By Rebecca Pahle | Game of Thrones | June 16, 2015 |
By Rebecca Pahle | Game of Thrones | June 16, 2015 |
Season five of Game of Thrones: Wow, it’s been a doozy, hasn’t it? (More) rape, a brutally murdered pre-teen girl, and at least eight characters dead who aren’t in the books. (Possibly [Spoilers for the season five finale] three more, if Sansa and Theon really died in the finale and if Jon manages to warg himself back to life in The Winds of Winter, as many fans predict.) This season managed to consistently bang on audiences’ nerves with a giant hammer in a way that earlier seasons did only intermittently. Whether that’s justified or not, season six might have a hard time cutting through our shell shock and delivering the same amount and intensity of water cooler moments.
Then again, it’s Game of Thrones. They’ve never had a problem upping the ante before. (Oh, the sweet, uncomplicated days of the Red Wedding!) And as hewing closely to George RR Martin’s source material is no longer required—or, in some cases, possible—showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff have more or less an opening playing field in terms of WTF moments they can deliver for massive #social #media #engagement. May we suggest:
*Zero rape. No rape at all. None rape.
*The next character to be recast is Cersei. She is now played by George RR Martin.
*Hodor is Azor Ahai.
*Asha/Yara gets more than five minutes of screen time.
*Austin Powers cameo.
*Strong Belwas.
*All the killed characters come back to life and do a conga to Lou Bega’s “Mambo Number 5.”
*Sansa, Sam and Gilly spend the whole season lounging at Dorne’s water gardens and sipping strawberry lemonade.
*Arianne Martel shows up 15 minutes late with Starbucks.
*Gendry rows up to King’s Landing and takes the Iron Throne.
*Jonah Ryan from Veep rows up to King’s Landing and takes the Iron Throne. Dragons with the heads of Dan and Amy subsequently burn all of Westeros to the ground.
*Dany decides she’d rather not rule Westeros and opens up Meereen’s first Talbots instead.
*Jon’s true parents are revealed: Old Nan and Mickey Rourke.
*People start to give a shit about Dorne.
*I start to give a shit about Jorah Mormont.
*Rickon Stark is back, and he’s pissed.
And finally:
*Seriously. No rape. It’s historically accurate. We get it. Let’s move on.