Thrones (and the games we play for them)

Reading a series like George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire can really ruin your faith in humanity.

The best part, and the worst, of George R. R. Martin's series is that it's REAL. There are white knights in the books, but they are the most dishonorable knights of all. There are kings, but there is no such thing as a good one. There is love, but it rarely comes without a twist. The bad guys don't all die, the good guys often do, good rarely wins, and evil usually has what it takes to prevail. The innocent die, or don't stay innocent for long. And everybody plays the game of thrones.

It's a breath of fresh air, let me tell you. I love a story where the hero wins and gets the girl (insert any alternative genders or non-genders that you wish into that old trope, I know I do), where they vanquish the evil and restore the good king to his throne. But it gets tired. You look around at the world today, at the people who are in politics and power, and you don't see Gandalf; you see Peter Baelish, or Littlefinger. You look at heads of state and you don't see Aragorn; you see Robert Baratheon, feasting and wenching and drinking himself into an early death (or, say, golfing and sending his family on fancy European vacations, on the taxpayer's dime. Just a random example). Experience is usually what triumphs, and innocence dies a hard death, or learns to survive- but in doing so, begins to look curiously just like experience.

Why did I decided to (re)read SoIaF? Two reasons. First, the beautifully done new Game of Thrones series (I say new, but it ended two weeks ago). It's MARVELOUS. It's like, LotR quality, but in TV. It's also crazy true to the books, which is excellent, although it makes me spit at some of the fans because they got all up in arms after the ninth episode, whining about how they didn't want Ned Stark to die, and how the producers gypped them and just wanted to get good ratings, but BITCHES, THAT'S HOW IT WAS IN THE BOOK. Ugh, this is such an indicator of the liberal culture we live in today. "Wahhhh, I don't want my favorite character in a show based on a book series to die, EVEN THOUGH HE DIED IN THE BOOK AND THAT WOULD CHANGE PROBABLY THE WHOLE DAMN SERIES, because I DON'T WANT HIM TO! Mommy, FIX THE WORLD FOR ME!"

...okay. I'm good now. I promise you, Walt Kowalski didn't just take over my body and write my post for me. Well, maybe a little bit.

I guess the whole problem I have with people today is that they cling to the fairy tale notion of how everything is always going to work out perfectly in the end. We can do whatever we want, but nothing bad is going to happen to us. We can refuse to take responsibility for our actions, because it'll all turn out okay. We can elect a man to the presidency just because of his skin color, and give him a Nobel Peace Prize less than a year into office, and he'll turn out to be the best and wisest president we've ever seen, and he'll fix unemployment and make sure everybody has health care and all the wars in the world will cease and we'll have peace everywhere, just because we HOPED he would.

Just, you know, a random example.

One other thing I love that GRRM does is show that appearances are deceiving. Joffrey LOOKS like he should be the perfect king: handsome, golden, well-formed, carrying authority easily, everyone looks at him and says he must be wonderful. Inside, however, he's a monster. But I guess we're still going back to The Tempest:

There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with ’t.

Well...not so much. I mean, Cersei and Jaime are blond/e and gorgeous twins, but they've been fucking since they were fifteen and now have three kids together. Just sayin'. There's part of me that thinks the crybabies that our nanny state have created need a harsh lesson in how tough things can be in this world, but I guess that's uncharitable of me. First, because nobody deserves the things that happen to the people of Westeros during the war- constant raping, pillaging, the destruction of houses and homes and hopes, and death- constant, inexorable death. And second, because the vast majority of the American people wouldn't make it through the first day.