Programmed… for Death!

io9 has an article about how organisms are programmed to age and die as an evolutionary adaptation.

One of the researchers, Bar-Yam, believes that this aging process may be reversed. From what I've read, however, this is highly unlikely ('all the low hanging fruit have been picked'), but it's certainly an interesting idea.

Life extension always reminds me of Isaac Asimov, who described a struggle between long lived, risk adverse Spacers and their more numerous, shorter lived, breeder adversaries, known as the Settlers, in his Robot novels. The robots, naturally, were produced by the aloof, elitist Spacers, who needed manpower. Rather than opening up their perfectly ordered new worlds to immigration and letting in the teeming masses from the overcrowded, dying earth, they made synthetic laborers.

It's a fascinating series, and later in life he connected it to Foundation.

As we see demographic transition accelerate and life extension technology becomes a reality, will the world split into fecund, short lived societies and long lived, sterile immortal ones? Or will it be class based? Isn't that the dream of every despot? To rule for all eternity, forever on top, with disposable masses crushed beneath. Which just reminds me of Stargate.

One thing Asimov showed quite well is how changes in one area (say, life span) will affect many others. He was a writer who explored consequences.

Game of Thrones: The Mother's Mercy Review

Season Five ended on a high. At the top of a cliff. Or rather dangling from one.

It's all about revenge.

Brienne finally had hers: she executes 'King' Stannis to avenge the death of Renly Baratheon, whom she was sworn to protect. It restores her personal honor and lets poor Renly rest easy.

At the same time, her revenge drove her to kill the one man capable (supposedly) of saving the world. So there is, or was, a potential, possible down side. A world destroying biggie of a down side, really, had the prophecy not been bogus. And she missed out on saving Sansa, which was more important, as Stannis would have just frozen to death anyway.

Fortunately Sansa's got agency of her own.

I must admit I thought Stannis' final fall would be dragged out over a few more episodes, during which he'd become increasingly disillusioned and demented before being ignominiously decapitated.

But like Stannis, the show runners felt the need to keep… pushing… forward.

His end resolves the moral dilemma presented by the prophecy promoted by Melisandra, that Stannis, being the one true king, was the only one who could save the world from the White Walkers, and because of that, human sacrifice was justified.

That meant the 'good guys' who were going to save the world were justified in burning heretics alive and sacrificing little kids. After all, magic worked. It wasn't just loony superstition. In Martin's fantasy world, the Carthaginians would have been right to burn kids alive to guarantee victory over Rome.

Except it doesn't work.

Not in the real world, and apparently not in the fantasy world either.

If it did, well, again, there's the moral dilemma. What lessons do you draw from a show that endorses human sacrifice? Sure, it's a fantasy world, but part of the reason we tell stories is to illustrate how to live a good life.

We learn from stories.

Having Stannis victorious after sacrificing Shireen, indeed, BECAUSE of sacrificing her, would be rather problematic, even for a cable show. People would go, 'ew'.

Even within the fantasy world, the burning seems to have freaked out his sell swords, who deserted Stannis, taking all the horses. Realization finally hits Mel in the face: this guy is a loser. She quickly abandoned ship, leaving Stannis to lead his soldiers to their inevitable deaths.

Nasty.

A colossal waste of manpower and lives.

Stannis' final battle was utterly pointless, an exercise in form, a front. Good manners. Doing his duty mattered more than the life of his daughter, his soldiers, or even his own.

It is possible Stannis is still alive, of course, as the final blow was not shown. Why she'd refrain from killing him I don't know, given how she'd sworn on her honor to do so, but it would serve as a nice opposite to Arya's indulgence in sadism. Martin likes to juxtapose things, both themes and characters, so having one chose the higher path while the other takes the low road would make sense. Think Varys vs. Littlefinger, Cersei vs. Ned, Thorne vs. Jon, Mel vs. Onion, and Slave Owner Dude vs. Danny.

I'm just not sure it would make sense for Brienne in this situation.

So the new question is: where does Melisandra go from here? It's now evident that Stannis' death, perhaps his whole journey, is a learning point for her. It may instigate character growth. That or she's soon for the grave as well.

She's the one who pushed Stannis to burn people alive. She promised he'd win the throne.

And she was dead wrong.

It says something about the nature of magic in the World of Westeros. Spells may work, but prophecies are still written by lawyers. What you think you're getting is not what you really get.

What was the fine print at the bottom of all her fire visions? Was she simply so blinded by her own biases, her own faith in Stannis, that she ignored her god's message? Or is her god wrong? Is she a false prophet?

