ASOIAF: Teenage Tyrants, Not Heroes: Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen.
16 November 2016 [link youtube]
The title of this video is NOT clickbait: this is an evaluation of the political (and ethical) questions raised by the careers of Jon and Daenerys up to the start of TWOW (i.e., all in works published by the end of 2016).
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
I got a seemingly simple question on
Game of Thrones the Song of Ice and Fire and frankly I think I could talk about it for an hour solid we're gonna try to keep this fella tively brief but it got a simple question about political significance of jon snow's short career up at the wall and the fellow asking a question from just a few words I said about Jon Snow in earlier video he inferred that I share his sense that Jon Snow is in large part to blame for his own fate up in the wall it's very interesting that this guy asked the question said that because I mentioned John solo extremely briefly but I mentioned that he was actually overstepping his responsibilities in reaching out to try to alleviate the starvation of the wildlings the Jon Snow really his position there was as a military commander he's only responsible for feeding the men who are in service inside the wall he is not responsible for feeding the peasants he is not responsible for feeding the wildlings who are there as refugees that that's point in the story etc etc but it's significant that in contrast to other characters in contrast to Tyrion and Contras and many other political leaders Jon Snow is really concerned about the starvation of of his people I suppose he chooses to treat them as his people even though he has no obligation towards them many other political leaders really do have obligations to worry about the people but don't so I mentioned that contrast in passing and this guy says well can you speak more I put the extent to which Jon Snow is responsible for his own downfall well I will take a step further in this response I mean first off I feel like making a kind of peculiar caveat here the political themes in Song of Ice and Fire simply reflect the interests of the author george RR martin and especially when he started writing these books george RR martin did not have any delusion that he could influence American politics and of course that was quite accurate george RR martin was not particularly famous and not / - a successful and not particularly influential when he forted writing the first book in the series that's not to say his career was a fail but neither and his character nor in terms of the the success the limited success had his career he wasn't in a position to imagine that he was going to have some kind of tremendous impact on the American political spectrum no be interesting to see maybe in his next book maybe now as he gets into the last couple of books maybe he will now think of himself as having political influence but to give an example some of the themes he deals with are genuine political themes the genuine interest to him in his reading of history but they can't possibly have any real ramifications for the United States of America in the year 2016 or the year 2017 of the year 2020 so one of the themes its prominent throughout all the books is really a critique of the fact that feudalism continues to put people in positions of real political power when they're still teenagers or when they're still very young when they're too young now again in United States of America that's not their problem on the contrary you might say that it's a problem that the United States America he's putting people into positions of power when they're over 70 years old when they're perhaps too old now as one example of sorry I don't have a biography of Francis Bacon here to hand but in the 17th century the early 17th century one of the you know most political sorry one of the most important political figures in the United Kingdom in England is Francis Bacon so Francis Bacon is born in 1561 and dies in 1626 Sasori spans you know two centuries there obviously I was referring to him as 17th century he is first elected to Parliament at about 20 years of age so I don't have the precise state here as I recall he may have only been 19 when he got elected parliament he was about 20 years old when he selected the Parliament um and before that has ever called he actually had a couple of reasonably important positions in government when he was still a teenager I'm sorry I don't I don't have the details but I think he had a couple of jobs so to speak related to the government of the realm before he won that election um today that's unheard of that's I think that's just Parliament doesn't give you executive power over a life in life and death the way that Joffrey does in A Song of Ice and Fire the way that Robb Stark does Robb Stark is having to make decisions about who gets their head chopped off as soon as he comes into office and he comes into office because of who his father is and because of the circumstances of his father's death and you know Robb Stark and Joffrey obviously are examples of bad political leaders I think in a much more subtle and nuanced way Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen also are presented to us as examples of bad not good political leaders and you're missing the point if you think that Jon Snow or Daenerys are held up you know for our uncritical adulation as examples of brief humanitarians now Jon Snow and Daenerys I do think their plot lines I have a couple of important parallels one both Jon Snow and in eras are motivated by sincere humanitarian instincts they want to help people they're concerned about the poor they're concerned about the starving the in Daenerys is case she's concerned about the treatment of slaves concerned about people being tortured to death etc obviously sorry the plots are different I can't really use one set of adjectives for both Daenerys and for Jon Snow they both come into political power they try to make the situation better to simplify slightly they make the situation worse to be done in some ways to make the