Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Remember when....

Remember when you watched The Wire? Nearing the end of its final season, the viewers had witnessed a whole lot of bloody deaths. But what made one particularly shocking was the frightening randomness of Omar's murder. For five seasons, Omar was the god of war on the mean streets of Baltimore, always fighting to live another day, seemingly invincible (keep in mind, he jumped out of a building at one point!)
Given his career choice, we all knew that his death was just a matter of time, but it was still surprising, and heartbreaking, and downright scary, when he got shot in the back of the head by an adolescent kid.

Remember when you watched this last season of Game Of Thrones? All excited to see that Oberyn had stepped up to represent Tyrion in the trial by combat! There was no way a midget could defend himself against The Mountain, and we were all relieved that Oberyn Martell would take his place. He seemed like an accomplished fighter, with a vendetta against The Mountain, who had raped and killed his sister. We were all so excited to see Oberyn winning the match and knocking The Mountain out. And then so shocked and surprised to see the giant wake once more, drop Oberyn to the ground and squeeze his head until it exploded. I remember screaming at the TV (like I did at the "Red Wedding")

These were clearly deaths that no one had expected, were totally shocked when we saw it happen, and talked about it for days on end. About how crazy something like that happened....

Then why... of all things considered, isn't everyone as shocked or surprised that a man with a rifle walked in broad daylight in our nation's capital, shot and killed an unarmed soldier at our war memorial, and then proceeded to walk right into our house of commons with more evil intentions? Fortunately he was stopped in a hail of gunfire. This actually happened today.

I don't know what to be scared of more. The fact that this action actually occurred today, or the fact that not as many people were shocked that it happened.