Game of Thrones library shenanigan

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Not so much a shenanigan as an inaccuracy, and also not so much a shenanigan as a hellish montage of bedpans, shit, and gagging…

On the premiere episode of the seventh season of Game of Thrones, Samwell Tarly is a lowly book-reshelver and bedpan-emptier in the Maesters’  medieval-style library with chains on the shelves. Nice work, GoT, except your chains are completely non-functional, as this article explains.

Of course, if GoT had shown the chains doing their jobs — keeping the books secured to their shelves — then Sam wouldn’t have had any reshelving to do (and we would’ve had to witness even more bedpan-emptying, which, honestly, would’ve killed me). And more important (spoiler alert), he wouldn’t have had any chance of stealing a book out of the Citadel library and thereby, perhaps, saving everybody in the Seven Kingdoms from certain death at the hands of the White Walkers.

This PBS video shows functioning book chains.

Thanks, Lynne M. Thomas!