Hammered Leigh Alexander to indifferent bar patrons: “I AM game journalism!”

BOSTON, MA — College-age kids and twentysomethings imbibing at Patrick O’Hanhrahan’s Public House were put on notice Friday night by a severely intoxicated Leigh Alexander, who reminded her fellow patrons that she IS gaming journalism.

Maureen Delaney, 22, said she was at the bar with three friends when one of them mentioned receiving a copy of the Kama Sutra as a gift from her boyfriend. Alexander — who had been nodding off a few seats away — sat straight up, then almost fell from her bar stool as she shrieked at Delaney and her friends: “That was MY publication!” Alexander screamed. “I was the fucking editor of Gamasutra!”

Unsure of how to respond — or even what Alexander was talking about — Delaney and her friends said they avoided making eye contact and tried to ignore the outburst, hoping she’d fall asleep again after another shot. But Alexander was enraged.

“That piece of shit site is NOTHING without me,” Alexander said, according to witnesses. “I have a hundred thousand Twitter followers!”

At the urging of Delaney’s friend, 20-year-old Jill Thomas, the bartender tried cutting Alexander off and was picking up the phone to call a cab for the inebriated journalist when Alexander slammed a fist on the bar.

“I won’t have it!” Alexander screamed, according to witnesses. “Do you know who the fuck I am? Do you? Do you who who THE FUCK I am?”

“I AM game journalism!”

Met with blank stares, Alexander whirled around so her back was to the bar and cupped her hands so the rest of the patrons could hear her over the music: “I’m Leigh fucking Alexander! I AM game journalism!”

Most of the bar’s patrons didn’t seem to notice, witnesses said, and a handful of others gave confused shrugs and turned back to their conversations.

“That pissed her the fuck off,” Thomas said.

Bar staff eventually resorted to having the bouncer, 36-year-old DeMarcus “Night Train” Houston, forceably remove Alexander from the bar, witnesses said. The 285-pound bouncer grimaced as he lifted the drunken Alexander onto his shoulder, then carried her out.

“Stop it! Stop it, you fucking hood rat!” Alexander screamed at Houston, sources said. “Do you know who the fuck I am? I’m Leigh fucking Alexander, you piece of shit hood trash!”

“Bitch is heavier than she look,” Houston said before unceremoniously dumping the legendary journalist onto the sidewalk outside.

Okay, who brought the dog?

PZ Myers-owned copy of Skepchick nude calendar now on eBay!

Copies of the now-infamous Skepchick nude calendar are hard to come by these days, but Skepchick fans can now get their hands on a copy previously owned by PZ Myers himself.

Myers, the celebrated evo-devo biologist and popular feminist blogger, is auctioning off his personal copy of the racy calendar as part of the The Pamper Initiative, a fundraiser created to send a dozen people to this year’s Free Thought Convention. The fundraiser aims to cover airfare, hotel and convention fees to the members-only event hosted by popular skeptic and atheist bloggers.

“It’s an item that has enormous sentimental value, obviously,” Myers told reporters. “I’ve always kept it as a reminder that women aren’t objects, and that the female form can be empowering, in this case as a way to raise money for a good cause.”

The original image of Rebecca Watson from the Skepchick nude calendar (left) and the PZ Myers-owned copy up for bid (right).

Bidding started at a modest $150, but by Tuesday — just a day after the auction went live — the highest bid had topped out at $3,216.43.

“Item is classified as fair to worn condition,” the auction description reads. “Cover is faded and scuffed from storage under mattress. The following months on the calendar are either worn, bent or stained: April (Rebecca Watson), June (Greta Christina), September (Amy Roth), and October (Melody Hensley). Pages for June (Greta Christina) and July (Jen McCreight) are joined in some places by organic adhesive. Buyers must agree to purchase calendar as-is, with the understanding that this is a used item. Refunds will not be granted based on item condition.”

More than 300 users posted bids to own PZ Myers’ personal copy of the infamous Skepchick nude calendar.

The Fappening: Rumored Rebecca Watson photos could be leaked, source says

Rebecca Watson poses nude for the Skepchick calendar. Notice the lack of sock puppets and the radial tire in the background.

