Lessons We’ve Learnt From Game Of Thrones

While you may join me in teeth-gnashing and despair that we won’t get our next Game Of Thrones fix until March/April 2014, we should accept that all good things must come to an end. Let us reflect on the many lessons the whole GoT gang taught us, shall we?

(WARNING: Contains more spoilers than the carpark of a suburban McDonalds)

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1. I Always Cry At Weddings

Robb Stark, his wife, and their unborn baby? DEAD. Catelyn Stark and her brooding monologues? DEAD. The banner-men of the Young Wolf? DEAD. The entire hopes of the North? DASHED. …Or are they?

What’s the appropriate amount of time before frenzy and hyperbole can be overlooked, and our feelings on The Red Wedding validated? One week? But seriously: the Red Wedding was a once-in-a-generation TV moment, a pop-cultural watershed that will join the ranks of knowing who shot JR, who killed Laura Palmer, and how much you squealed when Kimberley ripped off her wig in Melrose Place.

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2. Jon Snow Should Watch Out For Throat Cancer

Is it just me, or are Jon Snow and Ygritte totally The Notebook of the Seven Kingdoms? I know love hurts but DAMN girl, an arrow to the knee?

That aside, are we seriously meant to believe that a sexually-progressive proto-feminist wildling like Ygritte has never even heard of cunnilingus, but her conservative monarchist virgin boyfriend is all, “Hey girl, you ever listened to Lil Kim’s How Many Licks?” C’MON!

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3. Blondes Have More Fun…damental Race Issues

That final moment in the season when all those brown liberated slaves shuffle out quietly, only manage to say one word (“Mother”) over and over again, and then carry the white blonde woman across them like she’s a dehydrated teen at a Big Day Out concert? Maybe my “white guilt” alarm is a little over-sensitive, but I could almost swear I heard Daenerys Targaryen whisper, “This is much more gratifying than my monthly World Vision direct debit.”

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4. That’s How She Became Brienne-eeeeeyyyyy.

Brienne ‘Big Gulp Tilda Swinton’ of Tarth and Jaime Lannister have such a Fran Fine/Mr Sheffield will-they-won’t-they thing going on. If Westeros was powered by biting wit and sexual tension, these two would OWN the electric company. Where they go from here is anyone’s guess, but I’m certain old Cersei Babcock will definitely get involved.

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5. Greyjoy? More Like Greymisery.

Oh Theon. You make one little mistake like disobeying your father’s orders by invading your adopted home and faux-murdering the closest thing to brothers you’ve ever had, and what happens? You undergo a forced personality bypass at the hands of an insane bastard who also cuts off your legendary wang. Ironically, the whole thing kind of plays out like a medieval version of Lily Allen’s ‘Smile’ video (Alfie Allen is Lilly’s little brother). Is watching a season of torture porn enough to make us forgive Theon, or is this just desserts?

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6. Things Are Looking Up for Sansa Stark

Hard to believe, but the Debbie Downer of Winterfell’s prospects are improving — well, aside from the dead father, mother and elder brother, and the fact that she is now terminally attached to the Lannister clan. Also, she just missed out on bearding for the prettiest closet case in the Seven Kingdoms, Loras Tyrell. Oh and creepy Littlefinger is hot for her. That can’t end well.

OK, so homegirl has had a rough trot, but the point is Sansa is now married to the most ballin’ player in the entire Game of Thrones universe, Tyrion Lannister. Did someone say Westerosi Jay-Z and Beyonce?

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7. Don’t Ever Open Lord Varys’ Cupboard Door

The Spider is one sneaky freak. Theon may have stolen his mantle as Hottest Eunuch, but Lord Varys is a diva who never forgets a wig-snatching. This season we learnt that he might not be packing el grande junk down there, but his trunk is definitely one to fear. Mainly because it’s where he is hiding the wizard that cut off his mister-mister and set him on a course of ridding the world of dark magic. The long and the short of it (GONG) is that Lord Varys is either a powerful ally, or an enemy to very afraid of.

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8. Grandma Tyrell Of House Golden Girls Is The One

A lot of internet space talks about the presentation of women in Game of Thrones, and the amount of bosoms and general lady-sex parts on display. Well, if the show is a nerd-boy fantasy, then nerd-boys must love a matronly no-nonsense grandma, because Lady Olenna Tyrell OWNED every man she came up against this season.

Points especially go to the scene between her and Tywin Lannister, in which two great minds met, dished dirt, and threw shade all over the sex lives of their children and grandchildren.

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9. Samwell Tarly Just Will Not Die Already

Controversial maybe, but good lord we’re asked to take a leap of faith when a character that useless and inept survives in the harshest environment of the GoT universe, and Robb “Crunchy Curls” Stark winds up dead on the parlour floor. The most important lesson we learn from Sam is that if you splutter and whinge your way through life, you will be kept alive to torment me every damn week. Here’s hoping Gilly pops that big black cherry next season.

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10. Guys, If A Hot Crazy Lady Wants To Do You: Run.

Melisandre shows a flickering interest in young Gendry by taking off all her clothes. Gendry immediately strips off and assumes the position before he even takes time to wonder “will all that red Fudge in her hair rub off on me?”

Boys, here’s a tip: if a way out-of-your-league woman is interested in you, it’s not because she thinks you’re hot. It’s because she wants to sacrifice you to her Red God so that her grumpy-cat boyfriend can win the war. Sing it with me now, “Tale as old as time…”

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Nic Holas mainly fills his time with the creative management of performance, media, and the arts. His writing has appeared in Hello Mr magazine and Cosmopolitan. You can find him on Twitter @longlivecanapes, or living out his fantasy life as a celebrity attache at utauberkoolja.com.