Game of Thrones - Review that turns into thoughts that turns into possibly unsettling fanboy review of Sean Bean's filmography...Part I

Yo, Internet!  Or should I say "Hail, my liege!"  Guess what book I just finished?  Yep, the "Ziggy" treasury.

"Ready to play some games with some thrones! It's like musical chairs, right?  At which I always lose, because I am Ziggy..."

No! Just kidding!  Although I have no problem with Ziggy.  I just think his sad sack picture is funny.  I was actually going to cut out Ziggy's head and put it on sword dude's up there, but apparently, while you can do it on your PC with “MS Paint”, you CAN’T do that on a Mac (humble brag) unless you get Photoshop or some such.  (A program I have to pay for?  Forget it, I’ll suffer! Right? Right.)

Anyways…Yes! “A Game of Thrones”  George R.R. Martin!  My review?  It’s good!  Liked it!  Chop chop! Plunder plunder! Scheme scheme! Spooooky spooooky! A real page-turner!   Read it!

Ok, have you read it now?  I am going to assume you have, because now I wanna talk about the book.  Without saying spoiler alert a bunch of times!  So here I go!

Ok! My thoughts!  I was a bit hesitant to read it.  Why?  The TV series.  Watched most of the first season.  Was liking it ok.  Then something happened, and I was all like  “oh, mannnn…”  And why did I say that?  Well, sit back  and I’ll a tell ya.

The Actor Sean Bean.  Plays Eddard Stark.  Lord of “The North”.  Honourable!  Heroic! 

The first time I ever saw Mr. Bean (ha!) was in the 1990s on this show called “Sharp’s Rifles”.  It was a British show but PBS picked it up and played it.  It’s about this rag-tag group of British soldiers gamboling around Europe in the early 1800’s.  Led by the swashbuckling Lieutenant Sharpe.  Played by… Sean Bean.  I would watch with my dad.  One thing about my dad?  He loved the tough guy actors.  McQueen, yup.  Stallone, yup.  

Oi! Ain't I handsome bloke?

Once, my dad saw the actor  Richard Chamberlain at an airport.  Notwithstanding his macho movie image, I gather Mr. Chamberlain was a bit of a queen in person.  I don’t think my dad ever watched “Shogun” (“hai karimaska, Anjin-san…” Right?) again.  Not because he had something against gay dudes, but I think because he had thought of Chamberlain as pretty bad-ass.  Anyway, when my dad saw Sean Bean, he was convinced the guy was gonna be a big star.  (To be fair, this was also the guy who, when the Winnipeg Jets put in rookie goaltender Pokey Reddick, in a vain effort to slow the progress of yet another humiliating first round steamroll of the Jets by the probably greatest NHL team ever 80’s Edmonton Oilers, declared “Doesn’t Matter, Jets’ have got a goalie”.  He was right.  The Jets finding a goalie did indeed not matter.)

"Pokeeeeeeeeyyyyy!!!!"

And it wasn’t just my dad!  Me too!  I loved the guy!  “You get them damn French or Spanish or whatever, Sharp!!)  We waited for the break out role.  He would pop up in movies…but every time, he would either play the bad guy or get killed.  Most times both.  Or worse!  “Patriot Games”?  Bad IRA guy who Harrison Ford heroically takes out. “Goldeneye”? “Hey, James Bond, I am your best friend! Aha, nope I hate you…Argh, I am dead…”  “Ronin”? He plays a guy named “Spence”.  And what ass-kickery does Spence do in the movie?  From Wikipedia: “Later, Spence is exposed as a fraud and summarily dismissed.”  Sheesh!

And then… I hear that they are going to make “The Lord of The Rings” series into movies!  Oh happy day!  And that Sean Bean is going to be in it!  “Oh good for him”, I says! “Who will he play?  Aragorn?  Faramir?  It doesn’t matter which one, as long as he’s not Boromir, the dude who, in the second book, tries to steal “the ring” from the good guy and then gets pin-cushioned by them dastardly orcs.”  And…of course it was Boromir.   Still always the Bridesmaid.  The horribly killed bridesmaid.

"What arrows?  Ohhhhh...you mean the ones sticking out of my chest...yeah, I've seen this story before."

And now he’s getting old.  Not much time left for leading man roles.  Although I would have to say that the guy appears to have pretty much milked the “Sharpe” franchise for everything it's worth. I checked out his IMDB.   “Sharpe’s Siege”, “Sharpe’s Revenge”, “Sharpe’s Justice”…it goes on and on.  The only one missing is “Sharpe’s Convalescent Home”. 

Now! To the point of all this!  He appears again!  Last chance, maybe!  He's in Game of Thrones!  As the hero!  Or if not the hero, at least the “good guy”!  The honourable lord amidst all these no-good-doers!  And he is as great as ever!  Go Sean Bean!  You show ‘em!  Best character on the show!  

See!?

He heads South to make things right!  And then he sets everything right.  By which I mean in the ninth episode, he is wrongly accused of treason, forced to publicly confess to it to save the lives of his daughters, and then beheaded.  Freaking drag, man.  The good guy eats it.  Shit man, that happens in real life!  What do you think I am watching this shit for!?  To be reminded of that?  I live that shit, right?  Can't the good guy win?  

And for Sean Bean?  Yep.  Of all the HBO series over all the years, he gets to star in the one that kills off the good guy in the first season.  Why would I have expected anything else.  Like the former president says "Fool me one? Shame on you.  Fool me twice? You...you can't get fooled again..."  But at least it seems like I am the only person who has noticed:

Anyways, the Sean Bean part of this entry was supposed to be maybe two paragraphs, but apparently I feel a little stronger about the guy than I thought.  So I am not even going to go into my Game of Thrones thoughts in this entry, as doubtless anyone still reading this is either creeped out or asleep.

JJ Out!  For Winterfell!