So because everybody was talking about it, I finally decided to learn more about the series and watched a couple of episodes, read the plot summary and episodes description on Wiki and watched the ending.
On the positive sight: the visuals are great, beautiful scenery, costumes etc create a certain fairy tale atmosphere to the whole show, which is probably one of the reasons so many people watched it.
On the negative side: unnecessary vulgar and unnecessary cruel (as most recent American TV shows). When they killed this poor innocent wolfs cub, that did it for me. I happen to have a weakness for wolf-like dogs:). Plus occult themes, female warriors and the fact, that as far as I could understand, it gets soapier as the story progresses and most interesting male characters die.
For instance, Khal Drogo and his love story with the blond girl made for an interesting plot twist, but then he dies off in the end of the Season 1 and Daenerys turns into some sort of a feminist darling. (I think Vox Day claimed on his blog that J. Martin hates alphas and I think he's on to something).
So the progressives were so disappointed when she got killed in the end that apparently 1 million people signed an online petition to change the ending while the reactionaries rejoiced because Bran Stark became the next king. Yet, as far as I can understand, he's unable to have children so after his death the whole mess will start all over again. The throne should have been inherited by Jon Snow or how is that guy called, instead he's sent off into exile to the Wall and presumably will stay celibate?
I further listened to this audio by VD where he pointed out that Stark sisters hardly have any prospects reproducing, either. One sails off into the West, the other one becomes a queen in her own right, without any marriage candidates in sight. It somehow reminded me of Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh which tells us the story of a downfall of a noble Catholic family. Of 4 children, one son turns a gay alcoholic, the other marries a woman many years his senior who is unable to bear children any more, one sister turns a nun and the last one after her divorce decides she's too Catholic to marry again, and has all the chances to die childless, too.
If that's a victory for Starks, how does defeat look like? Isn't the whole point of hereditary monarchy to have, you know, heirs? The ending of the whole saga is just as sterile as the whole modern Western worldview. It's hardly a victory for traditionalists. Anyway, that's just my point of view, feel free to share yours in the comments!
Sanne
ReplyDeleteThe series was vulgar and cruel, it was also a very pagan story. However you must take the good parts of a story with the bad. There is much to like in Game of Thrones. The story, the characters, the visuals, the great speeches, the politics and yes the violence.
In regards to the ending, it was a very mixed bag. The showrunners bought the rights to George R.R. Martins books, the problem was he hasn't finished writing those books. Before you attack the showrunners for being so stupid, the author started writing these books in 1991 and he has only written five of the seven books he has promised. He is a slow writer and he has gotten slower. So the showrunners had to write the ending even though they are not writers. They went for very conventional ending, which did not fit what we had come to expect from the show.
There is no current marriage candidate Sansa, Queen of the North, however being young, rich and beautiful how long will that remain so? There is no inherent reason why she should not marry and have children.
As for Bran, King of the Six Kingdoms, he is now a supernatural being so while he cannot have children he might live for centuries. What happens then, who knows?
Mark Moncrieff
Oh yes, I did mention the visuals and the acting was good, to, as far as I could see. As for the ending...I don't know. I could see the point about Bran being supernatural (the previous Raven lived for like a 1000 years?) As for the other Stark siblings, there is a reason most traditional fairy tales end with a wedding. No wedding, no lawful heirs, the bloodline dies out. I believe it is perfectly in line with modern Hollywood values. Didn't Frozen end in a similar way? The MSM promotes barrenness, but only for Europeans it seems.
ReplyDeleteThe show was running for 8 seasons so they had plenty of time to invent someone suitable for Sansa, don't you think so?
ReplyDeleteYes, but as you said this show was not a fairy tale. There is no reason why she cannot marry in the future.
DeleteWell, Sansa was very badly abused by his husband Ramsay Bolton. She is hardly interested in having sex and is possibly physically so badly damaged she may be unable to do it, or bear children.
ReplyDeleteWhat annoys me is that in the books Sansa did not marry Ramsay but one insignificant girl who claimed to be her. I think the show started going downhill when the stroy separated from the books. The writers just could not figure out Martin-like plot.
I disliked killing the wolfs, too. And it was also weird to first introduce such a creatures and then they have no purpose in the end but to die. And where is Arya's wold, Nymaera? She did not die and in the books Arya saw wolf-dreams, where Nymaera was running her own pack.
I think the hole idea in Game of Thrones (and in the "Sonf of Fire and Ice") is to be UNhappy all the way. That's why the show was so hooking in the first place, Martin killed people who usually never got killed in stories. First he creates an monster and a good guy, then he kills the good guy first. Then the monster gets killed and everybody is happy we got rid of it. Then he creates even worse monster... And so on.
Now when I think about it the whole show is about what Cercei said to Eddard Stark on the first season: "When you play the Game of Thrones, you either win or die." It is about how power, and hunger for power, corrupt and make people monsters. Think about Daenarys... If you try to stay decent, you end up dead or in exile like Jon Snow.
I wished the show had ended like so: Arya could have married Jon Snow. Arya was my favourite character all the time. They were not siblings, but cousins, so it would have been just fine. AND they both had their wolves alive, if that is not an omen I don't know what is. Wolves could have made cubs and Jon and Arya happy little killers like their mama.
Yes, that kinda was his (VD's) whole point, that she's unlikely to get married and reproduce. So here you have 4 siblings and zero chance of any descendants.
ReplyDeleteI've never read the books, and I realise some people could say that VD is prob jealous of Martin as he is an aspiring fantasy writer himself but I have followed his posts on the topic and he was always pointing it out, how Martin delights in killing off good characters. His theory is that Martin hates alphas because he isn't one himself.
Anyway, all modern TV producers in the USA aren't really rooted in European culture and that shows.
BTW, Mark, I understand that you like this show so much. I think countries like the USA and Australia do lack the history connection. I mean here we practically walk among the Roman ruins and ancient castles:)
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