Tyrion Lannister Is Now a Content Marketing Thought Leader

Warning: This post contains all the Game of Thrones spoilers. Seriously, turn away if you haven’t yet watched the season finale.

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I was ready for anything during the season finale of Game of Thrones last night. Jon and Daenerys riding off into the sunset to open a bed and breakfast in Narth. Cersei popping out of the rubble to challenge Dany to a scowl-off. Greyworm discovering that he just wants to dance.

I was not prepared for the fate of the Seven Kingdoms to turn on a content marketing keynote. Because let’s be real—that’s what Tyrion’s rousing speech to the lords of Westeros was.

“What unites people?” Tyrion asks the lords, as they sit undecided on who should rule the Seven Kingdoms. “Armies? Gold? Flags?” he says, pausing dramatically to give everyone time to tweet his slide. “Stories. There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story,” he answers, literally stealing the cadence of every talk I’ve ever given at Content Marketing World. (I’m waiting on my check, HBO.)

Tyrion Lannister is a content marketing thought leader now pic.twitter.com/jk7K7FXIlB

— Joe Lazauskas (@JoeLazauskas) May 20, 2019

He then concludes that no one has a better story than Bran, which as my friend Jason Gilbert points out, is absolutely insane. Our girl Arya’s been out here learning to shape-shift and saving the world while Bran cosplays as a raven.

TYRION: People love stories. And no one has a better story than Bran

ARYA, WHO LEARNED SHAPE-SHIFTING AND MURDERED THE INVINCIBLE ICE KING OF DEATH: Bran has what now

— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) May 20, 2019

It’s worth pointing out that while Tyrion picked the wrong story, he’s 100 percent right. Neuroscience studies have shown that world more powerful than a great story—especially when it comes to politics. If you don’t want to take neuroscientists’ word for it, just listen to Barack Obama, who explained the power of stories in a presidential podcast on an episode of The Wilderness last year.

But if we’re talking about who really won Game of Thrones … it was us. Game of Thrones debuted in April 2011, right before we moved into our Soho office, and we promptly painted this mural on our wall. I’ve always thought of our office as Silicon Valley—but I guess we were GOT all along.