+
Most Shared

A Song of Nice and Fire: Hodor puts his body into it (recap).

"Game of Thrones" can often feel like a neverending parade of injustice, stabbings, sadness, stabbings, the vengeance of cruel and indifferent gods, and more stabbings.

"Oh really? Do tell." Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO.


That's why it's important to highlight the rare moments where the characters do nice things for each other. The gold coins in the haystack. The diamonds in the rough. The regular peas in a pile of dark, angry, murder peas.

Here are the top five from this week's episode, including the mother of all of them (you know the one).

*THE MOST OBVIOUS SPOILER ALERT IN THE UNIVERSE*

5. Sansa stands up for herself — and shows Littlefinger mercy.

Ugh, fine. You may live. Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO.

As satisfying as it would have been to see Brienne slice Littlefinger in half — fourths? eighths? thirty-sevenths? — for casually handing Sansa over to the Boltons last season, it turns out it's more satisfying to watch him try to squirm his way out of having to describe Ramsay's abuse back to the eldest Stark girl in an effort to avoid said slicing.

Whether because of his creepy uncle crush or simply because Sansa is the one with the sword-wielding bodyguard, it doesn't really matter. For perhaps the first time, Sansa Stark not only stands up for herself, but she manages to outplay the player.

After toying with Littlefinger until he's good 'n' sputtery, the rightful-ish heir to Winterfell shows she's still got some Stark left in her and lets him off with a (not at all deserved) warning. Which is fine, as nothing bad ever resulted from someone not killing Littlefinger when they had the chance.

4. Jorah leaves Dany — of his own volition.

"K byeeeee!" Photo by Macall B. Polay/HBO.

For years now, Jorah Mormont's relationship to Daenerys Targaryen has been like that of a car dealership AirDancer in a light summer breeze. She kicks him to the curb, he pops back up — no one really is amused.

This time, however, he decides to leave her on his own, so that he doesn't accidentally infect her with greyscale (in case they, you know, wind up cuddling at some point, not that he's suggesting that, only if she wants to 'cause, you know, she seems tense, but he's totally cool with whatever).

And as an added bonus, on his way out, he finally straight up tells her he loves her! Not in a weaselly, subtle-not-subtle, "I would die for you, my queen" way, but outright! Like, in words!

Considering he's been m'lady-ing her for the past five-and-a-half seasons, this is more gonads than he's ever displayed. Yay honesty! Yay Jorah! Sorry you're doomed, buddy.

3. Theon steps aside for Yara.

Over on the Iron Islands, things at the Kingsmoot get off to a predictably sexist start as a sizable portion of Pykers (Pyke-ites? Pykians? Pykeganders?) refuse to consider Yara for queen when Balon Greyjoy's male heir is alive. (Seriously? There are still people clamoring for King Theon at this point? Who are you and what are your names?)

Thankfully, Theon is available to step up to make the obviously true point that his sister would make a much better ruler — marking the first time a dude on "Game of Thrones" has said, "Hey, I actually don't care to be king."

Yes, for a brief shining moment — before Euron arrives to go full Trump and promise to make the Iron Islands great again — we nearly mooted ourselves a queen.

What could have been.

2. Arya doesn't want to kill a nice lady.

"Next Tuesday, we're finally getting the pool table installed." Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO.

Ever since Queen Cersei posted up Ned Stark's head for Joffrey to dunk it off his body, Arya has dreamed of sticking a Needle in the queen's eye. For now, however, it's looking like she'll have to settle for killing the actor who plays Cersei in a dramatic reenactment of said events (at the behest of another actor in the show, no less — pretty light as far as backstage drama goes). Not ideal, perhaps, but all in a day's work for a Faceless Man of Braavos.

There's only one problem: The lady seems talented and has a nice boyfriend.

While Arya does ultimately agree to poison her, she really doesn't seem to want to, and hey! That's not nothing for "Game of Thrones."

1. Hodor ho'ds the dor.

This isn't going to end well. Photo by HBO.

Sure, he wasn't exactly acting of his own free will when he sacrificed himself to allow Bran and Meera to escape the White Walkers. But considering that his mind was stolen by a time-traveling psychic lordling when he was a teenager, to then turn around and save that same lordling by throwing his massive body at a door to prevent an army of the undead from breaking through is a baller move — even if the whole thing was pre-ordained a few decades ago.