situation it's better in some place than with the serum works they're then dealing with increasing hostility from the people they're ruling increasing opposition from exactly the people that rely on and then I think they they have a twist in their plot which is currently the end of 2016 this is where we're at and the published works in Jon Snow's case he actually dies and comes back from the dead but Nikki's both of them have a near-death experience Daenerys his case we don't think she actually dies but when the books end currently she is very close to death and don't underestimate that she is hallucinating she has diarrhea or perhaps dysentery she is dehydrated and starving in the middle of a wasteland wander hopelessly trying to get back to the capital city now I don't think she is gonna die but in both cases their plots have a turning point where they've had a near-death experience they're reduced to rumination and where they seem to have lost all or most of their political support so you know in those broad brushstrokes there's a parallelism there but again I mean fundamentally this is not a political issue that's easy to apply the nine states today I can't when was the last time somebody at 19 or 20 years old was elected to Parliament in England or in America or Canada or in any of our Western democracies it's unheard of it's unthinkable now and for someone as a teenager to be put in a position of executive power of making life-and-death decisions of starting Wars of negotiating peace treaties these kinds of foreign policy decisions you know we even have I mean Brandon Stark briefly is kind of judge jury and executioner as a very young child up at up at Winterfell because Rob is absent as ever call we have a couple of couple of weeks or a couple of months when he's in charge of business at Winterfell before it's conquered and taken over by the Ironborn so you know we have remarkably young children and teenagers putting on the crown and making those decisions and George is uniformly critical of this throughout the books again just because it is his own interest it's not a critique that can possibly change your influence politics today and I think that just reflects his own his own opinion or his own frustration in spending so much time reading medieval history renaissance history the history of Europe history of China he's someone who you know enjoys and draws material from reading history of many parts of the world but there's no sense in which he's a you know neutral observer of that obviously cares passion about that that something comes out in his writing so Johnson I mean first and foremost very broadly speaking John snows career up to his death is not the portrait of a good ruler and is not the portrait of a competent ruler and we can be even more harsh in the case of Daenerys Tudor terraria Daenerys is not a good rule she's not a competent ruler however she is motivated by humanitarian instincts she is motivated by compassion John also is motivated by compassion you have a situation where John is you know the Nights Watch themselves are worried about starving to death during the winter winter is just starting or hasn't yet begun and John snow is out there dividing up the last of their apples and oranges and giving them to these refugees giving them to the you know this population of people who he is not the king or governor of whom he has no responsibility to which is already a very serious you know moral question I just mentioned you know um you know everyone knows the george RR martin is to some extent responding to the vietnam war and i also on this YouTube channel talked a great deal about the history of the Vietnam War part of my own research experience and my own life experience has been in places like Laos Cambodia Thailand and you know part of the world that was torn apart and redefined by the United States intervention in Vietnam that political history matters to me a great deal even though I'm some decades younger the george RR martin but you know when you read the history of vietnam more people kind of newbies they often kind of object to the immorality of american servicemen with the assumption that those american servicemen had a moral obligation to help the peasants the common people to be involved in domestic policy and human rights and education or what-have-you of the normal people of a country like Vietnam or Laos or Cambodia and in the contrary I mean in a sense you know you may be all the more harshly castigating of American foreign policy when you understand this you have to say no those men are following a chain of command they're just playing a combat role they're not there to feed the poor or provide education or be concerned with human rights or to have you there are other people in the US government who do have that responsibility and some of them are in Congress and some of them are in the State Department and some of them are another you know departments down the line but it's quite wrong to look at those soldiers and say well why didn't you do blank why weren't you concerned with with this and you know it takes a very strange sort of sympathy to read that history and sympathize men who were following orders sometimes to slaughter civilians sometimes to torture civilians but those were their orders and that's what they were doing is really you know reading that history and understanding what's going on it's it's beyond having sympathy for the devil you know and I met some of those guys I mean recently too I talked about this on youtube it's output to a Vietnam War veteran here who talked to me quite openly about atrocities or crimes against humanity that he committed himself and you know I sit there and listen to him frankly with all due sympathy and I know he was not the author of that war and most cases he didn't make those decisions and the reason why he's telling me is precisely that he's not proud I think on some level he wants the next generation and know and appreciate what happened and why it happened etc but you know the wall the soldiers of the wall like boys they are this Army of Occupation