Luke Plunkett. Luke Plunkett is a Contributing Editor based in Canberra, Australia. He has written a book on cosplay, designed a game about airplanes, and also runs.
Air France announced this week it is launching Joon, a new airline “especially aimed at a young working clientele, the millennials,” and more specifically the. Depending on your sense of history, you might remember when Volvos were deemed “boxy but nice.” Maybe even farther back you recall the sleek P1800. But no matter.
As you can probably guess, last week’s episode of Game of Thrones—and its increasing dominance over the pop culture landscape—has filled the ol’ postman’s stolen mailbag to the brim. There are a few spoilers for last week’s episode, but more importantly, an answer to a question we should have been asking ourselves since the first episode: Should we want Daenerys and Jon Snow to fuck? Aunt, Man. Aaron W.: So I’ve been struggling with this question a lot: Is it ok to . So the aunt/nephew dynamic is an absolute deal breaker to modern audiences, but maybe wouldn’t be the worst thing in Westeros?
Lots of reasons it would be good, but one BIG reason it is unacceptable. Thoughts? Shipping is. I’ve seen worse than aunt and nephew.
And the show is definitely presenting them as future romantic partners/fuckbuddies, which makes it as legitimate as these things get. Their familial relationship may freak you out, but that’s sort of the point. GRRM wants to show a medieval, feudal- type era with all the awfulness most fantasies skip over. The relentless sexism, the rape and torture, the horror that regular people could and did experience constantly as the result of what the nobility chose to do—you can absolutely complain about how omnipresent it is in his stories and/or how it’s portrayed, but it’s not inaccurate to the source material of that reality. And one part of that reality is medieval (and certainly ancient) nobility’s tendency toward incest, especially between uncles and nieces—to the point where its got its own name, avunculate marriage. As you said, the books/show have already shown that Targaryens have been more than willing to marry within the family in order to keep their bloodline pure, so there’s a precedent for Jon and Dany starting a relationship.
And since we’re talking about an aunt and nephew here (since Jon is the son of Dany’s deceased brother Rhaegar) and not uncle/niece, a Jon/Dany hook- up would. I am far more skeptical that Jon would be cool with sleeping with his aunt, given the rest of Westeros isn’t nearly as cool with incest (hence Cersei and Jaime’s hiding of their sexual relationship—well, until Cersei took the throne and decided that yes, in fact, as queen she gets to have sex with anyone she wants, and everyone else has to deal with it. Or be tortured and killed). But Jon’s problem is easily solved by keeping his parentage from him until after Ice and Fire have fucked each other. In fact, I suspect Bran is keeping/will keep the truth of Jon’s parentage from everyone until after Daenerys gets pregnant for that very reason. The Three- Eyed Raven knows this has to happen, so mum’s the word for now Or GRRM—or the show, for that matter, since we know it’s diverging from GRRM’s plan in major ways—could just throw a curveball and have Dany marry Gendry, the closest thing King Robert had to a legitimate heir, combining the Targaryen and Baratheon lines to create a progeny whose claim to the throne is unassailable throughout Westeros. Actually, that’s a pretty good idea!
He’s way at the bottom . No way Bronn can hold his breath long enough to get down there, cut all the straps to all the pieces of the armor, pull them off, and then also pull him to safety before they both drown. I’m not going to say it’s unrealistic, since Jaime was pushed into the water to avoid a dragon, but the point of Game of Thrones is that it has fantasy elements but it’s still realistic in the basic laws of physics.
So isn’t Jaime getting rescued impossible? You bring up a good point about fantasy, in that the best fantasy has a set of rules, even if the audience doesn’t know them, and doesn’t break them.
Someone suddenly having a “hoist person out of lake” spell to save Jaime would be dumb. Tyrion running down the hell and begging Dany to have Drogon fish the dude who was about to kill her out of the lake is more realistic for Go. T, but implausible in terms of Dany’s character and the time it would take for Tyrion to get down to Dany and ask for her to save his brother.
So that leaves Bronn. Here’s one thing we all need to make our peace with first, right now: Game of Thrones the TV show has begun playing fast and loose with strict reality in favor of presenting the most exciting story possible. This is how armies and fleets are moving gargantuan distances in- between and sometimes even during episodes.
It’s why Tyrion can pick out Jaime from half a mile away amid a battlefield full of smoke and destruction. It’s why Cersei and her allies can suddenly kick ass or all of Highgarden’s gold can get into King’s Landing with a mutter and a handwave. There are only nine episodes left, total, as of the time this mailbag hits the nerdernet. The show doesn’t have any time to waste. Yes, part of the reason the books are so good is because they were sprawling and complicated in the way life is, and yes, the show is 1.
