Illustration by Alex Bedder.

Our guest essay answerer this week is none other than our GoT illustrator, Alex Bedder! Give him a hand!

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. We like to say "Seal it with a kiss" (or, at least, Britney Spears does), but the more appropriate term for our characters in this week's episode might be "Seal it with some sex." What special significance does tonight's episode put on doing (or not doing) the nasty? Things to consider: Religious rituals that had seemingly nothing to do with sex and everything to do with kinky leeches, Tyrion's dilemma of honor vs. self-preservation (strategically, he'd be much, much better off having sex with Sansa and getting her pregnant) and Dany's renewed policy of giving it up to whichever dude kills the most jerks for her?

Sex on Game of Thrones can be overall be described as gratuitous in different ways, whether it’s Littlefinger instructing in the art of seduction, Podrick being “gifted” or Theon starring in the worst porno ever. This week was interesting because doing it, and the absence of doing it, had to do with conflicting desires that weren't as straightforward. Melisandre uses sex to “hide the knife” from baby lamb Gondry, and the arousal in the ritual is less of a requirement then means to get a leech on to someone’s manhood. Tyrion does the good thing, but not necessarily the smart thing because of his word, to Shae that she will not be his whore, and in terms of the promise he made to Sansa that he would never hurt her. This situations in contrast with Mero of the Second Sons and his fairly uncomplicated relationship to the opposite sex seem to fit with the idea that unions in this episode had much more to do with big picture, as opposed to only personal desire.

As for Dany, she has not slept with her new comrade yet, but has seemingly had the hots for him since he called out her bluff. But seriously, Khal Drogo has been dead forever now. So, if you were Dany and an impossibly handsome and strategic knight comes along, kills the man who was calling you a common whore and asking to see your ladybits, and pledges his allegiance to you because he basically "loves beauty" wouldn't you also get with him?

2. Beyond the wall, Sam Tarly makes the first big revelation about the White Walkers since Jon Snow learned to set them on fire: While the big and mighty Night's Watch sword turns to powder when used against the undead, a tiny dagger dug up by a dog manages to do the trick. Could one read this as an allegory for Sam's entire existence (i.e. "It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it"; the whole "diamond in the rough" thing; that time Indiana Jones had to pick the cup of Jesus Christ to save his dad and it turned out to be the really plain one,) or is just another instance of fate intervening to keep this show's version of Hurley alive for comic relief?

First, there’s been some contention about White Walkers and wights. White Walkers are the mysterious and ancient beings from the far north. They can control dead bodies to do their biding, or in and AMC viewer’s terms they can make zombies (also, can’t believe there’s not many Walker/ White Walker fan fiction or memes being cooked up by Walking Dead and GoT fans).

Wasn’t what Jon Snow set on fire a reanimated corpse? Is this one of those logical problems, are we supposed to assume that if wights can be felled with fire, then so an White Walkers? All squares are rectangles, but not all squares can be killed with flames or dragon glass?

Speaking of dragon glass, that’s the answer to the question of whether last night’s confrontation said something about Sam’s character, or was merely just fate saving our favorite Crow. At the end of season two, it was Sam who recognized what the little daggers were made of, and that it was the First Men left who them there. Had Sam not been there, the White Walker kryptonite would have probably mistaken for junk. Ever the underdog, he sticks to his whole whole “the meek shall inherit” bit by literally sticking it to one of the most feared and powerful beings we have seen on the show. He’ll go on being my favorite accidental hero.

3. It's wedding season in Westeros! Tyrion marries Sansa, Joffrey is set to marry Margaery Tyrell and his mom is going to marry Margaery's brother, Ser Loras. While Cersei might have The Rains of Castamere playing on repeat, Lady Olenna is taking a certain kind of glee in performing her own version of "I'm My Own Grandpa." Chart out--if it's humanely possible--the new extended Lannister family tree. Bonus points for when the branches don't fork.

4. Melisandre is getting less impressive every episode. She starts out the series by being immune to poison and using her lady powers to destroy Stannis' enemy by having their ghost baby to kill his brother. But when asked why they can't just do that to all the usurpers now, the Red Priestess tells the would-be king that he's "not strong enough."

We know the Lord of Light can do some awesome things like bring people back from the dead and set swords on fire, but is there a chance Melisandre is just a con artist nympho with a theatrical streak? Or do we still believe in her Theodoric of York-brand mysticism?

With all the Lord of Light hysteria at camp Stannis, and utter devotion to the cause (remember, non-believers are usually burned at the stake), it seems this season we’ve seen Melisandre talk the witchy zealot talk more than we’ve seen her walk the birthing-a-smoke-monster-baby walk. What Stannis questioned Davos with in this episode rings true, if we have seen truly miraculous things from the Red Priestess (and now others involved with the LoL), can we question the existence of her god?

Melisandre repeats this before she beds Gondry, that you only need “eyes to see” to accept god as real. For some people (Stannis) only need faith, for some others (Davos) they need proof. In these terms, the ritual she performs has more than one goal. There’s definitely lots of “because the LoL has willed it and Stannis is the true king” rhetoric, but it’s also crafty hocus pocus to squash questioning from one of Stannis’ closest friends. Many will still be asking Melisandre to show them the receipts, but the way that blood exploded out of the Joffrey leech seems to foreshadow some awful fate approaching for everyone’s favorite child king/sociopath/serial killer. If that comes to fruition, let’s stick with this Lord of Light guy.

5. How are we feeling about Dany's new buddy, the sellsword/lady killer (not literally), Daario Naharis? As sexy as it is to bring in your cohorts heads in a bag to prove your loyalty to a chick you just met because you "fight for beauty," his profession alone makes his motives dubious. (Although sellswords seem to be incredibly loyal in Game of Thrones...just look at Bronn!)

What would be the modern day pick-up method equivalent to Naharis' pledge of alliance to Dany? Is he more Mystery Method or "Hey Girl?" Discuss.

Illustration via Alex Bedder

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. Daenerys's negotiating style is less familiar to us from fantasy narratives than it is from gangster movies. She is not unlike an rising underworld kingpin using her muscle to build her empire, drawing her competitors into negotiations and then turning the tables with the threat of violence. "You thought this was a negotiation? Sorry, no. Say hello to my little friends. Oh, and leave the gold." Of course in this case, the weapons are her children (happy Mother's Day!), who also happen to be flying, fire-breathing teenage reptiles. How does this detail affect the genre conventions? Are the dragons more like guns or more like the ranking members of her growing gang?