and you know their enemy for many many generations even if mistakenly so are the wildlings and now Jon Snow is you know um unceremoniously and undemocratically completely changing the purpose of that military organization and he is with with very sincere you know humanitarian concern violating the principles of their whole mission and is trying to make them feed and clothe that house the poor and is you know admitting women into their military unit whereas formerly they didn't have any women at all that was you know excluded he's taking on these people in this new capacity and so on now is that why Jon Snow was assassinated to some extent we don't know yet there's a brief passage where Cersei sits down with her co-conspirators in King's Landing and she says she's going to carry out some kind of plot some kind of devious plot to get rid of Jon Snow or change the situation up at the wall in the north as I recall it's very vaguely stated what she's gonna do she's gonna send some people there or she's gonna have some secret agents there carry out her plan um I think it was intentional that we didn't know quite what Cersei was gonna pull and it is possible that Circe's plot is what we've already seen that they're her co-conspirators at the wall all already you know in killing John snow that was them carrying out the mission that she's alluding to in that passage but it's also possible that after John snow comes back from the dead he's gonna face and deal with that plot of Circe's henchmen and then maybe they haven't even arrived yet maybe it's something completely in the future thought so we don't know to some extent there may have been um Lannister meddling and indeed Baratheon meddling from King's Landing in in changing his political situation however would that have been said you know the text is not kind to John Snow the text shows us a teenager who is completely ill-equipped to deal with his mission in life he's ill-equipped to deal with it in a military sense he's ill-equipped to deal with it in a political sense and you know um it's true he looks good in those negotiations with Stannis Baratheon there are various passages in which John Snow seems to be wise beyond his years but of course there are many others which he's not in which he is precisely as wise as years no more no less and I mean with with Daenerys I don't know I don't even think I need to spell it out Daenerys says she's gonna abolish slavery and she sells out right she gives up her own principles she becomes in a in effect a moderately pro-slavery person allowing slavery on the docks allowing the slave trade just trying to stabilize the situation instead of fundamentally changing the situation Daenerys we get to see her in about two paragraphs go from being a totally opposed to the use of torture to endorsing and actively using torture against her enemies against her supposed enemies in a desperate attempt to get intelligence now again I think you know the significance of that choice given the whole political context that George Martin was writing in during these decades in which the books were created given you know many many people cede Daenerys in Mereen as a parallel to the United States in Iraq or the United States in Afghanistan there are also parallels that maybe get overlooked to the history of the United Kingdom in Ireland I felt as soon as I read the material with the masks you know with the soldiers having to wear masks to cover up their identity when they're supporting the the government of occupation I thought wow that really resonates with the experience of Ireland with the Black and Tans and what have you with men having to live in secrecy you know if they were Irish men working on the probe British side the pro-government side of having to live that kind of see that that really resonates that right away but of course and it doesn't mean it's in applicable to situation in Afghanistan in Afghanistan right now we have a lot of Afghans who worked for the American side applying to migrate to Canada or applying to migrate the United States and they're being evacuated and when they fill out those applications whether they're applying the United States or Canada or both they say simply if you leave me behind here if you leave me behind in Afghanistan I'll be killed because I worked for your side and I try to keep it secret they do try to keep it secret those guys but enough people know it that sooner or later they'll be found out and they'll be exterminated now that the United States is withdrawing or allegedly withdrawing we'll see we'll see to what extent the United States really withdraws forces from from either front but anyway you know so daenerys we see if you know very clear story arc again in some ways parallel to John snow and in both cases you know they start off as teenagers with good intentions with humanitarian instincts with real compassion but they also both have no explicitly articulated political philosophy none and you know Voorhies has a political philosophy and it's articulated arguably littlefinger maybe has a political philosophy that's explicitly articulated I mean it's debatable some of the other old men in power they may also you know articulated political velocity but Jon Snow doesn't have one and Daenerys doesn't have one and I would say that's probably part of the plot to us we're looking at now with both of them having a near-death experience Jon Snow dying coming back from dead Daenerys almost dying and coming back from the wilderness I think when they come back the whole point is going to be that for both of them it crystallizes for them that they need to have a strategy that they selves understand and articulate to the people they're ruling that they need to have a modus operandi they need to have some set of principles that defines what they're doing and and why they're chewing yet um you know again this is part of what makes it all so alien to the world we live in today frankly Francis Bacon is a great example to kick this off with we remember of Francis Bacon as an old man we remember Francis Bacon for his philosophy of science