# Coughing Varys Coughing Varys is a reaction image pulled from Game of Thrones season eight, showing the character Varys hacking up seawater on a beach after a shipwreck. It took off on Reddit in May 2019 as both a reaction shot for disappointing realizations and an exploitable where Varys's dialogue is broken up by wheezing. ## Overview Coughing Varys, also known as Heaving Varys, is a reaction image lifted from a scene in Game of Thrones season eight, in which the character Varys is shown flat on a beach coughing water out of his lungs after surviving a shipwreck[1]. The character is played by Conleth Hill, and the still crops tightly on his face mid-heave[3]. Online, the shot works two ways. As a straight reaction image, people drop it under captions about crushing letdowns, usually pointed at the final season of the show itself[2]. As an exploitable, posters rewrite Varys's dialogue with coughs and wheezes cutting up the words, so the character sounds like they are trying to speak through a lungful of saltwater[4]. ## How It Spread One day after the episode aired, on May 6, 2019, Reddit user enterprise1 posted the still to /r/freefolk as a reaction image[2]. The post pulled in more than 51,200 upvotes within a week, according to Know Your Meme[3]. Over the following days the shot spread further inside /r/freefolk and neighboring Game of Thrones subreddits, where users paired it with setups about various disappointing realizations tied to the show's final season[2]. It also picked up traction on the /tv/ board of 4chan, where a common convention emerged of writing out Varys's speech with the words interrupted by parenthetical coughing and wheezing[4]. ## How to Use Two conventions are common. In the reaction format, people post the still on its own under a caption describing a bleak or embarrassing realization, often about Game of Thrones season eight[2]. In the exploitable format, posters write a block of dialogue for Varys with the words typically broken up by coughs, hacks, and wheezes in parentheses, so the character sounds like they are choking through the sentence[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Coughing Varys? It is a reaction image from Game of Thrones season eight showing the character Varys coughing seawater out of his lungs on a beach after surviving a shipwreck[3]. ### Where did Coughing Varys come from? The still is from episode four of season eight, "The Last of the Starks," which aired on HBO on May 5, 2019[1]. ### What does Coughing Varys mean? People use it to react to crushing or disappointing realizations, most often ones tied to the final season of Game of Thrones itself[2]. ### How do you use Coughing Varys? Post the still under a setup about a letdown, or turn it into an exploitable by writing Varys's dialogue with coughs and wheezes cutting up the words[4]. ### Is Coughing Varys still popular? It hit its peak on Reddit and 4chan in May 2019 during the show's final season and is now treated as a classic Game of Thrones reaction image[3]. ## References 1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Starks]() 2. [https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bl9wgh/when_you_realize_the_8_seasons_big_white_walker/]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/coughing-varys]() 4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bldxfp/when_you_realize_that_the_best_thing_to_come_out/]() 5. [https://boards.4channel.org/tv/thread/114220024]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/coughing-varys Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library