r/HBOGameofThrones

Who gave the best / your favorite acting performance in Freaks and Geeks?

Vote here: https://strawpoll.com/poy9kKEa8gJ

Unfortunately the polls on reddit allow only six choices, so I made a strawpoll with all the performances. Enjoy and discuss : )

Hi, ASOIAF fans!

I’m visiting from the French ASOIAF community The Night’s Watch (or La Garde de Nuit, as we call it here) to share a live discussion we recently had in English with some fellow European fans about The Mad King play. If you’re interested, you can watch it on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/jffUa3zS9SY?is=tCafKnkDcZhAcZtb

We were joined by Javi Marcos, administrator of Los Siete Reinos, the leading Spanish-language ASOIAF fansite. We also welcomed Lo and Virginie, hosts of The Ragman’s Harbour, a podcast exploring the real-world historical and cultural inspirations behind ASOIAF from a non-Anglophone perspective.

During the stream, we shared our experiences of seeing the play—which we absolutely loved!—discussed what surprised us most, and explored what new insights it might (or might not!) bring to the canon.

Hope you enjoy it! And if that’s not enough Mad King content for you, we also have a video in French where we rave about the play with other members of the Night’s Watch who went to see it. xD

(Apologies if this comes across as self-promotion! I mostly post in French, so I'm a bit new to this specific subreddit 😅 I truly believe some of you might find this interesting, though! 😉)

me and my dad were trying to figure out who the top right face is but we couldn't agree lol, who is it?

every now and then there comes one of those franchises that is so ingrained in pop culture for a time that it feels like everyone is talking about it and it's completely inescapable. and normally when one of those franchises come along... I couldn't care less. game of thrones is one of those franchises. I have never watched it, and I likely never will. that hasn't stopped my brother from talking about it every god damn day.

he is fully aware I don't care about game of thrones. he is fully aware that whatever he says about it is likely to go in one ear and out the other. yet for some reason, we cannot have a single conversation without it being brought up. my brother watches game of thrones on an infinite loop: after watching the final episode, the next thing he watches is the first episode. I don't know how he does it: watching the same thing over and over again sounds like HELL.

for some reason, he feels the need to keep me updated on where he's at in the series. and he never talks about it like it's a show, my brother talks about game of thrones like its current events happening in our world RIGHT NOW. we could talk about actual real-world politics like normal adults do, but instead my brother insists about talking about the fictional politics of a fictional universe I have no connection to as if every decision the characters make have ramifications on our real lives! I'm 31 and my brother is 28, by the way.

but recently I started wondering: how much of this information have I retained? could I, a person who has never seen game of thrones, possibly recap all of games of thrones? well, we're about to find out. I'm going to recap all of game of thrones in hopes that this ends our incredibly one-sided conversations about game of thrones once and for all!

so, game of thrones is about a bunch of people from five different kingdoms fighting over something called the iron throne. I assume whoever has the iron throne will rule the world or something, but I'm not sure. it could be they just want it because it's a really nice throne. seems a little too pointy to actually sit on.

one of the five kingdoms is called "Westeros"... I have no idea what the other four kingdoms are called, but there are other groups of people called the targaryans and the delthraki. I assume each of them represent some of the other kingdoms. I think this world also has tree people and maybe something called frost giants? that sounds like something a dumb fantasy world would have.

anyway, apparently in this world seasons last a really long time, so everyone's always talking about how winter is coming. maybe that has something to do with the frost giants? well, one of our main characters is named "john snow", and while I'm not sure if his last name relates to the impending winter in any way, this guy is one of the main characters the story focuses on.

other main characters include Arya stark, who I think was one of the playable characters in multi versus before it shut down, and Peter Dinklage. there's also some dragon lady named Daenerys, and I think she's forced to marry Aqua Man at some point. but then Aqua man dies.

yes, most of my brother's conversations revolve around some character who's being a jerk, only for them to get their narrative comeuppance when they inevitably die an unceremonious death. game of thrones seems to be a show that is required by law to kill off a major character every single episode. like apparently there's this ass hole prince who dies, then there's some slave traders who die, some kind of evil demon worshipping cult that dies. even John snow dies, but apparently, they're able to bring him back with the dragon balls or something.

well, I guess after Aqua man dies, Daenerys hatches some dragon eggs and goes on a quest to free the slaves from some bad guys who own slaves. Daenerys also is immune to fire for some reason, so her clothes are constantly getting burned off so she can walk around naked. apparently, there's a lot of nudity and sex scenes in this show. gross.

but then we get the most important character in all of game of thrones: hodor! this is the character my brother talks about the most. this character, who is apparently extremely crucial to the plot of game of thrones, is a servant to the starks whose purpose is to hold the door open. apparently "hodor" is his attempt at saying "hold door", and that is all he can say, so everyone decided to call him hodor.

in one of the most tragic scenes in all of game of thrones, a group of frost giants attack the stark's castle. hodor, being his usual door holding self, holds the door open as the frost giants kill him. his final words were "hodor". this scene really left an impression on my brother... he tells me about it every time it happens as if every viewing of Game of thrones is a ground hog day loop in which Hodor is destined to die. sometimes my brother holds out hope that things will be different and Hodor can somehow escape from his fate, but that is not how TV shows work.