It's hard to make a case that Daeny would fit any conventions of the gangster genre, for one simple reason: she's a woman. There are approximately zero famous mafia movies that feature a female Don, or even a woman who rises to any sort of role besides that of a femme fatale or beleaguered housewife. So of course, Khaleesi's weapons would be different: her henchmen are the Unsullied, and she keeps picking up new wartime consiglieri wherever she goes (to Jorah's dismay), but those dragons of hers break convention. The space they occupy is that of the supernatural, something that few alive have ever seen, let alone owned. And her relationship to them as their "mother" elevates them beyond the latest machine gun or disposable Fredo and into a much more dangerous category.

If you want the perfect movie analogy, these flying triplets are Rosemary's babies: triplets from hell who empower the formerly frightened girl to become the Mother of Dragons--a.k.a. "The Lady Who Waltzes Into Town and Tells Everyone That They Have to Free Their Slaves in Order to Be Slaughtered By Them, Django-Style."

Which is noble, sure, but Dany may have lost sight of her mission to become ruler of Westeros during all of this. While she's taking some satisfaction playing the new gunslinging sheriff (ooh, another genre!) to every slave-owning city on the continent of Essos, she's apparently forgotten that this detour will potentially take a couple lifetimes to accomplish. (Essos is "several times" larger than Westeros and an ocean away, so it's basically like she's going door-to-door through Asia as a shortcut to becoming ruler of South America.)

It's really creepy to think about it in these terms, but seriously, Daenerys is just fulfilling the unwritten epilogue of Rosemary, which would obviously end in world domination:

2. Several times in this episode, characters base their arguments on the lessons of ancient history: Joffrey reminded his grandfather of how big dragons once were, for example, and Jon schooled Ygritte about the six failed Wilding attacks on the wall. Except for Tyrion, none of the major characters on the show are much for book learnin'. But given that both of these often-wrong characters seem to be arguing very sensibly here, might others on the show benefit from picking up a volume every now and again? Who would gain the most?

The Joffrey/Tywin scene was a bit bizarre, wasn't it? Since when did the King of House Slytherin bother to crack a book, or let anyone teach him anything? We can only suppose this is more of Margaery's doing, because he's certainly not getting these history lessons from Uncle Tyrion.

But back to the question of who would gain the most from reading a book once in awhile: probably Robb Stark. That guy should really pick up a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War or The 48 Laws of Power. No spoilers, but I would have highlighted chapters 19 and 20 for him before he started playing with his giant chessboard.

3. You are the leader of a religious youth camp, and one of your kids has gone seriously dark. You talk to her about the one true god, but she decides to pray to death instead. Is this just teenage rebellion, a phase she'll get over, or is this kid in need of some serious therapy? Things to consider: her father was recently killed in a gruesome way, she really likes sharp objects, and she's pretty damned young to be starting in on the whole goth thing.

I guess this goes back to an earlier question we had: what separates a religion from a cult? Because sure, if you are a kindly youth pastor at a summer camp and a kid starts defecting  to the dark side, that's probably cause for alarm, and you should call her remaining parent/guardian immediately. However, if you're just some guy running a roving "camp" out in the middle of nowhere, picking up a ragtag army of believers with speeches that start off all kumbayah but end with gibberish declarations of immortality, it's hard to blame someone for deciding she'd rather jump ship than watch you hold another "Trial by Fire Sword." Not to mention the hypocrisy of selling one of your own to a witch in exchange for some cash.

And what kind of deity gives you immortality just so you can compromise your integrity for gold, anyway? Not a god I'd be praying to, that's for sure.

4. Theon's protracted torture is weeks beyond becoming torturous for the viewer as well. With this episode's sequence clearly meant to titillate in the worst way, is it possible that by this point Game of Thrones is just trolling its viewers along with Theon? (You've had enough torture, viewers? Ok, how about some boobs...and torture!) And if so, how might this relate to the protracted discussion of Tyrion and Sansa's future sex life? Are we supposed to be made uncomfortable by it?

I'm starting to think that the show just hands off those Theon moments to Eli Roth. I actually had to leave the room the last two weeks during those extended scenes of torture porn.

And let's be clear: the term "torture porn" usually refers to excessive, pornographic images of torture, not literally combining torture and pornography. So kudos to Game of Thrones for finding a way to take that phrase at face value this week.

What's the point of these Theon scenes? Well, first off, they are so far beyond uncomfortable--like you said, Tyrion trying to keep Shae his whore was "uncomfortable," as was Joffrey's treatment of Sansa, or seeing Littlefinger's fate for Ros. The incest on the show is uncomfortable, and so was that time Melisandre's had her ghost baby, not to mention the really awkward crush the Hound had on Arya's sister.

But spending 10 minutes watching someone get mercilessly destroyed--one ounce of flesh at a time, only to be given a sliver of hope in order to make the next new hell that much worse--that's not uncomfortable. It's pretty much unwatchable. Unless there is some movement on this storyline soon, I'm just going to start fast-forwarding these scenes and assume that Theon is now a eunuch.

Thanks for ruining Misfits for me, guys.

5. After the death of Ros last week, Sansa and Ygritte are the two redheads left, and the episode draws some interesting parallels between them. Sansa recounts how she was stupidly excited to leave the provincial north and see the royal metropolis, and the even-more-provincial Ygritte goes south to find that a structure she'd have considered a castle is only a windmill. And when Ygritte fake swoons, she may as well be doing a Sansa impression. Given each of them hints at the idea that they may one day be the lady of Winterfell, which is more dangerous: Ygritte's overconfident ignorance or Sansa's oversensitive naivete?

You're forgetting the third contender: Melisandre is the ultimate fire crotch, and what's more, she makes it a perfect trifecta. Like Sansa and Ygritte, she came from a provincial county (Asshai in Essos, also known as the area where Dany's dragon eggs were found!), but her ability to adapt to her new world is far beyond that of the other two. While Sansa may have longed to visit King's Landing and Ygritte felt it was her duty to move south to save her people, Melisandre came to Dragonstone with no illusion about returning home after she played her part. Like the Spanish staking their flag on North America, Melisandre came to Westeros to conquer it. She reminds me of that warning Varys gave about Littlefinger: "He would see this country burn if he could be king of the ashes."

