Who deserves to win the Iron Throne (In my Opinion)?

Arya Stark, in my humble opinion. 

For one thing, she doesn’t possess the annoying habit of declaring her titles at whoever gets under her skin, and she isn’t a glorified bastard with a questionable ancestry. Moreover, Arya isn’t looking to claim the iron throne; making her an even better contender for the throne and a more deserving one. George R. R. Martin has himself stated that the winner will not be a mainstream contender. That rules out the entitled Mother of Dragons. It would be a truly heart wrenching and iconic moment to witness the crowning of a Stark, after everything they’ve been put through; from decapitation and betrayal, to frightening encounters with white walkers and unexpected massacres. It doesn’t help to know that only three Stark children remain. 

Arya is charming, gutsy, unassuming and determined, making her an ideal candidate to lead the seven kingdoms in the not so distant GoT future. Having come a long way from a feisty little sprite of a girl in Season 1, her fighting spirit still remains the same and she vows to exact revenge on all her enemies. She has endured massive trials out of tremendous loyalty and for the best interests of her family, both deceased and living.  

Arya has also had the most interesting story line so far, having encountered a deadly assassin cult that aided her in furthering her repertoire of violence. There has got to be a reason for her having sparked an interest (or fear) in Melisandre, who had shown the same level of interest in Jon Snow. Did the Red Priestess envision something big in Arya’s future? Her crossing paths with Gendry and the Hound couldn’t have been mere coincidence. 

Arya is a born survivor, no doubt. She has risked her life on several occasions, having narrowly escaped being raped and identified. She was chased and hunted down by the Waif, but succeeded in fighting back despite having sustained an injury. She was blinded as punishment by Jaqen H’ghar; but that didn’t keep her from continuing her training. One could attribute it to pure luck, but I say she’s just gifted and a natural at playing the game. 

The Real Life Horror Story: Australian Healthcare

 Case Study I

There once lived a healthy girl blessed with above average stamina. She rarely succumbed to infections. She had finished spending her parent’s life savings on an Australian course; having been lured there by a covert university representative. She couldn’t find work to support her basic needs and was exploited at every turn in a manner that is typical of Aussies. 

Then on one very unfortunate day before Christmas, she fell terribly ill due to the contaminated water in her suburb and the stress of exams/moving house. She kept bleeding and wouldn’t stop for weeks. This happened twice within a span of a year. She would see white spots that would blur her vision for a few seconds, before her legs gave way. She suffered continuous headaches on the left side of her brain, possible as a result of low haemoglobin count and oxygen deprivation. Clots the size of tennis balls would come out of her, draining every ounce of strength from her already weakened body. 

The girl had previously heard of the notoriously poor healthcare system in Australia and had vowed never to land in one of the hospitals, despite having paid for her very own insurance cover for a period of four years. This included a hefty lump sum of $1000 per year.  She had a difficult choice to make. She chose her life instead and drove to one of the nearest hospitals. There she was made to wait for six hours before being admitted to a ward. She was given a blood transfusion and a combination of pills that had never worked well on her before. 

She woke up in high spirits the next day, only to nearly faint again at the sight of the bill, which had magically amounted to $3000! She was groggy from all the medication and was forced to pay an upfront deposit of a $1000 while in bed. Despite having private insurance, the girl was frightened with all sorts of uninformed bullshit by the two financial officers towering over her. She was due for surgery the very same day, but was asked to pay another $1000 for another day’s stay at the hospital. The girl was in bad shape, but she couldn’t put up with this any longer and discharged herself from the hospital before the digits could pile up further. The girl felt it best to die soaking in her own blood, rather than be in debt.

Case Study II

A young man lived in a Victorian suburb infested with druggies and wankers. This man had Medicare and a job. He was healthy apart from the occasional springtime allergy which arose due to the shit cocktail of various pollen grains flying around in the place.  He suffered from a mysterious migraine, accompanied by a loss of appetite, vomiting and a sore neck. He assumed it to be food poisoning. He need a second opinion however and decided to head to the hospital, but was greeted instead by a long queue and slow service. He decided to abandon his effort and visit the local GP instead. 

The GP did a few pathetic and irrelevant tests; declaring his affliction to be a sinus problem and chest congestion. He was given treatment for respiratory ailments. The neck ache wouldn’t budge and kept him awake. He purged his gut for 3 days straight and was doomed to starvation.  He made a second attempt at visiting the hospital and was made to wait for nearly half a day, before being told he had suffered none other than a Stroke! The man wondered how a stroke could possibly be confused with a sinus problem. Had he waited any longer and visited anymore GPs, he would have probably been lying dead in his own puke. 

