Now that you mention it the paralells are obvious, in both cases the writing on the wall was visible long ago, people are burning and libs try hard to forgot that show because their favourite queen turned to be mass murderer.
There’s a double edged sword of edginess there too: the girlboss slaykween was also the only major character with relevant power and agency to even promise to improve society somewhat, and because liberal writing requires status quo enforcement, of course The Swerve happens.
Yes the first rule of literature in capitalism, even in fiction social improvement is either impossible or depending solely on single or few individuals.
The year is 2024. For at least a hundred times now, a big budget widespread entertainment product has shown a sympathetic antagonist that has the right idea about the injustices of society, and wants to improve society somewhat… but conveniently goes too far so everything the antagonist said is now safely ignored by the protagonist… and the audience.
Also, GoT is really good example of how it’s done in multiple rounds: Daenerys want to do social progress, but stumbles all the time, literally every conscious effort to improve things backfire, from trying to mitigate Drogo’s khalasar activities, through:
Astapor (freed slaves just became the new slavemasters, that was i think most disgusting of all and it happened in book too and it never gets any comment)
Yunkai (she defunded the slave traders but it changed nothing for some reason they are resistant to fundamental economic situation change)
and Mereen (she did not went far enough and didn’t exterminated the masters as a class, this one was decently shown but note how this particular piece got some very strong opinions about still going too far)
finally, in the “shocking lack of maturity and responsibility” she just leave it all (in the show, in the book she want to get back to Mereeen but the book ends at this point) to get back the throne which no one wants her to in a land where her father’s death and dethronement of dynasty is considered almost universally to be a good thing and lo and behold, she again stumble culminating with mass murder of quite possibly hundreds of thousands of people (the figure of million inhabitants of King’s landing seems to be dropped purposefully for that and earlier for the Jaime story of Aerys setting up the wildfire)
And so, “hell is paved with good intentions”, vote Stark who are personally sympathetic but had no problem with going to war for personal reasons and losing so many people in the last year of summer that next winter will starve half the villages in the north, oops.
Oh and then the prophecy kicks in, deus ex machina turns all the previous issues irrelevant because to resist zombie invasion both genocide victims and perpetrators must unite against it. And finally, after inevitable victory, aristocratic survivors sit in the ruins of what was populous country, on a mountain of peasant and burghers bodies and sigh “we saved the status quo again, victory”.
I hated that show with a passion, and I think the books have aged like blood-and-shit laced milk as well, especially because of the giggly edgelord behind them can’t even bother to finish the final book, presumably because the trust fund sex pests that were tormenting Emilia Clarke on stage (and eventually punished her character as well as herself for demanding less SV scenes and no more coerced nudity scenes) didn’t actually stray as far from that final book as copium-huffing diehard fans want to believe.
didn’t actually stray as far from that final book as copium-huffing diehard fans want to believe.
This is what i was always saying too after the show. The ending, after correcting for general show adaptation quirks like lowering budget by mass extermination of characters by Cersei, is perfectly plausible for the book. Daenerys ultimate descend into targaryanenishness of worse kind is written on the wall literally since book one for example.
Making the SV victim (or underage SV victim in the books, because author is creepy like that too, complete with sensationalistic details describing the sexual parts of a child) the “crazy” mass murdering Swerve not-so-surprising surprise villain to invalidate even the idea of improvising society somewhat was like a liberalism limit break.
redsails writing a media analysis on a classic wrestling term/trope but applying it to gambo thrones to draw in the normies, highlighting capitalist hegemony and not shitting on wrestling whatsoever
Now that you mention it the paralells are obvious, in both cases the writing on the wall was visible long ago, people are burning and libs try hard to forgot that show because their favourite queen turned to be mass murderer.
There’s a double edged sword of edginess there too: the girlboss slaykween was also the only major character with relevant power and agency to even promise to improve society somewhat, and because liberal writing requires status quo enforcement, of course The Swerve happens.
https://redsails.org/the-swerve/
Yes the first rule of literature in capitalism, even in fiction social improvement is either impossible or depending solely on single or few individuals.
The year is 2024. For at least a hundred times now, a big budget widespread entertainment product has shown a sympathetic antagonist that has the right idea about the injustices of society, and wants to improve society somewhat… but conveniently goes too far so everything the antagonist said is now safely ignored by the protagonist… and the audience.
Also, GoT is really good example of how it’s done in multiple rounds: Daenerys want to do social progress, but stumbles all the time, literally every conscious effort to improve things backfire, from trying to mitigate Drogo’s khalasar activities, through:
And so, “hell is paved with good intentions”, vote Stark who are personally sympathetic but had no problem with going to war for personal reasons and losing so many people in the last year of summer that next winter will starve half the villages in the north, oops.
Oh and then the prophecy kicks in, deus ex machina turns all the previous issues irrelevant because to resist zombie invasion both genocide victims and perpetrators must unite against it. And finally, after inevitable victory, aristocratic survivors sit in the ruins of what was populous country, on a mountain of peasant and burghers bodies and sigh “we saved the status quo again, victory”.
I hated that show with a passion, and I think the books have aged like blood-and-shit laced milk as well, especially because of the giggly edgelord behind them can’t even bother to finish the final book, presumably because the trust fund sex pests that were tormenting Emilia Clarke on stage (and eventually punished her character as well as herself for demanding less SV scenes and no more coerced nudity scenes) didn’t actually stray as far from that final book as copium-huffing diehard fans want to believe.
This is what i was always saying too after the show. The ending, after correcting for general show adaptation quirks like lowering budget by mass extermination of characters by Cersei, is perfectly plausible for the book. Daenerys ultimate descend into targaryanenishness of worse kind is written on the wall literally since book one for example.
Making the SV victim (or underage SV victim in the books, because author is creepy like that too, complete with sensationalistic details describing the sexual parts of a child) the “crazy” mass murdering Swerve not-so-surprising surprise villain to invalidate even the idea of improvising society somewhat was like a liberalism limit break.