Steamy photos of feminist icon Rebecca Watson could be among a treasure trove of celebrity nudes in the second wave of the now-infamous Fappening, sources said Tuesday.

The Fappening sent shockwaves rippling across the internet on Aug. 31, when anonymous hackers released a batch of intimate nude photos taken from the iCloud accounts of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Kaley Cuoco and Kate Upton. Despite attempts to suppress and remove the content, the photos and videos went viral, bringing an avalanche of traffic to sites hosting them.

Watson was conspicuously absent from the first trove of photos, which included photographs of Lawrence’s face and tongue covered in ejaculate, as well as Downton Abbey’s Jessica Brown Findlay jamming an erect penis into her right eye socket.

But now sources say Watson, the world-famous skeptic and feminist leader, appears in several photos and videos that could leak to the public web at any time. In one of the videos, a topless Watson jiggles her breasts and cellulite to rapper Akinyele’s 1996 hit, “Put It In Your Mouth“, while another clip features footage of Watson simulating singer Miley Cyrus’ infamous “twerking” performance, with blogger PZ Myers playing the role of Robin Thicke. It’s not clear whether the alleged still images are unique or taken from Rebecca Watson’s legendary, previously-released Skepchick nude calendar.

“Where. The Fuck. Is Rebecca Watson?” one 4chan user asked in a thread as leakers released a steady stream of Lark Vorhees photos.

“Srsly,” another user wrote. “Enough JLaw already, give us RWatt. Fap fap fap!”

A rep for Watson didn’t return several calls for comment, but several prominent feminists came to Watson’s defense.

“Stressed already at impending release of RWatt photos,” the Center for Inquiry’s Melody Hensley tweeted. “Wish someone would want 2 take n00ds of me.”

BronyCon: Female attendance plummets after Watson takes aim at convention policy

Call her Rebecca the Convention Slayer.

In a row that mirrored the TAM controversy of 2011, women are abandoning BronyCon in droves after Skepchick leader Rebecca Watson questioned the convention’s commitment to the safety of female attendees. In an angry missive on her website, Watson accused convention organizers of pandering to “bronies” — adult male fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic — at the expense of young girls and women, who are the target audience of the animated hit.

“The show preaches friendship, tolerance and respect, but Bronies have perverted conventions into hormone-fueled bacchanalias, replete with men cosplaying as hypersexualized versions of the program’s characters,” Watson said. “The sad truth is that Bronie conventions are no longer safe spaces for women. Some of them are straight up meat markets, with alpha Bronies mounting mares like Dothraki horselords on Viagra.”

Grolgoth the Brony King declares war on women.

The skeptic icon went on to quote extensively from a Livejournal entry posted in early 2014 by a female fan who had been accosted by bronies at Equestrian Dreamz, a Montreal-based convention that draws thousands of fans annually. The victim was stepping into an elevator to return to the hotel room she shared with her parents when a bearded, 30-something man cosplaying as Apple Bloom shouldered his way into the lift.

“I could tell he was excited by the festivities, and he wouldn’t stop talking about the Cutie Mark Crusaders,” the victim wrote.

She said she didn’t feel as if she was in danger until the elevator stopped and an enormous man in the pink and magenta hues of Twilight Sparkle waddled into the lift. Apple Bloom high-fived Twilight Sparkle, and as the elevator doors closed “my creep radar was off the charts,” the girl wrote in her Livejournal entry. She described the rest of the ride as “the longest 45 seconds of my life” as the two Bronies sheepishly asked her to join them for banana smoothies in their hotel room.

In the wake of those accusations — and other harrowing accounts detailed on dozens of Tumblrs — female attendance at MPL-related conventions has plummeted more than 40 percent in 2014. Or, as Watson put it, “Brony conventions are packed with more sausage than Abe Froman’s factories.” Tales abound of out-of-control Bronies walking about conventions with their testicles exposed and engaging in lube-fueled “pony rides” along Slip n’ Slides.

A Bronie is attended to by a bevy of female admirers before the Carnivalis Bacchus, the afterparty Bronie orgy that has become convention tradition.

Watson herself was a keynote speaker at last year’s SparkleFest in Munich, where she delivered a talk on My Little Pony’s feminist themes. She was hit on by 26 Bronies, a fact independently confirmed by lesser bloggers.

