NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Nice Day for a Weird Wedding

Occasionally, it sucks to live on the West Coast: the Purple Wedding damn near broke Twitter hours before I was scheduled to livetweet the episode, and it took all my fangirl strength not to take a peek. But on my honor as a Tully, on my honor as a Stark, I kept my eyes pure until 9:00. Anything for my NOCs!

Let’s cut to the chase: by now you surely have heard that this was the episode featuring the wedding of King Joffrey of House Baratheon and Lady Margaery of House Tyrell. But that wasn’t the biggest news that came out of that wedding by any means: THERE WAS AN ASIAN WOMAN IN ATTENDANCE!

Okay fine, she was a performer, not a guest...but progress is made one step at a time. — Okay fine, she was a performer, not a guest… but progress can be measured one contortionist at a time.

Oh wait, did something else happen as well?

The episode started with Ramsay Snow taking some time off from torturing… by hunting a young woman in her nightgown for sport. It was horrific to witness, gratuitously cruel and violent, therefore a surefire indicator that George R.R. Martin himself wrote the episode, which in fact, he did.

Ramsay’s father, Roose Bolton, arrives back home, fresh from killing all the adult Starks at the Red Wedding, to find his psychopathic son has thoroughly tamed Reek, né Theon, enough so that he confesses that the two youngest Stark boys are still alive somewhere, possibly living with Jon Snow in Castle Black.

Next, we attend the pre-wedding brunch hosted by King Joffrey. His uncle, Tyrion, presents him with a history book, which admittedly is kind of a crappy wedding present. Joffrey shows his uncle just how crappy the gift is by chopping it to bits with his new Valyrian Steel sword, gifted to him by Tywin Lannister, his grandfather.

Leave it to Grandpa to give the baby something dangerous. #TheLionAndTheRose #GOTNOC #DemThrones

— The Nerds of Color (@TheNerdsofColor) April 14, 2014

Tyrion has bigger things to worry about, however. He discovers that Cersei has tattle-taled to their father about his relationship with Shae, and he knows that Shae will not leave King’s Landing as long as she knows he loves her. So he breaks her heart in order to save her life. Correction: he breaks all our hearts.

Meanwhile in Dragonstone, also known as the Armpit of Westeros, the larders are running low and Stannis is burning people at the stake. Stannis’ wife is raving about grilled seagull, his adorable daughter is still cooped up and now being mentored by Melisandre, and the Onion Knight is the only one with any damn sense in the whole zipcode. In other words, business as usual at Camp Baratheon.

North of the Wall, Bran and his rag-tag gang of Wargs are also running low on food. Bran’s powers are getting stronger, but the physical exhilaration from being inside a wolf’s body threatens to destroy his human one. He also Wargs into a tree and receives a vision, which apparently gave him All The Damn Answers, but left me confused.

Now… are you ready for some Royal Wedding action?

The ceremony was solemn and music-less. Margaery looked majestic in an ornate gown embroidered with a vine motif and all of the kingdom’s hairpieces curled and piled on top of her head. The reception was an absolute clown show: Joffrey pelted coins at Sigur Ros, Cersei spread her petty venom around like a pox, the Martells made their feelings known to Lord Tywin, lecherous Maesters felt up young girls, Joffrey hired a band of little people to pantomime the most offensive war play ever performed in Westeros, and seeing that this didn’t get his uncle’s goat, poured wine on his head and made him refill his goblet. It was horrific, and Margaery’s Side-Eye of Doom just said it all:

Luckily, the newly-crowned Queen Margaery still knew how to keep a party going, and would chime in when things got really tense with the cutest little non-sequiturs like “King Joffrey has decreed that the leftovers from our feast will be given to the poorest in our city!” and:

However, soon after ingesting said pie and some wine, King Joffrey started choking. After an agonizing few seconds, wherein he still had enough wits about him to blame his uncle Tyrion, the King of Westeros dies in the arms of his mother.