Where Stannis was always riven by doubt, she was certain. Now, she's been shaken.

I suspect that we'll see her team up now with Jon Snow. As a priestess, she can bring people back from the dead, and she needs that hero to save the world.

But if she does, she may find that Jon Snow is not as willing to compromise his morals when it comes to burning people alive.

Martin has to be given a lot of credit for zigging when people think he'll zag. Just when we think a story line will be wrapped up with a nice moral bow, he reverses, has the 'hero' beheaded, and the world thrown into chaos.

He does this just enough that, honestly, I don't feel I can predict which way things in the show will go. I knew Stannis would come to a dark end, but given all the prophecy stuff, thought he'd be at least around to meet the White Walkers. Of all the leaders in Westeros, he's the only one taking the threat seriously. Or even really aware of it.

The death of Jon Snow, betrayed by the short sighted Night's Watch, was a real jab to the heart. He was our leading man in the North, our young Santa Claus, the action man capable of fighting off the Walkers and Wights. His death leaves too big a hole in the show, and as such, I suspect he'll be back, either Berric Dondarian style, or like The Mountain. I suspect more like Berric, as The Mountain looks like he's pretty gross under that helmet, and it would dash Jon's sex appeal.

But the Night's Watch have really hobbled themselves with this one. Jon was a good leader, and he'd brought in the Wildlings to help resist the Walkers. Even killed one. Who will be liaison now between the two groups? Who can get them to cooperate, who isn't dead? To fulfill their anger, to sate their hate, they've slit their own throats.

That's the price of their revenge.

I'm not too concerned: Jon Snow will be back.

When Jamie and his neice/daughter left Dorne, you knew the instant she was given a kiss on the lips that she was doomed. Poisoned. I'd have thought they'd turn the ship around straight away for the antidote. You'd think the young prince would keep some on himself at all times, given how obsessed these Dorne nobles are with poisoning people. They seem to do it all the time, for kicks. They probably poison their sibling's birthday cakes, then give the antidote as a present.

You know, for fun.

As it is, the young prince is likely headed off into captivity, as a hostage for the Lannisters.

So her revenge will beget further revenge, and two nations will be plunged into war, just when everyone has to unite to oppose the Walkers, all because people are so consumed with anger and hate they can't see past it.

How ruinous revenge often is.

Arya's revenge upon Meryn Trant was initially satisfying, given he was a real monster, but as it went on, it became uglier and uglier. There's something dehumanizing about it, and how far Arya was willing to go. Not good for the soul to embrace hate so close. Still, you can entirely understand why she did it, that she had very good reasons for doing so, and that his death was deserved, even if the manner of it was, well, pretty horrible.

It was the way Joffrey deserved to go.

Be careful what you wish for. When we finally got a harsh punishment for a nasty piece of work, it has a vile after taste.

I suspect Arya will be descending into even darker places unless her blindness and the belief her actions almost got Jaqen killed brings her back from the brink. She's got more lessons to learn.



Cersei's walk of shame is undoubtably going to lead to a great big orgiastic feast of revenge. At least, I expect her to make a damn good try of it. She's going to be out for the High Sparrow's head, along with half the city. Especially with her undead Mountain as enforcer. I don't expect Tommen to survive it all. That hapless, sweet little kid isn't long for this world, thanks largely to the machinations of his mother. Cersei's flaws, one way or another, will be the cause of his death. Will she recognize the irony? Probably not.

Was her walk of shame the god's revenge for her impious actions? Can her punishment even be described as revenge, or should it be seen as medieval justice? Karma? Where do you draw the line?

At Winterfell, Theon/Reek grows some virtual balls and saves Sansa from that nasty little stable girl, Myranda, who wants revenge upon Sansa for muscling in on her hawt sadomasochistic Ramsay action. She goes spinning over the rail and meets swift justice at the hands of a paving stone.

Yay paving stone!

Then Sansa and Reek are off jumping into snow banks. I hope there's nothing sharp under all that fluffy white stuff.

If they're caught by Ramsay, well, there'll be more revenge to be meted out. Season long torture porn revenge. Maybe two seasons worth if he's really pissed.

It's one of the wheels that keeps Westeros spinning.

As much fun as it is hating the guy, I hope he meets Mr. Paving Stone soon.

Now it's back to the post-apocalypse, at least until next year.

Game of Thrones: A Dance of Dragons

Stannis goes The Full Evil, and Danerys has a Kodak moment.

Both of these leaders have been struggling to balance their personal beliefs with the harsh demands of ruling the unruly.