“I had just finished giving a talk about how it irks me when men hit on me,” Watson said, “when a guy cosplaying Prince Blueblood told me he’d make me neigh, whinny and nicker like a magnificent courser. Is this what My Little Pony fans have to deal with all the time?”

Through Skepchick, Watson issued a general fatwa against supporting My Little Pony or any of its associated conventions until organizers apologize, allow Watson to write convention harassment policies, grant exclusive control of after-parties to Skepchick Industries, and ban dissenters — with the exception of the odd contrarian, so attendees “can be reminded of how fucking stupid Bronies are,” Watson said.

Watson cosplaying as Princess Luna at HoofCon 2012.

Watson: Women and LGBT players underrepresented in tabletop gaming community

Unconstrained displays of testosterone are common in tabletop gaming.

Women and LGBTQ players are woefully underrepresented in the Magic: The Gathering community, and in tabletop gaming in general, feminist icon Rebecca Watson told reporters Wednesday.

Watson, the founder of Skepchick Industries — the world’s leading skeptic organization — assigned interns to perform head counts at two dozen tabletop gaming events over the first five months of 2014. The interns visited a four-day Magic tournament in San Diego, observed a weekend skirmish among Warhammer 40k players in Toronto, and watched a Battletech campaign play out over a massive table in Manhattan’s famed Midtown Comics.

“What we found is that fewer than ten percent of players are women,” Watson said during Wednesday’s press conference.

Why? There are several factors that contribute to the overwhelming gender and sexuality imbalance, Watson said. While the fantasy setting and artwork of the Magic: The Gathering universe appeal to both genders, it’s believed the cut-throat, ultra-competitive atmosphere of official tournaments make potential female players feel unwelcome. Other tabletop franchises, like the popular Warhammer, are testosterone-fueled affairs where burly men assume the roles of military generals. And some women, Watson said, are intimidated by the sights and smells of tabletop tournaments.

“Sitting between two 300-pound men, with your nostrils overwhelmed by body odor, is not a safe space for women,” Watson said.

An informal poll also revealed an alarmingly low number of gay and lesbian tabletop gamers, but Skepchick Industries wouldn’t release those figures because suspected gay players refused to self-identify, claiming instead to be paragons of manliness. Watson likened it to the NFL, where an atmosphere of machismo and overwhelming testosterone pressures gay players to maintain a façade of heterosexuality. Like professional sports, there are undoubtedly gay tabletop gamers, but coming out of the closet may cause others to question whether a gay player is fit to lead an Orcish army or deploy space marines, Watson said.

Of all the tabletop games, Battletech was considered the most hostile to female gamers.

“What we’re hearing from women is that they don’t enjoy participating in zellbrigen,” Watson said. “Whereas men may enjoy the ritualistic preening and bidding of the Batchall, women find it tiresome and borderline sexist. As a result, women are often relegated to dezgra units.”

But Battletech may not be the worst offender. Games like Call of Cthulu and Vampire have featured plots involving graphic rape, and Magic: The Gathering players are required to “tap” their mana cards in order to perform actions in the game, Watson said.

“And that leads to all manner of awful, off-putting double entendres that can make women gamers feel uncomfortable,” Watson told reporters.  “It’s a thin line between tapping a Sera Angel for a +4/+4 flying attack, and making jokes about tapping female players around the table.”

Sara Mayhew does science outreach, draws starship in manga book

Internationally known TED Fellow, mangaka and reiki master Sara Mayhew is known internationally for including hard science and skeptical elements in her international manga.

Citing her commitment to hard science and skepticism, internationally celebrated international mongaka superstar Sara Mayhew announced she’s including a starship in her upcoming internationally-known monga epic.

Dubbed “Legend of the Tzard,” the story details the adventures of Saratsumi Mayhumitsu, a young intergalactically-known Japanese princess who learns she is the warrior of destiny who will bring an Evil Intergalactic Empire to its knees. Standing in her way is Beccatomo Uwatsoni, a narcissistic crone who totally hates Saratsumi Mayhumitsu because she’s jelly.

Along with magic, prophecies and swords, the story will prominently feature science, TED Fellow Mayhew told reporters at a press conference in Winnipeg.