for his philosophy of democracy delivery which is him writing as an old man I have no idea what Francis Bacon was like when he was 18 years old and 20 years old in government maybe at 20 years old Francis Bacon was the worst parliamentarian in the British system you know look I don't I don't what is the youngest work of read by Francis Bacon but Amedeo Francis Bacon his his major contributions to philosophy of science and indeed political philosophy this is all an old man looking back on decades and decades of experience in government and you can say that his political education was serving in government from his teenage years forward right so that was his college he didn't have him you didn't have to go to university and get a BA or something like this he started at such a young agent government II was able to look look back on that but perhaps if we did have access to I don't know maybe some historians do have access to his more juvenile writings or his more juvenile role in government it's you know the difference between him at age you know in his 50s as opposed to him in his 20s must be extreme obviously in a highly traumatized form in these texts we get to see these characters mature we get to see their perspective on Authority itself being transformed by the experience of being an authority in no time flat these books can't drag it out and give us 20 years of Johnstone maturing and has to be remembered you know they aren't the only characters we see turning a corner like that even though it is very briefly handled jail or Mormont the the old bear the Mormont Commander of the Nights Watch on the wall we get to see his political philosophy transform down to his dying day where he's actually having to reconsider why does the why does this pterri service exist what is our relationship to the wildlings why are we fighting the wrong war why are we fighting against the wildlings instead of fighting yes you know fighting against the great other etc etc now with all that haven't been said when Daenerys comes back from her near dead experience what is her political philosophy gonna be I have no idea it seems to me unlikely the gorge is gonna have her come back as a simple fire and blood dictator but it's possible and we already have Cersei Lannister showing one face of dictatorship it is quite possible that Daenerys will come back hardened and having no sympathy any more for the peasants she formerly tried to help formerly tried to feed no sympathy any more for the slaves she formally tried to liberate it's possible she'll come back with no sympathy for the slave owners so that she'll just be exterminating the slave owners instead of taking her more moderate fat I don't know but whatever it is is then going to be counterpose to other people in the game of thrones who have other very different approaches to to politics would have you I mean what lesson can Jon Snow learn what is the conclusion he is gonna draw from his experience where he really did violate both the letter and the spirit of the military code he was supposed to live by he to say he was delinquent in his duties is an understatement he totally abandoned the whole raison d'être for the Nights Watch he's guilty as charged he's absolutely guilty as charged did he do that in pursuit of a higher ideal did he do it with humanitarian attentions instead of sure but I mean you know there's no question that Jon Snow he's guilty of gross dereliction of duty he's guilty of perverting the whole purpose of the Nights Watch and to me that is symbolized very well but Jon Snow going with his with a couple of his fellow officers you know to give away their food and their apples to these starving wildlings sure that alone even though it's a beautiful gesture and it's a contrast to all the other political leaders who just didn't care when the peasants were starving to death um as aren't there apples hahahaha and that's that's not the role the Nights Watch right you know but of course also everyone already knows this is dramatic just before his death when Jon Snow calls for volunteers to go and march against Winterfell so this is an even more clear dereliction of duty so yes I mean it's easy to paint Jon Snow's conflict in terms of racism in terms of racism against the wildlings um and his being excessive of course that is an element I think all the books show an interest in in racism and especially when the the races concerned have a very unclear dotted line between them Georgia likes to set up those situations and play with the you know the ethical ambiguities um but you know in every sense John in the book of whether or not this is true in the TV shows no bill in the book Jon Snow is dead wrong and the group of assassins who move against them if you really think it through it's quite easy to sympathize with their motives so in both cases I don't know are we now gonna see Jon Snow come back as a remorseless dictator I doubt it you know it's quite possible you'll see Jon Snow come back as even more committed to the higher ideals he was trying to serve previously and of realizing that those ideals are not compatible with military service in the Nights Watch but maybe they are compatible with him being the rebel leader of a bunch of wildlings trying to conquer Winterfell wouldn't be hard to you know predict that or maybe he's a rebel leader of a bunch of northern Lords fighting against the Bolton's you know fill in the blanks or maybe he becomes a rebel leader divinely inspired by the red God or one of these other religions unlikely but possible maybe he's divinely inspired by the old gods and the trees or what-have-you um but I mean two big tropes in the books maybe make readers uncomfortable generally I mean I think the books as they've progressed they have gone from a very secular world to a world that is more and more jihadist to be blunt remember talking about this with my teacher here I've been talking about Game of Thrones in Chinese and writing essays about it in Chinese as a way of practicing the language you know um you know at the start of the books partly because the point of views were the