And While Sansa is only endangering herself and Ygritte, at best, might be putting a small scouting team at risk with her cockiness, Melisandre and her "burn the non-believers alive" approach to religion is the most dangerous thing to happen to Westeros outside that slowly approaching zombie army of White Walkers.

Good luck with that, Gendry.

Illustration by Alex Bedder.

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. While conferring with the Queen of Thorns about marrying her grandson Loras Tyrell (a.k.a. the Knight of Flowers, last seen essing the dee of Renly Baratheon before and after his sister married the guy) to his daughter Cersei Lannister (whose royal children, including King Joffrey, are all the product of incest), Lord Tywin Lannister makes a derisive remark about Loras's homosexuality. "Perhaps Highgarden has a high tolerance for unnatural behavior."

Considering we're in a world where seasons last decades, dragons exist, and people rise from the dead either because a drunk guy calling himself a priest decides to say some prayers or because they have been turned into winter zombies, what are the chances that "unnatural" would still refer to two men having sex? Or that Sansa wouldn't know the difference between a brooch and a pin?

Is there really any difference between a brooch and a pin? And wouldn't you think that with so much riding on keeping his proclivities a secret, Loras would dial back his obvious obsession with dance and fabric and pretty cakes? But seriously, how strange is it that in this world with a totally different, totally foreign cultural backdrop, the associations and stereotypes of gayness seem to hold true? Our associations of male homosexuality with, say, musical theater, or interior design, are clearly historically contingent, and yet here they carry over as if they are somehow universal human facts about men who prefer the company of men (or "sword swallowers," as Lady Olenna would have it). Given that unlikely state of affairs (one that is rather distressingly prejudiced in a way that seems to resonate with the impression that Game of Thrones is written for horny 13-year-old boys), it is no great stretch to imagine that our culture's anti-gay slurs like "unnatural" have carried over as well.

The whole scene rings quite oddly, down to the Queen of Thorns calling it "buggery." These seem (along with Sam saying that the wall is 700 feet high) like the phrases of our world, not theirs, as if one of the characters had just out of the blue started talking about parking tickets or the Internet. I much preferred Margaery's formulation of buggery as "an act that could not possibly result in children."

2. The writers of the show decided to create a whole subplot where Melisandre meets the other Lord of Light religious fanatics, Thoros of Myr and Lord Beric, and convinces them to give up Gendry. Not only does this never happen in the books, but the two  parties involved never meet. Creating this plot point out of whole cloth was a pretty bold choice (I can't think of another example on the show as flagrantly deviant). Any thoughts on why the series' decided on this particular made-up angle instead of sticking to the made-up storyboard that already exists in "A Song of Ice and Fire"? Is it possible to guess where this story will go now that it's veered off course? And is it possible that the show is just skimping on hiring an actor to play Edric Storm?

I think this was a very clever move on the part of the writers, to be honest. The books have so very many characters, which works on the page but would be maddening on a television show. Cutting out characters like Edric is necessary, and Gendry, in whom the show has already invested a lot of screentime and emotional connection with Arya (in many ways the most sympathetic character and the audience's point of entry into the events onscreen) serves as a very decent Edric stand-in: he's Robert's son, he's old enough to fend for himself but in the dark enough not to know what his actions might mean, etc. As soon as Melisandre told Stannis three episodes ago that "you're not the only one with Baratheon blood," this became clear. It was too late, after two and a half seasons, to suddenly introduce a new Baratheon bastard and make us somehow care about him--and Gendry just kind of hangs around doing boring Brotherhood stuff in the novel anyway, so why not make this his story?

The other thing the show can't do as well as the novels is to provide deep background discussion of things like religion. Thoros was able to explain last episode that he had brought Beric back to life six times, but only when the Red Woman comes around do we really start to get an in-depth understanding of what that means, and what the Lord of Light is all about. The collision of these two very different ways of living the same faith creates this opportunity for a more nuanced portrayal of a religion that presumably is going to become more and more crucial as the plot winds on.

Also, let us not forget that, as much as fans of the books may complain about such changes, George R.R. Martin not only consults very closely on the show, he actually wrote next week's episode, in which we will obviously be getting more of this Gendry/Melisandre plot line. So it clearly has his blessing in some form.

3. The power dynamic of Bran's little brigade has shifted from last season with the addition of the Reed siblings. His comment on Meera and Osha's bickering--“You're both very good at skinning rabbits”--seems less from the mouth of babes and more from the mouth of a world-weary adult. Out of all the Starks--including sloth-eyed Jon Snow, ridiculously un-strategic Robb, mom/prisoner Catelyn purposely naive Sansa, overly confident Arya and ... uh ... that other kid that we guess technically still counts, is Bran perhaps moving ahead as the smartest Stark? And does that say anything about his Stark-ness, as his dad was notorious for being more brave than he was clever?

Arya still has my heart, but she is getting a little reckless and whiny with the whole "You killed/kidnapped/sold my friend!" refrain (and much as Melisandre creeps me out, it was a little awesome seeing her look into Arya's face and basically say "Think you're so righteous, girl who constantly prays for other people to die?"). But Bran is really holding it together, especially considering that by this point he's basically traveling with a band of knife-wielding circus sideshow freaks. He's got a good head on his supine shoulders, which is certainly abetted by the fact that he is being guided by visions of the future.

More than brave or clever, Ned was too good, too hung up on right and wrong, and one has to wonder whether he would have acted differently if he could have seen the future. In trying to live up his father's example, Robb is ignoring his flaws, at his own and his army's peril. Makes you wish Bran were there to tell him what to do.

Or Jon Snow, who I think can still pull it out as smartest Stark. Though he often seems to react more than act, his motives, Ygritte signals to us, are deeper than we might have suspected. Perhaps because of his bastard status, Jon has the best perspective on Lord Eddard's virtues and faults. There is a difference between being good and being loyal--a fact that Ygritte nails in more ways than one.

4. We all know not to trust Littlefinger, but in this episode he came off as a particular sort of bad guy: less conniving, and more "Dark Knight reject villain." Suddenly, it's all about creating chaos? Chaos is a ladder which we climb? Come now ... that's one of those aphorisms that sounds good and dramatic (and makes a nice backdrop to the final scenes of the dead Roselyn and the literal climb up the wall by Jon and Ygritte), but actually makes no sense when you think about it.

