Secession in Westeros: It Ain't Over

Folks have been picking on the last episode for a variety of unrealistic or unearned developments.  Here's my take on the secessionist element below the break.

Game of Thrones: Pool of Life, Way More Life Edition

So, that was a far happier ending than I would have expected, which means, yes, a three way tie.  Explanations and final rulings below:

Game of Thrones Pool of Life: Gratuitious Death Edition

Again, not that much damage to our player's characters despite the blood spilled everywhere.  Well, not so much spilled as flung. Spoilers beyond the break.

Jumping the Dragon

People have had various problems with Game of Thrones since the start.  This season has been particularly controversial because of the various decisions made by the writers.  First, folks were upset that the first two episodes were too slow, too much scene setting.  Then, folks were upset because not enough people died in the Battle of Winterfell.  I was not so fussed... but now I am.

Game of Thrones Pool of Life: Bad Pet Ownership Edition

Damn, the makers of this show really hate dire wolves.  Spoilers beyond the break

Game of Thrones Pool of Life, Confused Edition

See below the break for spoilers, but we really won't know who lived until next week (and no preview, right?)

Game of Thrones Pool of Life: Fans Served Daily

Ok, one last episode sans death and destruction, but lots of foreshadowing.  So, below, a quick revision of the guesses given the moves made today. 

Predicting the Battle of Winterfell

As the Battle of Winterfell approaches, questions about the alliances have been raised but also questions of strategy. 

Alliances Are Hard: GoT Version

I saw this tweet and could not help but respond:

I enjoyed @mchorowitz on GoT Dragon airpower, but it’s time for @RyanGrauer to give the people what they want- an analysis of how Westerosi alliance politics will affect military command structure and battlefield effectiveness.

— Jon Askonas (@JonAskonas) April 15, 2019

Given that I have written about both Game of Thrones and alliance politics, I have to enter this discussion.  Spoilers dwell below as we get into this:

Game of Thrones Pool of Life: Scene Setting Changes Little

As usual, the first episode sets the scenes and moves the chess pieces around. Not much more than that.  So, the only significant death was of a boy that we didn't really care about.  Should have realized he was dead boy walking when he was featured so much early--Chekov's casualty.

So, what did this episode mean for our game?  See my previous post today for the players and their choices.

Pre-Game of Thrones Pool of Life

Just as we anticipate tonight's premiere of the last season of Game of Thrones, GRRMartin hits us with this:

I am so excited for more of your favorite characters to die.

— George RR Martin (@GRRM) April 14, 2019

Lovely. 

Last time, I reported the draft:

Today, I want to report the tiebreakers

Interesting choices.  The second tie breaker only kicks in if either Dany sits on the throne at the end or if No one does.  If the former, then then the key tie break is number of dragons.  If there are no dragons left, then the next tiebreaker comes into play with Arya's bloodthirstiness playing a huge role.  If three dragons are left, then Art wins via Price is Right Rules--closest without going over.

If no one sits on the throne, then only the second tie breaker matters as Wendy can only then win if all dragons are dead with Caitlin winning in any other circumstance.

What to do if Jon and Dany sit on the throne at the end?   Hmm, I guess we would have a three way tie between Elliot, Art, and Sara with Elliot and Sara potentially having to go to the third tiebreaker if one dragon is left alive at the end.

Lots of good guesses here.  I look forward to belatedly watching tonight's episode (thanks to ultimate).  Enjoy the carnage!

Game of Thrones Pool of Life, the Draft

How did the Game of Thrones Pool of Life draft go?  Well, let's see what people chose and we can make fun of them.  I will, as I have in past games, suggest who has the best odds to win.