point of view chapters were given you know the way the books are written you know we're given a lot of point of view some Tyrians perspective Tyrion is a totally secular anti religious character he thinks organized religion is a joke etc etc um we we get the sense at the beginning that of course magic is dead in the world that religion is a joke we have this very cynical secular down-to-earth view of the world and then graduates the books progress we realize that's not everybody's view of the world there are a lot of very sincerely religious people even fanatical religious people and on the contrary the fever-pitch of religiosity in this world seems to be elevated of course you know with the Iron Islands plot there that religion and you know the rise of Euron as a semi fanatical you know religious figure and the rise of the cult of the red God but even the you know what we see bran go through with a peculiar gods the old religion um this world has become more and more a world dominated by religious warfare religious ideology as the books progressed partly because our perspective changes as readers and partly because of the real political developments in the world and on the other hand I think we also see you know the resolution of formerly irresolute political ideologies right so varies comes out of the shadow and reveals exactly what his political philosophy is and exactly what it means back in book 1 there was a lot of dancing around about that you know um it was genuinely secret and we got a lot of kind of peculiar provocative hints at who he was what he was about what objectives he was pursuing and now it's crystal clear when he's standing there murdering Kevan Lannister exactly what Varys is about exactly what his political philosophy is both in theory and in practice a lot of people wonder are we gonna see a figure a major figure like Jon Snow or Daenerys supporting democracy well my light motif for this video is Francis Bacon Francis Bacon believed in democracy and he talks about democracy it very interestingly in the context of his philosophy of science he believes the progress of science is itself democratic which is a very interesting concept also very much debatable I mean in some ways the progress of science is very elitist not everyone can participate in the progress of chemistry or biochemistry or in you know advanced research into the human genome via biochemistry there are elitist aspects they're very undemocratic aspects of how science works now scientific research works how science progresses but he also has some really interesting points in saying that that science is a democracy of knowledge or is democratic and it's obvious that in his own political milieu he was a voice for democracy in a sense why do I mention that well in another sense you could say that in Francis Bacon's period of time in England there was no such thing as democracy and there was even no real concept of democracy or that the philosophy was incredibly weak and distant this is a totally this is a period of history in Europe completely dominated by monarchy and where you know democracy was a very far off and muted concept and you could also say in Francis Bacon's career well if that was his objective if he was serious about democracy he failed it's also a very interesting way to look at the career of a major politician like Francis Bacon you know what was he a success he left us these writings about democracy and science did he actually managed to transform his own society to reflect those ideas no it was always a failure or he's a dreamer or he was ahead of his time whatever you want to say ok that's all interesting worth talking about is it possible in a fictional universe like Game of Thrones for someone to come out advocating for an idea like democracy when it's totally alien to that society yes I think like Francis Bacon I think you could have someone advocating for science in some sense I think you could have someone advocating for democracy in some sense is it gonna be Jon Snow or Daenerys I doubt it you know maybe we're gonna see both of them harden their political philosophies before those philosophies become brittle and break I don't know I mean when you look at Daenerys Targaryen is there anyone in a position to say to her you were supposed to be representing the slaves and you I'm out your original principles were that nobody would ever be tortured again and you sold out you started using torture there's nobody in barristan selmy could do it but you know who is going to criticize her or give her that comeuppance she is in the position of being an unquestioned dictator in many ways and there's nobody to even have that debate with her it's a very interesting debate to have but yes it's quite possible we're gonna see Daenerys return as the you know bringer of fire and blood as his unrepentant dictator type of figure and then maybe at some point we'll see her realize how far she strayed from her original ideals in the hardening of her own political ideology and maybe we'll see a similar arc with Jon Snow where Jon Snow now becomes a more brutal leader of a resistance movement maybe like Lady Stoneheart or something men maybe he is successful right away maybe right away he's able to take over Winterfell George rarely makes it that easy on his per day is rare for it to be that easy right it's possible but yeah I doubt it but again maybe we'll see him harden into a more brutal and less humanitarian sort of political leader before at some point eating a realization that he has straight very very far from the ideals that led him to erode his own political position at Winterfell by trying to help the people who had been for centuries you know the enemies of the Nights Watch the the that resulted in him going into the storerooms of the Nights Watch at the wall and getting out their apples and bread and handing them out to a bunch of refugees whom he had no obligation to help that idealism you know maybe lost and then refound in this period of civil war but obviously George can do whatever he wants to do with it but at bottom what we're shown again