Considering this whole, uncharacteristic speech is only said in response to Littlefinger's "Batman" arch-nemesis Varys saying he only works for the good of the realm, preventing pure anarchy, what does LF's "chaos" theory say about what he is working for? And going with our Christopher Nolan analogy, is Littlefinger the anarchist Joker, the faux-Robspierre-ian Bane, or the totally psycho Scarecrow? Or Catwoman?

Ah, But Littlefinger isn't talking about creating chaos; he's talking about surviving it. Only the people who abandon the comfortable lies like "the realm" or religion or love and look at the truth, the chaos that is really there behind it all, he says, only they can truly advance in the world. Everyone else is just standing still. This seems utterly consistent with Littlefinger's character to me, and his speech was one of the highlights of the season so far (only slightly marred by the fact that HBO used the whole thing as a preseason promo). Go ahead and convince yourself that you do everything for a cause, he is telling Varys, but only my own version of self-interested striving is living in the real, horrible, chaotic world. Everything else, including your Batman motives, are totally illusory. So none of those psycho villains really work as a comparison. He's the closest thing the show has to a corporate raider figure, so in the Batman universe, you've got to go to someone like John Daggett (Roland Daggett in the comics), the anti-Bruce Wayne industrialist. But of course this is Game of Thrones, so instead of rigging the stock market, he's climbing his chaos ladder by marrying well and spreading catty rumors.

5. Giant walls have always made for good myth-making: the Norse had their Wall of Asgard, which is all about tricking gods and giants; The Great Wall of China represents a unified nation that remains independent from the rest of the world; "climbing the walls" is an idiom for someone who is acting agitated or distressed. Mance Rayder's army scaling an endless ice wall was possibly the most symbolic gesture the show could present. (Besides having them scale a giant phallus of some sort. A watchtower, maybe?) But symbolic of what, exactly? Everything? Try to narrow down the possibilities of what The Wall represents to at least three over-arching themes in GoT. Points for absurd creativity, but you can't say that it represents Chaos.

The biggest impression I got from the wall was a sense of its massiveness, especially when Jon looks down. When they are climbing the wall, their faces are right up against it, and so they don't have a sense of the whole of it, just that it is huge and they have to keep going. The metaphor, of course, is to the massive scale of world events as they are portrayed in the show. The characters are caught up in the progress of things, but even those who seem to rule from on high, like Tywin, really only have a piece of the puzzle. Nobody gets that comet's-eye view that we see during the opening credits. And most of the characters, like Arya, are just like the northern army scaling the wall: she knows there is a long way to go, but she can't see much beyond the next step.

And of course, if you step wrong, there is a long way to fall. The wall isn't a wall at all, and it is certainly not a ladder. It is a sheer glacier face that can calve off and drop you to your death. Because of course the world is just that treacherous, and you can't know where to place your pickax. Sansa thinks she chose wrong, but really both of her choices were terrible. Robb and Thoros believe they are making the best choices they can, but they're really inciting avalanches they can't possibly predict.

And then when you get to the top, you get to see out over the whole continent, which is clearly a metaphor for ... true love ... or maybe, like, a really good orgasm? At least that is what the cheesy swelling music and pan-out effect of the end of the episode seem to suggest. Way to go, show: you've got this huge, multifaceted symbol to work with, but in the end it still all comes down to "wow, we are really, really high up, and we're both really attractive; let's make out and pretend we're on the cover of a romance novel."

Illustration by Alex Bedder.

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. Sometimes Ygritte acts tough and independent, and others she is erratic and even immature, as when she steals John Snow's sword like a schoolgirl with a crush. Based on her behavior in this episode, where would you say she falls on Barney Stinson's Hot/Crazy Scale--above or below the Vicky Mendoza diagonal?

Oh, Ygritte doesn't even qualify on the Hot/Crazy scale, which can be seen here, in a How I Met Your Mother clip. (Come on, we can do better. I know we can.)

HIMYM Special - The Hot/Crazy Scale [3.05] from pride on Vimeo.

After all, Ygritte always has a method to her manic pixie dream girl madness: She wants Jon Snow not just because he's the cutest crow to ever take her hostage, slay her friends and not kill her, but because sleeping with her will prove that he's not still secretly working for the Nights Watch, which took that monk's oath, you know. It's like her hoo-haa is a sexual polygraph test that gives you quicker results than fighting with Gareth from The Office outside all day.

2. Lady Olenna continues to be smarter and cooler than everyone else in Westeros. We finally get a conversation between her and the arguably equally clever Tyrion in this episode, but he makes an uncharacteristically poor showing, while the Lady of Thorns twists the knife, giving him what he wants but first forcing him to acknowledge just how tacky his request to go dutch on the wedding is. He's clearly out of his element here. But is that element marriage, or is it money? And considering the final scene of the episode, how important is the distinction between the two?

Not to personalize it, but this weekend I was at a wedding where this guy made a toast about the new couple and tried to work in some analogy to Game of Thrones. Even though that's like ... a really bad idea. First of all, because he totally *spoiler alerted* Joffrey's wedding to an upsetting degree, but because Game of Thrones is not a series where romantic love factors that much into the equation.

Seriously.

Any marriages that last have been pre-arranged to result in the highest amount of money or power for the respective houses, usually ending in the lowest amount of marital happiness. (Someone should do a study on the correlation between the two in Westeros ... obviously Essos is different, because what started off as an arranged marriage for Dany became true love.)

When love does occur, it seems like an unhappy accident; the Lannister twins, for instance, or Tyrion's love of Shae, which he must keep hidden. Even Robb, the Honorable King, is about to put himself in the firing line of the people who were most betrayed  by his marriage to whatsherface ... the Freys. Don't think that the slight will have been forgotten so easily, not when that cranky guy with the bridge in season one was so hell-bent on marrying off his daughters to the King in the North.

True love/lust is only a distraction that can be used as leverage against you: just look what happened to poor Ser Loras the moment some blondie squire made eyes at him. So many the distinction isn't between money and marriage, but money and power, or power and marriage. What we know for sure that when it comes to love and marriage, there can be only suffering that brings about a Daenerys-style "No Children" curse.

3. It turns out that Stannis and his wife have quite a little freakshow of their own, complete with stillborn fetuses in jars and a surprisingly enthusiastic sanctioning of cult-based infidelity. Picture Stannis, Selyse, Melisandre and Davos appearing on The Jerry Springer Show. In what order will the producers bring them out in order to assure maximum fireworks? Whom will the audience side with? Will anybody resort to hair pulling or chair throwing?