Stannis, the stickler, often inflicts harsh punishments for crimes, and does so with unwavering certainty and not a jot of mercy.

He's also a grammar Nazi.

He's been chucking his morals away ever since he met Melissandre, who brings out the brother-killing-heathen-frying worst in him.

The Onion Knight, the angel of his better nature, finally lost the fight for Stannis' soul last night.

Heaven help anyone who uses improper conjugation now.

His character has been struggling between light and dark for several seasons now, and he's been frequently leaning dark. Certainly more than his closest rival, Danerys.

Speaking of whom, she soared last night.

Literally.

She climbed atop the back of her dragon and left her friends in the dust, to be murdered by the Harpies. Just kidding. I'm sure they're okay, even in the high casualty world of GoT.

Danny abolished slavery and imprisoned two of her dragons to prevent them from snacking on shepherd kids, but for the sake of social stability opened up the fighting pits again. She's trying to go along to get along, condoning and presiding over people hacking each other to death for her amusement, which repulses her.

That reaction would sadly have been atypical in the period we're looking at. Cruelty, torture, and violence were extremely common and accepted back then. People flocked to the Coloseum to see gladiators butcher each other, and animals tear criminals to pieces. Such games were enormously popular, and wouldn't be abandoned until the Christian movement began to take hold late in the era of the Roman Empire. Understandably so, as the Christians were often unwilling participants in the arena. By the time the more violent games were shut down, historian Matthew White estimates some 3.5 million people had died for amusement's sake.

And people criticize video games.

G.R.R. Martin is well versed in history and myth, so there's precedent for much of what we see in Game of Thrones. Agamemnon sacrificed a daughter on the way to Troy. Royal brothers frequently murdered each other, just as Stannis had Renly killed.

All the sadism we're seeing is a part of human history, and we do a disservice to our modern times by forgetting how far we've come. If anything, Martin and HBO are holding back.

Thankfully they didn't actually show footage of Shireen going up in flames.

Surprisingly, it was her religious fanatic mother who broke down and tried to intervene.

Burning people at the stake repulses us, as viewers. A thousand years ago, it was a form of entertainment. People would bring their kids to watch people being burned or drawn and quartered.

Stannis has a tragic aspect, like Shakespeare's MacBeth. He's a man who started out with potential, and a conscience, and let it whittle away.

There's no going back now. He's done. Committed to the dark side. Dead in the hearts of the audience.

He's going to come to a very bad end.

Too bad he's not Anakin Skywalker. That guy was forgiven for slaughtering younglings and worse.

Danny, on the other hand, still has potential. Paired with Tyrion, we're looking at Team Projection. These two are the ones our modern sensibilities map onto best, and they, along with Jon Snow, will be the ones who drive the show home and win the day. Everyone else is expendable. Except maybe Bran, who's busy turning into a tree. Don't ask.

What interests me now is the horrible moral calculus going on. Mel insists that only Stannis can stop the White Walkers. Since he must triumph to save humanity, any sacrifice to that end is justifiable, or so she would claim

Of course, that's the excuse that every fanatic uses. 'My cause is just so I can commit any sin I like.'

It's for truth and justice and the Westeros way, after all.

Is Martin going to pull the rug out from under this narrative?

We know the Lord of Light, or something, bestows power upon Mel and that drunk priest who's always resurrecting the poor guy who's always being hacked to bits by the Clegane Clan.

Is Rhulor or Ruhlyr or whatever it's called really the one true god, or just another supernatural dick who's yanking humanity's chain around, like the White Walkers are? Are we just looking at two adolescent gods who happen to be jerks?

Wasn't that a Star Trek episode?

I know Danny will be there for the final battle, along with Tyrion and Jon Snow. Even that significant touch by Jorah, the absent minded douche, will not stop her from attending.

I doubt Stannis will, but if he does, he'll die there.

The most interesting question to me, as far as Stan and Mel are concerned, is the validity of her prophecy: is Stan really necessary to stop the Walkers, is all of it a lie? Did he kill all those people for nothing?

Who's the most evil character on Game of Thrones?

This is a toughie.

There are lots of rotters on the show (and I'm explicitly discussing the television adaptation here), from icicle Night Kings to face swapping assassins and sadistic tyrants.

Complicating things further is how you define evil. Is evil in the intent, or the outcome? Is it the scale of the horrors inflicted, or the depths of sadism reached?

We'll try and balance between the two.

Without further ado, here are the candidates and their tongue-in-cheek rating:

"Hey baby, I'm the king. Want to go torture some kittens with me?"

King Joffrey
One of the most hated characters on television in his prime, King Joffrey was our go-to guy for on-screen cruelty. He was a petty, vicious little sadist, and therein lies his saving grace: he thought small.

Going out of the castle and conquering and exterminating entire peoples was out of his comfort zone. He'd be perfectly happy staying home, eating cake and torturing people to death.

Think about all the nasty little things he wanted to do to Sansa, such as presenting Rob Stark's head to her in a box at their wedding. Clearly the little inbred bugger put a lot of thought into that idea. He was inordinately proud of it.

He liked to torment the people around him, emotionally and physically, and the intimacy of their individual level suffering is what he fed off of. The bigger stuff was just a distraction from his real, petty interests.

Besides that, he was a sniveling coward.

So while Joffrey is still my favorite character to hate on the show, his evil is narrow, petty, and small in scope. He's most dangerous to the people in his immediate sphere of influence, not necessarily to the country as a whole, which he mostly left to his grandfather, Tywin, to administer.

Evil Grade: A-

"What do you mean? I AM smiling."

Tywin Lannister
A nasty piece of work, Tywin was smart enough to reign in his viler impulses, subordinating them to a sense of duty and obligation to family. He hated and detested Tyrion, for example, but refrained from killing him because he believed family ties took precedent. This restraint makes him one of G.R.R. Martin's most interesting creations.

A Machiavellian long term thinker, Tywin was tremendously effective and made alliances with his enemies whenever it suited his purposes, then broke them when they didn't. He advanced the interests of the Lannisters Clan with tireless, ruthless, methodical efficiency and got Joffrey, his grandson, seated on the Iron Throne.

A spiritually ugly person, personally immoral and politically amoral, he nevertheless had an interest in maintaining peace and stability in Westeros. He would be what is referred to as a 'Stationary Bandit': it was in his interest to protect the lives of the citizenry. He can't tax dead people. Only the White Walkers can do that.

So he doesn't make the cut either.

Evil Grade: B+

"Don't you know who I am?"

Cersei Lannister
Nasty, petty, and mean, Cersei believes herself immune to repercussions due to her position of status and power. Her thwarted ego makes her feel simultaneously both persecuted and privileged. More focused on small slights and winning control over her brood, Cersei lacks the reptilian emotional disconnect of her father, and is positively indignant when she doesn't get her way. She believes she can play with the best power brokers, but she is too focused on short term gain, and inclined to let emotion taint her judgement. She arms the faith militant, for example, which gains her immediate benefit (bringing down her rival for Tommen's favour) but at a huge long term cost.

Unlike Tywin, she's not able to parse consequences clearly, and as a result hobbles herself.

She wants what she wants when she wants it. And that's generally where her thinking ends.

On the other hand, she did have her husband King Robert murdered, setting into motion a chain of events that would convulse Westeros and lead to tens of thousands of deaths. So that counts for something.

Evil Grade: C+

Oh Ramsay, you are such a wag.

Ramsay Bolton 
A man who gives Joffrey a run for his money in terms of sheer depravity. Ramsay is more hands on than Joffrey, and takes greater risks. He's willing to get his hands dirty, get down in the muck and blood and hack heads off. He enjoys hunting human beings. He spent an entire season torturing Theon, cut the fallen aristocrat's wang off, and then ate a sausage in front of him. Don't say he hasn't got a sense of humor.

But like Joffrey, Ramsay is limited by his own petty, sadistic pursuits. He'll get his hands dirty if he has to, but he'd much prefer to spend his time inflicting emotional and physical pain on people under his immediate control. Every season he spends torturing one guy in his keep is one season less he spends laying waste to the countryside. Nor does he initiate high level action, unless it is practically forced upon him.

He's not a strategic thinker.

He's got potential, though, and his story hasn't yet been brought to a close.

But the odds are against him.

He's clever, not smart.

Evil Grade: A-

Even he looks bored.

Roose Bolton
The man holding Ramsay's leash, he's a colorless calculating machine who'll do whatever is necessary to advance the interests of his house. Practical and opportunistic, but not a high level manipulator. He parasites advantage off the machinations of his betters.

He's got the imagination of a brick, and everything he does is reactive.

A harsh ruler, he just lacks the depraved zeal for evil of Ramsay or Joffrey, although flaying people alive as a house practice takes him from a C to a C+.

Evil Grade: C+

The alpha ape stare.