and again is that teenagers make terrible rulers whether it's Joffrey or Robb Stark or Jon Snow there is simply I believe in George RR Martin's view of the world there is no such thing as a good 16 year old tyrant there is just no such thing there is no such thing even as a good 19 year old dictator and again that's not a critique that's applicable to politics United States right now it's not even applicable to parliamentary democracy right now we're just i think legally it's possible to elect 19 year olds and 20 year olds but we don't do it anymore culturally we've drifted so far away from that but part of the overall harsh tone of Georgia's writing about this is I think a sense of repugnance for what he sees happening in the history of the world again and again in his reading of ancient Medieval and Renaissance history that as soon as power is put into the hands of these young people whether it's because their fathers have been killed in war or through rebellion or some other circumstance things tend to go downhill quick and the last thing that George would ever show us I'm disagreeing with president right the last thing George would ever show us is that these political problems are resolved simply because the person who ends up sitting on the throne at the end of an intern a scene civil war this guy happens to be a philosopher king there's no such thing as a philosopher King not in real life and not a game of Thrones and if you think that Jon Snow making the decisions that lead up to his own assassination is acting as some kind of benign dictator or some kind of perfect philosopher king you're dead wrong that's not the point of the text at all
Game of Thrones the Song of Ice and Fire and frankly I think I could talk about it for an hour solid we're gonna try to keep this fella tively brief but it got a simple question about political significance of jon snow's short career up at the wall and the fellow asking a question from just a few words I said about Jon Snow in earlier video he inferred that I share his sense that Jon Snow is in large part to blame for his own fate up in the wall it's very interesting that this guy asked the question said that because I mentioned John solo extremely briefly but I mentioned that he was actually overstepping his responsibilities in reaching out to try to alleviate the starvation of the wildlings the Jon Snow really his position there was as a military commander he's only responsible for feeding the men who are in service inside the wall he is not responsible for feeding the peasants he is not responsible for feeding the wildlings who are there as refugees that that's point in the story etc etc but it's significant that in contrast to other characters in contrast to Tyrion and Contras and many other political leaders Jon Snow is really concerned about the starvation of of his people I suppose he chooses to treat them as his people even though he has no obligation towards them many other political leaders really do have obligations to worry about the people but don't so I mentioned that contrast in passing and this guy says well can you speak more I put the extent to which Jon Snow is responsible for his own downfall well I will take a step further in this response I mean first off I feel like making a kind of peculiar caveat here the political themes in Song of Ice and Fire simply reflect the interests of the author george RR martin and especially when he started writing these books george RR martin did not have any delusion that he could influence American politics and of course that was quite accurate george RR martin was not particularly famous and not / - a successful and not particularly influential when he forted writing the first book in the series that's not to say his career was a fail but neither and his character nor in terms of the the success the limited success had his career he wasn't in a position to imagine that he was going to have some kind of tremendous impact on the American political spectrum no be interesting to see maybe in his next book maybe now as he gets into the last couple of books maybe he will now think of himself as having political influence but to give an example some of the themes he deals with are genuine political themes the genuine interest to him in his reading of history but they can't possibly have any real ramifications for the United States of America in the year 2016 or the year 2017 of the year 2020 so one of the themes its prominent throughout all the books is really a critique of the fact that feudalism continues to put people in positions of real political power when they're still teenagers or when they're still very young when they're too young now again in United States of America that's not their problem on the contrary you might say that it's a problem that the United States America he's putting people into positions of power when they're over 70 years old when they're perhaps too old now as one example of sorry I don't have a biography of Francis Bacon here to hand but in the 17th century the early 17th century one of the you know most political sorry one of the most important political figures in the United Kingdom in England is Francis Bacon so Francis Bacon is born in 1561 and dies in 1626 Sasori spans you know two centuries there obviously I was referring to him as 17th century he is first elected to Parliament at about 20 years of age so I don't have the precise state here as I recall he may have only been 19 when he got elected parliament he was about 20 years old when he selected the Parliament um and before that has ever called he actually had a couple of reasonably important positions in government when he was still a teenager I'm sorry I don't I don't have the details but I think he had a couple of jobs so to speak related to the government of the realm before he won that election um today that's unheard of that's I think that's just Parliament doesn't give you executive power over a life in life and death the way that Joffrey does in A Song of Ice and Fire the way that Robb Stark does Robb Stark is having to make decisions about who gets