My Top 10 Favorite Goosebumps Books

Piano Lessons Can Be Murder 

This is the first ever Goosebumps book that I read at my school library in sixth grade. The eerie story line was enough to get me hooked to R. L. Stine’s style of writing and his numerous novellas. It starts off with curious Jerry discovering a strange woman playing an old piano in the attic of his new house. She suddenly disintegrates into a skeleton. His parents mistake his fear of seeing the lady, for an interest in music and subsequently sign him up for piano lessons with a private tutor (only something Goosebumps parents would do). His piano teacher, Dr Shreek, seems to take an interest in him and his ‘hands’ and subsequently invites him to learn at his music school which consists of never ending corridors, where Jerry keeps losing his way and can never seem to spot any students.  

Welcome To Dead House

This is by far the scariest book in the Goosebumps series. A family moves to Dark Falls, which is so named since the whole town is strangely darkened with the shadows of overhanging trees and seems to have an ominous air about it, despite it being the middle of summer. Amanda and Josh, along with Petey, their dog, are instinctively hesitant about entering the house, which looks old and unwelcoming; much to the chagrin of their parents. Amanda begins spotting the figure of a boy inside the house and gets terrible nightmares, but keeps dismissing them as illusions resultant from the stress of shifting into the new neighborhood.  None of the children are particularly nice to the newcomers and everyone there seems to have a fear of light. 

The Headless Ghost

The Twin Terrors, Stephanie and her friend Duane are expert pranksters who derive a thrill from scaring the neighborhood children on Halloween night. They also enjoy touring Hill House which is rumored to be haunted by the 200-year old ghost of a sea captain who lost his life at sea and was devastated to find his wife gone when he returned to the house in spirit form. It is also said to be haunted by the headless ghost of Andrew Craw, a spiteful thirteen year old who loved to torture servants and animals. His entire family is said to have met a tragic end, each in gruesome ways at the hands of the sea captain who was angered when Andrew discovered his hiding place one night. Stephanie and Duane decide to take the last tour on Halloween night, and are approached by a mysterious blonde haired boy who offers to show them around the house outside of visiting hours. 

Vampire Breath

Freddy and his best friend Cara, return home after babysitting for the night. They decide to play a game of air hockey in his basement, and accidentally hit a china cabinet against the wall that opens up a secret passageway presumably leading into a tunnel.  Curious to see what lies beyond, they decide to investigate and stumble upon a coffin and a bottle of something containing ‘Vampire Breath’. Upon accidentally opening the flask (oopsie!), a gaseous cloud is released, waking the ancient vampire Count Nightwing. I’m not particularly obsessed with vampires, but this one doesn’t end like any other Goosebumps story. 

Say Cheese And Die!

This tale is a truly spine tingling one, especially for all you amateur photographers out there! Greg, accompanied by his three closest friends Shari, Michael and Doug  are bored and decide to snoop into the abandoned and creepy house of an eccentric man they call Spidey (take a wild guess). They find an old camera hidden away in a basement compartment and decide to snap photos of each other. There turns out to be something truly strange with the photos it snaps, which captures an accident befalling the photographed victim before it actually takes place. The cursed camera seems to actually cause the accidents and before long, his friends and family start to get badly hurt, with no way known of reversing the damage that follows. 

Ghost Beach

Siblings Jerry and Terri Saddler are sent to spend the summer with their distant and aging relatives, Agatha and Brad Sadler, who live by the beach. They encounter three children Sam, Nat and Louisa near a graveyard, who have the same family name as them and claim to be distantly related. The children tell them to watch out for the ghost that resides on the cave overlooking the beach, and that it comes out when the moon is full. The trio seem to get uneasy when a skeletal dog shows up and explain that ghosts hate dogs (ironic?). They also encourage Jerry and Terri to explore the cave and see for themselves. The story ends with an unexpected twist that you never see coming!

Let’s Get Invisible!

While twelve year old Max is busy getting ready for his birthday party, his younger left handed brother Noah keeps bullying him. At the end of the party, most of his guests leave with the exception of shy April and squeaky voiced Erin. The trio decide to investigate his musty attic, and his dog Whitey accidentally finds a secret dark room within the attic, containing a single antique mirror, with a light attached to it. When Max stands before the mirror and switches the light on, the others notice that he disappears. It is revealed that the mirror turns people invisible! The next day, Max and his brother decide to test the powers of the mirror again, but this time they get weak and it takes a longer time for them to reappear from the invisible state. Max dismisses the mirror as dangerous and is unwilling to use it again. However, Noah is a little too taken up with it and tries to set a record for who can stay invisible the longest. 

