GoT Tyrion?

Um, I, like, don't know about you, but I have, like, fallen in love with Game of Thrones. *smacks gum*
Enough with the sickening valley girl accent, but I have to admit that I love Game of Thrones. Ever since a friend of mine introduced me to the HBO series, I have been glued to the screen, damaging both my productivity and my eyesight. Like the Walking Dead (see previous post), GoT has very realistic characters, not to mention a ton of them.

Let's chat about my favorites:
LA PRIMERA EN ESTE RINCÓN: Arya Stark
     She is the girl every tomboy strives to be (or not to be, because they generally don't care). Arya has a strong sense of justice for a girl who hasn't even hit puberty yet, and she is badass about it. From taking sword lessons to escaping the castle with a caravan for the Knight's Watch to *spoiler* pretty much becoming an assassin, she takes everything in stride and works hard to survive. She makes her sister Sansa look like a spoiled brat (which isn't hard to do).

EL SEGUNDO EN ESE ASIENTO: Tyrion Lannister
     Tyrion, my man... Even if you hate Tyrion, you have to admire his acuity. The man knows how to bring someone down several notches - more noticeably when his opponent misses the whiplash of Tyrion's backserve. I'm not gonna lie, at first, Tyrion seemed kind of annoying. He knew his wealth/power, and he used it. There weren't going to be any misconceptions with Tyrion around. But as the series progresses, you learn more about Tyrion's past - his treatment by his father and others as "less than a man," cruel pranks in love, and the pressure associated with being a member of the backstabbing yet powerful Lannister clan. In the second season, more of his morally good and caring side has begun to appear, and you can't help but begin to love and respect him. Right, Laura? ;)

LA TERCERA EN AQUEL BOOTH DE LAS FOTOGRAFÍAS: Daenerys Targaryen
     *cue music* Her brother sucks... she lives with ducks... Dae-ner-ys Tar-gar-yen. Just kidding. She doesn't live with ducks, but rather with proud horselords that even the "civilized" fear. Poor Daenerys' misfortunate fate of being married to Drogo and becoming Khaleesi has actually brought out her fearsome side. If her creepy brother hadn't died, I wonder what he would have said? She now has mastery of baby dragons and a whole slew of people to protect, so I expect she'll have an interesting adventure coming her way, which is a total reverse from the timid, silent child she used to be. I'm interested to see if she will ever regain her usurped throne.

LOS GUAPOS: Eddrt (Ned) Stark & Jon Snow
     So, I have to say, I love your ideals, George R.R. Martin. Ned is the epitome of moral righteousness in every aspect. I'm so glad you killed him off. Don't get me wrong, I love Ned, he's, like, SUPER awesome and all, but it's so easy to like the obviously good character. By introducing us to a protagonist like Ned and then abruptly taking him away, we feel more lost and intrigued by what awaits us in the battle royale for the throne. Although I am still anxiously awaiting Jon Snow's conception story (time to start drinking someone under the table), I have a feeling that we will never know, as that is often the case in real life. Also, I am curious to see how Jon will handle life as a bastard, a subclass in society. His justice-seeking personality (like father like son) will definitely clash with his rank in the caste, so I can't wait to see how he will handle it and hopefully climb to the top. :)

My least favorites:

THE INCESTUOUS TWINS: Cersei and Jaime Lannister
     Dear Cersei & Jaime,
     Hi. I would like to discuss something with you.
     I know it's probably not going to happen for a few hundred years in your world (or not at all), but we have a thing here called "chromosomes." I know it may be hard for you to grasp, but these "chromosomes" are given to your children, and, sadly, inbreeding causes multiples of these chromosomes, leading to diseases and mutations. Although I dearly wish your son Joffrey would curl up in a hole and die, your other children seem rather nice and don't deserve this.
     Please. Think of the children.
   
     Sincerely, and with a backup cane prepared for Joffrey's erroneous behavior,
             Taylor

P.S. Jaime, I know I've told you this a dozen times (though you never seem to respond to me through the TV screen) but please, if you're going to kill a witness, do it right. Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino seem to get it quickly enough, so I think you're capable of it too, Kingslayer.

THE BITTER SPOUSE: Catelyn Stark
     I know you're actually a pretty good person, but sometimes I really can't stand you. You have angry feelings toward Jon (which I can understand, since he's the bright red welt on your pride), and you're gorgeous and aging well according to the HBO cast setup, but you are such a worrywart. You tend to overthink things, and, although it can benefit you, it generally tends to throw you off. But I pity you. It will be hard to be killed and then resurrected like the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Good luck with that.

