ASOIAF: Political Realism and Revenge (+ Trump vs. the Boiled Leather podcast).

contacts growing up we think a lot about
learning through listening the really weird thing about making podcasts and making YouTube videos especially if you're working alone you're not doing an interview you're not doing the roundtable format is that you do a lot of learning through talking I do not script my videos sometimes I get email from people who assume these videos are script it's like no it's a hundred percent off the top of my head spontaneous but you do a little bit of thinking before you come on camera where you think okay what themes am I gonna address how am I gonna combine them how am I gonna get this whole discussion done under one hour under half an hour under 15 minutes you go through a very strange process of learning through talking in making YouTube videos in making podcasts and even though I have done well over 400 YouTube videos at this point I think we crossed the 500 line a few days ago guys 500 uploads at any rate making the videos on a Song of Ice and Fire Game of Thrones it's remarkable to me how different the process is for me mentally creatively or have you putting together a video like this in contrast to the videos I've done about real world politics ethics history and of course animal rights veganism ecology the other themes are gonna see discussed on this channel I have other videos about learning languages I have other videos just talking about my own life etc etc but it really is interesting so in this video I'm covering a couple of different topics but one big theme the theme I really want to talk about this video is the contrast between psychological realism and political realism and basically my thesis here is from my perspective my opinion is that the the enduring quality of the Song of Ice and Fire book series is that it presents you with a world that has this kind of profound political realism has enough social complexity as enough social contradictions that it pulls you along as a reader it certainly pulls me along despite very often a lack of psychological realism and I don't really mean that as a criticism I think if the books had more psychological realism they might be boring um is Ramsay Bolton psychologically realistic no it's just left up to your imagination at a several times thing has happened at conferences at press conferences or book promotion events george RR martin will comment that none of the characters in the book are truly good or truly evil and then some will say well wait a minute what about Ramsay Bolton and George Aaron will kind of vaguely say well you know he had a bad childhood and the audience will laugh so I think that's happened at least twice you can you can find that on YouTube at least one of the times when he's made a joke of that kind you know dismissing the idea that even Ramsay Bolton is a simple evil character in his nuanced world of characters that are neither good nor evil now would these books be better if instead of presenting Ramsay Bolton to us in this stark simple way with great economy of language if instead we delved into his childhood psychology his relationship with his mother um a lot of American fiction whether in cinema or in scripts or in book form is really loaded with its laden it's heavy with that kind of attention to psychological realism and for me from my perspective I like the fact that Game of Thrones Song of Ice Bear is not that the books are not burdened with that kind of psychological realism now okay I realize some people are gonna still regard this as a criticism for me it's part of the economy of language and I think it leans on the political realism and the readers propensity to fill in the gaps with plausible explanations for why the characters are doing what they're doing that we fill in the gaps with plausible motivations when we often know nothing about the Cure so another example really rapidly really quickly um [Music] Kevan Lannister we get one chapter that gives us a little bit of psychological realism - Kevan Lannister not a lot a little bit of his psychology has shown to us but up until that one chapter in which he dies by the way hashtag spoilers uh um we have no idea who this guy is and we don't need to know I don't think a single person read these books and before that final appearance get thought you know what I just I just don't understand Kevan Lee I just don't understand his his political motivations I don't understand this is psychology who is this guy who is this mysterious Kevin Landsman we don't need to know we don't need to know because Kevin Lannister is presented to us as coping with these complex scenarios in such a politically realistic world and for me there's there's a very moving scene many of you may not think of this as emotionally moving this reflects my own background in caring about politics war history etc you know Kevan Lannister sits down with Cersei at one point I forget on Slate they're sitting or standing it's immaterial and Cersei she isn't even really threatening him it's just a situation of a rather vague unstated conflict between Kevan Lannister and Cersei Lannister but there is the real possibility of the conflict when Cersei Lannister and Kevan Lannister descending into a Lannister civil war and you can imagine how different the whole story would be how different the whole you know history fictional history and foot would be if they had taken in that direction and Kevan Lannister says to her this is from memory but does every call he says you know I have a good fortress I have a good castle and I feed 200 Knights he says we can't win if it's this Civil War if Cersei really comes for him he can't win said but we can really make you fight for it you know we we it won't be easy for you you know there's gonna be a significant body count this is gonna be a war that's gonna go on for a long time if you really want to take it there with me to me that scene has so much gravitas so much reality and as I recall Cersei is quite surprised she didn't think these negotiations we're gonna we're gonna go that far she didn't think she was gonna be in that life-and-death faceoff with with with Kevan Lannister but that is what they're what they're discussing at that at that stage of the plot is their psychological realism to it no do I neither to be know for me as a reader I'm already completely pulled in and in a sense committed to following the story because of the political realism of the overall context now sorry so this video although it's gonna talk about a few different things some of you reading the title the video you may already want to know why I'm bringing in some commentary on the boiled leather audio our podcast one of my other podcasters who talks about Song of Ice and Fire Game of Thrones [Music] I mean I think the other big thing I want to talk about here is revenge and the significance of revenge in these books as a whole now look as a kind of strange disclaimer I'm not talking about subtext here I'm not talking about