1. Rob is likely to last longer than his namesake, as he drafted Sam, Tyrion and Yara.
2. Sara couldn't attend but chose Gilly, Brienne of Tarth and Bran.  
3. Wendy chose Sansa, Lyanna Mormont (who was on many lists) and Bronn.
4. Brandon was also absent, but had a strong list that went deeper than most: Varys, Podrick, ArchMaester Ebrose
5. Art picked Dany, Missandei, and Drogon.  He wins big or loses big since Dany and Drogon, well, fly together.
6. Caitlin joined us late and chose Arya, Gendry, and Greyworm
7. Elliot, the Patriots apparently of this league with the last draftpick, chose Jon, Cersei, and Sam's kid.

So, quite a mix with some folks panicking as their turn came around and others with an eye to the long game.

Let's take a closer look and here's my guesses:

• Rob is likely to get 3 points--everyone thinks that Sam has to live to chronicle the wars.  Will Theon rescue Yara is the big question.  I think he will die trying, but so will she.  The Iron Islands are a tough miserable place, but that could be a big three point swing for Rob.  Tyrion?  Will Jon/Dany need him after the wars?  The thing is--he is the most fun to write for, which keeps characters alive (I just heard that in a podcast, I think, about Madmen).  So, Rob, with his favorable draft position used his sharp consulting skills and is a co-favorite to win.
• Sara is in pretty good chap with Gilly being mostly out of harm's way.  Brienne is likely to die in battle since she is going to be at the front.  However, she is a hell of a fighter, so Sara, too, has a good chance. Bran?  Ah, that is a puzzler.  He could die because, well, he sucks in a fight and three-eyed ravens do die.  But he is superpowerful and it seems that despite how much the showrunners do not like him, compared to how GRRMartin feels about him, he could play a key role.  Right now, I think Sara is a favorite to get 6 points.
• Wendy went for the kid fighter, but as my wife would put it, GRRMartin is a bad man and so are these showrunners.  We have seen great leadership skills from Lyanna but fighting?  Nope, she is no Arya.  She might be more like Dobby  Sansa?  She is quite a survivor, so I would not bet against her.  She will also be less exposed as she is not a fighter, and Brienne and Arya will both defender her.  Bronn, however, is dead meat.  Sure, he is, as Caitlin put it, a cockroach.  But he has sided with Cersei and that will not end well.  My guess is that Wendy has one player left at the end (who then dies in the X-Men movie this summer and then lives and then dies because that is what Phoenixes do).
• Brandon went with some interesting choices.  Varys is a survivor and is not a fighter, so he will not be in harm's way very much, although the conversation he had with the Red Witch is suggestive--that death is nigh for him.  Podrick is going to die, as his greatest skill is in the brother and not on the battlefield.  Ebrose?  He might be a one-pointer as we are unlikely to see much of him now that Sam is no longer at the Citadel.  So, Brandon is in good position to finish second or third.
• Caitlin faced a diminished draft pool, but made some clever choices.  Ayra is very skilled and his armed with a Valyrian weapon.  That combo is promising, but, then again, do we want a sociopath to survive?  Hmmm.  Not sure.  Gendry is strong and needs to get his hammer back.  But he has to die since he is a rival claimant to the throne.  Sorry.  Greyworm is going to die--the questions are only where and by whom.  Since he is not really that interesting of a character (he does not speak many funny lines), I expect him to die fighting the dead.  So, Caitlin would be lucky to end up with three points.
• Finally, Elliot, who made a great choice and an awful one and then a good one.  Jon has a very good chance to survive, since as my wife reminds me, this is a Song of Ice and Fire and either Jon is the Ice to Dany's Fire, or he is Ice and Fire since his parents were Starks and Tarygareans.  He commands a Dire Wolf and is liked by dragons.  The big question no one raised is the status of Ghost.  Damn.  Anyhow, great last choice in the first round.  However, Elliot then made the worst choice--there is no way Cersei is going to live.  She is fated by prophecy to die and most likely by Jamie's hand.  Who will then die.  And then Sam's kid.  There is a good chance that Sam's kid survives to tell the tale to the next generation.  So, Elliot, despite a poor draft position and an incredibly poor second round pick, is in good shape to finish near the top.  
• Oops, I omitted Art, probably because he is going to win?  Either TeamDany wins all the way with Dany, Missy and Drogon surviving and ruling or all die.  There is no in between.  This is like picking a top QB and his wide receivers--they all do well or all do poorly.  Again, a song of Ice and Fire with Queen Fire sticking around to the end?  Hmmm.