Gregor Clegane
Otherwise known as The Mountain, Gregor is a beast of a man, but ultimately he's just hired muscle. He might as well have mush for a brain, because he's just going to do what Tywin tells him. Of course, Tywin's a good judge of men, and he knows what Gregor is good for: raping, killing, pillaging, burning, and busting sh*t up. The Mountain enjoys it, and Tywin has need for it. It's win-win. The Mountain is a tool for enforcing the Lannister 'peace', nothing more.

Interestingly, the difference between the living Gregor and the undead, Dr. Franken-Maester monster Gregor is mostly in the complexion.

Evil Grade: C+

"Big brother barbequed my face."

Sandor Clegane (The Hound)
A brute and a thug who believed he lived in a dog-eat-dog world, and had the experience to back up that cynical world view. His brother shoved his face in a fire when he was a kid for taking a toy, and his dad didn't seem to have much of a problem with that. But he grew and grew and went on to be an enforcer for the Lannister clan, like his big bro. He's seen, and done, nasty stuff. While no one would ever call him refined or tender or particularly nice, he had a conscience.

Evil Grade: E

Should I have the chicken, or the beef? Where are my advisors when I need them?

Stannis Baratheon
Stannis is a stiff, colorless and uninspiring. When growing up and playing with his brothers, you can imagine he was always the last kid to be picked to be king. Ambitious and rigid and a stickler for the rules, Stannis is torn between ambition and entitlement and what remains of his tortured conscience. Stannis internalizes events. He can psyche himself up to commit evil acts if he convinces himself it necessary (killing his brother, burning heretics alive, including his wife's brother. Best not to be a brother around Stannis), but his conscience always comes back and nags him.

I'm betting the guy doesn't sleep very well.

He's willing to listen to advice, which is wise, and relies heavily on two people: Melissandre (dressed in blood red) and The Onion Knight. One represents ambition and power and the other conscience and decency.

Eventually Stannis will break with one of them.

The great complicating factor here is that Melissandre believes the real struggle is going to be against the White Walkers. The fire god obviously has a role to play in this battle (as do a certain three dragons), with the fate of humanity at stake. So one could argue that the small scale evils Mel demands (all the human sacrifice, burning people alive, killing your brothers) are small potatoes when the lives of everyone on the planet are at stake. Very Cabin in the Woods. And 'The needs of the many outweigh…'

As is typical, Stannis hasn't made his final decision yet, but I suspect he will have to sooner or later, pushing his grade up or down.

Ultimately, I suspect he's just too conflicted to really, wholeheartedly endorse a path of untrammeled evil.

UPDATE: Wow, was that the wrong call. Mel did warn him he'd have to betray everything he'd ever loved to be king, in which case, why would you want to?

But Stan ruhly, ruhly wants to be king.

I wonder if it will taste like ashes?

Evil Grade: A

"I wants it, I wants it right now. Now, now, NOW!"

Viserys Targaryen
Mad, bad, and entitled, Viserys would have been a great monster if he'd been given the chance to bloom into full adult awfulness. Unlike Joffrey and Ramsay, Vis thought big. And he was a selfish, egomaniacal brat, a preening narcissist who he was willing to sell his own sister into sex slavery to advance his own bid for the Iron Throne. I mean, this guy literally pimped out his sister to conquer the world.

He combined the best of micro and macro level evil.

If he'd managed to lead the Dothraki back into Westeros, you can be sure he would not have been kind to the people he conquered.

There's just one problem: Viserys was an impatient idiot with the emotional sophistication of a five year old. And there are inanimate objects smarter than he was.

His irrepressible sense of entitlement and gargantuan emotional need for recognition and power vastly exceeded his ability, and he just couldn't wait to grow into his ambition. He wanted everything now, now, NOW. Ultimately his ADD egomania undermined and cut short a very promising career in evil.

Sure, petulance and lack of self-control got him a gold crown; it just wasn't the kind he was looking for.

Badly fumbled.

All need, no ability.

Evil Grade: D for dumb

"Would you like to see my boobies?"

Melisandre
A sorceress ('She's a witch!'), dedicated to the Lord of Light, Stannis Baratheon the-one-true-king, and burning people alive, Melisandre likes to screw people and produce murderous shadow demon babies. No one uses sex as a weapon quite like our red hot religious fundamentalist tamale. Or rather, the offspring of sex as weapons.

And yet, ultimately she may be acting to save humanity from extinction, if her one-true-god really is true and a god. The Lord of Light is not a nice god, however, demanding human sacrifice and burning heretics at the stake. But if you have to choose between total extermination at the hands of the White Walkers and the loss of a few gay aristocrats to leeches and shadow demon babies, well, I imagine most people in Westeros are willing to have a few less in the ruling class.

