Ed Sheeran's 'Game of Thrones' cameo made me extremely angry
Spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 7, episode one follow. So, ya know, don't read if you haven't watched.
I was there. I rode with Ayra Stark, fresh from poisoning a whole room of terrible men, on her horse through the Westerosi woods. And then she heard someone singing.
If you caught the season premiere of Game of Thrones Sunday night then you know that it was Ed Sheeran singing that song, sitting on a log, dressed in some Seven Kingdoms armor, like he totally belonged in this weird world of ice zombies, dragons, and wildfire. Except, he completely, 100 percent didn't.
Ed Sheeran's rando cameo last night was the worst thing that the show has ever done, pop culturally speaking.
For one idiotic useless scene, what was once a hand-crafted, surprising, and often-times painful show turned into a ham-fisted Ed Sheeran showcase his voice. It was insultingly distracting and the least subtle cameo I've seen on television since the Beach Boys just happened to show up on Full House.
Look, we've known about Sheeran's cameo turn on GoT since spring. It seemed like it was just something the producers wanted to do for Maisie Williams, because the Arya actor loves the English musician. But it didn't have to be like this.
A surprising number of other musicians have found their way into cameos on the show and not one of them stood out like Sheeran's sore, ginger thumb. Most of those other musician played wildlings or white walkers or background musicians to some terrible wedding genocide. But not our boy, Ed. Oh no. Not multi-platinum, Taylor Swift BFF, internet-saturating Ed Sheeran.
Game of Thrones has always been a story that doesn't seem to give the slightest f*ck about what its audience wants. Almost everyone we've ever liked has died or gone through horrific pain. And while Sheeran's cameo was supposed to be for Maisie, it still COMPLETELY felt like a wink to the audience.
"You know this guy right? Isn't it weird that he's in Westeros? Pretty funny huh? WINK!"
When Arya hasn't heard the song Ed's singing and he says, "It's new," that was the capitalist cherry on top of the poisoned cake.
It felt like Michelle Tanner opening her front door and saying, "Wow, the Beach Boys are here!"
And yes, yes. It's a good joke and an accurate one to mock the man who's whining about the pop star who breaks the reality of his lil' dragon show. But that's kind of my point.
It's much to Game of Thrones' credit that it has captured the imagination of so many, despite the show's extremely fantastical nature. A lesser show that contained phrases like "dragon glass" or "the Night King" would be laughed into obscurity because it takes real quality to get viewers to suspend their disbelief enough to buy into the show.
Letting Ed Sheeran sing a song during a useless scene is the opposite of that. It immediately makes the viewers aware that they are watching a silly show and ruins any sort of illusion that might have existed. It was terrible and makes me actually worry about the future Game of Thrones, which is far beyond the books and marching to its own beat.
Look producers, if you owe some musicians some favors and need them to appear, the least you can do is put them under a lot of makeup.
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