Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), just like the rest of us, has spent more time than not analyzing the power structures and economy within HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”
“So this is it ― season eight. Winter is here, the Wall is crushed, and only five episodes remain,” the 2020 presidential candidate wrote Sunday in New York magazine’s The Cut. “With all these powerful women preparing for battle, will the mighty bank silence the army of the people? Will the army of the dead heading straight for Winterfell make all of this talk about breaking wheels irrelevant? We’ve got five episodes left to find out if the people can truly break their chains, destroy the wheel, and rise up together to win.”
Warren made sure to note that her favorite character is Daenerys Targaryen, detailing the Mother of Dragons’ plotline that includes freeing slaves and learning how to rule justly.
“A queen who declares that she doesn’t serve the interests of the rich and powerful? A ruler who doesn’t want to control the political system but to break the system as it is known?” Warren wrote. “It’s no wonder that the people she meets in Westeros are skeptical.”
On the other side of the spectrum, Warren criticized Cersei Lannister’s methods of staying in power, which include paying banks lots of money. Not once in her review did Warren directly make a comparison between politics in “Game of Thrones” and politics in the real world, though some lines in the piece can be considered thinly veiled nudges at real-life politicians.
“Unlike Dany, Cersei doesn’t expect to win with the people ― she expects to win in spite of them. … Rather than earn her army,” the Democratic senator wrote, Cersei “pays for it.”
“Cersei’s betting on the strength of the bank to get her through the biggest fight of her life. It never crosses the mind that the bank could fail, or betray her,” Warren continued.
Warren is running for president in the 2020 presidential election on a populist platform that aims to monitor and regulate big banks and, in her words, bring more power to the people. Before getting elected senator, the Democrat helped the Obama administration launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Warren’s review of the HBO show, known for its cultlike following, did not go unnoticed on Twitter.
Read the whole piece at The Cut.