“So the main protagonizers have to flee the evil witch Uwatsoni, and they hop aboard a big spaceship!” Mayhew said. “That’s where like, science, ’cause the ship hops through spacetime tachyons Mr. O’Brien beam pringles. And then they travel to the next galaxy and eat gohan from kawaii bento boxes!”

Primary antagonist Beccatomo Uwatsoni will stop at nothing to prevent Saratsumi Mayhumitsu from joining her exclusive club, the Galaktichicks, Mayhew told reporters. Using her considerable influence across the galaxy, Uwatsoni spreads lies about the venerable Mayhumitsu as she furthers her plot to use nanomachines to erode the testosterone levels of the galaxy’s men, rendering them effeminate.

But Mayhumitsu is given the legendary Suit of Sparkling Sequins by the Intergalactic TED, infusing her with enough Science Power to finally stand up to her rival Uwatsoni and her minions. Along with her trusty sidekick, Philly Plait the talking dog, Mayhumitsu reboards her starship, the TEDennium Falcon, to hunt down the evil crone Uwatsoni.

“I think it’s important to include scientifical elements in my internationally-celebrated mongas,” Mayhew said. “That’s why the TEDennium Falcon only has kinetical weapons and can’t go faster than 12 parsecs, because it’s limited by the speed of lightyears.”

Watson: Like Catnip For Your Penis

Who the fuck gets hit on four times in two blocks?

Rebecca fucking Watson, that’s who!

Recently our hero described in harrowing detail a late-night stroll down Manhattan’s 7th Avenue after partying at a bar with friends. Men literally lined up for their chance to hit on Watson, like the guys from the Big Bang Theory in that one episode where they each tried their hand at macking Summer Glau.

Guy Number One commented on the hotness of Rebecca’s hair, sidled up to her and tried to cop a feel right there on the street.

Guy Number Two was even more aggressive as he approached Watson with a prodigous erection visible through his jeans and propositioned the fiery-haired femme fatale directly. The perv “offered me $1,000 if I’d let him do unspeakable things to me,” Watson recalled.

Guy Number Three fell in beside Watson and tried to commisserate, then pleaded for sex with Watson: “Your boyfriend ain’t here,” Guy Number Three said. “He can wait.”

Guy Number Four simply tried shouting at Watson to demand her phone number, but was quickly rebuffed. And with that, scuzzy men had hit on Rebecca Watson FOUR TIMES in the span of a few hundred feet.

The scene after every skeptic convention in the past 7 years.

At this point, Watson ran — previously we’ve noted she wears sneakers at night for the very purpose of running from men who want to rape her — and it was a good thing she took off when she did. As she looked back, men were massing like one of The Walking Dead’s infamous zombie hordes, lumbering toward her while they pleasured themselves and showered Rebecca with compliments about her hair, breasts and posterior. One guy even said he liked her glasses.

This is scary stuff. In an earlier meditation on the extreme sexual advances Watson suffers regularly, we’ve compared skeptic convention floors as terrifying expanses of blue ocean, with every dick in the room pointed at Watson, circling like sharks as they bide their time to unleash phallic violence on the raven-haired vixen of their dreams.

“I’m tired of being hit on a lot at conferences,” Watson said in a 2011 Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, weeks after the infamous Elevatorgate episode. Watson’s video, in which she chided the entire male population, “was in the broader context of being about how I get tons of mail and a lot of it is sexual in nature, and it includes very graphic e-mails about what men would like to do to me, sexually, as well as men who disagree with me threatening to rape me, or hoping that I get raped in some way…Being hit on non-stop is tiring.”

Obviously, Watson is catnip to sexually aroused men.  But it’s clear the problem is NOT relegated to skeptic and atheist gatherings, where Watson is considered a celebrity. Even regular fucking guys on the street can’t keep it in their pants when Watson walks by.

So what gives? Supermodels don’t even get hit on that much! To better understand why Rebecca Watson is so irresistable to perverted men, Rebecca Watson Fan Club spoke to a recent suitor who was promptly shot down.

Rebecca Watson Fan Club: So where’d you meet Rebecca Watson?

