I’ve never watched Game of Thrones, but it’s no secret that it’s an enormously popular show. I’m reluctant to get into it, for a number of reasons. I’ll probably cave eventually, and once I become part of the George R. R. Martin-verse, I’m sure I’ll be defending and championing it as vociferously as everybody that I know. But until then, it’s kind of nice to be in the dark, to not know why everyone else is talking about it, what the reason is behind all of the excitement.

And it kind of allows my mind to wander in ways that wouldn’t be possible if I were to be in on the action. For example, while I don’t watch the show, while I haven’t read any of the books, I still have the tiniest idea of what’s going on. Through overhearing snippets of other people’s conversations, from catching thirty-second glimpses of the show while picking stuff up at my brother’s place, to witnessing the barrage of billboards and online advertising getting everybody all pumped up for season three, I think that I have somewhat of an idea of what’s going on.

So with this extremely limited knowledge, I’ve pieced together a synopsis of what I think is happening so far. Years from now, when I finally decide to sit down and watch, I’m assuming I’ll be underwhelmed and unsurprised, seeing as how I’m pretty sure that all of the stuff I see in my head is probably exactly what’s going on in the show.

Let’s start from season one. When the show was in production, I remember reading some article about George R. R. Martin in the New Yorker. It told about this fictitious continent filled with kings and a vast library full of different characters. Once season one aired, I remember seeing this short clip of some albino lady standing in a field, naked, with a little dragon crawling over her body, and a whole field of men bowing down before her.

She’s definitely an alien. From a world at least three thousand light years away, she crash landed to shake up whatever they call this version of Middle Earth. Maybe this little baby dragon – he’s actually a cyborg, but you can’t see any of his robot parts – he’s going to one day grow up to be big enough to destroy any one, or all of the kingdoms. And so this alien lady appears and everybody has to kneel down before her, lest she direct the baby dragon’s future robotic wrath at them.

Season two. I wasn’t really paying attention to anything Game of Thrones related during season two. I did however, manage to catch about thirty seconds of an episode while I was waiting for my order at the pizza place. At first I thought it was the Lord of the Rings. I thought it was that guy who gets killed after killing like thirty-five orcs. But then the pizza guy was like, “I just love Game of Thrones,” and so I figured out my mistake.

In the clip, one of the kings executed some guy for desertion, then immediately went over to his little son and asked, “You understand why I had to do that, right?” and the kid totally didn’t understand, he was just staring at this litter of puppies. “Can I keep them daddy, can I? Can I?” and then the king was like, “Only if you walk and feed them yourself!” It was a little boring, actually. It reminded me more of an episode of Full House than an epic fantasy series. Also, right before that deserter was executed, he started babbling about something winter related, a white-walker, or a snow-giant or something from the north. “Nonsense,” the king said, “we haven’t seen those winter guys in over a thousand years.”

Cut to season three, currently airing. There was a ton of buildup this year in terms of marketing campaigns and billboards and magazine advertisements. It was definitely some very aggressive marketing. Most of the billboards didn’t say anything, they just showed various characters, one at a time, half of their faces were regular, but the other half were blue. Interesting. Then I saw some other ad and it said, “Winter is coming.”

So that’s where we’re at now. Putting two and two together, I’ll surmise that everybody’s scared of these snow people that the deserter was talking about earlier. The alien robot queen, she’s probably their messiah, destined to bring destruction to the kingdoms. But she’ll fall for humanity, maybe develop a romance with some human. The king is still a huge asshole who executed one of his own men without listening to him, without believing that he actually did see a winter-walker, and that mistake is going to bite him in the ass. Or it would, but there’s a twist: based on those half-regular, half-blue billboards, I can only assume that everybody turns out to be from the north, that the enemy that they dreaded was within themselves all along. And then the robot dragon self-destructs and blows up the whole planet. Deep.

I probably nailed it, although as of yet I have no way of knowing. While I’m at it, here’s my prediction for Iron Man 3. Tony Stark is at the pinnacle of his career. Just when it seems nothing can go wrong, it all goes wrong. Really wrong. The bad guy shows up. He hits Tony where it hurts, hard. Really hard. Tony almost dies. You see his chest-light start to flicker. But he makes it. The chest-light is brighter than ever. And then he beats the bad guy. Roll the credits. But don’t leave yet! There’s a clue at the very end. Did you see that guy? Did you see what he said? Did you get it? Did you understand? Yeah, me neither, but Iron Man 4 looks like it’s going to be fucking sick.