When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. So said Cersei Lannister to Ned Stark in the first season of HBO’s hit fantasy drama series Game Of Thrones. It’s a memorable line, and one of the few instances where a character saying the name of the show or movie they’re in that actually works without feeling forced and silly.
The big melodrama in Hollywood right now is the competing lawsuits between Blake Lively and Jason Baldoni, stars of the film It Ends With Us, which Baldoni also directed. There has been a long and frankly bizarre drama playing out between Lively and Baldoni, each of whom has leveled numerous accusations and complaints at the other. Baldoni has also sued The New York Times for the newspaper’s coverage of events. Lively has also filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and a plot to destroy her reputation.
The latest lawsuit in the protracted legal battle is Baldoni’s whopping $400 million suit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds (who starred most recently in Deadpool & Wolverine). Baldoni is also seeking a jury trial.
Now, CNN reports that text messages between Lively and Baldoni has the Gossip Girl star comparing herself to none other than Daenerys Targaryen. I was loathe to even cover this story, but having covered Game Of Thrones and its spinoffs for so many years, I had to at least jump into the fray now that dragons are involved. The alleged text from Lively to Baldoni certainly has a bit of menace to it, though in an oddly friendly sort of way.
“If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons,” the text reads according to the suit obtained by CNN. “For better or worse, but usually better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.”
CNN notes that they have not “independently verified the text messages included in either Baldoni or Lively’s lawsuits.”
Spoilers for Game Of Thrones follow.
This text is interesting because of context. Daenerys is referred to by many titles, including “Mother of Dragons” but Khaleesi is perhaps her most famous. She received the title when she married Khal Drogo, the powerful chieftain of a Dothraki khalasar. The Dothraki are a nomadic and warlike people who travel about the Dothraki Sea—a vast grassland on the continent of Essos, just to the east of Westeros—raiding and warring from the backs of their prized horses.
The Dothraki ultimately become just one of many of Daenerys’s armies. She also employs mercenaries and, of course, her three dragons: Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion. Lively’s text isn’t specific as to who her dragons are, but many are reading it as a reference to her husband Reynolds and her friend Taylor Swift. This has upset many “Swifties” for fairly obvious reasons. It is odd, to say the least, to refer to your husband and friends as “monsters of mine” in any circumstance, let alone in a dispute over a script.
What makes all of this so utterly bizarre, however, is the fact that Daenerys Targaryen ultimately became the most infamous, murderous and despised villain in all of Game Of Thrones when she quite perplexingly decided to burn countless innocents to death in King’s Landing when she conquered the city. The about-face was a long time coming, but still felt jarring thanks to the rushed nature of the show in its final two seasons. In some ways, her character put the lie to Cersei’s words: She played the game of thrones, won, and still died—at the hands of her nephew and lover, Jon Snow. Anyone comparing themselves to Khaleesi at this point must know that the implication is rather villainous. Invoking one’s dragons—or monsters—certainly heightens that sense.
I have no dog in this fight, of course. I have no clue where the truth begins and ends, who is lying about who, whether any of what Baldoni or Lively says is accurate or distorted. The reality is, even if this thing goes to trial we still may not ever know the absolute truth. It’s all very reminiscent of the Amber Heard / Johnny Depp suit, which quite frankly made both of those celebrities look worse in the end. Airing one’s dirty laundry for all the world to see rarely ends well. Let’s put a Game Of Thrones twist on it: When you play the game of reputation-smearing, nobody wins.