a topic of speculation the idea that revenge is an important moral ethical theme in these books is written very clearly it's put into the mouths of characters it's expressed in the text not in the subtext not a matter of interpretation I think it's significant it's self-evidently significant that we have the enormous importance of revenge you know on the southern tip of this fictional world down in Dorne we have these characters in Dorne who are almost cartoonishly obsessed with revenge to the point of their own self-destruction and we have this very memorable monologue or dialogue reflecting on how hopeless revenge is and especially drawing attention to the fact that revenge has no clear endpoint or outcome when is it enough when is the cycle of revenge done how destructive and self-destructive this this yearning for revenge's so that's in the text not in the subtext that's in the southern end of the world in Dorne and then almost mirroring that at the northern end of the world we have Barbary Dustin Barbary Dustin another character who again her obsession with revenge I'm is you know irrational this hidden least Barbary Dustin why does she hate the stark family it's a very romantic tale in two sentences she loved her husband her husband went off to war on a red horse her husband promised her that he would come back alive from war on that red horse but ladies and gentlemen that is not the kind of promise you can expect a man to keep war as hell nobody knows who's gonna live it who's gonna die and her husband died it's not Ned Stark's fault but Ned Stark brought back that horse to her without her husband she was bitter as hell she could never forgive him she deeply hated Ned Stark not only did she does did she vow to destroy the stark household which she has done she's already accomplished that that revenge is in the tense you know but after Ned Stark is dead it's still not enough for her she's got to destroy his bones she's got to prevent him from having a proper burial and she's got a network of spies to help her carry this out this is ridiculous what do you think about it I mean we already know Littlefinger as a network of spies we know vari Zazzle networker spies now what now Barbary Dustin has her own private CIA and none of these spies managed to find Arya Stark right none of them but her but her spies are on it her spies are gonna track down the bones of Ned Stark and why for revenge now obviously for me this is one theme I'm discussing this video it may seem do I've mentioned three or four different unrelated things is this psychological realism is this lacking psychological realism I really think in many ways Jorge's approach to Jeremy Martin's approach to writing these characters reflects his own prior success as a horror writer as an author in the horror genre and really the American genre of horror in that genre the single most overweening influence being at ground PO we have a lot of characters that fit into that tradition of Edgar Allen Poe's over-the-top villain seeking revenge often for no rational reason or no stated reason whatsoever and uh seeking revenge in a way if you think about your own life your own real-life experience I doubt any of you have met a character out of an Edgar Allen Poe's story it's it's evocative it's dramatic but it is not realistic again I'm not complaining um but in the real world your experience with revenge is much more likely to be to people at your office who hate each other bitterly and they wait all year until one day at the Christmas party they've both had too much alcohol and they yell at each other about how much they dislike each other in this age of consent this is the the reality of revenge in our lives it's petty and it may be cruel but it's um the the type of yearning for revenge that leads Dora and Mort Martell to in effect kill his own son I mean he doesn't quite kill he sends off his son and this impossible mission resulting in his son's death ridiculous and many people including Preston JP Jacobs are trying to reinterpret this in some other way what it is showing us not in the subtext in the text is how this yearning for revenge dooms their whole house that's that that is the story of house Martell it is it's not portraying revenge in a morally neutral way this is a if anything and A Song of Ice and Fire can behold a feeble this is a feeble about how revenge is bad and evil and wrong and Georgia's in this context laying it on thick Barbary Dustin I think is more nuanced etc etc but George as I said even with some bulik Ramsay Bolton Ramsay snow Ramsay Bolton George is not really interested in giving us this kind of icing on the cake of psychological realism the American tradition I prefer it that way I don't need to know I do not need a rational explanation or a psychoanalytic glimpse into the mind of Ramsay Bolton white as because I don't eat it for Barbary Dustin either you know we were kind of given enough of a dotted line and then the rest is we get to see these people coping with realistic hurdles realistic political conditions in a world that has this this compelling political realism to it so even if some of the characters are to be blunt a bit like cartoonish supervillains in their pursuit of revenge for me that does not impair the story and I would say that I'm not planning to write a novel in the near future it is possible I will in the next three years I'm living in some stranger I can imagine writing a novel in the next couple of years given the circumstance they'll be living and working in if I were to write a novel for me I would take that as a very kind of positive lesson from George's success I don't think he came to this in a in a you know carefully thought-out way I think that George's success as a writer of horror because he is he's an award-winning horror author and prior to the enormous success of Game of Thrones you have to remember his writing before with some of his most successful writing financially and otherwise he and some of his books combine elements of horror and science fiction there is a story called sand kings it's not his most famous work sand Kings was both successful as text and it was adapted into basically a TV movie I think it was a two-hour TV special if it's a one-hour TV special I apologize but mice and kings most of you probably never had sang Kings no offense sand Kings again is a story we're definitely I mean almost every okay the main character at least very much that Edgar Allen Poe tradition of just being an inexplicably malevolent vengeful character from page one and we get no examination we don't know anything about his childhood we don't know why he's like this we don't know what his objectives are in life we don't know why he is so cavalier about killing people and getting revenge and that's there from the the Alpha to the Omega from the start of the story to the end he's just that kind of guy so that I just say this is an element of Georgie's writing that for him from his perspective I think has been rewarded I think his horror