THE BITTER SPOUSE'S EVEN MORE BITTER UNREQUITED LOVE: Littlefinger
      *giggles* Littlefinger. I wonder how you got THAT name. *chuckles*
     Anyway, I understand Littlefinger's resentment towards the Stark family for stealing his preciousssss Catelyn Tully, but... actually, I can't think of any but's. His life kind of sucks. He's running a brothel while stuck in a precarious position as informant weasel and advisor. But he does have a good point in the first season: if the royalty doesn't watch out for the people, who does? It makes me wonder if there is a secret society of these people. They all seem to have something sexually frustrating about them - commandeering a brothel (c'mon, it's hard work, people!), being a eunuch, etc. Poor bastards.





HONORABLE MENTION FOR FAVORITES: Robert Baratheon
     Oh my Agatha, how can I forget about Robert?! He was one of my favorite characters before his tragic boar mauling. His bromance with Ned made me think of two frat boys reminiscing over a kegger. He is such a jolly guy, even though his selfishness has become slightly unbearable since the death of Ned's sister. I'm sad his offspring were murdered, but I hope his son who is travelling with Arya will become a great person. :)

Anyway, this was just another brief post to delay my noise control studies at 2:30 in the madrugada.

Zombies, Lies, and Seduction

Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this blog! :O Anyway, on to pressing discussions...

THE WALKING DEAD

I began watching this with Laura's recommendation. Fucking love it. At first I was a bit worried, since the horror movies we watch are generally cheesy, and we tend to humor ourselves by mocking and imagining different scenarios for the characters of old '70s terror flicks. However, the series is so much more realistic than that. The Walking Dead introduces personalities and events that produce some serious moral dinner discussion. I have watched the first season, which brings a chaotic theme to life in 6 episodes (impressive!), and now I'm catching up on the second season (now on episode 8, hell yeah!).

A few things I like to consistently tell when I'm advertising the show to my friends like a street preacher selling God:

• The series premiere: The very first episode was riveting. It starts with a man waking up from a coma in a hospital with absolutely no notion of how he arrived there. He tries to enter the corridor but finds the door blocked from the outside. After body-slamming the door open weakly, he discovers the hallway is strewn with papers and upturned medical equipment and is DEVOID OF PEOPLE. Which, if I may mention, is naturally unusual since hospitals are all about the commotion. The man, whose name is Rick (probably should've mentioned that earlier), stumbles from the hospital exit to see dozens of bodies covered in sheets and half of the hospital building in crumbs. 
• What I love: The audience really feels the fear and confusion from the specific shots and cinematography. You know as little as poor Rick does. Also, the plotline and camera shots allow for the watcher to deduce the situation, slowly but surely. 
• The characters: After the first episode, and a little during it, you start to figure out the characters are deeper than the stereotypes. For example, in the first episode, Rick meets Morgan Jones, a man who stands as an informer to Rick and the audience about the zombie "apocalypse," and you can instantly tell that Morgan and his son Duane have been through a shitload of awful experiences since the zombification (Duane, his preadolescent son, meets Rick with a loaded rifle aimed in Rick's face). Morgan reveals how his wife was bitten and his inability to put her down (I don't really know what to call it, since she's already dead). During his story, the camera flashes to his wife, uncoordinatedly walking around in front of the house at night and scratching at the door like a lost cat looking for its owner. And the loss is apparent in Morgan's face as well as the pain in his son's. 
• What I love: The depth and reality of the characters. Morgan is one good example, and now, as I watch the second season, Shane is becoming more uncouth in his manner. After being "Shane the Savior," he has started to taste the bittersweet truth of his loneliness. The lack of reciprocity for his morally upright actions begins to wear him down, and he steadily loses his protective nature towards others.
• Plotline: The story is loaded with events that present the group with moral dilemmas. In each episode, the characters each deal with a scenario that forces them to make an ethical decision.
• What I love: As if it isn't enough to cause the characters' mental mechanisms to surface, it urges the audience to think as well. What if I were in said situation? If my sibling, parent, child, friend, spouse, etc. were turned into some grotesque version (not just aesthetically) of their former selves and it was dangerous for others and myself, would I have the courage to kill them? How dangerous is too dangerous, and can I do for others what I hope they would equivalently do for me? Another concept not to be taken lightly is the formation of a society. As the group becomes isolated from others (and each other) because of distrust, the roles become clarified: leader, devil's advocate, survival expert, the woman (I really don't know what to call this emotional role - something along the lines of Rev. Lovejoy's wife in the Simpsons - "Think of the children!" Lol), the voice of reason, the instigator, the religious fanatic, and all the background characters to enhance the movement of the plotline. Although the societal change doesn't evolve as quickly as that of The Mist (whoa, Marcia Gay Harden, put the bible down and stop sacrificing people like the Aztecs), it allows for a good study of the evolution of human interactions.

So, these are just a few of my faaaavorite thiiiiinngsssss (I've got to start toning down the Sound of Music segues) about the Walking Dead. I hope it continues on (as I have yet to reach the amazingness of the mystery hooded figure Yahoo! mentioned in an article about the season finale), and I hope it continues to maintain my interest. :D

P.S. I LOVE YOU, GLEN! Call me anytime. ;)