Thoughts About Game of Thrones and Magic

Sunday's episode of Game of Thrones, "The Laws of Gods and Men," aired on Sunday, which means that, according to industry jargon, watching it on Monday (as I did) would technically be a "live-plus-one viewing," since I watched it one day after it had aired. So then if I review it on Tuesday, that review goes up on Day Live +2. But before I start getting confused by how they measure those TV ratings, all those +'s got me thinking of Magic: The Gathering (as in +1/+1 counters). And also the term God is used in both tonight's GoT episode and MtG's most recent expansion block, which takes place on the plane of Theros. I've paid devotion to three Theran Gods in my time in the Planeswalker Program, each representing one or a pair of the five colors of mana (abbreviated WUBRG). I noticed that some characters on Game of Thrones also correspond to the same color wheel (if not the same pantheon) as used in the game of Magic.

#ImpressiveVisualEffects

The first mention of color I noticed in "Laws of Gods and Men" (or, for more industry jargon, Episode 406) is when a jovial pirate (with very good taste) tells an old joke involving a ship's captain and a red shirt - a joke that my father and I had been telling since the holiday parties of my childhood. Suffice it to say, he joins up with Stannis Baratheon, the possibly rightful heir to the eponymous throne, who is himself very well acquainted with red mana. After all, his most trusted and most powerful ally is known as the Red Woman. And he lives in Dragonstone, and dragons usually cost red mana to summon in Magic. Speaking of Magic colors, the Iron Bank is clearly colorless, since I'm pretty sure Stannis and Davos's skiff (Is skiff appropriate?) sailed right past the Colossus of Akros.

And speaking of dragons, we got a good look at one of Daenerys's's dragons, which used its firebreathing ability to burninate / barbecue some sheep. Seeing as firebreathing is a red card, Dany definitely costs red, but she's all into justice too, so white makes sense. Plus Jorah Mormont and Barristan Selmy (JR and BS for short) are knights, which are usually white. Plus her rule wsa forged in the Dothraki plains and all. Should there be a third color, since she's a contender for the throne? Probably blue, since she wears blue, and also based on the way she gains control of all these armies...

See the resemblance?

I think a character who definitely wields three colors well is Tywin Lannister, one of the few people actually fit to be king, as evidenced by the fact that he's basically acting king. Right away I pegged House Lannister as identifying with White, Red, and Black, based on both their standard and the way they act -- and if they all three go with Tywin, it allows his three offspring to each get a different two-color combination (also known as "guild" in the nerd jargon). Jamie, the Kingslayer, inherits red and white: he's got a sense of honor, but his passion and incendiary nature  often get the better of him. Tyrion, also referred to as Kingslayer this episode, seems a good fit for black and white: he was master of coin at one point, so he fits in with the coinsmiths and the users of the extort ability word. Cersei is black and red: referred to as the "mother of madness," need I say more? Also this way it allows the late King Joffrey (before he was placed in the Lannister graveyard, so to speak) to go back to the three-color-combo, since he inherited all three colors from his true parents, heyo!

I thought a lot about what colors the rest of the houses might be, but when you go up north, things start to get so that you almost have to venture into Dungeons and Dragons alignment territory: Wildlings are Chaotic Evil, the whole Bolton/Frey contingent is Neutral Evil. If Targaryen (or House Stormborn, for easier spelling, but not to be confused with House Swarmborn) is Chaotic Good while the Lannisters are probably Lawful Neutral, with a little bit of all the spectrum mixed in throughout the bloodline, then House Stark is Neutral Good. But as none of them appear in this episode, let's go to some other random musings to end today's thoughts:


- Back to Magic: The Night's (Knight's?) Watch is obvi mono Black (hello, Castle Black, duh), but who cares, since we didn't see any of them in this episode anyway.

- Prince Oberyn, whom we did see, pretty clearly embodies the precepts of the Red Green combination. I mean, the trademark RG Planeswalker Xenagos is named "der Hedonist" in German. Not that its name has any bearing on game play...

- I could picture a good Duel Deck: Ramsay Snow (mono black, Human Berserker) vs. Yara Greyjoy (mono green, Human Scout). Each side would have an Alfie Allen card: one would be Theon of the Iron Islands and the other would be Reek of Dreadfort. #FlavorWin

- Theon/Reek went deep with his personal identity crisis this episode. Maybe it was the scars, or the performance, or the pale and drawn look, but I kept equating his relationship with Ramsay to what would happen if there were a Good-aligned Gollum and an Evil-aligned Frodo.

- More Magic: idea for King's Landing mirrored pairs: Varys, White/Black, Human Advisor with lifelink. Grand Maester General Veers, White/Black, Human Cleric with deathtouch. Maybe they both have extort? Maybe neither?

- And finally the last line of HBO's blurb about the episode referenced a Throne Room, which I equated not to the throne on which the game is based, but on the music from the Throne Room stage in the Genesis port of Mortal Kombat, even though that music is really based on the theme that appears in The Pit stage of the arcade game. #VideoGameBGMTrivia