Suggesting that his personal philosophies fall more in line with valar morghulis than valar dohaeris—because honestly, what’s the fun of a system in which all men must serve, if it’s at the behest of a dwindling number of all-consuming mega-corporations?—actor Miltos “Syrio Forel” Yerolemou expressed his annoyance this week at having his character co-opted for some shitty pro-capitalist memes. Specifically, Yerolemou was annoyed at Ben Shapiro’s well-lubricated crap factory The Daily Wire, which apparently looked around, saw that this Games Of Throws thing was hot right now, and spent 40 seconds knocking out the following attempt at alleged “humor”:
But while Yerolemous is pretty clear about his status as a comrade, what of Forel? After all, he hails from Braavos, seat of the Iron Bank, which is the most clearly capitalist institution “serving” the people of Westeros and beyond. But, then, Syrio is the former First Sword of Braavos, after all, so it’s possible he got sick of doing the water dance on behalf of a bunch of capitalist pig-dogs. (There’s also the occasionally discussed fan theory that Arya’s “dance instructor” is a Faceless Man who continually pops up throughout her life, and while “anonymous death cult” certainly has some of the trappings of capitalist philosophy, their track record on killing rich merchants probably speaks otherwise.)
Syrio’s charge, meanwhile, is pretty clear in her stance on these sorts of issues; after all, she’s the one who took down Littlefinger, long the front-runner in our private poll of “Game Of Thrones characters most likely to moonlight as predatory venture capitalist douchebags.”