The Game of Thrones Season 7 finale may have aired on Sunday, but fans will be picking it apart for clues and references for months to come, especially since the new season may not air until 2019. And politically engaged audience members may have noticed what could well be a Game of Thrones reference to the Trump era in that final episode. The moment came in the speech that Jon Snow — sorry, Aegon Targaryen, still not used to that — delivered about the corrupting nature of lies. When the King in the North is confronted by his own allies about his unwillingness to lie to Cersei Lannister, their common enemy, he states,
"I'm not going to swear an oath I can't uphold. When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies."
It's a quote that feels fitting both for Jon Snow's character, and for today's political climate. When terms like "fake news" are ubiquitous, and opposing sides don't even consume the same media because they don't trust it, we've entered dire straits. It's the terrifying world we live in now, as well as the one being warned against in Game of Thrones.
And while the connection to our modern-day obstacles might not have been entirely intentional at first, it sounds like it certainly became that way once the similarities were notices on set. Liam Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos of Seaworth, told Variety that Donald Trump had been elected to the presidency on the morning that the aforementioned scene was filmed. He said,
"That speech that Jon Snow gave about the nature of lies and what’s been said, and what happens if we don’t stick to our word — we filmed that on exactly the day that a certain POTUS was elected and it had incredible resonance while we were filming it."
Cunningham doesn't say anything about whether the line had been written with American politics in mind, just that it had felt that way in the performance. So while there's no way to know what the original intention of the words was, it certainly became a commentary, if only because of the timing. But the Irish actor is far from the only person who sensed a corollary. Ousted Trump administration member Anthony Scaramucci even went so far as to subtweet about the quote after the Aug. 27 episode.
So if you felt like Jon Snow's words in the finale were especially loaded, you aren't the only one. A lot of today's media will likely begin to reflect the current climate, and Game of Thrones is just the most recent example.
