every single copy written by hand, in the old style
As I struggle to write this porn book, I thought you might enjoy an email from pastabagel. The backstory is he refused to see it, thinking it was Lord Of The Rings again. I told him I liked it, give it a chance. He promised me attention to one full season. Here is the result.
So while I disagree with him completely, sometimes you need a guy drunk on Haterade to show you things you wouldn’t have seen on your own.
— BEGIN EMAIL OF FURY AND WORMWOOD, BY PASTABAGEL ———–
I watched the season 1. That the show is horrible is an objective fact not in dispute. No one likes Game of Thrones. What people like is the idea of it. They like the idea of a show set in a medieval fantasy world that is more complex and adult than Lord of the Rings. They like the idea of rich characters, byzantine intrigues, and stunning plot twists. The success of the show rests entirely on its ability to give you the impression that it delivered on all those things without actually delivering on any of them.
Game of Thrones is written in such a confusing manner–an astoundingly thin plot driven almost entirely by deus ex machina papered over with an avalanche of characters, scenes, and, well, words–that the viewer is by the end of each episode so bewildered that they are convinced that they just saw something complicated, intricate, and brilliantly plotted. But Game of Thrones is simply a television version of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. Stare at one long enough, and you are convinced you can find coherent images among the splatters and streaks. Likewise, the viewer–hereinafter referred to as “the victim”–is drowned in so much narrative noise that their brain sees coherent plot and character development points where there are none. To wit:
Season 1, Episode 4:
Theon Greyjoy : Couldn’t resist some northern ass ? If you like redheads, ask for Ros.
Tyrion Lannister : Come to see me off, Greyjoy ? Kind of you. Your master doesn’t seem to like Lannisters.
Theon Greyjoy : He’s not my master.
Tyrion Lannister : No, of course not. What happened here ? Where is lady Stark ? Why didn’t she receive me ?
Theon Greyjoy : She wasn’t feeling well.
Tyrion Lannister : She’s not in Winterfell, is she ? Where did she go ?
Theon Greyjoy : My lady’s whereabouts…
Tyrion Lannister : My lady ? Your loyalty to your captors is touching. Tell me, how do you think Balon Greyjoy would feel if he could see his only surviving son has turned lackey ? I still remember seeing my father’s fleet burn in Lannisport. I believe your uncles were responsible ?
Theon Greyjoy : Must have been a pretty sight.
Tyrion Lannister : Nothing prettier than watching sailors burn alive. Yes, a great victory for your people. Shame how it all turned out.
Theon Greyjoy : We were outnumbered 10 to one.
Tyrion Lannister : A stupid rebellion then. I suppose your father realized that when your brothers died in battle. Now here you are, your enemy’s squire.
Theon Greyjoy : Careful, Imp.
Tyrion Lannister : I’ve offended you. Forgive me, it’s been a rough morning. Anyway, don’t despair. I’m a constant disappointment to my own father and I’ve learned to live with it. Your next tumble with Ros is on me. I’ll try not to wear her out.
What happened in this scene? How did the story advance? How did the characters in the scene change? Did the victim learn anything that matters? We get the impression that honor is important to the people in the world, because Tyrion shames Theon with a reference to his father. We get some vague reference to Westeros history in the line about the naval battle. But that won’t matter (don’t bother to argue that it will later, I checked the GoT wiki’s, and I read the plot synopses of the books. It never comes up again.)
This scene could have been rewritten like this:
Theon Greyjoy : I like whores and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Tyrion Lannister : Come to see me off, Greyjoy ? Kind of you. Your master doesn’t seem to like Lannisters.
Theon Greyjoy : He’s not my master.
Tyrion Lannister : Oh, but Lady Stark is? How the mighty have fallen. Tsk tsk. If only your father, the great Balon Greyjoy, could see you now.
Theon Greyjoy : Bite me.
Tyrion Lannister : I’d rather bite some whores. Come to think of it, there’s nothing else for me to do this episode, so I’ll go bang some whores. Whores!
This scene is typical of the series. There are only ever two characters saying anything of substance, even if they are in a crowd. And information content is wrapped in endless lines of pretentious pseudo-Shakesperian “My lord, me Lady” drivel. In fact, the only thing about this scene that is unusual is that it doesn’t include the words “bastard” or “coward.” So I guess it will be up for an emmy.
