Neil deGrasse Tyson Tried to Ruin ‘Game of Thrones’ With “Science”
Folks, Neil deGrasse Tyson is at it again. The popular astrophysicist took to Twitter, as he is wont to do, to take all the fun out of a popular TV show or movie. This time, Tyson set his sights on Westeros, boldly offering to fact-check the science of Game of Thrones’s penultimate season.
It’s far from the first time that Tyson has nitpicked the science of pop culture. Back when Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters, Tyson earned the internet’s ire by pointing out that Star Wars was — gasp — not scientifically accurate. In a somewhat unexpected development, though, Tyson’s Game of Thrones tweetstorm on Sunday afternoon was largely positive, as he thought that the show’s portrayal of dragons was fairly realistic, all things considered. Things took a weird left turn the next day when he tried to combine Thrones with controversial current events, but we’ll get to that in a second. Here’s Tyson:
Buckle up.
This isn’t even a scientific critique as much as it’s Tyson pointing out that the writing in Season 8 (especially the “Beyond the Wall” episode) was wildly inconsistent. Which, uh, fair point.
As if it wasn’t enough that we have no idea how the Night King got those chains, now Tyson’s telling us that the chain physics were wrong?
Interesting capitalization choices, but okay! Tyson says Game of Thrones did good.
It’s unclear how Renaissance cherubs are germain to Game of Thrones.
Actually, aside from the bit about the chains, this Tyson lecture is pretty basic.
Hey! Inverse and Tyson are actually on the same page. We wrote about how Zombie Viserion’s blue fire was the hottest possible fire according to physics back after the finale aired.
After tweeting about blue fire, Tyson called it a day. When he woke up on Monday, though, he apparently was still thinking about Game of Thrones, but he was also pondering the NFL protests that had dominated the news on Sunday. Colin Kaepernick started a trend of kneeling during the National Anthem before games as a way to protest police brutality. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump decided to weigh in, telling a crowd at a speech in Alabama that NFL owners ought to fire any “son of a bitch” who kneels. On Sunday, dozens of players took the knee, and many other players and owned made some showing of unity in opposition to Trump’s statements against free expression.
That brings us to Monday morning, when Tyson tweeted this:
It’s unclear what any of this has to do with anything. Is he saying that bending the knee … would mean you’re loyal to Trump … if we were in Westeros? Or is it that he’s making some point about how protest is patriotic?
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can you go back to ruining movies with science, NGT?