Jerry Springer is all about letting things build up: you can't start out with the craziest scenario/person, because you'd have nowhere to build. So it would have to be a show that started with the love triangle of Davos, Stannis and Melisandre. Something like "This Ho Won't Let My Friend Go!" Where we first see the Onion Knight explaining the situation until Jerry says, "Well, we actually have Melisandre and Stannis backstage, is there anything you want to say to them?"

After Stannis comes storming out and Davos has to be physically restrained from trying to throttle the light out of the red witch, the group would settle down, during which Springer would switch gears.

Springer: "Now, Stannis, Davos might be an untrustworthy, illiterate knight, but you have some secrets of your own. You impregnanted Melisandre with a smoke baby to kill Renly Baratheon, did you not?"

Audience boos.

Springer: Now wait, wait. What do you think your wife and young, deformed daughter would have to say about that?

Audience gasps, starts rioting.

Stannis: SILENCE! I AM YOUR KING!

Springer: The answers might surprise you ... right after this commercial break.

During which we finally pan to the chyron on the screen: "I'm having an affair ... for the Red God!"

Backstage, you'll get a quick glimpse of Stannis's wife--does she have a name yet--holding a jar of feti in one hand and her daughter's Greyscaled little palm in the other. Maybe we then cut ahead to a weird lesbian triangle that causes Davos to quickly shuttle Stannis's daughter offstage.

4. In a show marked by regular nude scenes, Jaime and Brienne's scene in the baths stands out. The fact that they literally expose themselves to one another is echoed by their figurative baring of their souls, with Jaime telling the true story of his murder of the Mad King and Brienne reacting with real sympathy. Have any other characters on the show ever been this naked? And in light of this, what do you make of the director's choice to show their nudity to us only from behind?

I did think the decision not to show any dick was weak--how better to exemplify Jaime's situation than with a flaccid cock? But I'm glad that if Jaime was only going to be shown from the behind (and what a beautiful behind that was), Brienne was going to be shot exactly the same, making them equals not just in the eyes of each other, but in the eyes of the viewer as well. We've always loved Jaime as a rakish villain, but Brienne has been like Robb or Jon Snow: too noble and single-minded to truly be interesting.

With her eyes getting all glassy wide during Jaime's speech as he told her the unsolveable scenario the Mad King put him in, she suddenly morphed into someone much more vulnerable ...s omeone old Jaime would have easily taken advantage of, what with her woman's weakness. But new Jaime just wants to subvert the gender expectations and swoon into Brienne's arms. (Was anyone else reminded of that Girls episode where Hannah faints in that doctor's shower/sauna, because this was like the same scene but opposite.) The whole "My name is Jaime" line while he lay in Brienne's arms, her calling for help for The Kingslayer, was perfect. While she sympathizes with--maybe even trusts--him now more than she did (and there's plenty to make us think she doesn't entirely buy his story), she's still not ready to play make-believe and pretend that there's any real friendship or romance between the two of them. She's still grappling with the idea that he's a man--possibly a man who meant well, at one point--and not the monster that she viewed him as.

Of course, as much as we'd like to say that Jaime himself is a changed man, his dig at Renly in the beginning which causes Brienne to stand up nude as if ready to fight is the moment where he begins to see her as human--more than human, but a woman!--as well, instead of some weird freak female eunuch. Or ... what would they call a chick who didn't fit into the traditional lord/lady hierarchy back in those days? Besides the Flower Knight?

So while the bath scene seemed like a breakthrough in their relationship, let's not forget that Brienne is still calling Jaime "Kingslayer" and Jaime is still thinking with his dick ... at least enough to mumble an apology after letting his eyes assess the giant, nude woman in front of him.

5. Nearly every storyline in this episode hinged on questions of betrayal: when it is justified, how it is punished, and who is harmed by it. John Snow finally fully betrays the Night's Watch (and is rewarded for it), Lord Carstark betrays Robb (and is beheaded for it) or arguably vice versa, Arya feels betrayed by the Brotherhood and by Gendry, Stannis finds out that his wife doesn't consider his infidelity a betrayal, Sansa continues to be betrayed/betray herself, etc. If you were to rank the characters by who was the most wronged in this episode, who comes out on top--who is the most betrayed individual? Alternately, who feels that he/she has been deeply wronged but least deserves to think so?

The MOST betrayed individual? Easily Davos: he is trying to save his king, and he gets thrown in the dungeons for it. God help him if Stannis's daughter is caught reading to him ... I imagine there is actually a worse punishment out there than being locked in "Friend Jail." His motives are some of the most pure on the show, as evidenced by the fact that even he considers himself guilty of treason, despite the fact that he lost his (two?) son(s) in the battle for King's Landing, came back to warn the king with no regard for his own neck, and accepted his punishment as just. Who needs an army of eunuchs calling themselves Grey Worm when you have The Onion Knight on your side?

The problem with ranking the rest of the characters in terms of betrayal/betrayed is that its all a matter of perception. Tyrion would seem to have the most legitimate case about being fucked by his family once again when his dad forces him to marry Sansa Stark, but really, he's looking at it all wrong: he gets to be Lord of Winterfell! Who cares if he's married to Sansa in some sham ceremony ... he can always keep Shae at his side and act honorably toward her ... something that probably Ser Loras would not have even done, depending on the true plans of the Tyrells.

Meanwhile Cersei, the big whiner, does have a legitimate grievance--more so than her brother, perhaps, though she's so unlikeable that it's hard to see. The Tyrells clearly have the make on her, and having her marry into the family as a woman means that she'll be giving up any last claim to power she had as queen regent, and probably the last of her sway over Joffrey, as she'd be quickly removed to Highgarden. (Incidentally, nothing would make the Tyrells happier than a chance to get their own claws into Joffrey without his mother's meddling.)

There's one line that Cersei moans in that last scene--"Not again!"--that alludes to her pretty sympathetic fate: she was married off to a man who was obsessed with Ned Stark's dead sister while she was still Sansa's age in order to secure a Lannister place on the throne, and though all we saw was the end of Robert and Cersei's relationship, you can imagine he wasn't the most kind or faithful of husbands. This kind of cements Cersei's role--which has been alluded to all season--she's not the scheming evil queen she once pretended to be, but merely a pawn in her father's endless chess battle against any perceived threat to the family name.

Now that Cersei has done her duty as queen, her only use to the family is being sold like chattel to the very family she mosts distrusts, to a husband that she just had confirmed was a homosexual, and whose boyfriend took up arms against the crown.

