Okay, as lame as it is to blog about a television show, I'll come right out and admit that I've come to enjoy HBO's Game of Thrones. Quality-wise, it's right up there with other classic HBO series such as The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, and epic-wise, what with its fully-realized medieval world, its Machiavellian story lines, and its wildly entertaining plot twists, it's right up there with other sword-and-sorcery fantasies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Tonight's the last episode of the first season, and I've actually found myself looking forward to watching it, along with no small pang of regret that it will be the season finale. So today I will post the small collection of Thrones-related pictures that I've accumulated before the season ends and they become forever irrelevant.

It's a little disturbing that in this season's apparent theme of honor versus ambition, ambition seems to triumph (barring any last-episode recurrence of one of those aforementioned wildly entertaining plot twists), but as with all quality series, it has created a full cast of characters who, if not always likable, then are at least consistently interesting.

Which brings us to the matter of the actor Peter Dinklage and his character Tyrion Lannister. Dinklage has triumphed in the challenging portrayal of a complex anti-hero and has superbly played what must be for him the role of a lifetime. I have not read the books upon which the Game of Thrones series has been based and so do not know the outcome of the series or even of this season, but I have come to hope that if any character does win the titular game and triumphs in the end, it would be Dinklage's unlikely Tyrion, at once both the most disadvantaged and at the same time most intelligent character in the entire cast.

As Simone Weill once wisely observed, "Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life." Therefore, I see no reason not to enjoy some well-crafted fantasy and fiction once in a while.