Failed Suitor: The coffee aisle of an A&P. I was picking up some Gervalia, and she had selected a jar of Folger’s Dark Roast.

RWFC: Were you nervous about approaching Watson? What was your pick-up line?

FS: Uh, I think I said something about how the skeptic in me doubts Folger’s is a quality coffee. I thought it was clever at the time. You had to be there, I guess. Yeah, I was nervous.

RWFC: How’d she react?

FS: With a look of disgust. Extreme disgust. Goatse level, even. Then she told me to fuck off and go home to finger my mangina.

RWFC: Ouch.

FS: Yeah, it was pretty brutal.

RWFC: And she just walked away?

FS: Not quite. There was this big guy behind me, sweaty gamer type. He was next. Invited her back to play Katamari Damacy with him. Then there was a foreigner, Greek I think. He was saying something about a date night, you know, dinner and a movie.

RWFC: Wow. So three men in one aisle?

FS: Four, actually. Silvio Berlusconi was…

RWFC: Silvio Berlusconi?!

FS: I know, right? I have no idea what he was doing in the middle of an American grocery aisle. He was picking up some Sanka and just kind of stood there with this amused smirk as we were all shot down. Then he nodded to us, straightened his tie and said, “Watcha the master show you how it’sa done.” So he follows her into the produce aisle and comes up behind her, like as she’s looking at lettuce. He puts his hands about an inch from her ass and…

RWFC: Wait, what? What did Rebecca say?

FS: I don’t think she realized he was there yet. She’s still looking at the lettuce, and Berlusconi is behind her, miming pelvic thrusts and swinging an imaginary lasso. I’m not sure if he meant to slap her ass, but he was winding up when she turned around and…

Luckiest guy in the world? You betcha!

RWFC: Oh no…

FS: Oh yes. He put some mustard on it too, and she was wearing these yoga pants, and…well, let’s just say you could probably hear it four aisles away.

RWFC: I mean, you can’t even make this stuff up.

FS: You really can’t.

RWFC: If this is what she deals with every day…just…mind blowing. Men are fucking pigs. No offense.

FS: It’s okay. I learned my lesson.

RWFC: We’ve heard Watson described as “catnip for the atheist cock.” Clearly, she’s catnip for all manor of theists too. Why do you think men find her so irresistable, to the point where they’re willing to risk public humiliation to hit on her?

FS: Well, you always want what you can’t have. And when you see a woman like Rebecca right in front of you, you think, ‘What have I got to lose?’ But the truth is she’s unattainable, unless you’re a suave piece of beefcake like Bruce Vilanch or a powerful head of state like Silvio Berlusconi.

RWFC: Well, we’d like to thank you for putting your ego aside and taking the time to talk to us. What’s next for you? Still looking for a special lady?

FS: You’re absolutely welcome, just don’t, you know, use my name. As for what’s next, I think I’ve got to lower my standards. I’ve got a great pick-up line locked and loaded for the next TAM, where I hope to “bump into” Sara Mayhew and see what happens from there.

Leave Melody and Rebecca Alone!!1!11

This week we learned there’s a secret cabal of shadowy men who are stalking skeptic and feminist icons like Rebecca Watson and Melody Hensley.

Thanks in large part to a story in the U.K.’s Daily Mail, and an excellent and balanced write-up in The Daily Dot, the invasive methods these stalkers use have been exposed for all to see. Whereas in years past stalkers preferred lurking in dark corners, jacking off in the bushes while watching their female prey through bedroom windows, recent times have given way to a new breed of obsessive: The Twitter Stalker, a more refined infatuant who maintains a cool distance while engaging in his creepy hobby. The Twitter Stalker doesn’t rifle through garbage cans. He doesn’t pilfer panties or surreptitiously photograph from parked vans.

Fuck yeah, Tweet that opinion!

No, the Twitter Stalker uses Storify to catalog every social media utterance of his prey. It’s rape by hyperlink.

Tweets are intimate. Whether it’s Melody Hensley tweeting to her 3,000 followers, Rebecca Watson tweeting to her 30,000 followers, or Sara Mayhew tweeting to the 26,000 fake followers she bought for $79.99, these women are baring their souls, broadcasting their private thoughts to the intimate thousands and assorted lurkers.