With a father like that, no wonder the Lannisters are all kinds of fucked up.

(Illustration by Alex Bedder)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. You serve on the board of trustees of your family's corporation. When you enter a board meeting one day, you see that the CEO, your father, has sat at the head of the conference table and set up the rest of the chairs on one side. The three non-family members on the board immediately take the seats nearest your father. Do you: a) sit in the chair farthest from your father, b) drag a chair to the opposite side of the table, next to your father, c) drag a chair to the tail of the table across from him, d) wait to see what your sister does before you decide, or e) throw a glass of wine in the CEO's face, piss on the table, and tell everyone to fuck off with their silly little game of musical chairs, because at least one person at the table has recently tried to kill you, all of the others have at least considered it, and anyway your father the CEO really only wants to talk about your brother, to see whom again for even one minute he would gladly stab you in the heart and dance on your bloody corpse?

Um, the last one? Obviously? (Although how is C different than A? You move the chair farther away?) It's funny how Tyrion still thinks he can win the game by playing by the rules of the system (something we've recently criticized Cersei for, so maybe it's a hereditary problem.) It should be crystal clear after last week's dad talk--not to mention last season, when your sister tried to kill you--that you were better off being the family spokesperson over on the Wall. Or at the Veil. Or literally any place besides King Landing, with your actual family. If I were Tyrion, I wouldn't bother with the meetings, but instead gladly take the position of Master of the Coin, steal a bunch of it, collect my whore, sellsword and surprisingly cunning linguist of a squire (my real friends) and head off on my own.

Couldn't be worse than listening to the Spider fight with Littlefinger every day, could it?

2. Frequently, on mediocre cop shows like The Mentalist, the protagonist will resort to lying to everyone, including his colleagues on the police force, in order to trick a suspect into confessing. Instead of letting his friends in on the ruse, the detective fools them too, presumably so that their reactions will be sincere, so that he doesn't run the risk of their bad acting blowing up his spot. Assuming Daenerys does not really mean to give up one of her dragons--which she obviously doesn't, as they are basically her children--is she pulling a similar gag on Ser Barristan and Ser Jorah, making them believe she is sincere to sell her lie? And if so, then why does she yell at them afterward when they are in private, instead of just letting them in on her plans?

It's funny you mention The Mentalist, because that's a pretty big Sherlock Holmes tactic: keeping Watson and therefore the reader in the dark as long as possible because it was "necessary" to solve the case.

And since Arthur Conan Doyle stole a lot of shit directly from Poe's Auguste Dupin and Émile Gaboriau and Monsieur Lecoq, I think we can safely say that Daenerys is taking one from the modern-day detective's handbook. But Daenerys isn't a super-genius who solves mysteries for a living: she's a deposed queen with three extinct animals to barter. Like you said, there's no way she's actually going to give Lord of the Eunuchs one of her babies, though we can forgive him for thinking so. It really says a lot about her closest confidants--one of whom, to be fair, she's known for all of a day?--that they not only believe this very thin ruse, but then would try to stop her during a meeting. Bitches, she's your queen. Don't do that.

At least Jorah should be smarter. "Hey, are you just going to do the thing where you blast dragon fire at them again?" Wink wink, nudge nudge.

I actually think this set-up was more for their sake than the Free City lord. I mean, she could have let them in on her plan, or she could kill two birds with one stone: make the guy believe she was serious about her offer (after all, her counsel is trying to stop her, which they wouldn't do unless this was a trip), and remind her boundary-crossing buddies just who the Motherfucking Mother of the Motherfucking Dragons is.

3. Imagine you are a management consultant giving a leadership seminar. Which of the following would you want to use as your main example of how not to be an effective leader, and why? Edmure Tully, Lord of Riverrun, who cocks up both his dad's funeral and a strategic battle; Stannis Baratheon, who seems to think begging his crazy girlfriend to sleep with him again (in public!) will somehow make people think he isn't weak/losing the war; Lord Commander Mormont of the Knight's Watch, who has decided to make himself and his men completely dependent on an abusive, incestuous, murderous local warlord; or Tywin Lannister, who has now given control over his finances from one confirmed crook to another?

There is a a very famous Tony Robbins TedTalk where he talks about how he gets calls from parents telling him that they have a suicidal kid. Apparently, part of Tony Robbins's job is to talk kids out of suicide. And you know what?

Well, just start at 3:56.

"I haven't lost one in 29 years. Doesn't mean I won't someday, but I haven't done it."
That is how Tony Robbins manages his shit: kids do not commit suicide after meeting him.

Since Tony Robbins is the closest thing I can think of to a management consultant at a leadership seminar, I would say that his example of terrible leadership would probably be Tywin. Why? Because the rest of them are working off an optimistic outcome...no matter how deluded, they did what they did because they thought it was the right thing to do in order to motivate their troops and win.

Except for Tywin Lannister, who seems to be working from a pessimistic game plan: his son is obviously the least-qualified person to become Master of the Coin, and it's a position that comes with a trap...Littlefinger has obviously been fudging the books. So what could he possibly hope to achieve by this? Prove that his dwarf son is a fuck-up? Have the dirty secret of the crown's finances come to light? How does that help Tywin Lannister, let alone the rest of his family and country?

It doesn't, is the answer. And for that, I'd like to send both Tywin and Joffrey to a Suicide Prevention class led by Tony Robbins to get an attitude adjustment and a better management strat!

4. The White Walkers are generally zombie-like, but with their artistic arrangement of the (horse) body parts, they have invoked another horror-movie trope: the baroque madness of serial killers. Beyond being freaked out, what are we supposed to make of this melding of supernatural horror (which is generally associated with mass culture) and psychological horror (more often connected with the individual)?

Ah yes, the repetitive pattern of decorative horse heads trope. Reminiscent of the Zodiac killings, John Doe's "sins" from Se7en, and the Rube Goldbergian death traps of the Jigsaw murders.

Wait, no. The most natural melding of the psychological and the supernatural is the idea of a cult: some group of people who act out the wishes of some strange, charismatic leader. And if anything, the White Walker pattern suggests some kind of designed symbol or rune, or a ritual performance...a true sign of a mass occult.

We've seen the White Walkers set traps before, like in the opening scene of the show, so we know they have some cognition, but what remains to be seen is whom they answer to. Is there some higher power to whom the White Walkers are paying tribute to with these horse head designs? Or do they just, as a community, like to DeviantArt-up their killing patterns in order to freak out their prey?