writing is something that met with a pretty large audience very positive public reception and I think that has influenced him as a writer to have more and more of those characters and more more of that pattern now the other thing I think is very interesting looking at a Song of Ice and Fire as a whole looking at all the books together as an epic and at this point we have maybe fifty percent of the books published if you think we're 75 percent of the way through the story maybe it seems like we're at about the halfway mark as the year 2016 comes from and this is the last couple of days of 2016 I'm recording this Emma the way it seems to me the story's about halfway done I think George is tremendously interested in revenge as such and he has an explicitly ethical and political view of revenge that in some cases is harshly damning a revenge of revenge as a concept if you like but he also challenges himself let's say what I mean in a second it is impossible so we've alluded to earlier George does not like to categorize his characters in terms of good versus evil but you can very easily categorize the characters in terms of motivated by revenge versus not motivated by revenge which becomes very interesting very soon so obviously Jon Snow so far not motive not motive not motivated by revenge nothing Jon Snow is done up to this halfway point up to is a Aaron death of two being stabbed is motivated by revenge we don't know when John comes back from the dead maybe that's a fundamental change maybe he wants revenge against the Nights Watch we don't know right but John up to this point he can say has been a morally good character at least by this one criterion in that he is not motivated by revenge now Jamie Lannister again a morally gray character most people see them as being on a Redemption arc in reality we don't know we don't know what Jamie's gonna do next um at the beginning of the books I'd remind you there's this tremendously odious atmosphere surrounding Jamie Lannister and all of the Knights who are in the immediate company of the king who at that time is you know Robert Baratheon um you have this sense of them being violent men who have no purpose in life who have nothing to do in this world in between wars right Jamie Lannister and the Hound and the other members of the the Kingsguard the Kings coterie they just seem like a malevolent bunch of board members of a biker gang who are itching for any excuse to fight any excuse to kill someone including the killing of Micah the butcher's boy right which is done by the hound as you'll recall but before any that happens from the first time these guys walk onstage there's a tremendous sense of menace dare we say evil about them right but nevertheless Jamie Lannister as we first know his character at the beginning of his history-- arc Jamie Lannister is not motivated by revenge why did Jamie Lannister kill the Mad King for the good of the realm why did Jamie Lannister destroy these other houses fighting on the side of you know House Lannister fighting on the side of house per at the end of some extent um for the go to the realm Jamie Lannister is not out for revenge at any point in the story and when you look at that okay hmm that puts them in a totally different category from Barbary Dustin from the whole of house Martell which is you know all these ridiculous characters and house Martell I mean I'm sorry look if anyone here is offended that I'm saying house look Martell lacks psychological realism did you the first time you read about the sand snakes I mean I've heard comments on the Internet the sand snakes are like an all-female team equivalent to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles okay no there's no there is no psychological realism to the sand snakes don't get it yourself and there's no psychological realism to the role revenge that's in their life so again like these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles each one has a different superpower a different weapon or whatever it's the Justice League or the x-men I guess the x-men is maybe a good comparison each one has a different superpower this one's a religious figure this one this one's a warrior this is junk writing I'm sorry and all of them are are obsessed with this revenge for events that happened before they were born events that were not in a meaningful sense part of their lives etc etc that's how we're introduced to them zero interest in examining their psychology their motivation motivations they enter stage left as villains chewing up the scenery and of course another example like that from from the south is dark store the infamous Dark Star the most hated care many people feel that's the worst written character or worst written couple of scenes in the whole series of Kingdom throne okay george RR martin is not perfect sometimes i think we could say the lack of psychological realism is a problem but for me as a reader because i really respond to the political overtones and political undertow of this story it's not much of a problem maybe for someone else it would be made for someone i was looking more for that american tradition of you know frankly digging into everybody's you know Freudian past Freudian psychoanalytic history maybe they would be more frustrated with this book series because it never gives you that right never even gives you that for Jon Snow I'm with John Snow even you're just left filling in the blanks for why this guy is the way he is and you know I think would be a lot less interesting if we did to get all that stuff um who is motivated by revenge and who is not I think so again you could go through a list of all the principal characters or even all the minor characters and look at who is motivated by revenge who is not and you get a much more useful set of categories than good versus evil another very interesting one no is Tyrion Lannister for the first half of his story roughly first quarter of his story Tyrion Lannister again is not motivated by revenge even though Tyrion Lannister is an amoral character at best or an antihero why is he fighting against Stannis for the good of the realm why is he fighting on behalf of House Lannister for the good of the realm Tyrion is not motivated by revenge in any sense so I think it's interesting to say that up to a certain point in his story in that by that criteria and he is morally good despite the many evil and odious things he does and then we have a change for one thing he actually does take revenge on his own father he both wants revenge and he seeks revenge and gets revenge immediately and that's not enough for him it's a bit cartoonish but after he leaves King's Landing he wants revenge on his own sister he won't be satisfied we were told this again and again it's easy to ignore he has a monomania with murdering his own sister he is out for revenge okay make no mistake in the book Tyrion Lannister is not trying to liberate the slaves of murine he couldn't care less Tyrion Lannister is not trying to save the realm from Stannis Baratheon