Whenever I watch a Pixar movie, I feel like I’m about to watch a magician. All magicians are essentially telling you, “I’m about to do a trick for you. You know it’s a trick. I know it’s a trick. The fact that you know it’s a trick should allow you to steel yourself against getting tricked but if I do my job, that won’t happen. Ready?” Then the magician does the trick and I, both fooled and delighted, ask, “How did you do that?!”

And so it is with these delightful animated movies. I know that they’re going to be well done and I know that I’m going to feel something so I begin with my arms folded and say, “Alright, let’s get on with it.” But then, around the half way point of the movie, I’ve been so charmed that I forgot that I was supposed to be watching cynically and before I know it I’ve been moved.

It happens every time.

And so it happened with the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones. 

I knew about it from the genuinely shocked reactions people had to it five years ago when the episode aired. I knew it was going to happen (though, not when). I knew that doors were going to lock to a wedding hall and I knew that it was going to be horribly violent.

But first of all, it’s fiction. Second of all, I know that it’s coming. How bad can it be?

So so bad.

I watched the “inside the episode” bit after the show (these are always such bullshit, the show-runners always sound like pompous puppet masters talking about the choices they’re having them make, “We’re seeing Sansa really coming to a reckoning with her blah blah blah…” it’s annoying and yet I still watch) and either David Benioff or D.B. Weiss said that the Red Wedding was one of the reasons that they wanted to make the show.

You sick, twisted fucks.

I guess I didn’t know how much I would like the Starks. I didn’t know how much I would hate the fact that the act was perpetrated by a dirty old man who was offended that someone wouldn’t marry one of his daughters. I didn’t expect how I would be affected by Lord Bolton saying, “The Lannisters send their regards,” before plunging a dagger into Robb.

Even now I feel a remnant of that feeling of unease you have after a relationship ends or a family member passes away. While going about my day I know that something is wrong, there is a backdrop of sadness. And it’s just a damn TV show but for Christ’s sake they killed the Starks! They stabbed a pregnant woman in the stomach!

This is the only show that I’ve ever watched that will make irreversible choices without warning. And not just killing Robb and Catelyn in the cruelest way possible. They killed Ned Stark in season one. They cut off Jamie Lannister’s hand. They cut off Theon’s dick. Joffrey killed Ros for sport and it was treated as almost an afterthought, so brief you might miss it.

It makes the show addictive but also hard to watch. Even as I type I feel a little nauseated by it all.

I’m about to do a trick for you. You know it’s a trick. I know it’s a trick. The fact that you know it’s a trick should allow you to steel yourself against getting tricked but if I do my job, that won’t happen. Ready?

You know what, Game of Thrones? Put the deck away for a while. I need to take a little break.