But because every single scene–every one bar none–is about either shame, honor, or pride, the victim is convinced that the characters have depth. This is a variant of the same problem that all the superhero movies have. Batman is dark, so his character has depth. No. Batman is a one-dimensional character. Darkness is his only characteristic. Sometimes more dark, sometimes less, but like a number line his character only moves one of two directions. Ok, two dimensions. Likewise, in GoT, a given character is more or less valiant, or more or less arrogant, or more or less spiteful, or more or less deceitful. But those are all single dimensions, each assigned to different characters. That’s how he gets away with 10000 characters. Each one has one dimension, and by having so many his story represents 10000 dimensions.
What people continue to be drawn to in this show is the clan identity aspect of it. The idea that who you are is entirely determined by your position in the clan/tribe/family whatever, and you get a label that goes along with that and that’s who you are forever and ever amen. You can usurp someone else’s role, push your way into another position, but you are forever “the guy how should have been down there but pushed his way up to here.” And people like this. It’s warm and cozy in a renaissance faire sort of way. I know exactly who I am by virtue of my title. They like to be part of something with a clear position in the structure with a limited set of traits and attitudes you need to exhibit, and a very fixed course in front of you. Oh, you are a whore? Then you should relish being a whore! Relish it and delight in it even when the lord you are with denigrates and looks down on you for it. Know your role and inhabit it. There is no will to power here, no living life like a work of art. Who wouldn’t want to be in the position of power to say to another man “Bite your tongue, bastard,” as long as you know that there is an entire social structure in place to prevent him from smashing a brick into your face immediately after.
And of course there is the portentous purple prose scattered throughout the series, just to inject the appearance of drama, without every actually writing any. “Winter is coming…” Well, it isn’t winter right now, so yes, presumably its coming, because of you know, seasons. “I am the Master of Coin.” The master of the coin? Really? You’re the master of the coins, are you? Keep flipping your coins, I’d prefer to talk to the Treasurer. You know, the guy we named that because he looks after all of our treasure? “Night’s Watch”. “Children of the Forest”. The “Common Thing of the Generic Noun”. “Slaver’s Bay” is the name of the place where the people who still have slavery live.
All of the families have coats of arms, in case the victim was worried that the story would stray too far their idealized notions of Viking and Anglo Saxon history. Despite the fictitious world and its made-up mythology, enough of the characters have perfectly plausible-sounding British names like Lannister and Stark, Welsh names like Arryn, Scandanavian names like Jojen, and completely made up foreign sounding names like Dothraki. This is a world where history turns on the pivot of the Scottish highlands, and where there are no blacks or asians to shatter the illusion. 40% of the characters have red hair, but they are called “touched by fire”. I can’t wait until a chinese guy shows up with fireworks, a compass, and paper money and blows their minds.
There really is nothing positive that can be said about this series that can’t also be said about other epic fantasies, like The Dark Tower, The Wheel of Time, or Lord of the Rings. It has more characters than all of those, but so what? That’s only a good thing if you just want to escape inside a world that validates everything you want to believe is true and doesn’t challenge your thinking about anything. Would Breaking Bad have been better if we had 3 extra seasons of subplot devoted to the intrigues of Skinny Pete? Maybe we should learn more about Walter’s mother, say, 10-20 pages of script each episode? What about Ted Beneke’s kids? I need 400 pages about them, their romances, and snide remarks. We need to flesh out the universe of the ABQ.
There aren’t as many characters in the story of Napoleon as there are in GoT. There aren’t that many pivotal characters in the History of Western Civilization. And I know this for a fact because we usually get through European history in a year of high school with a 400 page textbook. Not six years and seven books written by an undateable man with a hard on for feudalism.
I find myself watching the show and saying “Ok, get to the point.” And that’s precisely what the show is not about. There is no point to get to. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Westeros could be on another planet, or on Earth before the last ice age, or after an apocalyptic event in the remote future. All are equally plausible and equally irrelevant. The point of the show is precisely the excruciating scenes, that dance of shame and rank in a feudal kingdom unburdened Renaissance thought.
This is a bad show disguised as a good one.
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