because he believes Stannis Baratheon is a bad or evil king other characters are um you know his own brother Renly it's very interesting Renly sets down that his reason is that he thinks Stannis will be a terrible King Voorhies is really afraid if Stannis becomes King and will devastate the realm and we don't have any reason to think that was a cynical ploy overall it seems that virus was speaking sincerely when vari said that from his perspective Stannis must be stopped Stannis is in effect a threat or a menace or would be an evil and terrible king that's not Terrans motivation after Tyrion leaves King's Landing he is out for blood he is out for revenge and he has become another one of these you know again it broadly speaking the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe very psychologically simple bent on revenge destructive and self-destructive characters now I think when you see it that way that also foreshadows maybe to some extent uh what is coming next for Tyrion yeah I think there's actually a lot for us to consider there okay now okay so two challenges now I think it is very easy to say in a sense that Littlefinger is an evil character if you look at the storyline of the fake Arya as we call her the woman who replaces arya stark at Winterfell and it's very unclear what's gonna happen her storyline it's one I don't want to try to predict what happens next but you know if you look at what Littlefinger did to fake Arya just use that name unbelievably needlessly cruel and evil takes this girl and reduces her to being a prostitute and that's before even she's married off to Ramsay Bolton and so on um you know Littlefinger knows what he's doing and this is seemingly an evil act with no particular plan or purpose to it and we're reminded of that I think it's in the sample chapters but at the very end of the plot after Theon and fake Arya escape Theon warns her he says to faker you must maintain this illusion you must keep on using this fake identity because if not your true identity is equivalent to a horror you'll go back to just being a prostitute if you admit that you're not Arya Stark now we have no idea what can happen that plot apparently that character is gonna lose her nose that's two different characters major or significant characters or their noses cut off apparently due to frost but she's gonna lose her nose I think it's quite possible that actually the real Arya Stark will not want to resume her identity as Arya Stark and will allow that that woman to continue to be our it's quite possible in the plot will have a noseless fake Arya ruler of the north which is a type of nuance and subtle to you you do not see in the TV show but we have no idea what's gonna happen with that with that story line but Petyr baelish's role in that Littlefinger's role in that it is very easy to call that evil however Littlefinger is not motivated by revenge or so far in the books this is December of 2016 so far not that we know of now maybe I'm wrong maybe really the final judgment on Baelish in these books will be that he was motivated Marge maybe what we'll find out is that from day one he just wanted to kill Ned Stark because he could never be satisfied until he took revenge against the family and the feudal system that deprived him of the opportunity to get married to the only woman he ever loved Catelyn Stark maybe Littlefinger's story really is a revenge story maybe that's what gets revealed you know in the next two books through however many books we've got maybe but right now it's also possible to look at all the evil and terrible things Petyr baelish's done and say hey he was doing this for the good of the realm yes he was also doing it for his own career for his own advancement to get rich yes that too but you know Ned Stark showed up at you know in the first books Ned Ned Stark shows up in the capital city and Petyr Baelish is there to help he didn't need to be he could have been there trying to get revenge from they want maybe what's revealed that he always was please don't bother to send me hate me on that maybe we don't know so I think even using this set of criteria for not good versus evil but characters who are motivated by revenge versus not motivated by revenge it's interesting that some at least at this time are in a gray area but anyway obviously house Martell is an extreme their adventures what this story's all about and then mirroring that in the far north Barbary Dustin is just about revenge I think there is a sense in which you can say Theon Greyjoy is illustrating you know the opposite side of the coin or something what what does revenge even mean doesn't it become meaningless in Theon Greyjoy story what does justice mean is it justice for Stannis to execute Theon Greyjoy and so on you know we we don't know obviously Jaime Lannister is also showing that flip side of the coin would it be justice for Jaime Lannister to be killed because he killed the the Mad King or for these of the things we have the totally surreal situation of you know the Hound being put on trial for killing Micah the butcher's boy which is I think most people overlook just how significant that is to the ethics and morality of this this saga as a whole he's put on trial and he says his only flaw at following orders he was the use standard operating procedure that was his job as a soldier for the King don't blame him blame the king and he wins at his trial they have a totally surreal supernatural trial and he's found he's found not guilty right so I I do think these are kind of deep and you know the the theme of revenge it isn't just deep it's on the surface of the text also again you don't to get into subjects no to get into interpretation but it's there in almost every part of the story now the the final point I want to make on this issue and again for me I'm reflecting on this dynamic contrast between psychological realism and political realism I think that what's coming up in the storyline in Mereen really relates to this also now look guys let's pause talk about real politics in real history for a minute here some of you may have never read real historical accounts of slave rebellions of slave revolts they are incredibly gruesome chapters in the history of of our world I do not know what George has read but I assume he has read several real historical examples of slave rebellions slave revolts slave revolutions and that this shapes his writing of what what's happened in Mereen daenerys targaryen story line one of the most extreme the most gruesome the most dramatic is the the revolution and counter-revolution in Haiti so Haiti today is an independent country they fought very hard for that independence and they fought hard against France and even though France had a revolution of its own a revolution that cynically used the concepts of freedom and ending slavery what have you the reality is that the French under Napoleon tried to force Haiti back into slavery to simplify so they tried to force Haiti back into being their their colony now slavery