The Buckeyes’ loss to Wichita State still stings, but at least we’ve got a new Game to command our attention and analysis: HBO’s Game of Thrones returns tonight. You can see the extended trailer for Season Three here.
I’ve written before about Game of Thrones — both the HBO series and the epic-length books. It’s a fantastic show, rich in themes and plots and production values, one that convincingly captures the curious medieval world where seasons can last for decades, dragons fly, and magic is real. I’m looking forward to the return of characters that I love, and even more to the return of the awful characters that I love to hate.
I’ll relish reigniting my intense loathing for the detestable Joffrey Baratheon, the sadistic, cowardly punk who sits uneasily on the Iron Throne, and his duplicitous, manipulative mother Cersei. I’ll be interested to see what happens to Jon Snow and the tiny yet hardy band of misfits and castoffs manning The Wall in the far north, working to meet the challenge of the wildlings and the White Walkers. I’ll root for the honest, loyal Brienne of Tarth, the gigantic female knight who displays more knightly virtues than the men who ridicule her. And I’ll enjoy becoming reacquainted with Arya, and Bran, and Tyrion, and the complex, interwoven storylines that characterize this series and meeting the new characters that will be introduced this season.
Having read the books, I suppose I could announce “spoilers,” but that’s not fair Game. I’ll say only that big things, and terrible things, will be happening to the characters we’ve come to know. Of course, loyal watchers of the show knew that already. Any show that kills off its main character by public beheading before Season One even ends is not afraid to spin the world of Westeros on its axis.
I loved the first season of Game of Thrones because the characters were richly drawn and often highly flawed, the settings were exotic and fascinating, and the intrigue, infighting, and infamous villains made for riveting television. There was some enchantment and sorcery — such as the mystical bond between the Starks and their wolves — but for the most part the story line focused on families and courtiers vying for power in the nest of vipers that is King’s Landing. The deaths of leading characters, showing that no one was safe, made the show even more unpredictable and fun.
I’d prefer to see the focus be more on the characters who lack the knack for witchcraft, and who are therefore more vulnerable and interesting than the purveyors of the black arts. I want to see more of the slippery but apparently decent eunuch who has the best interests of the kingdom at heart, mighty mite Tyrion Lannister, who to his own surprise discovered inner courage and cunning enough to save the kingdom from invasion, the giant female warrior who is devoted to Catelyn Stark, and the unconquerable Arya Stark — among others. Let me see the nauseating and loathsome Joffrey Baratheon get his much-needed comeuppance by a sword thrust from a brawny arm, and not by the wave of a wizard’s wand.
Theon’s got a lot of flaws. He’s a misogynist who treats every woman like a scullery maid — even his sister. For some odd reason, he has a very exalted opinion of himself, even though he hasn’t accomplished anything. He’s really kind of an idiot, too. He’s got bad teeth. And, even in a time when baths were few and far between, he always seems to be especially soiled. If you could smell him, you’d expect him to reek.
The little twerp was appalling last year, when his primary negative qualities were cowardice and a ludicrously inflated sense of his own value. This season we learn that he is a sadist who relishes seeing a galoot drowned in wine, his wife-to-be threatened with impalement by a crossbow bolt and disrobed by a man at arms, and ladies of the evening beaten by belts and maces. He also has menacingly insulted his mother, who is the only living person who can stand the sight of him. What’s next for King Joffrey? Human sacrifice? Devil worship? He can’t be killed fast enough.
On April 1, 
What makes the show especially tantalizing, however, is the more fantastic elements of the plot lines, including sorcery, dragons, and the mysterious “white walkers” who live outside an enormous Wall somehow erected by the generations past — and who inevitably are going to try to get past the Wall as winter comes.
Game of Thrones has one crucial element that can separate a good show from a great one: a villain who can be hated truly, completely, and without any reservation, a character so foul that you fervently hope they die in the most painful and humiliating way imaginable. That villain is Joffrey Baratheon. He is played so convincingly by actor Jack Gleeson that I’m not sure that I’d want to know Gleeson in real life.
