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There are many reasons to dislike Game of Thrones – the endless hype, the gratuitous sex and violence in lieu of a meaningful plot, the experience of having to listen to fans of the show blather on long after you’ve told them you don’t watch the show and aren’t interested.  The CIA have just added another reason to the list – this week a former Deputy Director of the CIA made a cameo appearance on the show.

The final season of Game of Thrones is a massive anti-climax, with the writers/producers having run out of ideas at least two seasons ago.  The sense that the show is simply recycling what it’s does before in the name of highly profitable fan service is fairly widespread.  Like Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith a lot of people are just watching to get it over and done with.

Medieval rape and dragon fantasies simply don’t interest me.  On top of that I’ve always (and I do mean always) found that anything that is hyped to the extent Game of Thrones is never lives up to the relentless barrage of promotional noise.  I never imagined I would be writing about Game of Thrones, but then this happened:

Picked up by virtually every news outlet in the Western world, on this week’s episode of Game of Thrones there was a cameo by a former Deputy Director of the CIA – David S. Cohen.  However, this wasn’t arranged through the CIA’s entertainment liaison office – it appears Cohen’s brother in law is one of the co-creators of the show.

Naturally, the CIA seized on this piece of luck to tie themselves in with a hugely popular TV brand and try to look cool.  It seems a world where women are frequently raped, the poor are brutalised and exploited by a wealthy elite, and there is a never-ending struggle for power is right up the CIA’s alley.  Or, as one sharp-tongued twitter observer put it:

Other responses to the CIA’s tweet are in a similar vein:

And:

https://twitter.com/la_sopa/status/1120124751958224896

And:

And my personal favourite: