needs to support an extremely large man. Philadelphia drew a tough first-round matchup in the Brooklyn Nets, whose fanbase has developed as much a reputation for savage burns as for its love of fixed-gear bicycles.