A winter of discontent is coming – Game of Thrones gets political

 

Will Dean
Friday 22 June 2012 08:49 BST
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Screenshots of some of the videos American magazine Mother Jones has created
Screenshots of some of the videos American magazine Mother Jones has created

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are in the middle of spending millions in campaign dollars to pay for TV attack ads on each other ahead of November's US election. Perhaps they should take some tips from the brutal campaigns taking place in Westeros – setting of most of the action in HBO's bloody, brilliant fantasy drama Game of Thrones.

American magazine Mother Jones has spent more time than is frankly appropriate creating attack ads on three of GoT's main characters, replete with quotes from fictional newspapers ("Robb Stark's Diet of Death – The Lannister Times, 299AD") questioning the dubious decisions made in a show in which bloody murder is a key lobbying technque. There are also neat mirrors of real-life issues, including a demand for King Joffrey's birth certificate. And while the accusations may be harsh "this king takes advice from a whore-mongering imp!" – they're a lot fairer than the infamous Swift Boat and Willie Horton ads that did for John Kerry and Michael Dukakis. Though, yes, also a lot nerdier. See them here: bit.ly/MoJoGOT

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