And most importantly: Are they more like the Manson Family or Branch Davidians? Scientologists or Heaven's Gate?

5. Though the bar ballad "The Bear and the Maiden Fair," about a maiden who thinks she will meet a knight but is instead carried off by a bear, is sung many times in George R.R. Martin's novels, this is the first time i has appeared in the show, sung once by Jaime/Brienne's captors and then again by Brooklyn band The Hold Steady over the closing credits. Why did the showrunners pick this episode for the song's double debut? Who is the bear here and who the maiden? Things to consider: Jaime's character arc; Theon's serendipitous rescue; the sigil of House Mormont and the first syllable of 'Barristan'; the Hound's ugly mug; Podric's magic penis.

In the books *achem*, The Bear and the Maiden Fair is a pretty goddamned heavy-handed metaphor. It's only ever sung in a scenario that Martin wants to highlight as some big Bear/Maiden metaphor. Like, in this week's episode, obviously the roles of Bear and Maiden were switched off by Brienne and Jaime. When he saves her from being raped and sacrifices himself in the process, Jaime undergoes the reverse knight/bear move and becomes worthy of the title "knight" for the first time. Meanwhile Brienne, the tough bear knight, is reduced to the status of "maidenhood" when the men try to break hers. (Sorry, gross.)

But yes. That dumb song can be applicable to many, many scenarios. Kind of like the Hold Steady themselves, whose music can be played at almost any kind of party without anyone complaining, but without actually being a great band.

(Illustration via Alex Bedder)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. They say narrative is a matter of perspective. Let's try out that theory: There are several rom-com tropes buried in the wheelings and dealings of this episode. If put in another context, for example, Brienne and Jaime could be starring in of those "opposites attract" rom-coms. Recontextualize three other story arc from "Dark Wings, Dark Words" in terms of the following genres chosen from my highly-specific Netflix queue: "Goofy NBC Comedies"; "Dark Independent Road Trip Movies"; "Dysfunctional Family Dramas With a Strong Female Lead." Write a brief synopsis of what these spin-off films/episodes
would look like.

I'm Not Arry!
After a series of madcap mishaps, tweens Arry and Gendry have been kicked out of their homes and gone on the road to find a new place to hang their hats. Along the way, they've become the best of buds, traveling along with their fat, bumbling, always-hungry sidekick Hot Pie. But there is only one problem: Arry has just revealed to his best bros that he's not really a boy, but a girl in disguise! We follow them on their unlikely adventures, as they encounter quirky fellow travelers and other loveable misfits, all the while trying to come to grips with the new dynamic of their little band of brothers...and a sister!

Cry Direwolf
Since he was little, Bran has had visions that he cannot explain. He never thought much of them, but then things started getting grimmer: he lost his legs in a tragic accident, his father was killed, and his family scarred by a home invasion. Suffering from some pretty severe PTSD from this last tragedy, Bran goes on the road, traveling north to find the source of the things he sees when asleep. Tagging along are his nearly personality-free little brother, his weird oracular former housekeeper, and a giant of a nurse from his local physical therapy clinic who never says anything but his own name. As things get stranger and stranger, Bran must confront the reality behind his visions: are they just fantasies of running with the wolves, or they leading him toward a dark fate he doesn't yet understand?

Stark Realities
Once Catelyn Stark led a charmed life: a strong, faithful husband, five lovely kids and a beautiful home. But ever since her husband Ned was killed, it is all Cat can do to keep her head above water. One of her daughters is off exploring her transgender identity, another is living as a kept woman in the big city. One son, confined to a wheelchair, has started to have delusions that he can see the future and talk to animals. And her oldest son has broken his engagement to a woman she deemed appropriate for him, and now she finds herself thrown together with his new wife, a foreign woman whom she doesn't really understand nor particularly like. As the two grow close through circumstance, she comes to understand that she must build her own family from the tools she has been given, instead of seeking to rebuild the perfect life she once had.

2. In case you were missing Downton Abbey, this episode gave us Dame Diana Rigg as Lady Olenna, a sister in spirit to Dame Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess of Grantham. Besides the fact that they both throw caution to the wind and say whatever they please (good graces be damned) and are associated with flowers which they in no way resemble, how else does Margery's grandmother--based on what we know of her so far--resemble her spicy Downton counterpart?

The contrast is more telling here than the association, as the Dowager Countess is very much concerned with maintaining propriety, while the Lady of Thorns does her best, within her limited role, to subvert it. Both are determined to manipulate events to the ends they see as important despite the bumbling or ineffectiveness of the men around them, but it is Olenna who really brings home one of the dominant themes of Game of Thrones: if the less powerful can find ways to survive and even thrive within the context of a world dominated by powerful men, they will be able to do so not by mimicking the power structures of men but only by making end-runs around them. We're seeing it with Arya, we're seeing it with Shae, and (though she's not in this episode) we're seeing it with Dany.

On the other hand, Cersei is trying to use her influence within the system and seeing herself more and more stymied. And Brienne's attempt to fit into the men's world leaves her with few good options and an increasingly tenuous fate. It will be interesting to see if Margaery will learn her grandmother's object lesson about getting the cheese course served when you want it: propriety serves no real purpose except to keep the powerful in charge, and even the smallest subversion is more than simply symbolic. But then again, maybe she just wants to be the queen.

3. Bitches be schemin' (about their babies): Though Catelyn Stark seems to be opening up to her daughter-in-law in the scene where she is sewing and talking about the time she prayed so hard Jon Snow almost died (until she nursed him back to health), we've seen this kind of faux-bonding before. In the very first season, Cersei told a sad story about her own dead baby in order to make Catelyn feel better about Bran's coma...even though she was Jaime's accomplice in pushing him off the tower. If you were the head of Westeros's CDC and someone told you that there had been a mass breakout of Münchausen syndrome by proxy, how would you respond? Remember, you only have a King's Landing education on how diseases work, so we can forgive confusing the psychological withthe systemic, as long as you can provide a solution.

Disease? Clearly this is some sort of dark magic, if women can simply pray and make their children ill. Münchausen schmünchausen. Being a Meister, I have no children myself, but I imagine that any mother must have, at some desperate moment, late at night when the baby won't stop crying, wished that she had never had a child. And if such dark thoughts are so common, and if wishing can make it so, we have a huge public health problem on our hands. As a measure of stopping the spread of this scourge, the only solution, obviously, is to burn the witches. But then the solution to most public health problems is to burn the witches, as far as the our modern medicine is concerned.