Cabin in the Woods, however, made the opposite choice, picking total extermination.

It's an interesting and ugly moral question: how morally compromised can you be and keep living?

In the world of Westeros, pretty damned f*cking compromised.

But it doesn't get Melisandre any higher a grade.

She's a servant, acting not for her own glory or advancement, but on the instruction of higher powers. She expends lives when it is useful, and is intolerant of other faiths.

Of course, Melisandre's god may just be an evil poseur, and the real salvation will come in the form of Danerys and her dragons. I'm not sure that would surprise me. But Game of Thrones leans dark, so…

Evil Grade: C+

"My distant ancestors will become used car salesmen."

Littlefinger
Now here's a guy who marries Machiavelli with the impish charisma of a Baltimore politician. He seems so obsequious, like the Brit star of the original House of Cards. So unctuous he sets your teeth on edge, yet at the same time he's manipulating rings around you.

If Ned Stark thought one step ahead, Cersei thinks two steps ahead, Danerys thinks five steps ahead, and Tywin thinks ten steps ahead, then Littlefinger thinks a hundred ahead. He's figuring out the end of the chess game from your first move.

Littlefinger has been manipulating events in Westeros from the very beginning. He was in on getting Robert Baratheon assassinated (which got the whole bloodbath-brawl for the crown going), betrayed and brought down Ned Stark, and helped kill King Joffrey. He's had his sticky little digits in just about every murderous machination in the last five seasons.

G.R.R. Martin has set up Littlefinger and Varys as polar opposite manipulators in the Royal Court: Varys represents order, and Littlefinger chaos. It was spelled out in no uncertain terms when the two sparred over their visions for the country in an otherwise empty throne room. Littlefinger says flat out he views chaos 'as a ladder' and as such seeks to foster and benefit from it as much as possible.

And he's right. Chaos is a ladder. A mechanism for injecting murderous psychopaths into the very top rungs of society, because the rules fall into abeyance, social niceties no longer need be obeyed, and the most ruthless and cutthroat can unleash their inner monster and let it run roughshod over the world. Which is why someone as conniving, ruthless, amoral, ambitious and manipulative like Littlefinger likes disrupting the status quo. The system would otherwise freeze him out.

As an outsider, Littlefinger had no chance of ruling Westeros. Under King Robert, it was unipolar. By killing the king, the country became multipolar, divided, and chaos unfolded. Pieces were removed from the board one by one in a very bloody process, as we've seen unfold over the last three seasons.

Now he's closer to actual power than he ever was before.

Littlefinger's willing to murder both intimates and faceless millions so long as it advances his agenda and clears out the corrupt aristocracy in the process.

But he cannot be trusted at all.

Littlefinger is smarter than Tyrion, more manipulative than Cersei, more ruthless than Tywin, more charismatic than Roose, more likable than Ned, and more resourceful than Varys.

Unlike many of the other characters, Littlefinger has taken a weak hand and turned it into a strong one. He's like the McGyver of chaos, able to bring down governments using an elastic band and piece of chewing gum. His competitors, such as Joffrey, wouldn't be able to seize power and influence unless it was handed directly to them.

Littlefinger creates opportunity (ie. chaos).

He's the uber character, and the recent wars in Westeros wouldn't have happened without him.

Unfortunately, Littlefinger's incredible skill set make him come across more as a plot device, an engine to move the plot forward, than a real human being. Ultimately he is too cool a cucumber, too perfect in his manipulations to seem fully real compared to flawed, fallible characters around him. His abilities are preternatural, and his inside knowledge of the world seems more like that of the writer himself than a character contained within it.

He's flat.

But that's just a quibble.

Evil Grade: A+

"Yeah, that's right, look what I can do, biatch."

The Night King
The big bad of the entire series, the 'ice' in A Song of Ice and Fire, the Night King's full potential is yet untapped. He hasn't had more than two or three scenes in five seasons, so his ability to express his inner evil has been seriously limited. Stuck in the barren tundra, he hasn't been given the opportunity to shine, at least, not yet.

The question is whether or not we should judge him as a character or as a force of nature. We know so little of the White Walkers. What are they? Can we judge them as humans, or are their interests so different that the ordinary rules no longer apply? Do they think, or just act? Does the guy even talk?

Does it even matter?

His capacity for destruction is obviously great, as we saw with the zombie avalanche last week. But what about betrayal? Lies? Deceit? Sadism? Cruelty? All those evil things. Does this guy do anything other than kill people and raise them up from the dead to kill more people? That's evil, but it's kind of boring, one-minded evil.