Farewell, Hodor. Your death made us even sadder than the death of a dog like two minutes earlier. And that's saying something.

A Korean mother and her son

A recently posted story on Reddit shows a mother confidently standing up for her family after being bullied by a teacher for her culture. Reddit user Flowergardens0 posted the story to the AITA forum, where people ask whether they are wrong in a specific situation.

Over 5,600 people commented on the story, and an overwhelming majority thought the mother was right. Here’s what went down:

“I (34F) have a (5M) son who attends preschool. A few hours after I picked him up from school today, I got a phone call from his teacher,” Flowergardens0 wrote. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she, in an extremely rude and annoyed tone, told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches."

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash

Let's talk about what makes people read articles.

The adage, "If it bleeds, it leads," refers to the media's tendency to headline stories involving death or violence, but it can also be used to point to people's negativity bias. Simply put, people tend to pay more attention to negative news stories than positive ones.

A new study seems to reinforce this idea. And much to our surprise, it's centered on headlines used in Upworthy stories.

Using a public archive of Upworthy headlines and traffic data from 2012 to 2015, two separate teams of researchers analyzed whether people's click tendencies changed with negative or positive words in headlines. In those olden days of Upworthy, a handful of headlines for a single story were tested on the website to see which one would receive the most clicks. The research teams analyzed those results and found that negative words in headlines led to more people clicking on a story (2.3% more), and positive words in headlines led to fewer clicks (1.0% fewer). They also found a preference for headlines that express sadness over those that express joy, fear or anger.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Woman was mocked online for calling an $80 purse a 'luxury item.' Her response went viral.

"I'm so grateful that my dad was able to get me one. He worked so hard for that money.”

@zohtaco/TikTok

Zoe Gabriel, showing off her new purse from Charles & Keith

Insults of any kind are painful, but jabs towards someone’s financial status are their own breed.

In January 2023, Singapore-based Zoe Gabriel was on the receiving end of this particular flavor of mockery when she posted a TikTok about a purse from local retail brand Charles & Keith—a gift bought for her by her father.

In her excitement, the 17-year-old called the bag, which costs around $80, a “luxury” item as she unwrapped it. Her excitement was sadly cut short by some of the negative comments she received.

One comment seemed to stand out above the rest and prompted Gabriel to post an emotional response video.

Keep ReadingShow less

Samantha Moriá Reynolds's advice on sick children.

It's cold and flu seasons, folks. During this time of year, we're all on a mission to avoid the demon viruses that threaten to invade our bodies and wage Armageddon on our immune systems.

Keep ReadingShow less
Family

A doctor specializing in child development shares 5 of her most surprising parenting tips

"How To Discipline Your Child So They Actually Learn" is one of her more popular videos.

via drkristynsommer / TikTok

Parenting is the most important job that most people will ever have in life. Your decisions as a parent will be some of the most important determining factors in whether your child becomes a happy and productive adult or not. It's a huge responsibility.

Parenting is a difficult and important undertaking, but many parents simply repeat the same strategies used by their parents. How often do we hear people rationalize their decisions by saying, "That's what my parents did and I came out ok."

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

RuPaul's Drag Race 'Footloose' parody gets high praise from Kevin Bacon himself

When the OG Ren McCormack approves, you know you're in for something good.

RuPaul's Drag Race/Youtube, Wikipedia

Loosey LaDuca performing as Heaven Bacon for "Wigloose: A Rusical"

Fans of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” are well acquainted with the “Rusical” segment, but in case this word seems like something out of Dr. Seuss, here’s a brief explainer: A Rusical is a challenge on the show where contestants put on a live parody drag musical. Since debuting in Season 6, the Rusical has become a beloved staple of the series, with some of the most popular titles being “Madonna: The Unauthorized Rusical,” “HERstory of the World” and “Moulin Ru: The Rusical.”

For Episode 12, the queens drew inspiration from the 1984 movie “Footloose” to tell a story about a small town that prohibits drag rather than dancing. The performance got a sweet seal of approval from the OG Ren McCormack himself.
Keep ReadingShow less