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New Jersey Community College Suspends Professor Because His Daughter Wore a Game of Thrones T-Shirt

Uh oh. Now they've woken the dragon.

dragon noises

I think we can all agree GoT is not a safe show to watch with your kids. So, upon hearing that a community college recently suspended a professor over a GoT shirt his young daughter was wearing in a picture online, the mind reels at the possibilities. Just what could have been on that t-shirt? Headless Ned Stark? A bunch of naked women?

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Nope. It had the Targaryen logo and a line that fan-favorite character Daenerys Targaryen speaks in the second season, “I will take what is mine with fire and blood.” Observe:

fire-blood-shirt

(image via Google+)

Upon seeing the above image of 7-year-old Sophia on art and animation professor Francis Schmidt’s Google+ page, a dean at the Bergen Community College became concerned that the saying was a “threat against him.” Well, that depends, Dean. Are you the Spice King of Qarth and leader of the council of Thirteen, and have you denied the Mother of Dragons access to the ships she needs to reclaim her place as the rightful ruler of Westeros? Because probably not, then. You know, because it’s a line from a TV show.

Schmidt told a local New Jersey news website that he was called before Human Resources and security officials and was surprised to learn that literally none of them had any familiarity with the show, nor had they thought to look up the phrase before bringing him in. Googling “I will take what is mine with fire and blood,” by the way, gives you about 28,400,000 results. Always Google stuff first before you freak out about it, friends.

When he asked the officials why they thought the phrase was threatening, one reportedly said, “When you see the word fire, then someone shows up with an AK-47 here shooting everybody.”

“I had no idea what to say to that,” Schmidt said to NorthJersey.com. “For God’s sake, I’m a middle-aged art professor. I don’t own any firearms.”

Thankfully, Schmidt has now been cleared to return to the college, which is a relief. We can only imagine the war that little Sophia would one day have waged against the college if they’d replaced her father with an insidious usurper and banished her family across the Narrow Sea—or, erm, the Hudson River. Either way, that would have turned out badly.

(via Uproxxx, featured image via mofoftoe on Tumblr)

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