Saturday, September 2, 2017

TV Quote of the Day (‘Game of Thrones,’ on How ‘Chaos is a Ladder’)



Lord Varys [played by Conleth Hill]: “But what do we have left, once we abandon the lie? Chaos? A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.”

Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish [played by Aidan Gillen]: “Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.”— Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 6, “The Climb,” original air date May 5, 2013, teleplay by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, based on  A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, directed by Alik Sakharov

Throughout 12 years of Catholic school, I was told repeatedly that confession is good for the soul. So, when it comes to my viewing habits, here goes mine: I have not been a Game of Thrones fan. In fact, this year I have not even been a watcher.  I have elected not to include HBO in my already-swollen monthly cable bill.

This past winter, with curiosity getting the better of me, I finally rented a DVD package of Season 1 from an area library. I got through the pilot episode, “Winter Is Coming,” and quickly surmised the elements it had in common with a prior HBO hit series, The Sopranos: main characters who were, at best, morally ambiguous; envelope-pushing sex and nudity; power struggles marked by deceit and double-crosses; and eruptions of over-the-top violence that might (or might not) spring from that infighting. 

Most of all, there were a lot of unusual, tongue-tying named characters and places. How could I understand the plots without learning these names? And how could I learn that without devoting serious time to binge-watching, and/or reducing my time for blogging? The decision not to watch seemed practically made for me.

But a close relative of mine swears that the show is must-see TV; I have been fascinated by some of the punchier dialogue from the series that has made its way into the popular press; and the closing episode of this season was garnering even greater attention for the show than usual. This past week, while on vacation and staying in an accommodation with HBO, I decided to catch a repeat of this closing episode.

Somewhere in this great land, someone has missed that hour and some minutes, so I won’t be providing spoilers. But I will say that the master manipulator  in the above quote features prominently in the proceedings—and, especially after a Maureen Dowd column last month from the New York Times that likened this fictitious individual to real-life counterparts on the national stage today, my interest was piqued.

Additionally, this character possessed a nickname similar to that of the man dubbed a “short-fingered vulgarian” by the magazine Spy in the late 1980s. We will see soon whether  current events begin to resemble even more this TV series on the tumult caused by access to power.

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