Image: Game of Thrones/HBO, The Tiger King/Netflix
Jeff Lowe as Jon Snow
Okay, before you get angry, I’m zeroing in on one very specific part of Jeff Lowe’s story here. In most respects, he’s nothing like Jon Snow. Jeff Lowe is manipulative, hedonistic, and utterly selfish, all things Jon is very much not. Jeff cozied up to Joe Exotic as a potential partner in his zoo, and in his fight against Carole Baskins. But once Jeff had control over the property, he iced Joe out of the business and worked to turn him over to the Feds. Yes, Joe was a lot to deal with and was by no means blameless, but it was still a betrayal.
Kind of like how Jon allied himself with Daenerys and then betrayed her by killing her after she went a teensy bit too far and murdered thousands of innocent people? A little, yeah!
I also see a little bit of Jon in Mario Tabraue, the private zoo owner who really does want his zoo to remain private. Unlike a lot of the other people we meet, Tabraue doesn’t open his collection to the public, and seems to just want to hang out with his animals. Likewise, you often got the idea on Game of Thrones that Jon would be happier if people just left him alone and stopped putting him in charge of things.
Then again, Tabraue had a criminal past and may have stored cocaine inside snakes…look, there aren’t a lot of people in this documentary who have both A) power, and B) unblemished records. I have to cherry-pick qualities from them.
Jon goes everywhere with a giant direwolf at his side; clearly he likes exotic animals.