I also, as I mentioned in my recap this week, think it doesn’t make any narrative sense for Bronn to push Jaime out of the way of a giant cone of dragon breath into a lake, only to have him immediately drown—if Weiss and Benioff are going to kill the character, having Jaime get turned into cinders by Drogon is a much, much cooler death. So I think the show will forgo realism (I mean, how was that lake at the side of that road a full 3. Bronn will cut Jaime out of his armor and drag him to the surface (because Jaime is the one who’s going to give him a castle, after all), and the Lannister will probably live to fight another day. And I also think he’ll be the one to perform those (book spoilers) valonqar duties, and obviously, he can’t do that if he’s dead. Last time I looked, I didn’t see any friendly priests of R’hllor nearby. Where to even begin?
Ser Barristan would have been the most solid member of Daenerys’ Queensguard due to military and combat experience, but his relationship to Rhaegar is most interesting. When Dany tells Jon that everyone loves doing what they’re best at, Jon disagrees. Ser Barristan once told Dany a similar story about her brother Rhaegar preferring singing in the street to killing. I also imagine Ser Barristan recognizing the late prince’s resemblance in Jon’s face, posture, or personality. Although Jon is very much Ned Stark in code and hair color, there would be a few opportunities for the show to make that connection. Are there any dead characters that would’ve enhanced the current story we have without breaking the series? Barristan had to die because he had too many answers.
He knew Rhaegar well, and he likely knew what Rhaegar was doing when he kidnapped Lyanna, or at the very least he knew whether Lyanna was kidnapped or went with him willingly. Even though we know the result of their union was Jon Snow, the reason why Rhaegar kidnapped her, thus starting a chain of events that killed most of his family and ended their dynasty, is such an integral mystery that it’s going to need to be saved until the very end of the series. Barristan may well have had those answers. The show could get away with not acknowledging this for a bit, while he hadn’t been in Daenerys’ service for long and wasn’t completely trusted. When Dany realized that Barristan knew her family pretty intimately, and was beginning to ask questions about them—well, that’s when he had to go. Barristan literally died in the same episode he began to tell stories Rhaegar (“Sons of the Harpy,” episode five). So yes, Barristan would added a great deal to the proceedings, but would have added too much, too soon.
My pick would be either Oberyn or Doran Martell, if only so one of them could make the Dorne storyline worth a damn. It would be cool so see Dorne have a major role to play in the great war other than serving as Cersei fodder. If a good Dorne storyline is off the table, I have to go Stannis, actually. Seeing him somehow bend the knee to Jon Snow and becoming part of the fight against the White Walkers would be really satisfying on a lot of levels, I think. But those are just mine—add and explain yours in the comments.
How Volvo Lost The Plot. Depending on your sense of history, you might remember when Volvos were deemed “boxy but nice.” Maybe even farther back you recall the sleek P1. But no matter what era you’re from, you almost certainly equate Volvo with safety. And believe it or not, Volvo’s advertising hasn’t followed the plot in a long time, and through the disaster that was Ford’s ownership the brand is still trying to claw back to what it once was. Volvo’s advertising highs and lows are a direct window into how that happened.
In the late 1. 98. Acura, Lexus and Infiniti were just coming on the scene and Volvo was a small, standalone car company selling a lot of station wagons to families. Volvo’s advertising used great visuals that highlighted the strength of the car in crashes, as well performance- oriented messages that said things like, “until Ferrari makes a station wagon, this is it.” The company tagline was “A Car You Can Believe In.”At that time, Volvos were practical, and generally defined as a “need to have car.” In fact, if you were a new parent, a college professor or just saw yourself as responsible, when it came time to buy a new car, your DNA probably said, “I guess I HAVE to check out a Volvo.” In 1. Volvo was selling 9. U. S. Its agency at that time, Scali Mc. Cabe Sloves, only had to worry about print, TV, and radio as there was no internet—or at least, not as we know it today. Volvo Starts The 1.
With A Crisis. As the saying goes, “shit happens.” Around 1. Mystery Thriller Movies Table 19 (2017). Scali attended a monster truck event and took note that a row of cars that were crushed included a Volvo sedan. What struck this person was that the Volvo was much less deformed than all the other cars.
What a great idea for a Volvo ad, he decided. Scali went to Volvo and sold them on the idea that the visual of the Volvo, uncrushed among all the crushed cars, would make a great TV and print ad to highlight Volvo’s vehicular strength. Volvo agreed. So Scali’s creatives went about staging a monster truck event that would be the centerpiece of a new ad. It is worthwhile noting that the commercial was staged at a real monster truck event, set up and filmed before the real event started, with the actual audience for the event in their seats. Agency creatives realized that the Volvo they had put in the line of cars for the ad would stand out MORE if it didn’t deform at all, while the other cars were flattened. So, to achieve this dramatic effect, all the pillars of the cars to be run over were weakened, with the exception of the Volvo. It received a welded- in rollcage.
