Predictions (vs. Preston Jacobs) [ASOIAF / Game of Thrones]
10 December 2017 [link youtube]
Opening with a discussion of "The Children of the Forest" and their (evident) religious significance given GRRM's prior writing, e.g., in "A Song for Lya". In general, I state my opposition to Preston Jacobs's interpretation of GRRM as "pro-Communist" and "pro-loss-of-individuality" —precisely the same stories (from ASOIAF itself to "A Song for Lya") can and should be interpreted that opposite way (GRRM doesn't put forward "the moral of the story" as a simple statement in the protagonist's mouth).
This channel does, indeed, have an ASOIAF playlist (11 videos so far): https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists
A.S.O.I.A.F. = "A Song of Ice and Fire", i.e., the books of George R.R. Martin (G.R.R.M.), also known under the title "Game of Thrones", used by the T.V. adaptation to refer to the series as a whole.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
on my livestream and none of my audience
on livestream wants to hear me talk about this we're gonna talk about it anyway Game of Thrones slash a Song of Ice and Fire I'm gonna talk about predictions for the future of the book which is something I normally never do and I've repeatedly said is stupid and lame I've always said you know what I think is stupid and lame is when people get into literary analysis not as literary analysis like not to talk about the politics or the themes or the meaning of the text but where they're doing literary analysis in order to predict you like who's gonna sleep with who who's gonna get who pregnant like that's some real soap opera [ __ ] you know if you think this is a work of would you people read Shakespeare that way like come on and yeah you know what george RR martin i do in a lot of ways i do put them on the same level of shakespeare maybe cuz I do yeah sure I'm comfortable with that why why the hell not anyway who else in level whatever oh look so I do think predictions are lame and you're gonna see I'm not gonna approach it in that same way I'm not gonna approach it in a soap opera like wait um however nevertheless I feel differently about this now because the last season the TV show was so awful I like lost all interest there was a time so obviously I'm primarily into the books like everyone is really into the stuff I'm primarily into the books I'm only secondarily into the TV show the TV show is kind of echo of what's what's going on in the books but the last season of the TV show was so awful it didn't just kill my interest in the TV show it really did kill my interest in the books too and I don't think about the books I mean will I read the next books when they come out it's easy for me to say yes but now like my level of fandom and engagement is so low I can imagine the answer might be no so like when the next book come out comes out I may be enrolled in a ph.d program I may be living in France and having more visitation with my daughter I'm divorced a photographer I can imagine circumstances or I just say nope not not gonna bother to read the book and before before the last season what was that season seven seas I don't even the most recent season she show I was I was really committed to I was really looking forward to what was gonna happen next in the books and you know like I sent in some questions to some of the other podcasts too that nobody dealt with Jaime Lannister story so much time is spent in the book books on Jaime Lannister story and I don't see that much analysis and discussion and pointing out in the books as they now exist it currently ends on a cliffhanger what's gonna come next and what's what's the significance of that the main thing I have to say here is like Preston Jacobs thematically and philosophically I think you do see the direction the books are going in by reading George RR Martin's other science fiction that's really clear so something I mean you see my girlfriend primarily knows the TV show and then she's also read she's read a little bit of the books and of the Duncan AG novellas and stuff so one of the themes that comes up again and again in George RR Martin's science fiction most obviously in a novel short novel called a song for Leah lya a song for Leah but not only there comes up again and again is the issue of devolution of of de-evolution in that sense and it's very clear if you've read as other science fiction that the children of the forest are yet another example of an alien a seemingly alien species that are in fact devolved humans they're humans that have lost some of their human traits and why have they lost their human traits because of their religion and because their religion destroys the sense of individuality a venue individual ego and gives you instead a warming and reassuring sense of collective ego and an illusion of immortality now even what I've just said now I've listened to a huge quantity of Game of Thrones podcasts of the literature discussing Game of Thrones and that's partly because I used to listen that stuff while it was lifting weights or doing push-ups and you know what it was back when I was studying Japanese also I'd spend long hours just writing out sentences and Japanese I used to listen that kind of and when I was washing dishes and things like that - I've listened to a lot of stuff I've never heard that addressed