in Haiti itself was especially cruel especially inhumane and the contrasts were the other islands right next door so at that time before the Revolution everyone in Haiti knew by the way it wasn't called Haiti at that time Haiti is a later name but anyway we're using the name Haiti to evoke confusion everyone in Haiti knew that slaves were treated better in Cuba if there were these contrasts between these different slave owning colonies they were all slave societies but slaves would actually run away from one slave society to be a slave in another society just because the conditions of slavery were better in one place versus another right so even even when the Caribbean was basically completely filled up with different slave societies the differences in the treatment of states that the differences in the human rights of slaves if you like the relative degree of oppression accrue it was something that everyone in the business was aware of right so they knew okay in this country this is how a slave on a sugar plantation is treated in this country this is how a slave who works in a tailor shop is treated it was a very complex scheme of the different levels of slaves within one society in Haiti tremendously complex by the way which is partly to encourage the slaves to oppress one another and to get the slaves to buy into the system so to speak so that every slave could feel they were in a better situation than some other slave who had it even worse than them you know but also there was this contrast between the different slave owning countries so Haiti was an especially terrible slave Society in a period of history when slave societies were common and everybody knew it it was not a secret right and their rebellion was an especially violent and extreme rebellion when it came so somewhat sarcastically and somewhat seriously when the slaves rose up and had their revolution hitting by the way actually there were several Haitian revolutions but we're simplifying um in what's referred to as the Haitian Revolution you know you will see books and even illustrations showing so-called the banner of the Revolution when the slaves rose up they didn't just kill the slave masters they didn't just rape and kill the slave masters wife they would murder the babies the children of the slave master and it was reportedly from all the history I have read he was a common sight to see the armies of the rebel slaves and slave rebel armies marching from one town to the next with a spear and an impaled dead baby on the end of that spear so a white baby the slave masters baby that had killed would be skewered on spear and held up to show negotiations are over right it was a life and death struggle and so that this is not a one-sided picture of the barbarity involved you may or may not know the first use of gas chambers in the history of the world was done by Napoleon by Napoleon side in trying to turn back the clock and trying in the counter Revolutionary War in the holds of ships these were giant wooden ships that would have a big you know empty wooden space in the bottom to hold the ships they would put hundreds of people into the hold of the ship and use the crude poison gases that existed at the time that would kill you pretty gradually and they executed thousands and thousands of people this way in gas chambers so in the history of the world the first use of gas chambers in crimes against humanity you could call this genocide but anyway that's mass murder was by the French side in fighting against this revolution this this revolution in civil war this attempt to get freedom from slavery for the people of Haiti right so the history is extremely brutal and again so if you have any sensitivity to that if you have any connection that and that is not the only history of slavery I'm familiar with I've read the history of slavery and of rebellions against slavery in several different countries many Americans seem to think that the American Civil War is the only or as the standard history of house labor gets abolished on this planet it's not that's a very unusual situation I mean fundamentally the majority of people fighting in the Civil War were white so this was one group of white people that obviously some black people in there but this is one army of white people fighting another army of white people to debate whether or not they're going to own slaves that is in no way comparable to a situation where in extreme poverty and oppression the slaves themselves rise up to take on the money to establishment take on the slave owners directly a slave revolution is very very different from what Americans saw their historic experience in the u.s. civil war right so my point is the level of brutality seen in daenerys targaryen struggle with the slave owners he does have political realism whether or not there's psychological realism is another question but what Daenerys does is that she comes into power on the promise of abolishing slavery her only legitimacy as a foreign conqueror as an as an Army of Occupation taking over the city marry her only legitimacy comes from her claim that she is going to carry out this type of revolution it's a slave revolution and again I do think George has some background in studying some of these real-world slaver pollutions so in a sense he knows what that means it means yeah if you want to use the comparison to French history it means the guillotine it means the society actually eliminating the ruling class actually slaughtering the slave owners and we have that issue or that option presented to Daenerys again and again and I think it's very clear up to the point we're at now in the books Daenerys is refusing to have a regime built on revenge she is not wanting to rule a city that's built on the logic of the slaves rising up and taking revenge against their former slave masters for her own ethical and political reasons she refuses this she refuses this many people give her blunt advice on this and just say I think you understand what's going on you need to go back and reread what Barristan Selmy says very very carefully I think fundamentally Barristan Selmy is telling us the truth at many points in the story he's not playing games he's not telling Daenerys what she needs to hear and there she's often ignoring what he says and then we get to see Barristan Selmy ease investigation it's a little bit like a detective story where Barristan Selmy figures out who is conspiring against two etcetera I think what we can understand especially if we put enough weight on Barristan Selmy zs-- exposition Daenerys has left this revolution incomplete and undone or unfit only half done she started the revolution and she didn't finish it halfway through this type of slave rebellion she changed her policy entirely she sold out all her principles she sold out the interest of the slaves and not only she tried to negotiate with and compromise with the slave owning elite she actually tried to marry into their class she started where their clothes she arranged a marriage to one