Today is not Friday. It is Thursday. This whole year, until further notice is Thursday. Every day of the lockdown is going to be Thursday. It’s not going to be Friday until WHO announces that the vaccine will be “ready soon”. Then we can sing the Friday song: “Freedom is coming tomorrow.” Until then, no Monday blues, no humpday, no weekends. Just dull, boring Thursday every day after day after day. So now that we are stuck in an unending Thursday, what are we going to do? The same thing we do every Thursday: Dumb internet quizzes. You know the type. Where a site asks: Which Game of Thrones Character are you? As if it is important that you know. As if you are one in the first place. As if you know what Game of Thrones is. To make this section fair, I have both watched and not watched Game of Thrones. Not because I am a snob, though I am, but because I did not watch the whole match. The few episodes I did watch featured a character called Joffrey. He was the human version of the ‘Rona’ itself in the televised Ministry of Health update: It reaches a point when you only watch to see if they have defeated it yet. Joffrey was like that. Every episode you watch that doesn’t include his painful, humiliating and gruesome death leaves you disappointed—that is not what you came to see. I got tired of watching Joffrey not being murdered, so I left the show So the playing field is level. Those who have not watched Game of Thrones, it’s okay. I don’t know what I am talking about either. Those who have watched game of thrones, don’t worry. I am not completely clueless. Because this is an exercise in escapism, and we want to take our minds off our current state of isolation, I am going to use an example that is as far from lockdown as possible: A line at the bank. You are in a line at the bank and someone walks in, walks past the line, goes straight to the counter and attempts to be too royal to queue like a mere peasant. As far as he can see, you scum with meagre pennies are not as special as him, the chosen one. When this happens, do you: A. Do nothing? B. Address the person with a long speech in which you ask why his mother did not cane him more frequently, and why, instead of raising a child, did she spend all day drinking local brew out of calabashes leaving you to be bred and cultured by the local rats and cockroaches, as evidenced by what an uncouth thing you are shamelessly perpetrating? C. Throw a shoe at the fool? And then throw another one, whether the first one hit the target or not? D. Think, “That is a good idea.” And then you also jump out and jump the queue? Now, following the tradition of these quizzes I am going to divulge which Game of Thrones character you are, basing on your response. Be prepared to be impressed by how accurate the revelation will be. A) You are Gaeme Stark. Gaeme Stark, for those of us who did not watch the show, was a distant cousin of the heroic Stark family, around which the show revolved. Gaeme Stark was a very distant cousin. He only attended the coronation of Ned Stark in season one because he thought having a family connection to the king could help him get funding for his blacksmithing start-up (he was working on designing a special fireproof alloy that he hoped he could sell to defence contractors to use in helmets and shields.) Unfortunately when he tried to get onto the guest list no one could remember which aunt married which sister-in-law, and so they put him in the open seating area. You know how these things go. When you try to gate-crash a rich relative’s wedding and no one knows you, but they aren’t sure you are lying, so they don’t bounce you— they just seat you next to the portable toilets. Disappointed that he didn’t even make VIP, Gaeme just packed up and left. He went to a small town in the hills and became a GMO farmer, instead cultivating bananas that ferment themselves, so when you eat the banana it is like eating urwagwa. He wasn’t heard from again. He did nothing for the whole series. That is the character you are. B) If your response was insults, sarcasm and abuse, then the Game of Thrones character you are is Tyrion. Tyrion Lannister, played by multiple award-winning witty-script champion and leading clever-quip-delivery master Peter Dinklage, wasn’t a fierce warrior or a sex symbol. He boasted no glamour or power. In fact, he was constantly being beaten up, beaten down and beaten all over the place. He was imprisoned, exiled, fired, banished and tortured. But he was still the star of the show because each obstacle he faced, he took as an opportunity to deploy his prodigious talent for abuse. If someone jumps the queue and your response is to let them do it just so you can release your latest string of insults, Tyrion is the character you are. I hope you take it seriously, and that insulting people it is not just a hobby, it is a passion. I hope you spent hours during your commute from work, back in the good old days when we used to commute from work, composing and editing insults, memorising them, then waiting and hoping for opportunities to unleash them. This isn’t even about Game of Thrones any more. It is about being the change you want to see in the world. C) Violence as a first resort, followed by more violence as a second resort signifies exactly what Game of Thrones Character you are. The one who never negotiated, tried to compromise, or sought to use diplomacy to see what the problem was. You are the one who knew only one language. Yes, you are the dragons. The dragons were giant reptiles bred for the purpose of waging war on behalf of their mother, Khaleesi. They grew to the size of petrol tankers and flew around smashing infrastructure in whatever town Khaleesi had beef with, while shooting fire out of their mouths. Throughout the show there was not a single instance of a dragon pausing to hear its opponent’s side of the story. The dragon just attacked, relishing the violence it started, hurling flames just as you hurl left shoe, right shoe and, hopefully, other things from your bag. Maybe you have a half-eaten pack of simsim cookies in there. Throw them at the fool. Maybe there is an empty nail polish remover bottle. Throw it at the fool. A couple of pencils, throw them. D) If you decide to go join in the queue jumping, the Game of Thrones character you are is one Blue worm. Blue Worm was a member of an army called the Unsullied. This army did not fight to defend its nation, it was pretty much just loitering around without aim when the dragon lady mentioned above showed up in a city one day and requested soldiers. She required a large number to do some killing, slaying, and general destruction on her behalf. Luckily for her these loitering mercenaries were available. What makes an army of mercenaries fight? The leader of the Unsullied army, one Grey Worm, he did it because Khaleesi was his buddy. Ride or die. But what about the rest of them? Like Blue Worm? Red Worm? Magenta Arthropod? Indigo Insect? Why did they run after random dragon ladies to perform acts of mayhem on her behalf? Just FOMO (FEAR OF MISSING OUT). They see their friends doing it and they also fall in. That’s you.