I've never heard that discussed anywhere and it's again it's not obvious if you're just reading the books it's not obvious from the TV show at all the TV show I think they were among the many mistakes they made they really made the mistake of just fading out the religious content and when you so in the earlier seasons you get some sense that religion is important but then it fades out as the seasons progress so I can the TV show even you're on Greyjoy so you're on Greyjoy sorry I was gonna say he's the guy with one eye but in the TV show he doesn't even have one eye you're hungry guy is the guy with a bit of a reddish beard who's trying to marry Queen Cersei he's not a religious figure at all in the TV show and in the book he's kind of only religious his entire significance is religious he's a kind of messianic end of the world religious figure and at the same time he's a piratical piratical would-be King and so on but with you delete the religion from euron greyjoy story he's just a pirate with an eyepatch there's not a lot of substance there you know that's see that's a huge mistake um stylistically and in terms of systematically and in terms of content in terms of everything else but likewise the children of the forest so in the TV show they're just magic elves who throw fireballs like there's nothing interesting about them a very obviously if you've read George RR Martin's other science fiction the point of this allegory of the trees the blood eating blood drinking trees so again you don't get that from the TV show human sacrifice is demanded by the trees traditionally they poured out blood and entrails you know so blood and guts on the roots of these trees the trees themselves bleed red they have this red SAP suspiciously and Brandon Stark when he goes up to be initiated into the cult of the trees he eats a red porridge or seemingly a blood porridge and so on this is all blood imagery so again this is in a song for Leah and elsewhere this idea of a parasite and again so it's it's religion literally depicted as a parasite that destroys your sense of individuality that gives you a calming and reassuring sense of peace and collectiveness and indeed immortality but of course it's an illusion and then of course one of the ways in which are shown this is bad that george RR martin isn't just praising this is that the physical reality of who these beings are the aliens are the children before the aliens are the elves everyone say they have actually devolved they've become weaker and weaker they've withered away from human beings they've lost a lot of their mental capacity what have you so I just mentioned like Preston Jacobs seems to read this a hundred percent wrong Preston Jacobs has repeatedly stated that he thinks george RR martin is a communist that george RR martin supports this idea of collectivization of collective mind-melding whatever you want to say of this loss of generality and that is not even coherent in interpreting the source text the current tech you know Game of Thrones Song of Ice and Fire itself like do you actually think that skinchangers are represented as good people in Game of Thrones do you think that losing your sense of identity by sharing your mind by mind melding with a wolf is represented positively do you think what's the guy's name something seven skins I'm forgetting the guy's name no sir he's it a character who only appears once in the in the novels Barrow mirror seven skins I think this this horrible skin-changer who lives his life through rape and extortion and he shows us exactly why skin changers are hated and - tested in the society do you think that's positive you really think this is an author who's trying to tell you like the way forward for Humanity is by losing your sense of individuality and through collectivism and indeed if you read a song for Lia maybe especially if you read it twice you know obviously the POV character in a song for Lia seems to become convinced that it's a good thing that his own girlfriend is being devoured by a parasite a parasite that physically devours her body because she's bought into the religious delusion that by doing this she gains a kind of immortality and a kind of loss of self an overcoming of the the individual and so on but that's an illusion I mean you know again it's not the case that George Armand he's just not such a weak writer that he has a protagonist tell you the moral hypothesis of the story that just wouldn't be very sophisticated writing or it's not his style I'm not saying that's that's bad it was ok another another comparison we've been talking about reading again turgenyev fathers and sons george anyof doesn't tell you nihilism is bad and he doesn't tell you nihilism is good he has a major character I think technically is not the protagonist but he's but he is a major character who believes in nihilism and you get to see some of the absurdities of that you know you get gives a voice to nihilism he says some positive things about nihilism as a philosophy but among other things that the nihilist in that story I forget his name - Vladislav or something Borissov I'm sorry I forget then with the denialists character in in I've read that like 30 years ago or something I'm sorry I'm not only 39 but still I read that a long time ago my girlfriend also read that a long long time ago stupid type of