I have to confess. I did it. After years of avoidance and denial, I have succumbed to the peer pressure of the cultural bullies.

I watched two episodes of Game Of Thrones, albeit from season one.

I have a lot to catch up on to take part in all the water cooler or coffee pot discussions. Fortunately, being retired, I no longer take part in these gabfests. Nevertheless, there are occasions for me to sit quietly having nothing to say about GOT.

I hate having nothing to say.

I began watching and tried mightily to not associate the politics of GOT with the politics of GOTrump.

I have been successful, and no other mention about the current state of affairs will appear in this essay.

In the first two episodes, we see a number of beheadings, a dwarf having group sex with absolutely gorgeous women, I think there were five, and a small boy being pushed off a castle wall because he had the misfortune of seeing the Queen and one of his trusted men engage in an activity of, shall we say, double disloyalty?

Anyway, all the sex and violence did not move me in any way in identifying the good people from the bad people. I like Ned only because the actor, Sean Bean, also played Boromir in the Lord Of The Rings or LOTR as I am prone to say.

Well, here is my likable character in episode two killing one of his kids’ dogs.  Well, the dog is really a wolf, but he’s a cute little guy. It was this scene of gratuitous violence that upset me more than all the heads rolling on the ground.

I have been advised that you have to get through the first three episodes before GOT got you. Therefore, I have to decide if I want to get GOT got. Perhaps my most obvious obstacle to overcome is the sheer enormity of watching all those episodes from all those past seasons before I can be relevant in any meaningful GOT discussion.

The last thing I want to do is, for example, say I like Ned, and then someone chimes in that Ned is killed by his daughter for screwing up her chance to marry a Prince.

I hope the Prince gets killed. Let me know if he does, and I will be sure to continue no matter how long it takes.