The screen went black. Then white. Then a single line of text appeared:

“Unzip it,” Dany commanded.

“It’s the Dothraki Sea bandwidth,” Daenerys said, sweeping into the tent. She was wearing her usual “I birthed dragons” expression. “It’s terrible this time of year.”

Jorah slammed the laptop shut. “I’m going back to the fighting pits. At least the violence there makes sense.”

Tyrion choked on his wine. “Gods. Even the file knows.”

“Skip it,” Tyrion said.

Tyrion Lannister, leaned against a support pole, sipping what he called “summer wine” and everyone else called fermented goat’s milk. “I said it was a rip,” he corrected. “I didn’t say it was a good one. The file’s been passed through every pirate in Slaver’s Bay. It’s got more layers of compression than the Meereenese caste system.”

“ERROR: Character_Arc.exe has stopped working. Sansa.dll not found. Replaced with ‘Suffering_Prop_v2.3.’ Continue?”

Then they reached Episode 6: “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.”

“The file is not corrupted. It is exactly as intended. You must watch every frame, even the ones that hurt. Especially the ones that hurt. That is the point.”

“Skip it,” Dany repeated.

Jorah never spoke of it again. But late at night, they’d find him staring at the laptop, whispering: “Just skip Meereen. Please. Just skip Meereen.”