reading again but you know um it would really be lousy writing if he just had a whole row ik depiction of nihilism instead he shows that when the nihilist falls in love the nihilist gets a crush on the main female character who I think is named Ana and his philosophy starts falling apart his life's kind of stops making sense just by falling in love he sort of has this system worked out for how he's a nihilist in society but actually like falling in love and getting married and having kids or something you think about what there's other there's other stuff like this baby if you want to jump in you can jump in anytime obvious no no pressure on you around well uh you know I know ok ok so anyway uh that's just that's just a comparison but no in a song for Leah or in Game of Thrones like think about a lane would be if we had Jon Snow standing up and saying hey democracy is the solution to all of our problems in Westeros that would be really unsophisticated think the novel's are interested in democracy in contrast to feudalism but Jon Snow himself is elected in a deeply flawed somewhat corrupt election so I think it was again push out at the present Jacobs Preston Jacobs went through like line by line the description of exactly how that election happens and he points out that it's the election is more corrupt than you'd notice on a first on a first reading but elections are not glorified the description sorry the descriptions we get of the set of more greco-roman city-states in Essos and how elections work there they seem totally corrupt also is totally susceptible to the moment-to-moment passions of the people we get descriptions of in these cities that you know some of the guys who are trying to get elected they corrupt other people by paying for singers and dancers and clowns and entertainers to promote their their campaign but some of them even pay prostitutes to sleep with you know influential electors or voters or what have you we get you know and again if you actually study the reality of how democracy works in ancient Rome in ancient Greece there's a lot there we're getting this that's why the books are compelling you know the books are compelling because they're not pro religion they're not pro collectivization they're definitely not pro communist they're also not pro democracy we get that nuanced gritty sense that even real history sometimes lacks because if it's not written well if you don't if you read a history book and it's not written to give you that compelling sense of human imperfection and complexity the human tragedy that's in the in the center of all these things then history books suck also so it's better than a lot of history books and really giving you that feeling we're you know like it's not easy for someone in John snows position or someone in daenerys targaryen position it's not easy for them to just say oh feudalism is bad democracy is gonna solve all our problems that it's really difficult to come to the conclusion that although democracy has all these problems it is actually superior to feudalism in some really important ways right I think that is exactly the prediction I want to make for the future the novels I think the whole way the novels are written the two big themes the two big themes are exactly democracy versus feudalism and then religion versus individualism because from George RR Martin's perspective religion is really integrally centrally crucially about losing one sense of self in an illusion of a greater whole and that's partly just the kind of collective ego of the religion and for sure he's also partly interested in and mortal izing your own memories that like your memories of the past will live on after you die and he's also interested in the idea of of seeing the future although again a careful reading of Game of Thrones I think what we're told again and again is that everyone he thinks they're seeing the future they're actually they're actually they're seeing they're basically seeing dreams or delusions they're being misled they think they're seeing the future and really they're not so that is my prediction for the book in making this video I feel like I've made myself feel more hopeful and more positively to read the books because I started this off the last couple months since that last season the show ran man I have been out I have just thought this is crap I don't even want to hear about it anymore the show is that bad that it totally destroyed you know my interest in in the books and you know again at this specific book series I do put on the same level than st. pedestal as like you know Shakespeare were to have you as a really great writing but I think the other moral of the story is giorgia or Martin is a writer who toiled for decades to try to get these same ideas ideas about religion and democracy and individualism and collectivism and and feudalism and his critique of feudalism and hierarchy he tried to get them into a science fiction format and the truth is it never really worked and only now in his old age actually did he find a format this very strange semi-feudal parallel universe thing that he's doing where these ideas really come to life so that's also very helpful and I'm lifting thing if you're a struggling author if you're a struggling intellectual maybe you and your old age will be able to put together these ideas you've wrestled with your whole life into something that's really compelling and really reaches a mass audience I remember it was just in a CD back when people bought music on pieces of plastic I remember was on a CD jacket that it said there was a time when popular music also was great art there was this brief period of jazz Game of Thrones one of things that's so enticing about it is that we can look at this series of novels as a hey there was a brief period of time when pop culture also was great literature [Music]