Given that there is a good chance that two or more players will end up with two of their characters each left alive, we have a good chance at a tie.  So, between tonight and the start of the first episode, each player must submit to me via email or DM or raven or whatever their answers to the three tiebreakers:

Tie breaker #1: who sits on the Iron Throne at the end?
Tie breaker #2: how many dragons are alive at the end?  And, yes, undead dragons count as alive if they are not really, really dead. 
Tie breaker #3: how many people does Arya assassinate in the final season (not including battle scenes because, damn, that would be hard)?  Oh, and Price is Right Rules: closest without going over!

So, that's where things stand.  Enjoy the week of suspense and get ready for a thrilling set of Sunday nights.  I will be posting late each Sunday night/Monday morning since my ultimate frisbee league does not end until May 5th, and then I will be in Germany for two weeks of research.

Enjoy the ride!

GoT Draft: That Which Is Dead Can Never Die

Greetings from Winterfell!  The Game of Thrones Pool of Life begins!  I have randomized the players (thanks to a handy deck of cards), so the draft order is as follows:

1. Rob, a friend from high school, and self-employed business consultant.  Yes, he is a smart one who may outthink the others or maybe himself
2. Sara, a political scientist with either the first or second most obnoxious laugh in the business.  She has keen quantitative analysis skills, but it is not clear how they will help here.  
3. Wendy, a high school friend who is now a lawyer in Florida.  She is used to all kinds of craziness, so she will be well-suited for this competition.
4. Brandon, an expert on cyber-warfare which is, of course, useless here, but he did spend much time in Scotland, so he knows much about drinking and swordplay.
5. Art, another high school friend, is a doctor, so he will be ready to heal thyself.
6. Caitlin, a twitter friend who ran twitterfightclub (yes, you are allowed to and encouraged to talk about it), so she has more game than the rest of you combined.
7. Elliot, a frisbee teammate and now engineer for a start up.  He runs pretty good for a guy with a bad hip, and he was willing to leave a secure government job so he has got spunk.  

Tis a snake draft: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7.

To be held April 8th at 8pm eastern time here at the blog via the comments section (update--it will be done on my fb page and then I will report results and snark on my blog).  Folks can tweet me or message me their choices along the way if they can't access the comments or don't want to do so.  If they can't attend, they can send me their list of preferred draft picks--they should come up with 21 names in the order they want to draft them.

All players will send to me privately (email or messenger or DM) their choices for the tiebreakers:
Tie breaker #1: who sits on the Iron Throne at the end?
Tie breaker #2: how many dragons are alive at the end?  And, yes, undead dragons count as alive if they are not really, really dead. 
Tie breaker #3: how many people does Arya assassinate in the final season (not including battle scenes because, damn, that would be hard)?  Oh, and Price is Right Rules: closest without going over!

That's it for now.  After the draft, I will post the list of the draft picks and the tiebreaker answers.  Oh, and mock those who choose poorly.

See you next week in this space!

Game of Thrones Pool of Life

I am organizing a deadpool/living pool for the last season of Game of Thrones (we have done this before with Lost and Breaking Bad).  It is open to my facebook friends and folks who I know via twitter--no strangers, sorry (I don't worship that particular god).  I have seven people signed up, so there are three spots left.

I will announce the order of the draft on April 1st, and the draft will be conducted via comments on my blog (again, I will set up a blog post for the event) on April 8th at 8pm EDT.  For those who cannot attend electronically, they can send me a list of thirty characters they prefer to draft in they order they would draft them.  The draft will be snake-ish--the person who drafts first will also draft twentieth and twenty-first.  