Like the press in Hollywood’s heyday, there’s an unspoken code that says social media is off–limits. As a society we don’t hold people accountable for what they say on Twitter, because that would be ridiculous. You can’t be fired for a tweet. You can’t be mocked for a tweet. Yet these high-technology stalkers, led by a ruffian who calls himself ElevatorGate, insist on playing dirty by linking to the intimate tweets these women post publicly on the internet. Linking to them! It’s gotten so bad, so terrifying, that Hensley has a psychiatrist-diagnosed case of PTSD the equal of any war veteran, while Watson takes anti-depressants and sees a therapist as a result of the cyberstalking and Twitter trolling she must contend with.

Stand with Melody and Rebecca. Call your congress(wo)men and senators, and DEMAND they pass a law criminalizing the use of social media to upset feminists. Call Storify and DEMAND that they ban users who use their service for Storifying. And call the commanding officers of any snarking active duty military member on Twitter to DEMAND they be court-martialed and dishonorably discharged.

UNRELEASED COMMENTARY ON GAME OF THRONES BY REBECCA WATSON AND AMANDA MARCOTTE

UNUSED AUDIO COMMENTARY FOR GAME OF THRONES PILOT, “WINTER IS COMING”, RECORDED FALL 2011 BY REBECCA WATSON AND AMANDA MARCOTTE, HBO SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURING 26 SECONDS OF ADDITIONAL FOOTAGE.

PART I

(Editor’s note: This special audio commentary track has never before been released publicly. With Game of Thrones set to return later this week for a fourth season, we thought it would be a real treat for Rebecca’s fans to read a transcript of the commentary she recorded with well-known feminist Amanda Marcotte. Enjoy!)

Amanda Marcotte: This first episode begins with a cold open, right to the action. We see three rough-looking men leading horses through a dark tunnel, emerging in a clearing on the edge of what looks like a forest. It’s winter, obviously. The snows are half a foot deep. And although the program gives us no introduction to these characters, we’ll later learn that they’re members of a quasi-military order.

Rebecca Watson: The Night’s Watch.

AM: Exactly.

RW: An inherently sexist organisation. The Night’s Watch only allows men into its ranks. The majority of them are rapists hauled in from all four corners of Westeros. Not coincidentally, they’re all white. Already we can see what sort of people we’re dealing with here.

AM: They’re armed. Dirty, too. Squalid little men just out for a stroll beyond the Wall, looking to catch wildling women unawares for surprise rape.

RW: That’s a good point. From the bits and pieces of dialog here, it’s clear these men are operating under the pretense of “scouting” the wildlings, but really they’re out to rape. Now one of them comes upon a deserted wildling camp. Ugh, this is horrible. Blood and entrails everywhere. Severed heads, dismembered limbs.

AM: It’s obvious some sort of animal got to them.

RW: A dog probably. Or a Siberian tiger.

A Night’s Watch ranger hallucinates a ghastly scene of slaughter.

AM: And now the ranger is back with his mates, gesticulating wildly and yelling about so-called White Walkers.

RW: The White Walkers of Westeros are akin to the chupacabra of south America, are they not? They exist in stories meant to frighten children. They’re no more real than the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. Thankfully, the leader of this ranging group turns out to be a solid skeptic.

AM: He demands evidence of these so-called White Walkers, but there is none.

RW: Indeed. Not a spot of blood. You’d think there would be carnage, but it’s obvious the man was inventing the grisly scene in his head. You have to look at this logically: Not even the White Walkers of legend can slaughter an entire village and spirit away the evidence in a few minutes’ time. It takes time to execute people. When the Catholic Church executed Galileo, it took 20 minutes just to light the pyre.

AM: That’s right. And now these Night’s Watch rapists get their comeuppance in the form of wildling children avenging the rape of their mothers. Seems gratuitously violent, though.

RW: And it’s not entirely clear where these children came from. It feels like a non-sequitur.

AM: Now the opening credits roll, and we’ve arrived at what looks like some sort of domestic scene at Winterfell, the ancestral home of the noble Stark family.