on livestream wants to hear me talk about this we're gonna talk about it anyway Game of Thrones slash a Song of Ice and Fire I'm gonna talk about predictions for the future of the book which is something I normally never do and I've repeatedly said is stupid and lame I've always said you know what I think is stupid and lame is when people get into literary analysis not as literary analysis like not to talk about the politics or the themes or the meaning of the text but where they're doing literary analysis in order to predict you like who's gonna sleep with who who's gonna get who pregnant like that's some real soap opera [ __ ] you know if you think this is a work of would you people read Shakespeare that way like come on and yeah you know what george RR martin i do in a lot of ways i do put them on the same level of shakespeare maybe cuz I do yeah sure I'm comfortable with that why why the hell not anyway who else in level whatever oh look so I do think predictions are lame and you're gonna see I'm not gonna approach it in that same way I'm not gonna approach it in a soap opera like wait um however nevertheless I feel differently about this now because the last season the TV show was so awful I like lost all interest there was a time so obviously I'm primarily into the books like everyone is really into the stuff I'm primarily into the books I'm only secondarily into the TV show the TV show is kind of echo of what's what's going on in the books but the last season of the TV show was so awful it didn't just kill my interest in the TV show it really did kill my interest in the books too and I don't think about the books I mean will I read the next books when they come out it's easy for me to say yes but now like my level of fandom and engagement is so low I can imagine the answer might be no so like when the next book come out comes out I may be enrolled in a ph.d program I may be living in France and having more visitation with my daughter I'm divorced a photographer I can imagine circumstances or I just say nope not not gonna bother to read the book and before before the last season what was that season seven seas I don't even the most recent season she show I was I was really committed to I was really looking forward to what was gonna happen next in the books and you know like I sent in some questions to some of the other podcasts too that nobody dealt with Jaime Lannister story so much time is spent in the book books on Jaime Lannister story and I don't see that much analysis and discussion and pointing out in the books as they now exist it currently ends on a cliffhanger what's gonna come next and what's what's the significance of that the main thing I have to say here is like Preston Jacobs thematically and philosophically I think you do see the direction the books are going in by reading George RR Martin's other science fiction that's really clear so something I mean you see my girlfriend primarily knows the TV show and then she's also read she's read a little bit of the books and of the Duncan AG novellas and stuff so one of the themes that comes up again and again in George RR Martin's science fiction most obviously in a novel short novel called a song for Leah lya a song for Leah but not only there comes up again and again is the issue of devolution of of de-evolution in that sense and it's very clear if you've read as other science fiction that the children of the forest are yet another example of an alien a seemingly alien species that are in fact devolved humans they're humans that have lost some of their human traits and why have they lost their human traits because of their religion and because their religion destroys the sense of individuality a venue individual ego and gives you instead a warming and reassuring sense of collective ego and an illusion of immortality now even what I've just said now I've listened to a huge quantity of Game of Thrones podcasts of the literature discussing Game of Thrones and that's partly because I used to listen that stuff while it was lifting weights or doing push-ups and you know what it was back when I was studying Japanese also I'd spend long hours just writing out sentences and Japanese I used to listen that kind of and when I was washing dishes and things like that - I've listened to a lot of stuff I've never heard that addressed I've never heard that discussed anywhere and it's again it's not obvious if you're just reading the books it's not obvious from the TV show at all the TV show I think they were among the many mistakes they made they really made the mistake of just fading out the religious content and when you so in the earlier seasons you get some sense that religion is important but then it fades out as the seasons progress so I can the TV show even you're on Greyjoy so you're on Greyjoy sorry I was gonna say he's the