Ok, each player will have ultimately choose three characters (I am pretty sure we can find thirty characters to consider in this universe--let IMDB be your friend).  Three points for each character that is obviously alive, one point for characters that are probably alive or are in comas.  Characters that become undead are dead except for those who are dead already (the Night King, for example).  Undead characters that are slain are then considered dead-dead.  If the show ends in a flashforward where everyone or nearly everyone is dead (imagine Harry Potter epilogue taking place 70 years later), then we will refer to the last scene prior to the flashforward.  And just for fun, whoever picks the first character to die of all those drafted to loses one point!

Tie-breakers will be submitted to me via email or message or DM the night of the draft and then I will reveal them after the draft.
Tie breaker #1: who sits on the Iron Throne at the end?
Tie breaker #2: how many dragons are alive at the end?  And, yes, undead dragons count as alive if they are not really, really dead. 
Tie breaker #3: how many people does Arya assassinate in the final season (not including battle scenes because, damn, that would be hard)?  Oh, and Price is Right Rules: closest without going over!

The Prize?  As usual, the winner gets a free post here, unedited by me.  Also, I will explore Think-Geek and come up with a suitable GoT doohickey/souvenir.  I will announce what that prize is when I announce the draft order on April Fools' Day!

If you want to join the fun, either comment below or email/tweet/fb me. 

And if you have questions, let me know.

Legitimacy Comes From the Barrel of a Gun ... Or Whoever Controls The Fire

Just wanted to opine about Game of Thrones a smidge:

spoilers below

If Only It Were Made of Ice

Alas, the wall that some 40% of Americans want would be of bricks and mortar.  Takes the Game of Thrones joy out of it.

What to make of this survey result?  The actual question is thus:

If a wall is good for the Mexico border, it is good for the Canada border as well

Okey, dokey.  The result of 41% agree is the same as for the following question:

There should be a brick-and-mortar wall between the U.S. and Mexico

Let's take the second one first.  Is 41% high or low?  Given all of the rabble-rousing and the actual existence of some walls along the border (see the Volleyball picture to the right), 41% is probably low.  After all, the loudest candidate for higher office is making this one of the very few distinct policy proposals, and this has led to an outbidding process where the rest of the GOP candidates have promised to stop the hordes of Mexicans with walls, drones, frickin' laser beams, etc.

Ok, with that context, what about the Canadian question?  It seems like most of the people who want a wall with Mexico want one with Canada, perhaps because it makes them sound fairer and less racist?  What would be the survey result if the question was asked without any reference to Mexico:

Should the US build a wall between Canada and the U.S.?

My guess is that the result would be somewhere around 20% since one can get about that much support for any wacky policy proposal.  Some folks will always say yes because they think the country should be surrounded by walls or because they have family in industries that would benefit from the wall-building or because they would like the acreage of potential graffiti space (see East Berlin Gallery to the right).



And some Americans may actually be threatened by Canada in some way.  What would these Americans want to keep out?

• Rabid moose?
• Maple heist-ers?
• Superior hockey players that keep Americans on the bench?
• Xenophobic politicians as America has reached its capacity?
• Tim Horton's?  The lines are too damn slow!
• All the comedians that are stealing American jobs!
• Celine Dion?  Too late.

What am I missing?

The key point, of course, is that this survey question is mostly .... air.

It Was In Front of Us All Along, GoT Edition

Thanks to a commenter on Gawker, the Barratheon destiny was obvious all the time:

Alt Game of Thrones Joy

Having just written a pretty depressing piece, I was glad to see this (spoilers):

Phase IV Operations in Game of Thrones

Just a few thoughts on recent Game of Thrones episodes, with tv-show based spoilers below (I have read the books but the discussion below follows from the TV show):

Mighty Cold, Eh?

Not just in Canada but in the mashup of Frozen and Game of Thrones


H/T to Dan Drezner for directing to the slate piece.