I mean, why is he even doing this? Will we ever know? Does he even know? Does George?

I suspect the White Walkers are more of a primordial force, an expression of Thanatos itself, much as The Lord of Light is an expression of fire, the passion of life, which puts them outside our usual moral evaluations.

The effect of a meteor strike might be described as evil, but as a force of nature there was never any intent. It had no choice. No free will.

The lack of motivation and the single-mindedness of The Night King's actions makes him less interesting than Littlefinger, his nearest human competitor.

The worst thing would be if Littlefinger became The Night King.

Now that would be delightfully bad.

Being determined and focused in your evil can be a good thing for a villain, but The Night King takes this too far and becomes less interesting because of it.

Evil Grade: A

So there you have it.

Littlefinger is, hands down, the most evil man in Westeros. He's a medieval fantasy world mish-mash of Machiavelli, Josef Stalin, Mao, and Hitler all rolled into one compact, mousy package.

Ed Wood's Attitude

Some days, don't ya just feel like Ed Wood? Like you're meeting Orson Welles, only you're in dress?

Fabulous scene.

My other favourite has Ed on the phone with a studio executive:

"Worst film you've ever seen, eh? Well, my next one will be better!… Hello?"

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You might like it.

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Game of Thrones: Hardhome review

What you got?

SPOILERS aplenty.

The dam has broken.

For awhile it was feeling like the show was going nowhere, just running in place like the Red Queen.

Now the setup is paying off.

Last week we saw the tables turned on Cersei (Lena Headey), everyone's favorite ice queen (she and the Night King should really get together. They'd create some lovely, icy blonde babies together).

Cersei's been playing with fire for some time now, unwisely arming the Faith Militant and unleashing them on the city of King's Landing for her own selfish purposes. They've taken down her rival for Tomen's affection, Margaery, but now the Faith Militant have turned upon her and chucked her into a cell. Adding to the sting, Cersei had just gloated over her imprisoned rival, and even approved of Margaery's dreadful prison conditions.

Whoops.

Foresight and wisdom are not Cersei's strong suit.

Always with the short term thinking, Cersei is, unlike her Machiavellian father Tywin (Charles Dance) who played the long game and stayed his hand when it came to short term gratification of his personal hatreds.

Cersei? She just can't help, or stop, herself.

Now she's in the same state as Margaery (Natalie Dormer), just a different cell, and facing far, far more serious charges: incest, treason, and murder.

In fact, murdering the king would count as High Treason.

Now, G.R.R. Martin has always been good at giving characters interesting and contrasting traits, and then educating us all by letting the consequences play out. That's what good storytelling does.

In Hardhome, Cersei finds her usual coping strategies (death threats, sweet lies, faux sympathy, assassination) don't work on her religious fundamentalist jailers. She's alienated so many people no one is keen on rescuing her. The only exception to that, her brother Jamie, has problems of his own: he's in a cell himself.

Cersei is advised to confess by her Dr. Frankenstein-esque pet Maester, but her contempt for the High Sparrow prevents her from considering confession as an option. Given that she's licking water off a filthy dungeon floor, how long that will last is an open question.

Not long is my guess.

Tomen is obviously doomed by narrative logic. He's not going to survive any effort to free his wife or mother. Cersei's efforts to secure her own position and undermine Margery will kill her last, precious boy as surely as if she'd stabbed him in the heart herself. That's the iron law of irony, more sure and certain than any motto governing the Iron Islanders.

Not that Cersei will accept any responsibility for this. She's very good at sloughing that sort of thing off onto others (Tyrion) and then trying to have them murdered.

Danerys has a scintillating one on one meeting with Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), which doesn't disappoint. I was concerned given some of the plot oddities and sub-par dialogue in recent episodes. For example, the slavers were going to sell Tyrion's cock for a fortune, until they let it go for a coin. And the slave owner who purchased them had his whole stock slaughtered in a qualification fight. How's that profitable? Nor did the last meeting between Littlefinger and Cersei sit well with me. Wasn't up to the show's usual standards, in my opinion. She just swallowed his scheming lies whole, and she's usually less trusting and more cynical than that. In a minute or two, just on his say so, she's sold out her allies in the north and made Littlefinger the new warden-to-be.

What the?

Thankfully the dialogue between Danerys and Tyrion crackled and felt real and authentic to the characters.

This looks like the beginning of a great friendship, as Captain Renault might say.

