Why Game of Thrones is the Perfect Show for the Modern Age

[LongTomH]

From Laurie Penny at CommonDreams: Why Game of Thrones is the Perfect Show for the Modern Age. There's a lot more than media criticism in this commentary:

By now, it feels as if George R R Martin – the author of Game of Thrones, narrative sadist and ruiner of all things beautiful and good – has been appointed scriptwriter for the news. I am not the first to observe this. Martin is famous for killing off everyone’s favourite characters and sending his stories careering into pits of bleak uncertainty just when you thought everything might turn out all right. Since Prince became the latest beloved star to die this year, it has become abundantly clear that life is imitating Game of Thrones, and there’s nothing to do but watch the next bit through your fingers and try to avoid spoilers.

...........//snip

There is one aspect, however, in which Game of Thrones has a claim to being the most realistic show on television. Despite the wizards, the wights and the way every character manages to maintain perfect hair even when they’re being pointlessly tortured to death, there is something horribly relatable about Martin’s world of Westeros, whose characters have now become part of public myth. What sets it apart is not the monsters, the nudity or the festering gallons of gratuitous gore, but the overwhelming sense that the plot got run off the rails three books ago and is being steered towards a terrible precipice by a bunch of bickering, power-mad maniacs. This, coincidentally, happens to be the plot of the entire 21st century so far.

...........//snip

I’m not even confident of a happy ending. I’ve made peace with knowing that my favourite characters are unlikely to make it out of the series alive, and even if they do, it won’t matter, because a giant army of ice zombies is coming to eat the world.

...........//snip

Stories help us rehearse trauma. They help us prepare for it. You sit down to watch terrible things happening to made-up people and you imagine how you’d cope if that were you, or someone you loved, and even if the answer is “not at all” you find yourself feeling a bit better. Right now, the really frightening prospect is that the world is actually being run by vicious idiots with only half a plan between them who are too busy fighting each other to pay attention to the weather, which is about to kill us all.

That, along with the epic theme music, is why I still love Game of Thrones. It feels like aversion therapy for the brutal randomness of modern politics, with a side order of CGI monsters and a lot of shagging. There you go. I hope that’s given you all the excuse you need to tune in for season six. I did my best. If you need me, I’ll be behind the sofa.

[abelenkpe]

1. LOL, this...

"Right now, the really frightening prospect is that the world is actually being run by vicious idiots with only half a plan between them who are too busy fighting each other to pay attention to the weather, which is about to kill us all."


Exactly.


And probably why the show does do so well.

[LiberalArkie]

3. And it works in every country that has the show showing. Everyone feels the same about the

idiots in control.

[0rganism]

2. ayup

[pansypoo53219]

4. is trump hodor? cruz is stannis.

[Marr]

5. There are some very thoughtful, beautiful passages in that series.

One of my favorite chapters featured a monk who describes what life is like for the average soldier; swept into some Lord's army to fight a war he doesn't really have any stake in, and after a few years finds that the whole world he knew back home is gone, leaving him nowhere to go back to.

GRRM has a knack for painting very morally grey narratives, and I think that's why they're so interesting and relevant today. There are very few real 'bad guys'.