of their you know aristocrats now from the slaves perspective this is a betrayal of their interests beyond imagining right but this is also simply abandoning you know the only reason d'etre for her for her regime now the point were arrested at and sir the cliffhanger right in the story is seemingly of Daenerys try having to embrace the ethic of fire and blood okay this is a little bit vague I think it's much less vague when you you say you look at this in terms of the the meditation on revenge seem throughout all the books I think we could say that the the fable of marine is in many ways saying even if your leader is this somewhat zhijun somewhat naive teenage girl which is what Daenerys is she's not out for revenge she wants to be reasonable she wants to negotiate she wants to compromise she's even willing to get married to someone she doesn't love she's worried it will get married into a culture she doesn't respect and become a member of a social clashes when we part of she is willing to meet them halfway for all these you know good and noble reasons peace and prosperity and cooperation and compromise but the setting she lives in is one of political realism it's one in which the people want revenge and her only legitimacy comes from satisfying the desire for revenge from those slave classes it the legitimacy of her rule cannot come from a noble marriage to hizdahr zo loraq sorry if i get the name wrong his daughter his daughter I'm sure about you know it cannot possibly come from her courting the support of the green grace of marine of the local religious authorities it cannot all right it's only coming from the ground up it's coming from that same place she was at when she was walking on the road to marine and she was seeing the corpses of these children these child slaves that had been tortured to death that had been executed just to intimidate her and she wanted revenge so at widest George set this up I think in a sense he's challenging himself as a writer he's challenging us as the readers of the audience he's challenging the overall morality that's unfolding in this book the morality tale you know I mean the point of the morality tale in you know Dorne is completely obvious to everyone there's nothing subtle about it right revenge is bad very clear marine by contrast is showing you you can fight against it you can obviate it you can try to avoid it but this desire for revenge is also part of political reality and sometimes it's in electable and someone like Daenerys Targaryen who seems like the most powerful person in the world is powerless when confronted with these choices between either giving the people what they want which is revenge and tearing a whole society apart just in order to stay in control of it liquidating the ruling class as so many societies have done it the revolutions began Haiti is an extreme example but a telling example really the revolution in France is also a very telling example and those two revolutions ended up at war with each other as the French wanted to reclaim their their colony terrible irony in history well you know Napoleon thinks of himself as a revolutionary thinks of himself as representing the ideals of the revolution and of freedom and you know all these fine ideals and he was fighting to try to force Haiti back into being a slave colony of France right that's that's real history in case you think in case you think a Song of Ice and Fire is hard to believe it's pretty unbelievable to that that that really happened here on planet earth and so this is this is what I have to say I mean III think that again I'm not criticizing him when I say that the the strength of the story is in political realism rather than psychological realism I mean I do not find even Daenerys Targaryen psychologically realistic and that's fine with me I don't care but that for me the political realism can carry the story I think I mean you know if you ask why is revenge so important throughout this this whole book I don't you tell me book one chapter one I think it's book one chapter one you have the stag and the direwolf you know the literal stag and direwolf that have killed each other in the forest so the two houses you know this most obvious symbolism in the world why why of all these houses torn themselves apart right to a large extent a songs Basin fire is a critique of feudalism I mean why does Barbary dust rent dust and need revenge to the extent that she does Barbary Dustin's title it's the same by the way with the the rains of castamere the rains of castamere which is not in the books yet maybe it never will be but it's alluded to in the books and then we know about it from the you know the world book we know the story the tragedy of the rains of castamere and the tragedy of Barbra Dustin is ultimately based in the fact this is social system where your marriage defines land ownership defines your wealth and your status and your political power sure there's a there's a huge you know at a macro level they'll this whole the whole story is a condemnation of feudalism itself root and branch it's a condemnation of people having political power based on their birth and land ownership based on birth and marriage etc sure on a deep level that's there all the time but I think it's also showing us with absolutely no ambiguity that the problem is you know the what animates this whole tragic state of affairs is no doubt the desire for revenge that's that's always their Barbary Dustin can never be satisfied house Martell can never be satisfied and in some way the whole feudal system I think is illustrated again partly because of these ultimately economic moorings the economic basis the feudal system it is prone to or it ineluctably leads to this unending cycle of revenge and again a house Blackwood I'm sorry I may be reflecting we have these two houses written Oh God so I'm going to Raven tree and Blackwood Oh God I did not press we do have these houses that we see through Jaime Lannister's eyes and sir one of them their their house sigil is this giant black weirwood tree trying to destroy each other over centuries and centuries in microcosm that's giving us the same story that these books show us in macrocosm their desire for revenge between those two houses never ends I'm sorry I'm forgetting if it's black tree or black wood and they're at this Bazaar there are these two hills that are referred to as Barba's teet so you guys will know what I'm talking about if you've read the books you know I'm talking about and Jaime Lannister learns the whole story of these two houses who have been at war with each other for centuries and centuries why is it that they can never have enough revenge it's really shown - this is not subtext it's explained to us in the text their desire for revenge can never end because this cycle of seeking revenge is linked to who owns the land it's linked to the struggle to control green fields and greeneries and I don't know Potter the pottery industry and the shipping industry it can never end there can never