their head chopped off as soon as he comes into office and he comes into office because of who his father is and because of the circumstances of his father's death and you know Robb Stark and Joffrey obviously are examples of bad political leaders I think in a much more subtle and nuanced way Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen also are presented to us as examples of bad not good political leaders and you're missing the point if you think that Jon Snow or Daenerys are held up you know for our uncritical adulation as examples of brief humanitarians now Jon Snow and Daenerys I do think their plot lines I have a couple of important parallels one both Jon Snow and in eras are motivated by sincere humanitarian instincts they want to help people they're concerned about the poor they're concerned about the starving the in Daenerys is case she's concerned about the treatment of slaves concerned about people being tortured to death etc obviously sorry the plots are different I can't really use one set of adjectives for both Daenerys and for Jon Snow they both come into political power they try to make the situation better to simplify slightly they make the situation worse to be done in some ways to make the situation it's better in some place than with the serum works they're then dealing with increasing hostility from the people they're ruling increasing opposition from exactly the people that rely on and then I think they they have a twist in their plot which is currently the end of 2016 this is where we're at and the published works in Jon Snow's case he actually dies and comes back from the dead but Nikki's both of them have a near-death experience Daenerys his case we don't think she actually dies but when the books end currently she is very close to death and don't underestimate that she is hallucinating she has diarrhea or perhaps dysentery she is dehydrated and starving in the middle of a wasteland wander hopelessly trying to get back to the capital city now I don't think she is gonna die but in both cases their plots have a turning point where they've had a near-death experience they're reduced to rumination and where they seem to have lost all or most of their political support so you know in those broad brushstrokes there's a parallelism there but again I mean fundamentally this is not a political issue that's easy to apply the nine states today I can't when was the last time somebody at 19 or 20 years old was elected to Parliament in England or in America or Canada or in any of our Western democracies it's unheard of it's unthinkable now and for someone as a teenager to be put in a position of executive power of making life-and-death decisions of starting Wars of negotiating peace treaties these kinds of foreign policy decisions you know we even have I mean Brandon Stark briefly is kind of judge jury and executioner as a very young child up at up at Winterfell because Rob is absent as ever call we have a couple of couple of weeks or a couple of months when he's in charge of business at Winterfell before it's conquered and taken over by the Ironborn so you know we have remarkably young children and teenagers putting on the crown and making those decisions and George is uniformly critical of this throughout the books again just because it is his own interest it's not a critique that can possibly change your influence politics today and I think that just reflects his own his own opinion or his own frustration in spending so much time reading medieval history renaissance history the history of Europe history of China he's someone who you know enjoys and draws material from reading history of many parts of the world but there's no sense in which he's a you know neutral observer of that obviously cares passion about that that something comes out in his writing so Johnson I mean first and foremost very broadly speaking John snows career up to his death is not the portrait of a good ruler and is not the portrait of a competent ruler and we can be even more harsh in the case of Daenerys Tudor terraria Daenerys is not a good rule she's not a competent ruler however she is motivated by humanitarian instincts she is motivated by compassion John also is motivated by compassion you have a situation where John is you know the Nights Watch themselves are worried about starving to death during the winter winter is just starting or hasn't yet begun and John snow is out there dividing up the last of their apples and oranges and giving them to these refugees giving them to the you know this population of people who he is not the king or governor of whom he has no responsibility to which is already a very serious you know moral question I just mentioned you know um you know everyone knows the george RR martin is to some extent responding to the vietnam war and i also on this YouTube channel talked a great deal about the history of the Vietnam War part of my own research experience and my own life experience has been in places like Laos Cambodia Thailand and you know part of the world that was torn apart and redefined by the United States intervention in Vietnam that political history matters to me a great deal even though I'm some decades younger the george RR martin but you know when you read the history of vietnam more people kind of newbies they often kind of object to the immorality of american servicemen with the assumption that those american servicemen had a moral obligation to help the peasants the common people to be involved in domestic policy and human rights and education or what-have-you of the normal people of a country like Vietnam or Laos or Cambodia and in the contrary I mean in a sense you know you may be all the more harshly castigating of American foreign policy when you understand this you have to say no those men are following a chain of command they're just playing a combat role they're not there to feed the poor or provide education or be concerned with human rights or to have you there are other people in the US government who do have that responsibility and some of them are in Congress and some of them are in the