One Day at Horrorland

Siblings Luke and Lizzy are traveling through a desert and on the lookout for the Zoo Gardens theme park, accompanied with their parents and friend Clay. Presumable lost, they end up at HorrorLand which is located in the middle of a forest. Upon parking their car, it explodes and they all luckily survive. They are allowed to enter the theme park for free, and are surprised by the absence of telephones in the park (hardly surprising). They decide to try out a few rides which turn out to be dangerous, and barely make it out of the Deadly Doom slide and the hall of mirrors alive. Luke and Lizzy’s parents are nowhere to be found and it is up to the three of them to escape the theme park. 

Ghost Next Door

Hannah is spending a lonely and boring summer without her friends, who have all gone on vacation and never seem to reply to her letters. She meets her new next door neighbor, Danny the daredevil, who keeps getting into trouble with his mischievous friends. Hannah repeatedly tries to warn Danny against causing havoc, while she struggles with horrifying nightmares of waking up in her bed to find it on fire.  She senses that something about Danny isn’t quite right, since they don’t know any of the same people, despite being in the same grade. She cannot remember him moving in and finds it unsettling how he keeps disappearing in a mere flicker of a second. She begins to suspect that he might be a ghost. 

The Haunted School

Tommy wants to help out with decorations for the upcoming school dance. He decides to help out a beautiful blond girl named Thalia and in doing so, ends up getting lost. He stumbles upon a room with 25 statues of students marked as ‘The Class of 1947’. The principal appears and explains to him that the statues have been placed in memory of the students that went missing after a class picture was taken of them. Tom and his friend Ben, decide to fix a banner on the night of the dance, and are accidentally transported to GrayWorld via an odd elevator. They make an amazing discovery upon reaching the strange place, where everything is in black and white (grayscale).

A word of advice to parents

To all parents and guardians out there, I have something to say that could potentially revolutionize parenthood and help raise well behaved adults, as opposed to overgrown monsters. The psychopath co-worker, the playground bully, the self-obsessed lover, the deranged stranger on the train and the pampered sibling, many of whom I have had the misfortune of interacting with, are all end products of your nonchalant attitudes to parenting and upbringing. I blame your poor decisions, your annoying tendency to needlessly self-justify and a too-lenient approach. I do not however seek to place blame, I also wish to offer guidance and make observations that could aid you in your difficult journey as parents. Now, before you produce the whip, I will remark that you ought to be firm when needed but not strict to the point of abuse. When your little monster-in-the-making becomes difficult and begins squealing like a pig in labor, you need to learn to say NO. It’s that simple. 

‘No, you cannot have that. No chocolates before dinner. No TV before homework.’ 

In case of failure to do so during those critical years of development, your kid will gradually transform from a beguiling little infant into a Krampus that sucks the happiness out of everyone, preying on the weak and feeding off fear and insecurity.  I can tell you of one such vile being who thinks he knows everything there is to know; and refuses to put up with opposition to his ideas. He has not learn to master the art of patience; he wants it and he wants it NOW! God forbid anyone who keeps him waiting a few seconds, for he will wreak havoc on you and your loved ones. He is unwilling to endure tiny amounts of pain or sacrifice for the greater good and whines like a little bitch that’s lost its bone. He even resorts to manipulating his wimpy parents, if they happen to change his favorite TV channel or criticize him playfully. He goes through women like he does used tissues. He takes great delight in enticing women into falling for him and then mercilessly dumping them, taking his own sweet time to humiliate and rip their already broken hearts into a million shreds.

 His colleagues are bullied into doing things either his way or taking the highway to unemployment. He cannot wait long enough to be paid for his part-time services; and harasses his managers into showering him with the attention he thinks he deserves, threatening them with extremes such as legal action and consumer complaints. He lacks morals and shamelessly ogles women when already betrothed, while blackmailing his lover into being with him or being homeless. This monster is the result of parents who never wanted to lose their precious asthmatic son and hence, were prone to stroking his already inflated ego from time to time and agreeing with him even wrong. So parents, if you’d like to raise decent human beings and prevent your kids from turning into sinister turds, please learn to say no to them. Discipline them in the art of self control. When they do wrong, tell them so and teach them to empathize.