Now that we’ve had some time to reflect on “Game of Thrones,” we can all agree, whatever our thoughts on the finale may be, that OH WAIT WHAT? IS BRAN A LOW-KEY MASS MURDERER? (That’s the gist of our latest “Low Key” episode, which you can listen to on Apple or right here or immediately below.)
After a period of reflection, your three hosts — House Aaron, House Keith and House Tim — discuss the cinematic majesty of HBO’s series, which forever expanded the sweep and ambition of television and — okay, but seriously though, it seems like Bran Stark could have used his warg powers to stop Drogon from killing all those innocent people in King’s Landing, right? Right?
After much guessing as to how David Benioff and D.B. Weiss would conclude their epic tale, inspired by the novels of George R.R. Martin, it would seem that they choose to go out not with a bang, but a whimper. But make no mistake, it was their choice — a realization that after all the carnage that came before, the most shocking thing the show could do was turn its sharp eye to the mundanity of governing, and a discussion of public facilities that wouldn’t be out of place even in our own… sorry. It’s not that we think Bran was wrong to allow all of those awful things to happen — is someone with the power of time-travel obligated to go back and undo wrongs? Or would doing so cause even more damage, in a kind of step-on-a-butterfly effect? — but we have to say, it’s kind of suspect that all of the terrible things Bran allowed, in spite of his Three-Eyed Raven powers, just happened to lead up to his becoming King Bran the Broken of the Six Kingdoms. And landed his sister Sansa the power over the North. We’re just saying. It reeked of nepotism and self-dealing.
And so, whatever our thoughts on the “Game of Thrones” finale (House Tim enjoyed it, Houses Aaron and Keith were less pleased), surely we can all agree that it was the defining show for our era, a time when nothing was as it seemed, up was down, down was up, and look, we appreciate that Bran acted like he might be able to warg into Drogon, which I guess gave us some reassurance that he couldn’t have done it during the attack, but c’mon, he once warged into a human being, for Chrissake, are we supposed to believe Drogon is less susceptible to mind control than Hodor? At least Hodor can speak, even if his vocabulary is larger than Drogon’s by a single word.
We’re kind of getting into an “Avengers: Endgame” situation here where we have to wonder why (spoiler alert) time-travel Captain America didn’t use what he knows now, to kill, for example: Hitler, Thanos, and multiple serial killers. This is by no means a complete list. Similarly, it seems like Bran could have warged any number of past dragons into killing or better yet not killing any number of past people, thereby preventing countless horrors. But then he wouldn’t have gotten to be king, would he?
Anyway, we hope you enjoy the episode as we look back on the proud legacy of one of our favorite shows, “Game of Thrones.” And ponder: If you could have prevented a murder, but didn’t, aren’t you kind of at the very least an accomplice to murder? King Bran?