Humor

The lighter side of Westeros: Saturday Night Live and Martin vs. Tolkien

Posted on by Sue the Fury

snl

We have a highly anticipated new episode of Game of Thrones to look forward to tonight, but until then, here are a couple fun videos to pass the time with!

Last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live on NBC included a funny and pointed sketch centering around Jon’s resurrection on Game of Thrones last week. The sketch features SNL host and Academy Award winner Brie Larson, along with Kate McKinnon as Melisandre, and lampoons the suspenseful pacing of the return of Jon Snow.

Along with SNL’s video, there’s also a hilarious new video from the YouTube channel ERB, which creates Epic Rap Battles of History. The latest creation shows George R.R. Martin and fantasy legend J.R.R. Tolkien going head-to-head in a scathing battle of words.

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Sue the Fury
Susan Miller, Editor in Chief of WatchersOnTheWall.com

51 Comments

  5. This was so funny. Also at the beginning of the show in a skit with Dana Carvry’s ‘Church Lady’, he was interviewing a Donald Trump caricature and he began saying things he loved about the bible, and the last one was “Oh, and that part where Jon Snow gets resurrected was fabulous!”

  6. “First I must wash his body. That’s part of the magic for sure.” Best part.

    Although I find it really funny that a lot of people were shocked that he came back so early in the season and SNL is acting as if they were dragging it out. Anyway, can’t wait for tonight’s episode 🙂

  7. Nice that I could watch the Youtube one, shame I couldn’t watch the other one. “Not available in your location”, great.

  8. West of moon:
    This was so funny. Also at the beginning of the show in a skit with Dana Carvry’s ‘Church Lady’, he was interviewing a Donald Trump caricature and he began saying things he loved about the bible, and the last one was “Oh, and that part where Jon Snow gets resurrected was fabulous!”

    That’s good bible XD

  10. Mother of god, it’s tonight! This week went by extremely fast, and I’ve somehow barely felt any hype, which is a good thing because it made the wait much easier. I suppose episode 2 was just so good that it left me overly satisfied for the week 😛

  11. Donna:
    Nice that I could watch the Youtube one, shame I couldn’t watch the other one. “Not available in your location”, great.

    Version that can be seen outside the U.S

  15. As a huge fan of ASOIAF and LOTR, I was laughing my ass off at that rap battle.

    “and I’m more rock and roll than you’ve ever been. Don’t believe me? Ask Led Zeppelin!”

  16. Conan,

    Thanks mate.

    I didn’t really like it though; I wonder if people really thought bringing Jon back dragged that much.
    I thought it was masterfully paced.

    I really appreciated the epic rap battle though. I laughed so much with the ravens used to say hi to one’s toes (no offence to our friends with full figures though), as well with Tolkien’s Bofurs, and Baggins and Brandybucks!

  19. Great writing in that rap battle, those guys are awesome!

    The SNL skit was hilarious too, thought it was much better than the one they did when Peter was there.

  22. Sou: I wonder if people really thought bringing Jon back dragged that much.
    I thought it was masterfully paced.

    It is a Catch-22 of dramatic pacing. You never just inject the patient and have him/her come right back; you never get their heart moving with the first use of the pads, or get them to cough up all of the water with the first mouth-to-mouth. And on the other end, you never defuse the bomb until the time is at 1 second, or blow up the enemy killer space ship until it is just in range of killing everyone.

    To that end, maybe they should have flip-flopped it. Maybe they should have had Melisandre racing to revive Jon before Alliser broke down the door. Having revived Jon snow standing naked with his dire wolf (not that we’ve ever seen an image like that before on the show, no, never!) could have stopped the Nationalists dead in their tracks. Hell, maybe some of them would have gone to their knees then and there, just like the Dothraki did.

    At any rate, I suspect that in the book, Jon will come back much more quickly. This sort of “clock” suspense only works on stage or on screen. And that will be the only time I use the word “quickly” in conjunction with GRRM’s writing.

  23. I noticed whenever you post a story here at watchers. Wic.net posts the same hours after. I know some stories they’re going to have to post such as this one. But do you guys get annoyed about all the other ones they basically copy and paste, because david(razor)Harris doesn’t like when it gets pointed out. He gets all butt hurt like you copy him. More like david(butthurt)Harris.

  24. I like the part where they lampoon the Republican presidential candidates and then turn Hillary into a Barbie with ‘impeccable foreign service record’. I lol’d pretty hard at that.