be peace that can never be into a cycle revenge because of in a sense the way the feudal system links to this ugly aspect of human nature and to make the books dramatic that aspen if you made nature is made even uglier because so many characters come straight out of Edgar Allan Poe enough said in case you hadn't noticed the vast majority of videos on this YouTube channel are about politics so I'm a guy who primarily writes articles about politics records podcasts about politics records videos in YouTube ooh politics including the politics of animal rights ecology veganism but many other forms of politics as well by contrast there is a very famous very well-respected podcast about a Song of Ice and Fire called the boiled leather audio our on that podcast they primarily mean the main guy there is Shaun T Cullen's Shaun T Collins you're gonna hear his voice and then I'm gonna play you a clip Shaun T Cullen's he mostly rights above fiction he mostly writes articles about TV shows and his podcasts are about fiction are about TV including of course Game of Thrones and once in a while he talks about politics so he and I are exact opposites I talk about politics all the time I talk about A Song of Ice and Fire once in a while he talks about fiction all the time he talks about Osama by spiral time he talks about politics once in a while so I'm in a unique position to maybe comment on the the recent lapsing of shanti collins into the political sphere they've had quite a few podcasts as she that talk about politics and apparently shell-shocked in response to the election of donald trump shaunti collins went off-script and they did a whole wall other audio did a whole episode well the boiled leather audio hour did a whole episode just talking about how shocked and horrified they are by the election Donald Trump I'm gonna play you less than one minute of what Shanti Khan says here and then you will get my response I think it is interesting that we have reached a tipping point in the fandom if I can use the word fan where I could do a podcast just responding to other podcasts about a Song of Ice and Fire so the level of critical engagement with this literature is now so high that I it's not just possible to depart I could do a metal podcast a podcast about podcasts alright it's not what we're gonna do but I think that isn't a sin sling to be celebrated and it shows how seriously these these books are taken um in this case I do think it's regretable that Shaun kind of went off the rails and you're gonna see why essay and I've stayed off of Twitter for the last week and a half or so maybe even two weeks now in large part with the exception of occasionally plugging my work and my partner juliek affairs work and I talked about something that we'll get to later in this podcast was just the role of television and television dramas in particular in the election efforts of the Trump campaign but the reason I've done that is is because of what I have tattooed on my left arm and I'm not going to try and butcher the German but it's fit constraint and it says you know we're of one cannot speak thereof one must be silent and no comment particularly feel that I had anything of value to contribute beyond my initial reaction which was white nationalism is inherently illegitimate the Trump presidency may be legal but it's illegitimate and and there should be no cooperation because there should be no cooperation with fascism ever and it's a it's a neo fascist movement and it's sizing up to be a neo fascist regime so the whole premise of this video you've just been watching and of talking about the politics of A Song of Ice and Fire the premise here is that we're talking about politics in the fictional world and yet what I find so problematic so troubling about what shanti collins is doing here is that he is really presenting us with a mix of real politics and fantasy that um you know i feel he is stepping into a very dangerous realm of fictionalization shall we say of real political problems it's very important for all of us that we were mean rigorously honest with ourselves about our beliefs and our values not even that we demand of ourselves that we practice what we preach but that we recognize whether or not the things we believe in are even practicable in this world if they could be practiced okay now I've dealt with a lot of politics in Asia politics in Canada politics in the Western world a politics within Buddhism politics in Buddhist countries politics in communism extremism you know including you know mass murder by communist regimes probably all of us at some point in our childhood asked ourselves when we learned about world war two when we learned about the history of the Nazis in Germany probably all of us asked ourselves what would I have done if I was there at the start of this regime and shanthi Collins is here really seriously suggesting that the election of Donald Trump is one a neo fascist regime to a white supremacist Muses term white nationalist and three that nobody should cooperate with the regime so presumably this means if you have a job with the federal government at least if not the state government so the stig of him you should now quit your job and I don't know go to the jungle join the resistance join the rebellion if he actually believes if his beliefs are things that can exist in the real world if this isn't just fantasy if this isn't just hyperbole if this isn't just propaganda if you really believe this is the start of quote a neo fascist regime Sean how are you living your life accordingly if you even think this is believable how would anyone live their lives accordingly to me this kind of thinking is much more dangerous than mere hyperbole okay um [Music] it sails absurd to say I am NOT saying this even in support of Donald Trump I'm really not um I'm really saying this to warn against the tendency to mix fantasy and fact which is funny because a lot of over doing here is taking a kind of politically realistic view of of a fantasy novel right um Sean I I hope in your heart of hearts you don't actually believe that this is true I hope you're not that out of touch with reality but I also think you need to think through rigorously if this is what you believe if you believe that America is now at the dawn of a new as he says neo-fascist white supremacist regime that nobody should cooperate with how are you going to live your life accordingly my values and my beliefs in this world is very difficult to live with I do not own anything made at a leather this watch has a plastic Westra I don't own anything made at a leather because my beliefs and my values entail that nobody should buy leather that it's that the you know the industry that slaughters animals that raises cows and a cage made out of steel and concrete only to die and make products out of their bodies I think that's immoral and I have to live my life accordingly and some people especially they're unfamiliar with veganism they never thought about some people think that's impossible some people