Cersei Lannister Sips Wine

Couldn't stop laughing when I saw Adam Gopnik's article in The New Yorker published on March 7 2019, titled 'An Art-Historical Analysis of Cersei Lannister Sipping Wine'. Ahhhh Game of Thrones. Die-hard fans will know exactly what this title alludes to and in a flash, we'll remember all those times Cersei calmly sips wine from a goblet. She manages to make wine seem to taste easy like grape juice.

I'm unapologetically a huge fan of 'Game of Thrones'. G.o.T. I love fantasy and I love one that's well done in books and on screen (very few). When I see a well thought-out television series of a fantastical world, it's hook line and sinker for me. It doesn't hurt that Ramin Djawadi has been composing music for the shows. The scores are excellent.

I was quite prepared to stop watching after two or three seasons. After all, many television series usually tank after Season 2 or 3. For G.o.T, imho, all seven seasons have been riveting. The character development has been superb and the twisting conspiracies and story plot, delightfully merciless. In this penultimate fight for the right to sit on the Iron Throne, The final Season 8 might as well be captioned, 'Last One Standing'.

Another vein of pre-Cersei iconography comes to mind, possibly a lot more significant. I mean movie stills that show hardboiled Hollywood actresses, Bette Davis in particular, sipping away at a glass of wine with exactly the look of smug and mordant superiority that Headey has mastered for Cersei. The mood—when, for instance, we see Davis and Miriam Hopkins raising a toast to each other in a still from the nineteen-forties movie “Old Acquaintance”—is not one of intoxication or even mere participation but of a brazen autonomy. By seizing on the male-gendered beverage, as they would say at Sarah Lawrence, the women are actually participating in an act of subverting the patrimony’s control. I sip because I can, I smirk because I choose to, and all of you White Walkers and dragons do no more than delight me as I do.

Villains in G.o.T come in all forms—outlaws, brotherhoods, snakes, nobles, advisor, royals, et cetera. Not all villains seem to be intrinsically evil. Most of us will agree that Cersei Lannister is a narcissist psychopaths, and is adept at manipulating humans to her whims. Like all main villains, she survives to the end, and we see her again in this final Season 8. However, this is war, and she's doing what every character in the show does- murder another when it comes down to a fight for your own life. Young Arya Stark is no exception. Heroes are always flawed. They've saved innocents, honored, and also killed innocents and disobeyed and rebeled. Causes seem to remain constant, but allegiances change like the shifting sands and clouds. Is redemption then necessary?

G.o.T's brilliance, also lies in its dragons. They're the mythical beasts of awesomeness in fantasy novels. Fire-breathing creatures who aren't quite the evil that folklore depicts. They're reinvented into loyal companions and fearsome warriors, as righteous as the humans who ride them or own them. Drogon, Rhaegar, and now ice dragon Viserion thrilled me to no end. Them dragons fierce, and are gorgeously designed by Dan Katcher. Led by Sven Martin at Pixelmondo, a visual effects team of no fewer than 30 to 40 artists work hard to animate those dragons, literally breathing life into them.

We've waited soooo long for Season 8. I'd better go have a think about the avenues of HBO subscription, and how I can legitimately watch this without kowtow-ing to our telcos. I can't wait for this final season to premiere on April 19.