4. So imagine that you are working as a really well paid au pair to an orphaned tween. You are sitting in the park one day when out of nowhere this woman comes up and warns you that the kid you are looking after is being targeted by a sexual predator. Troubled, you take the matter to your boyfriend, who wants to know where you heard the rumor. When you tell him, he shrugs it off, saying: "Oh that chick? Yeah, I fucked her. Twice."
Your boyfriend--who was very close to becoming her uncle--tells you not to worry about the strange message from his one-night stand, before offhandedly mentioning that the girl you are looking after is a "great beauty."
So: How would your anonymous letter to the police begin? Or would you keep your mouth shut and save the story to sell to The New York Post? If so, what would the punny headline be?

Things to keep in mind: Your last professional gig was as a prostitute, you are an illegal immigrant, and your boyfriend's family has legal guardianship over the child.

Well, like last week, we find ourselves with a temporal conundrum. Is this a modern police force that is required by law to investigate any claim of child abuse? Or is it one conditioned by the world of Westeros, in which such abuse is clearly as common as dirt, and thus well-nigh unpunishable? Assuming the latter, and given my charge's questionable social status as the daughter of a convicted traitor and the sister of an enemy of the state, appealing to the golden-helmeted authorities seems less than advisable. And now that my boyfriend has revealed himself to be even more of a horny patriarchal little shit than previously acknowledged, perhaps it is best to attempt to spirit the girl away through back channels. You know who isn't going to be crushing on the cute little redhead anytime soon? The dude with no balls. He'd be my first phone call.

5. Several of the major characters have found a new bestie in this episode, and these first-timers are played by some of our favorite "Oh yeah, that guy!" Brits. (Simon from Misfits as a Greyjoy spy, shock jock Paul Kaye as Thoros, the kid from Love, Actually as Jojen Reed, Aberforth Dumbledore as Mance Rayder, etc.)

Using one of these actors from this new batch, write a short piece of crossover fan fiction about how the character he is most famous for playing ended up in Game of Thrones.

Simon sat down on the roof and took off his face mask. It had been a grueling day of training, and now he just wanted to unwind. He took his book out of his bag and began reading.

"Eh. Geek." Simon looked up to see a boy he'd seen down the pub once or twice staring down at him. He considered for a moment before answering.

"Because I'm reading a book? You should try it sometime."

"No, because you're reading one o' them fantasy books. I can see just by the cover. Geek." The boy paused, shuffled his feet. "So, you're with that Aleisha, eh? What's a fine piece like that doing with a prat like you?"

Simon grinned. "I don't know. Why don't you ask her?"

"Oh I plan on it," the boy answered. "Right after I find some way to keep you busy."

"And how do you propose to do that?" But the kid was grinning right back, and as soon as the words were out of Simon's mouth, he realized: this kid had clearly been in the storm, and was about to unleash some new power.

"That looks like a mighty long book, too. Take you a while to reach the end, I wager."

"I don't know," Simon said warily. "I'm a pretty fast reader."

"Oh," the young man said, "I wasn't talking about reading." He waved his hand, ever so slightly, and then he was gone.

Everything was gone. The council estate had been replaced by a forest. Simon looked up and could see a turret in the distance, a parapet with smoke rising above it.

Winterfell.

Well, he thought, starting to walk in that direction. I suppose I just have to make my way to the end of the book. Find a role for myself here. I can turn myself invisible and see into the future. Don't suppose anyone here could use the services of a spy?

YES YES YES!

On Friday night, the trailer for the third season of Game of Thrones premiered on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Time to check in with our best friends over at Westeros and Essos, just trying to figure it out, one mistake at a time. They're a little older, a little wiser, a little more totally psychotic and righteously bad-ass and how awesome was that Lightbringer. Also, dragons. Look at how big the dragons are!


From the trailer, it looks like we'll finely see Stannis Baratheon's Dragonstone palace, Bran looking a lot like his sister Arya, Dany with her armies of Unsullied at Astapor, a stand-off between Sansa and Cersai, a certain amputation that readers will recognize, the Red Keep wedding, and an older Geoffery who has finally shaken off his whiny Draco Malfoy-ishness and is just straight evil now.

You know who else looks older? Dany's bad-ass dragons, who are getting bigger every day. Aw, they grow up so fast! March 31st, set your calendars, y'all.

Seth Macfarlane and Emilia Clarke (Getty Images)

After yesterday's news that smugster Seth MacFarlane has been dating Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke for "several months," (according to him) this appeared on our Facebook posting of the item:

At first we thought the person was just making a joke (or an educated guess), but a little research revealed that the second commenter actually works at one of the bars where SNL frequently hosts its after parties. (The Observer has reached out to this source for confirmation, but has yet to hear a response. Stay tuned ...)

So if his (possible) cheating doesn't cement your opinion that Seth MacFarlane is not to be made out with: Remember that the tongue in your mouth is the same tongue that does the Stewie voice for a living.

Emilia Clarke with her new monster. She also has a dragon. (PmC, HBO)

- How did Seth MacFarlane land Game of Thrones’s Emilia Clarke?? Do they not have Saturday Night Live in Qarth? This is truly an upsetting turn of events; at least when he dated Amanda Bynes, one got the sense that they were both awful.

- Jenni "JWoww" Farley got engaged to longtime boyfriend Roger Mathews after he proposed to her while skydiving. Smart move, protecting herself from complete reality-show irrelevancy now that Jersey Shore is ending and Snooki might not come back for their spinoff. JWoww Getting Married, anyone?

- Kevin Smith really wants everyone to know that he has paparazzi. Or at the very least, a personal stalker. No seriously, you guys! He does!
http://youtu.be/aCUeqiKRsaY

- Lindsay Lohan's latest rumored beau, artist Domingo Zapata, is vehemently denying that he's seeing the lung-infected actress. Which really doesn't prove anything, since no one will ever admit to sleeping with Lindsay Lohan, ever again. Plus, he painted her portrait, so they are definitely doing a Leo-and-Jack thing.

A full list of nominees is available here: nominees of note include Lena Dunham, nominated as a producer, actress, and writer for Girls, as well as the thirteenth career nomination for Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Veep and the cementing of Claire Danes's career comeback with a Best Actress in a Drama nomination for Homeland.