think whoa how can you live your whole life without using anything made to leather they're using anything made out of wool sheep's wool you know is it possible to have a diet where you don't eat any meat I deal with it all the time in Buddhism all the time I dealt with these kinds of questions where people believed impossible things people subscribe to a fundamentally supernatural cosmology about what the world is and what's going on in the world and you really have to target and say look if you believe in the literal truth of this scripture ancient Buddhist scriptures what we're talking about here how can you live your life accordingly when you meet Christians who actually believe the world is gonna end very soon who believed that the prophecy in the book of Revelation is coming right up in just a couple of years and there are some famous Christian groups that do believe this how are you going to live your life accordingly I remember I heard interview with a man his parents didn't let him go to university because they thought the world was gonna end too soon for that who's got four years to waste going to a university program if the world's gonna end just just get ready there are people who who live with these kinds of impossible beliefs in this world but I gotta tell you Sean I have read so many accounts of people either the people who were communist revolutionaries or the people who were escaping communist regimes when communist regimes were killing up mascara were carrying out mass murder against people were they had to wake up one day and recognize that they were living in a despotic regime in an extremely despised situation and they had to sell their bicycle and put on their backpack and go walk to the mountains or walk to the jungle and join the resistance join the Maki or what have you I remember the accounts I read of one guy who who lived in Nazi Germany and he was opposed to the Nazi regime and for a while he opposed them so to speak at his desk and then at one point he realized he had to he had to flee he had to run away and join the resistance joined the rebellion and it was the the realest thing in the world he just commented he said you don't know how precious those bourgeois habits are to you the rhythm of daily life until you have to give them all up whether it's the little coffee machine he had in his apartment or just being able to take a shower every day the comforts you have in your apartment giving those up forever to go join the revolution go join the resistance and probably sleep in a tent and not have a proper toilet and not have a proper shower and not have your coffee machine anymore most they sound like small things but those are hard decisions people to make in all of us I think again as children we had to ask ourselves when we first learned the reality of the history of World War two even if we just learned a very simplified version as its presented to children we had to ask ourselves if I had been there at that time would I have had the courage to do what was right would I have had the intellectual acumen to realize what was going on and to stand up and do the right thing or would I have been a coward would I have been a conformist would I have just been ignorant would I have just ignored the warning signs what was going on in front of my my eyes again I remember another account from World War two of a guy who who who was in Nazi Germany and he didn't he didn't put the pieces together when the Holocaust was starting but he said he reflected on sadly he said he remembered he was in a public park a normal public was in Berlin and there was a park bench with a sign on it no Jews the Jews were not allowed to sit on that bench in the park and he said I should have known he said even if that was the only thing he saw he said I should have looked into it I should have asked questions I should have figured it out just because I saw that park bench you know he was he was writing ups he felt he was if he had been smarter if he had been more curious if you had been more rigged ress he could have figured out what was going on at that time just the basis of the park bench now obviously this guy I mean anyway so the particular guy was a bit of a bit of a fruitcake I mean you know you you look back at what was going on at the time you think how could you not have known well some people didn't know I mean still today some people are spending all their time playing video games and they're not paying attention to political reality not everyone is as interested in politics as I am I appreciate that some people it's not that some people are trying to find the cure for cancer it's not that they're playing video games they're in a lab they're just studying you know biochemistry some people are like that so they don't know what's going right there's a whole spectrum there are many many reasons why people lose touch with what's going on political reality and to some extent I can sympathize but Sean this is this is really a situation where I think you're veering into peddling not just propaganda but a really dangerous mix of effect and fantasy here if you believe as you say that this is the start of a neo fascist regime how would you live your life accordingly how could this belief exist in the real world for other people what are you actually calling for when you say that nobody should cooperate with this regime that nobody should cooperate with the federal government do you think that someone employed by the Parks Commission should quit their job or by the someone employed by the mayor's office what is it you're actually saying here because I think that one of the fundamental virtues you must have in democracy is not to dehumanize your opponents is not to dehumanize the people who you just happened disagree with I think the ugly truth is Sean that you haven't faced up to yet is that Donald Trump is not a fascist is not a neo-fascist he's just somebody you happen to disagree with and you know what millions and millions of your fellow Americans who surround you every day and who sell you hotdogs out of their hotdog stand and who sit next to you on the bus or the people around you I mean a huge number of people did vote for Donald Trump don't demonize them don't dehumanize them don't call them white supremacist or neo-fascist obviously some some smoke percentage of them are but you know Thea this is this is mainstream American politics jockey boat I think you know you owe it to them if you're gonna dispute with them to recognize they're not fascists they're just people you happen to disagree with and maybe that is a much more humbling position for you to have to adopt given that you just lost the election then this somewhat grandiose fantasy that you're facing off against the rise of another Adolf Hitler but Sean I think you need to work on separating your fantasy life from your reality life and maybe maybe you need to separate politics from podcasting as for my part my podcast is going to remain a hundred and ten percent political [Music]