one time I asked my brother why they don't just bring Hodor back to life like they did with John snow. or why they don't just bring back any character that dies, for that matter? what's stopping them from doing it? my brother seemed to get mad at the question and acted like I was dumb for asking it.

another character my brother seems quite fond of is "the mountain", played by an enormous actor named Harfbor Johnson, this character is responsible for roughly half the deaths that take place in the show. statistically, this is probably the guy who kills John snow. that'd be my guess, don't quote me on it.

what I am sure of is that at some point Daenerys and John snow meet up and fall in love because Daenerys is... such a good person. you know, because she freed the slaves... and set all the slave owners on fire! but uh oh, turns out Daerys is John snow's aunt... apparently there's a lot of incest in game of thrones. from the way my brother describes the show it seems like the target audience consists mostly of horny degenerates, but given how popular this show is, either my brother's descriptions are greatly exaggerated, or I underestimated how horny the general public is.

ah, but who could be hornier than the author himself? game of thrones is adapted from a book series written by George RR martin. I think this guy and Gabe Newell might secretly be the same guy: much like how Gabe Newell refuses to release half life 3, George RR Martin has not written a book in over 20 years. my brother seems convinced modern medicine will keep this guy alive long enough to finish his series, but that's ridiculous: only politicians are allowed to live past their 90s.

as a result, the latter seasons were based on Gabe Newell's notes rather than any actual books, so the final season was incredibly rushed. for some reason Daenerys burns down westeros. it may seem odd since she was practically a saint earlier, but apparently Daenerys was always a pyromaniac and the people she burned earlier just happened to be slave owners. Daenerys apparently comes from a long line of conquerors, so like, burning down entire kingdoms is the only solution she has to her problems. I guess the lesson the audience is supposed to take away from her downfall is that... war is bad?

well, John snow emerges from the ice (whatever the hell that means) and kills Daenerys, thereby teaching the audience the important moral lesson that war and incest are bad. because Daenerys kills all the bad people and then John snow kills Daenerys, I guess the battle for the Iron throne ends. I have absolutely no Idea who gets it in the end... my brother must have left out that part. maybe it was Peter Dinklage. I think he'd make a good king. have you seen his space pants?

so apparently, I didn't actually retain that much info from game of thrones. it could be that I'm a bad listener, but it's much more likely that my brother is a bad storyteller. every time he has me accompany him on a walk while he plays pokemon go, he goes on and on about all these epic battles, with the story usually ending with "and then (insert character name here) died". but without any real context for what led up to it and why it matters, it all just sounds like completely meaningless sex and violence. how am I supposed to remember any of this? I don't know these people!

Game of thrones has ended, and everyone was pissed off about the ending. my brother continues to watch it on an endless loop while the rest of the world has moved on. I have no idea what message GabeGeorge Newell Martin was trying to pass onto the readers when he wrote his story, as it has been lost in the transition between him writing it, HBO adapting it, and my brother talking about it. but my brother and I have been living together for over a year now, and this is the message I hope to pass on to him: STOP TALKING ABOUT GAME OF THRONES!!! I DON'T CARE ABOUT GAME OF THRONES!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!?

At first, casting Kit Harington as Aegon I Targaryen might sound like stunt casting. But the more I think about it, the more it feels like the most meaningful choice they could possibly make for Aegon’s Conquest.

And no, it isn’t simply because Jon Snow’s real name in the show is Aegon Targaryen….

George R. R. Martin describes Aegon the Conqueror as commanding, enigmatic and solitary. He was one of the greatest warriors of his time, but took no pleasure in fighting and had no interest in tournaments. He did not constantly seek attention or involve himself in every part of government, but when his personal leadership was required, he immediately took command. He could be merciless toward those who openly defied him, yet remarkably generous toward former enemies who accepted his rule. That sounds surprisingly close to Jon Snow.
Jon is quiet, guarded and often difficult to read. He never truly wants power, but people repeatedly choose him as their leader. He can execute Janos Slynt for openly refusing his command and then risk everything to give the wildlings, the ancient enemies of the Night’s Watch, a new home south of the Wall.

There is also a very specific visual connection: both men wield Valyrian steel bastard swords. Aegon carries Blackfyre. Jon carries Longclaw.

Kit Harington already spent years developing a recognisable fighting style with a Valyrian steel hand-and-a-half sword. The Battle of the Bastards showed Jon functioning in complete battlefield chaos, while Hardhome connected Longclaw directly to the supernatural enemy from the North.

That brings me to the most important reason for this casting: Aegon conquered Westeros because he foresaw the darkness that would eventually come from beyond the Wall. Centuries later, Jon became the man who united wildlings, northmen and rival armies against exactly that threat.
Using the same actor would create a connection without needing to explain it or turn it into literal reincarnation. The audience would see the same face, the same restrained personality and even the same style of swordsmanship at both ends of the prophecy.
Aegon I united Westeros so that another Aegon could one day save it.
It could even add new meaning to Jon’s ending. Maybe his true purpose was never to sit on the Iron Throne. Maybe inheriting Aegon’s mission mattered more than inheriting his crown.
Give Kit short silver-gold hair, black scale armour, Blackfyre and Balerion behind him. I honestly cannot imagine a casting choice that would add more meaning to the character before the film had even begun.
Would this work for you, or would seeing Kit Harington as another character in the same universe be too distracting?

Note: the Photo is Made with the help of AI