Elizabeth Warren Recapped ‘Game of Thrones’ : Why She Loves Daenerys and Loves to Hate Cersei

Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote in The Cut about being a fan of Game of Thrones, about Daenerys and Cersei and what’s to come in season 8

Elizabeth Warren: Massachusetts senator, Democratic candidate for president … and TV critic?

The former Harvard law professor-turned-consumer advocate-turned-politician added another line to her resume on Sunday: Writing for New York‘s style website, The Cut, Warren opened up about being a Game of Thrones fan and what is to come in the series’ final season, which premiered last week.

She also drew winking political parallels between Game of Thrones‘ worldview and her own, noting of one character, “It never crosses the mind that the bank could fail, or betray her.”

Warren, 69, wrote that she watches the show “because, just like everyone else, I want to find out who lives, who dies, and who ends up on the spiky iron chair in King’s Landing. But for me, the hit HBO show is about more than a death count (I’ll leave that to Arya). It’s about the women.”

Insurgent Daenerys Targaryen has long been Warren’s favorite while incumbent Cersei Lannister is “the villain we love to hate,” she wrote.

“Dany believes fiercely in her right to rule, but she despises what ruling means in the world she’s grown up in,” Warren explained.
“Unlike Dany, Cersei doesn’t expect to win with the people — she expects to win in spite of them,” Warren wrote, adding, “Cersei is a lot more honest about wielding power than most. … Cersei’s betting on the strength of the bank to get her through the biggest fight of her life.”

Not Daenerys, who Warren lauded for setting aside her drive for success for the greater good of “all mankind” — “a revolutionary idea, in Westeros or anywhere else.”

“A queen who declares that she doesn’t serve the interests of the rich and powerful? A ruler who doesn’t want to control the political system but to break the system as it is known? It’s no wonder that the people she meets in Westeros are skeptical,” Warren wrote of Daenerys, tip-toeing up to another kind of parallel that she left unspoken.

To Warren, the end of Game of Thrones is not just the end of a hugely popular fantasy soap opera but, in a way, a referendum on some essential political issues.
She ended her Sunday piece:

“So this is it — season eight. Winter is here, the Wall is crushed, and only five episodes remain. With all these powerful women preparing for battle, will the mighty bank silence the army of the people? Will the army of the dead heading straight for Winterfell make all of this talk about breaking wheels irrelevant?

“We’ve got five episodes to find out if the people can truly break their chains, destroy the wheel, and rise up together to win.”