RW: We see the girls of the Stark household forced to knit, while the boys are outside, enjoying the sunshine and practicing archery. Now we see young Brandon Stark holding a bow aloft. Behind him, older brothers Jon and Robb whisper in his ear: “Go on, father’s watching.” Indeed, up above on the balcony, Lord Eddard Stark looks on approvingly as his son is indoctrinated into the cycle of war.

AM: This is, literally, a patriarchy.

RW: That’s right. Poor Bran is learning the first of many hard lessons about manhood in Westeros. This is a land where, if you want to impress your father, violence is the only route.

AM: An arrow is loosed, finding its target. Bullseye!

RW: Oh, I love this scene!

AM: For a few seconds, we’re led to believe Bran hit his mark, but as the camera pans out, we see it was actually the handiwork of Arya, the youngest of the Stark girls. She curtsies, smiling, while still holding her bow. This is a girl who clearly will not confirm to gender norms.

A girl who refuses to conform to gender norms.

RW: Now we learn that one of the three men from that ill-fated Nights Watch expedition has indeed survived, but he’s left his post. That’s a capital crime in Westeros. The boys are brought along to watch Lord Stark behead the deserter.

AM: I’m torn here. On the one hand, this man is a rapist. On the other, he’s been conscripted into a solitary life on the wall by his betters, people who clearly enjoy a position of privilege in Westeros. Oh! Now we see the dire wolves!

RW: One for each Stark child.

AM: Adorable! But no dire wolf pup for Theon, and none for the servants. Clearly, dire wolves are for the privileged.

RW: Technically it’s summer, but the Starks here are bundled up against the cold because Winterfell is so far north. Have you ever wondered why seasons in Westeros last so long?

AM: I have, but I don’t have the scientific expertise you do. Why don’t you take us through it?

RW: Sure. Well, as you know, Earth’s seasons are the direct result of the planet’s elliptical orbit around the sun. Summer happens when the Earth reaches aphelion, its closest point in orbit. The extra heat from being so close to the sun is what gives us those gorgeous 85-degree days in July. Winter, of course, is the opposite — during winter, the Earth is at its greatest distance from the sun in the ellipse.

AM: Interesting. So if Westerosi seasons can last a decade or longer, the planet must occupy a much larger orbit around its star than our Earth, yeah?

RW: Correct. Some people have posited that we’re dealing with a binary star system here, but that would mean the planet in the Game of Thrones universe would have to follow a figure-eight orbit. Binary star systems are also famously inhospitable to life, to the point where astronomers no longer waste their time with those systems in the search for potential life-supporting planets. Ah, but this isn’t an astronomy lesson, and here comes the king!

AM: Finally, the royal train arrives in Winterfell. The King, his retainers, the Hound, and the famously blond Lannisters!

King Robert, head of the Westerosi patriarchy.

RW: Cersei looks fantastic for a woman who’s been riding for a month. Joffrey looks regal, doesn’t he?

AM: Indeed. Much more so than his lecherous father, who is so overstuffed he can’t even dismount from his horse without assistance from his servants. Oh, sorry! I forgot for a second that you and Mark Addy…

RW: It’s okay. No, really. Mark is a great guy, but we’ve gone our separate ways. Anyway, Mark…er, Robert…asks Lord Stark to take him to “the crypts,” an underground, sort of foreboding place where the Stark clan buries its dead.

AM: Like any man who’s had a sex object taken away from him, King Robert is mournful for Leanna Stark, Lord Stark’s late sister. We’re told a man named Rhaegar Targaryan killed poor Leanna, and now we’re beginning to see how dangerous life can be for a Westerosi woman caught between the affections of two men.

RW: We’re not told whether Leanna had a choice in all this.

AM: Of course not. Lord Stark tells the King, “All the Targaryens are dead, Your Grace.” But now we see that’s not true.

RW: Finally! A scene that doesn’t look as if it was shot in dreary Ireland. I fucking hate Ireland.

AM: We learn there are actually two Targaryen alive — Danaerys and her older brother, Viserys. And Viserys has hatched a plan to marry his young sister off to some tribal chieftan in exchange for an army.

 

PLEASE CHECK BACK WITH REBECCA WATSON FAN CLUB FOR PART II OF THIS VERY SPECIAL TRANSCRIPT LATER THIS WEEK!