guy with one eye but in the TV show he doesn't even have one eye you're hungry guy is the guy with a bit of a reddish beard who's trying to marry Queen Cersei he's not a religious figure at all in the TV show and in the book he's kind of only religious his entire significance is religious he's a kind of messianic end of the world religious figure and at the same time he's a piratical piratical would-be King and so on but with you delete the religion from euron greyjoy story he's just a pirate with an eyepatch there's not a lot of substance there you know that's see that's a huge mistake um stylistically and in terms of systematically and in terms of content in terms of everything else but likewise the children of the forest so in the TV show they're just magic elves who throw fireballs like there's nothing interesting about them a very obviously if you've read George RR Martin's other science fiction the point of this allegory of the trees the blood eating blood drinking trees so again you don't get that from the TV show human sacrifice is demanded by the trees traditionally they poured out blood and entrails you know so blood and guts on the roots of these trees the trees themselves bleed red they have this red SAP suspiciously and Brandon Stark when he goes up to be initiated into the cult of the trees he eats a red porridge or seemingly a blood porridge and so on this is all blood imagery so again this is in a song for Leah and elsewhere this idea of a parasite and again so it's it's religion literally depicted as a parasite that destroys your sense of individuality that gives you a calming and reassuring sense of peace and collectiveness and indeed immortality but of course it's an illusion and then of course one of the ways in which are shown this is bad that george RR martin isn't just praising this is that the physical reality of who these beings are the aliens are the children before the aliens are the elves everyone say they have actually devolved they've become weaker and weaker they've withered away from human beings they've lost a lot of their mental capacity what have you so I just mentioned like Preston Jacobs seems to read this a hundred percent wrong Preston Jacobs has repeatedly stated that he thinks george RR martin is a communist that george RR martin supports this idea of collectivization of collective mind-melding whatever you want to say of this loss of generality and that is not even coherent in interpreting the source text the current tech you know Game of Thrones Song of Ice and Fire itself like do you actually think that skinchangers are represented as good people in Game of Thrones do you think that losing your sense of identity by sharing your mind by mind melding with a wolf is represented positively do you think what's the guy's name something seven skins I'm forgetting the guy's name no sir he's it a character who only appears once in the in the novels Barrow mirror seven skins I think this this horrible skin-changer who lives his life through rape and extortion and he shows us exactly why skin changers are hated and - tested in the society do you think that's positive you really think this is an author who's trying to tell you like the way forward for Humanity is by losing your sense of individuality and through collectivism and indeed if you read a song for Lia maybe especially if you read it twice you know obviously the POV character in a song for Lia seems to become convinced that it's a good thing that his own girlfriend is being devoured by a parasite a parasite that physically devours her body because she's bought into the religious delusion that by doing this she gains a kind of immortality and a kind of loss of self an overcoming of the the individual and so on but that's an illusion I mean you know again it's not the case that George Armand he's just not such a weak writer that he has a protagonist tell you the moral hypothesis of the story that just wouldn't be very sophisticated writing or it's not his style I'm not saying that's that's bad it was ok another another comparison we've been talking about reading again turgenyev fathers and sons george anyof doesn't tell you nihilism is bad and he doesn't tell you nihilism is good he has a major character I think technically is not the protagonist but he's but he is a major character who believes in nihilism and you get to see some of the absurdities of that you know you get gives a voice to nihilism he says some positive things about nihilism as a philosophy but among other things that the nihilist in that story I forget his name - Vladislav or something Borissov I'm sorry I forget then with the denialists character in in I've read that like 30 years ago or something I'm sorry I'm not only 39 but still I read that a long time ago my girlfriend also read that a long long time ago stupid type of reading again but you know um it would really be lousy writing if he just had a whole row ik depiction of nihilism instead he shows that when the nihilist falls in love the nihilist gets a crush on the main female character who I think is named Ana and his philosophy starts falling apart his life's kind of stops making sense just by falling in love he sort of has this system worked out for how he's a nihilist in society but actually like falling in love and getting married and having kids or something you think