Geek Girl in Hollywood: On the villains of ‘Game of Thrones’

OK, I admit it. I’m addicted to “Game of Thrones.” This is not news to regular readers of this column, but the sixth season finale surpassed all my expectations. Why? Because all the time we’ve devoted to this show is finally paying off. Yes, there are going to be SPOILERS here. I’m sorry. If you’ve managed to go this long without watching, you’re going to get spoiled somewhere!

This week I’m talking about the villains in “Game of Thrones.” The fantasy world is full of fearsome baddies, but it’s really hard to top the ones in this brutal universe. Sure, we had Joffrey, and he was wonderful to hate, but this season we got some that topped them all. There was Ramsay Bolton — whose death caused a great cheer to go up in my apartment — who, while known to be the worst kind of cruel and evil, still shocked me when he stabbed his father.

However, the big one this season is Cersei. Even as we revile her, we connect with her because we understand. We see her love for her children, we sympathize with her bad choices, and we felt her pain during her naked walk of atonement in front of the entire city. How many of us have had that particular nightmare? We see her make the wrong choice again and again, but she’s so well-written that we keep finding ourselves rooting for her.

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You know what? She might have been a better ruler than her father if she’d been given the chance. Yes, she has sex with her brother and that’s gross, but she might have found love with Robert if he’d been less of an ass. Her children might have grown up differently if she’d been loved and allowed them to be less spoiled (Joffrey), less sheltered (Myrcella) or have a father figure (Tommen).

You can see what events in her life have done to her and how a woman who could have been a strong and intelligent ruler was twisted by her circumstances. Watching her sit on the Iron Throne in the finale, we can’t help but both root for her while staring in horror, thinking of the bad events to come. Even Jamie looked worried.

Then there’s Arya. I love Arya, I do. She’s a survivor. She’s also a brutal killer. She made Walder Frey eat his sons before she killed him in revenge for the Red Wedding. Has she gone off the deep end? Is she really a villain? I’d actually love to hear your opinion on this. Tweet me @jennabusch to let me know what you think.

Winter is here!