    I think GRRM’s story is more entertaining with a certain realistic grittiness, while JRRT’s was better written and more fully realized, if that makes sense? Also JRRT was a bonafide badass warfighter in one of the largest, ugliest, most brutal conflicts in human history. So, while I have more fun reading GRRM, JRRT wins the rap battle, because he really is more gangster.

  25. heh, the funny thing is that Tolkien considered characters from modern novels to be a fantasy and static icons of the old stories to be realistic.

  27. Mike vjones,

    Razor must be the most pathetic editor ever, he was so rude to me the other day when I pointed out the Curtain Calls originated back when the old staff was still working at WiC (wasn’t even judging them for using the template, just said it matter-of-factly). I believe the words “misguided vitriol” came into use in his reply. Such a butthurt prude. WotW was already the better option by far, but those copy-paster illiterates sure make it easy to choose which page to visit more frequently.

    Sorry if I sounded mean, to anyone who might be enjoying both sites. I simply don’t.

  30. Hoyti Von Totiy:
    So Snow having potential clam on IT is now mainstream so even SNL is dropping it in its sketches … ?

    Or one of the many writers on staff at SNL is a book fan who visits the same boards we do.

  31. Shadow Baby #2,

    I don’t ever go on WIC anymore (I don’t think they’ve scooped WotW once but I could be wrong), but I’ve been super jonesing this past week so I decided to lurk out of lack of any other GoT content to read, and noticed they do a post called “Curtain Call”, and I laughed very hard at a comment someone left on one for Patrick Malahide.

    The comment was:

    “What WatchersOnTheWall posts may never die, cause Wic.net posts again, harder and staler.” LULZ

    I was around for the OG WIC invasion, I witnessed the defeat (Tyriontinis), and I was grateful to find WotW by chance a few weeks after it started up, after the mass contributor exodus from WIC. I have a huge but very civil chip on my shoulder when it comes to WIC.

  32. Hoyti Von Totiy: Snow having potential clam on IT

    I don’t remember a sketch where Jon was eating seafood while on the iron throne. Can you clarify?

  33. I think SNL took the 10 month gap between the stabbing and the resurrection into account with the skit,as Jon Snow was the most talked about cliffhanger since WHO SHOT JR?
    The rap video is CLASSIC.

  41. Wimsey: It is a Catch-22 of dramatic pacing.You never just inject the patient and have him/her come right back; you never get their heart moving with the first use of the pads, or get them to cough up all of the water with the first mouth-to-mouth.And on the other end, you never defuse the bomb until the time is at 1 second, or blow up the enemy killer space ship until it is just in range of killing everyone.

    To that end, maybe they should have flip-flopped it.Maybe they should have had Melisandre racing to revive Jon before Alliser broke down the door.Having revived Jon snow standing naked with his dire wolf (not that we’ve ever seen an image like that before on the show, no, never!) could have stopped the Nationalists dead in their tracks.Hell, maybe some of them would have gone to their knees then and there, just like the Dothraki did.

    At any rate, I suspect that in the book, Jon will come back much more quickly.This sort of “clock” suspense only works on stage or on screen.And that will be the only time I use the word “quickly” in conjunction with GRRM’s writing.

    Im sure the DVD will have a special alternative scene they filmed that is just that. With Jon mounting Ghost and charging thr mutineers.

  42. Esmail,

    With Ghost breathing fire! And Jon shooting death rays through his eyes! JUST LIKE AZOR AHAI!!!!

    *falls to ground in state of fan boy ecstasy.*

    **Or perhaps under the influence of actual Ecstasy**

    *** Kids at home, don’t do drugs ***

  43. The epic rap battle was too clever by half, but “Shire-raq” slayed me.

  44. I was about to say something snarky about WiC.net, but…something about how the FanSided model is as if IGN and HuffPo did a lot of drugs during their pregnancy…eh, it’s too nice today to think about…all that.

    Plus, that JRRT v. GRRM video is all that matters right now: “I got the prose of a pro, you’re shit’s sub-par / You’re a pirate; you even stole my R. R.”

    Tremendous. Effing tremendous.

  46. I never watch SNL anymore aside from these kind of clips, but the guy playing Davos was great. I love Brie Larson.

  49. I am considerably less intelligent for having watches these two videos….

    I think I may have to go sit with an encyclopedia for a bit to try and balance out the brain sucking nonsense that I’ve just witnessed here on this page today.

  50. How weird I discovered the rap battle on you tube yesterday, I’ve watched it about 20 times its so funny ???

    I think the best line has to be “lift up my gut and tea Baggins my nuts” ???

    Anyone outside of the USA having trouble viewing YouTube content can go directly to YouTube and search for the video, I’m in the UK and that usually works for me.

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