And Tyrion gave some decent advice regarding the doomed Jorah Mormont, who's being consumed by creeping grayscale. The actors played the scene well; Danny got across deep hurt and Jorah the final resignation of a doomed romantic.

Their friendship is over and there's just no bringing it back.

Arya's beginning to explore her new, more casual relationship with identity, swapping them in and out as directed by the Many Faced God's minion Jaqen. She seems to enjoy her new role as actor slash assassin.

Back in the far north, Sansa confronts Reek over his betrayal of her and her family, and surprisingly, he reveals he did it to protect her. He's been so crushed and demolished as a human being he believes Ramsay knows all and sees all, and that if she'd tried to escape, she'd just be tracked down by Ramsay and nailed to an X and tortured for a whole TV season. Theon's a miserable creature, on top of being despicable, and he's brought it all on himself with overweening ambition, hubris and treachery. He betrayed his friends, seized Winterfell, and murdered little boys. I'd actually forgotten about that. He burned two innocent little kids to cover his incompetence at losing the Stark boys.

He had it pretty good and he threw it all away to try and please his unpleasable biological father, a grumpy hard-ass.

Meanwhile the flesh flaying Boltons are looking to sit tight in Winterfell and let 'King' Stannis freeze in the snow, which is a solid strategy given that Stannis doesn't seem to have much of a supply system going and they can't live off the land in the barren north during winter.

Ramsay, however, is looking for a little glory of his own, and proposes a commando mission with twenty men to presumably, assassinate Stannis.

I doubt the show runners will let Ramsay die far away from Winterfell and out of sight of Sansa. It wouldn't be as fulfilling. Theon and Sansa should at least be present at his death, and I doubt he'll take them along on his mission. Nor is it likely Ramsay will be the one to kill Stannis. Wouldn't be dramatic enough.

He's chum for Brienne.

Hard home from the air

The best part of the episode was the most contrived in terms of timing. No sooner has Jon arrived at Hardhome and convinced a fraction of the Wildlings to join the Crows than the White Walkers attack. Perhaps a little too convenient, but then, last second timing is de rigeur in film and television.

And if you ever say, "I'm right behind you, I promise," well, you won't be. Narrative law. Just don't say it. Especially not to cute kids and without a signed contract for more than one episode.

But that's a quibble.

The sequence more than makes up for the convenient timing with audacity and originality. It's freaking magnificent.

At first, no one is sure what's happening. The subtlety here really makes it.  It just looks like a kind of avalanche of dirty snow. People stand about gaping, but before long, we realize it's a tidal wave of undead flinging themselves over the cliffs, and then all hell breaks out and the running and screaming starts.

The ensuing battle is great stuff, feature film level, even better than feature film, and top line feature film at that (better than World War Z or Age of Ultron, effects wise and in terms of direction and editing), the best and most disturbing (think zombie kids) battle sequence since Stannis stormed King's Landing way back in season three.

My favourite part? Wun Wun stomping on a skeleton, turning it into skelepancake. He's effortlessly badass.

More Wun Wun! More!

Jon's mano-a-mano deathmatch with the Walker is also great, especially that look they share before one goes down for the count, and it gives a much needed personal scale element to the whole fight.

As Jon and his friends escape back to their ships, he locks eyes with the series big bad, the Night King himself, who raises up all the freshly butchered Wildlings as fresh wights.

What a show-off.

For every man the living lose, the White Walkers get stronger. Now they have the largest army in the world.

The episode repeatedly hits on the issue of belief: Jorah believes in Danerys, Danerys gives Tyrion reason for living. Cersei believes she will soon be freed, her captor believes in her righteousness, Olly believes in Sam, Sam believes Jon, Jon believes in the common interests of humanity, the Wildlings believe in Giantsbane. I love how the show runners are structuring the episodes around such compelling themes: betrayal, belief, loyalty, power, trust, etc. Love it! Shows real depth of thought and challenges the characters in ways many shows don't.

That's all topped off by Maester Frankenstein who dryly says: 'Belief is so often the death of reason.'

Ain't it, though?

Reason is emotion's bitch, as another more pointedly put it.

And of course, the undead minions of the White Walkers require no faith. They are beyond faith, following without question, hope, pain, food or shelter.

And after taking Hardhome, there are an awful lot more.

If they get beyond the wall, I wonder if the writers can come up with a plausible way to stop them.

The one word that comes to mind?

Dragons!

When killed, his clothes turn to ice along with his body.

Come to think of it, I think Dr. Hibbert on The Simpsons once had wise words regarding fire...

UPDATE: Check out how it was made:

Fan-freaking-tastic!

Episode six, you are forgiven.