about what there's other there's other stuff like this baby if you want to jump in you can jump in anytime obvious no no pressure on you around well uh you know I know ok ok so anyway uh that's just that's just a comparison but no in a song for Leah or in Game of Thrones like think about a lane would be if we had Jon Snow standing up and saying hey democracy is the solution to all of our problems in Westeros that would be really unsophisticated think the novel's are interested in democracy in contrast to feudalism but Jon Snow himself is elected in a deeply flawed somewhat corrupt election so I think it was again push out at the present Jacobs Preston Jacobs went through like line by line the description of exactly how that election happens and he points out that it's the election is more corrupt than you'd notice on a first on a first reading but elections are not glorified the description sorry the descriptions we get of the set of more greco-roman city-states in Essos and how elections work there they seem totally corrupt also is totally susceptible to the moment-to-moment passions of the people we get descriptions of in these cities that you know some of the guys who are trying to get elected they corrupt other people by paying for singers and dancers and clowns and entertainers to promote their their campaign but some of them even pay prostitutes to sleep with you know influential electors or voters or what have you we get you know and again if you actually study the reality of how democracy works in ancient Rome in ancient Greece there's a lot there we're getting this that's why the books are compelling you know the books are compelling because they're not pro religion they're not pro collectivization they're definitely not pro communist they're also not pro democracy we get that nuanced gritty sense that even real history sometimes lacks because if it's not written well if you don't if you read a history book and it's not written to give you that compelling sense of human imperfection and complexity the human tragedy that's in the in the center of all these things then history books suck also so it's better than a lot of history books and really giving you that feeling we're you know like it's not easy for someone in John snows position or someone in daenerys targaryen position it's not easy for them to just say oh feudalism is bad democracy is gonna solve all our problems that it's really difficult to come to the conclusion that although democracy has all these problems it is actually superior to feudalism in some really important ways right I think that is exactly the prediction I want to make for the future the novels I think the whole way the novels are written the two big themes the two big themes are exactly democracy versus feudalism and then religion versus individualism because from George RR Martin's perspective religion is really integrally centrally crucially about losing one sense of self in an illusion of a greater whole and that's partly just the kind of collective ego of the religion and for sure he's also partly interested in and mortal izing your own memories that like your memories of the past will live on after you die and he's also interested in the idea of of seeing the future although again a careful reading of Game of Thrones I think what we're told again and again is that everyone he thinks they're seeing the future they're actually they're actually they're seeing they're basically seeing dreams or delusions they're being misled they think they're seeing the future and really they're not so that is my prediction for the book in making this video I feel like I've made myself feel more hopeful and more positively to read the books because I started this off the last couple months since that last season the show ran man I have been out I have just thought this is crap I don't even want to hear about it anymore the show is that bad that it totally destroyed you know my interest in in the books and you know again at this specific book series I do put on the same level than st. pedestal as like you know Shakespeare were to have you as a really great writing but I think the other moral of the story is giorgia or Martin is a writer who toiled for decades to try to get these same ideas ideas about religion and democracy and individualism and collectivism and and feudalism and his critique of feudalism and hierarchy he tried to get them into a science fiction format and the truth is it never really worked and only now in his old age actually did he find a format this very strange semi-feudal parallel universe thing that he's doing where these ideas really come to life so that's also very helpful and I'm lifting thing if you're a struggling author if you're a struggling intellectual maybe you and your old age will be able to put together these ideas you've wrestled with your whole life into something that's really compelling and really reaches a mass audience I remember it was just in a CD back when people bought music on pieces of plastic I remember was on a CD jacket that it said there was a time when popular music also was great art there was this brief period of jazz Game of Thrones one of things that's so enticing about it is that we can look at this series of novels as a hey there was a brief period of time when pop culture also was great literature [Music]