All of this modification occurred in front of the audience, but one or more people in attendance were apparently disgruntled Volvo or Scali employees who took careful note of what they were seeing. Bear Foot, the famed monster truck, drove over everything perfectly. Download Memoir Of A Murderer (2017) Movies.
The results were obvious as the Volvo was still standing, almost untouched. So all the creatives went out that night on Volvo’s account, and had a pleasant expensed dinner and congratulated themselves on a job well done.
Little did the agency realize that this commercial would become the basis of a shitstorm destined to become infamous. Let me digress for a moment and tell you that while creatives everywhere who worked on ads dreamed up all kinds of supernatural fantasy things we could show a car doing, a client rarely approved it as they were afraid of liability. On the occasion it was approved, we knew to have a disclaimer saying something to the effect of “closed course, professional driver, do not try this yourself.” You see these in ads all the time. There were no exceptions to using that disclaimer because years before, Honda had shown an ATV going up the side of a barn in an ad and some idiot tried that, killing himself in the process.
His relatives sued Honda and I assumed they settled. The fate of the failure of the Scali and Volvo relationship was sealed when the “Monster Truck” ad was produced and published. The reason for that seems lost to history but its presence was lacking in both the TV and print ads. So, the idea that it was just a mistake is highly improbable, and serves as a teaching moment for all creatives since.
When the ads came out, “our” angry employees took note and filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General, where the ad had been shot. That office started a case which resulted in Volvo having to a pay a substantial fine. As one might imagine, Volvo was blindsided and “A Car You Can Believe In” seemed less genuine, to say the least.
Major news outlets picked up the story. The negative coverage had the momentum of a freight train, seemingly unstoppable. The result of this clusterfuck was predictable; the account went into review in 1. Scali was not invited to defend it. A New Start. The winner was a young, upstart agency, whose name was tough to pronounce unless your dad happens to be some kind of Count: it was Messner Vetere Berger Carey Schmetterer. British born agency creative Michael Lee led the effort.
In looking at Swedish culture, newly renamed MVBMS discovered that people in Sweden routinely said “Drive Safely” to their loved ones as they were headed out the door in the morning. A new tagline was born.
Creative direction was finalized, support music developed and a strong voice- over actor was chosen to represent the brand: Donald Sutherland. This combination would serve Volvo for over 1. Between 1. 99. 1 and 2. U. S. The account was now worth $2. During that decade, the campaign changed to “Volvo for Life” with a global message of “Revolvolution” when the convertible version of the C7.
At the same time, Volvo Cars’ design language evolved from boxy to more rounded, and so did the public’s view of them. The public liked what they saw. They did not just need a Volvo, they now wanted a Volvo.
And, with the introduction of the C7. In industry- speak, Volvo had produced its first “desire to have” car. In that period, every car maker started to talk about safety and include messages about anti- lock brakes and safety cages, airbags and more. Euro RSCG and Volvo looked at abandoning safety as a message, but it was deemed integral to their DNA, so instead they doubled down. The ads started to show people living wonderful lives where they relied on the car to get them where they needed to go, safely. During that time, “A Volvo Saved My Life” campaign, and club, would be started. People who had been in horrific, threatening crashes, and survived because they were in a Volvo, were highlighted.
It was nothing short of moving. Then, shit happened again, in the form of Ford. Enter Ford. You see, that scrappy car company was doing so well that in 1.
Ford, who was creating the Premier Automotive Group, simply called, inelegantly, PAG. PAG was an umbrella corporation that included Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Lincoln and, as of 2. Volvo. It was all run by a guy whose name sounded like European royalty: Wolfgang Rietzle.
Then CEO of Ford, Jacques Nasser, wanted Volvo so badly, he paid $6 billion with Ford family money for it. In 2. 00. 1, people I had known for years were gone and replaced with Ford people, and they saw Volvo as part of the collective PAG group, which I deemed to be lacking some soul. That soul was replaced with chaos that I experiences personally. At the time I produced a presentation for an executive that was to be sent to PAG executives in London.
The slot to present it, on the day of the presentation, was pushed aside to discuss the future of aromatherapy and lifestyle accessories. This was followed by Volvo’s sponsorship of hip- hop artist Ghostface Killa. Volvo even decided that sponsoring video games made sense. My last Volvo client left soon thereafter, or was institutionalized, and I was on the outside looking in.
Can Volvo Beat BMW And Audi? Between then and 2.
Volvo introduced the XC9. XC6. 0, C3. 0, S4. XC7. 0 and much more. Yet Ford, and the marketing people it hired, felt that safety was really of no interest as a talking point.