Game of Thrones continues their GoT Party promotional campaign with a new set of ads from the four competing candidates heading into Season 7. As the real election in the United States continues to careen wildly off the rails, the elections in Westeros are also heating up. Our four way race, in case you have forgotten, represent the Final Four “Great Houses” left after the War of the Five Kings has ended and Winter has arrived. They are:
The North: Jon Snow/Lyanna Stark. Jon Snow has been semi erratic at times, ranting about honor, and refusing to answer questions about a supposed “health issue” while at the Wall, but Lyanna Stark has been a fabulous surrogate, calm and professional, taking down interviewers right and left with her steely gaze and no nonsense attitude. His current ad shows his “man on the Street” appeal. Too bad none of the constituents shown are actually Westerosi register voters.
The Eyrie: Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark. Eyebrows were raised when Littlefinger picked the half sister of the Northern candidate as his running mate. Most saw it as a ploy for respectability and to have a “True Stark” name on the ticket. But Littlenger has a mountain to climb. His poll numbers show him as the most disliked candidate in Westerosi history. Perhaps that’s why the ads he’s running in a continent wide ad buy (where does he get the funds?) have gone negative early and often.
The South (and all of Essos, and the Iron Islands, and the Westerlands): Dany Targaryen/Tyrion Lannister. The ultimate outsider candidate, running the ultimate outsider campaign. No, really, she’s sailing directly for Westeros, as an outsider, coming to begin a campaign to take down the ruling party. Can we say “Maverick?” Pundits to foresee issues though, when she finally makes it to the heart of Westeros, once it gets out that her running mate is the man known in the streets of King’s Landing as the Evil Imp. Known for murdering half his family, blamed for the deaths of hundreds of from famine and war, and rumored to have offered money to eat babies, this could be a real optics issue for the Dragon Queen. At least those “Wheel” logos are memorable and look great on the back of a fashionable wagon.
King’s Landing: Cersei Lannister/Qyburn. The current incumbent has little going for her. From her refusal to give press conferences 200 days and counting to the press, to unanswered questions as to why she was not at the Sept the day of the supposed “terrorist” attack on the historical and beloved religious institution known as the Sept of Baelor, the suspicions just keep mounting. Add to that her lack of response, either to those injured int he attack, or to the suicide of the King directly following, and you have a candidate with deeply distressing poll numbers, and that before the conspiracy theorists ask why she cannot account for her whereabouts when her son fell from that window. Jaime Lannister was dispatched recently to the Sunday circuit to sooth the press, but when asked about his sister’s future plans, the normally golden tongued (and golden handed) spokesman’s inability to answer, and thousand mile long troubled stare into the middle distance seemed to suggest that even her, ahem, closest, adviser is not on message anymore.
It’s an effective ad, but the Lannister gold that usually funds their run seems to be missing. Her ad buys have been paltry, and there’s even word that for the first time the Lannisters are taking donations, and not self funding. It was also noted recently in their FEC filings, that 2/3s of campaign spending are going directly back to Lannister owned companies, and that once they were having donors pay for campaign offices (in the Red keep), Cersei tripled the monthly rent. Is she running for office, or is this campaign merely a long con grift? We’re still awaiting our press conference to ask these questions.
Via http://winteriscoming.net/2016/08/30/video-more-got-party-ads-shell/
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