Game of groans

I am a recent and late convert to Game of Thrones. I missed it when it was first broadcast in New Zealand but have viewed all the repeat screenings from the beginning currently playing on one of Sky’s pop-up channels ahead of the new season in April.
In terms of grandeur and scale, Game of Thrones is probably without precedent in television. And it could sit comfortably on the big screen. It is right up there with feature films such as Kingdom of Heaven, Gladiator and the hey-day of epics such as Ben Hur and El Cid. It has  a cast of thousands—8000 I read—and the attention to costumes and sets is exquisite.
So too the scripts.
But you know all this. There is a legion of fans in New Zealand and world-wide. You may well be one of them, and I am preaching to the already converted.
So, let me focus on one small part of the programme. A very small part of the programme, that, conversely, proves size does not matter when taken out of and beyond context.
I am talking about Peter Dinklage.
Dinklage plays Lord Tyrion Lannister, a Machiavellian character of epic proportions. Yet he and by connotation the character he plays is only 1.3 metres tall. In the programme Tyrion Lannister is described variously as a dwarf, half-man and an imp. Under the guise of fiction and fantasy you can obviously and refreshingly get away from political correctness. Lannister’s size is crucial to his character. There is no getting away from that. The scriptwriters have capitalised on it to great effect. Lannister is derided, humiliated and ridiculed because of his size. And this is within his own family!
But, here is the thing. For the viewer, with Dinklage in charge and in his capable hands and care, Lannister’s size become secondary. Put simply, Dinklage takes this character and imparts within it such finesses that the 1.3 metre Tyrion Lannister dominates the screen whenever he is on it. The camera loves him and Dinklage/Lannister obviously reciprocates, treating the camera (and the viewer) with respect and affection. In a single scene Dinklage can deliver us a gamut of emotions and within that self-same scene we can respond in equal measure with sorrow, sympathy, disgust and fear. And often humour.
The only other actors who have been able to do that for me are Robert Downey Jr and, in earlier days, Jimmy Cagney—significantly both also small of stature.
So, is there is lesson to be learned from that last fact—small men, accomplished actors, who can through force of will and personality alone make us believe anything?
Only that Winston Peters may indeed after all win the Northland by-election.