‘Game’ over

Aradhika  Sharma

Two 30-something ladies were getting pedicures in the beauty parlour.

Lady 1: Everyone is talking about the last season of Game of Thrones. It’s a hotter topic than even the ‘bow’ dress that Deepika wore at Cannes.

Lady 2: Oh yes, it was very exciting.

Lady 1: Update me, na. I’ll pretend that I’ve watched all the episodes and talk about it at the kitty party today. 

Lady 2: Sure! It’s mainly about an iron throne that many people are fighting for — an ugly piece of furniture if there ever was one! However, three major families — the Baratheons, the Lannisters, and the Starks — and a lot of minor, wannabe kings are battling over it. Waise, you don’t really have to bother too much about keeping track of the characters because most of them keep getting killed in horrifying, violent ways.

Lady 1: What? Even the prominent characters?

Lady 2: Oh yes! It’s filled with blood, revenge and sex.

Lady 1: Really? Sounds interesting!

Lady 2: Arre! It abounds with betrayals, bloodletting and murderous dragons — not a show for the faint hearted.

Lady 1: Ooh! Tell me more.

Lady 2: Well, plot one begins with the Lannisters, who are the rulers of Westeros. Bloodshed begins when it is discovered that the queen of Westeros, Cersei, is having an affair with her own twin brother, Jaime, and that the King’s (Cersei’s hubby, Robert’s) children are fathered by Jaime. Cersei’s solution to the problem is to murder her hubby.

Lady 1: Batao!

Lady 2: Plot two is about Daenerys Targaryen, the heroine. She’s the last member of an exiled family and she builds an army in a place called Essos to reclaim the throne. Daenerys is the mother of three obnoxious, fire-spewing dragons. These flap around and swoop and spew on people and destroy things. In the end, they destroy the iron throne!

Lady 1: Well, since it was ugly piece of furniture, that’s a good thing no?

Lady 2: There’s a third plot too. In the North of Westeros there’s a Night’s Watch, an armed unit that guards the 300-mile-long, 70-foot-tall wall that protects the rest of the continent from the undead “White Watchers” and zombies that lurk there.

Lady 1: You’re kidding, right?

Lady 2: I’m not done yet. The third family constitutes the Starks. They are the good guys. Most of them get brutally murdered in the first season only!

Lady 1: (Sigh!) Good guys always get persecuted. 

Lady 2: To add to the somber, medieval, dreary atmosphere, it is eternal winter in all eight seasons of the show.

Lady 1: How cheerful. What else?

Lady 2: Well, from time-to-time, weird people show up — a fire priestess, a slimy manipulator called Littlefinger, two giants called The Mountain and The Hound, an intelligent dwarf called Tyron. Additionally, there’s sex and manipulation, torture, maiming and hefty doses of the supernatural. In the end, almost everyone dies!

Lady 1: Wow! Sounds like a blockbuster Indian TV serial. I think I’ll just binge watch it tonight!