State Department and some of them are another you know departments down the line but it's quite wrong to look at those soldiers and say well why didn't you do blank why weren't you concerned with with this and you know it takes a very strange sort of sympathy to read that history and sympathize men who were following orders sometimes to slaughter civilians sometimes to torture civilians but those were their orders and that's what they were doing is really you know reading that history and understanding what's going on it's it's beyond having sympathy for the devil you know and I met some of those guys I mean recently too I talked about this on youtube it's output to a Vietnam War veteran here who talked to me quite openly about atrocities or crimes against humanity that he committed himself and you know I sit there and listen to him frankly with all due sympathy and I know he was not the author of that war and most cases he didn't make those decisions and the reason why he's telling me is precisely that he's not proud I think on some level he wants the next generation and know and appreciate what happened and why it happened etc but you know the wall the soldiers of the wall like boys they are this Army of Occupation and you know their enemy for many many generations even if mistakenly so are the wildlings and now Jon Snow is you know um unceremoniously and undemocratically completely changing the purpose of that military organization and he is with with very sincere you know humanitarian concern violating the principles of their whole mission and is trying to make them feed and clothe that house the poor and is you know admitting women into their military unit whereas formerly they didn't have any women at all that was you know excluded he's taking on these people in this new capacity and so on now is that why Jon Snow was assassinated to some extent we don't know yet there's a brief passage where Cersei sits down with her co-conspirators in King's Landing and she says she's going to carry out some kind of plot some kind of devious plot to get rid of Jon Snow or change the situation up at the wall in the north as I recall it's very vaguely stated what she's gonna do she's gonna send some people there or she's gonna have some secret agents there carry out her plan um I think it was intentional that we didn't know quite what Cersei was gonna pull and it is possible that Circe's plot is what we've already seen that they're her co-conspirators at the wall all already you know in killing John snow that was them carrying out the mission that she's alluding to in that passage but it's also possible that after John snow comes back from the dead he's gonna face and deal with that plot of Circe's henchmen and then maybe they haven't even arrived yet maybe it's something completely in the future thought so we don't know to some extent there may have been um Lannister meddling and indeed Baratheon meddling from King's Landing in in changing his political situation however would that have been said you know the text is not kind to John Snow the text shows us a teenager who is completely ill-equipped to deal with his mission in life he's ill-equipped to deal with it in a military sense he's ill-equipped to deal with it in a political sense and you know um it's true he looks good in those negotiations with Stannis Baratheon there are various passages in which John Snow seems to be wise beyond his years but of course there are many others which he's not in which he is precisely as wise as years no more no less and I mean with with Daenerys I don't know I don't even think I need to spell it out Daenerys says she's gonna abolish slavery and she sells out right she gives up her own principles she becomes in a in effect a moderately pro-slavery person allowing slavery on the docks allowing the slave trade just trying to stabilize the situation instead of fundamentally changing the situation Daenerys we get to see her in about two paragraphs go from being a totally opposed to the use of torture to endorsing and actively using torture against her enemies against her supposed enemies in a desperate attempt to get intelligence now again I think you know the significance of that choice given the whole political context that George Martin was writing in during these decades in which the books were created given you know many many people cede Daenerys in Mereen as a parallel to the United States in Iraq or the United States in Afghanistan there are also parallels that maybe get overlooked to the history of the United Kingdom in Ireland I felt as soon as I read the material with the masks you know with the soldiers having to wear masks to cover up their identity when they're supporting the the government of occupation I thought wow that really resonates with the experience of Ireland with the Black and Tans and what have you with men having to live in secrecy you know if they were Irish men working on the probe British side the pro-government side of having to live that kind of see that that really resonates that right away but of course and it doesn't mean it's in applicable to situation in Afghanistan in Afghanistan right now we have a lot of Afghans who worked for the American side applying to migrate to Canada or applying to migrate the United States and they're being evacuated and when they fill out those applications whether they're applying the United States or Canada or both they say simply if you leave me behind here if you leave me behind in Afghanistan I'll be killed because I worked for your side and I try to keep it secret they do try to keep it secret those guys but enough people know it that sooner or later they'll be found out and they'll be exterminated now that the United States is withdrawing or allegedly withdrawing we'll see we'll see to what extent the United States really withdraws forces from from either front but anyway you know so daenerys we see if you know very clear story arc again in some ways parallel to John snow and in both cases you know they start off as teenagers with good intentions with humanitarian instincts with real compassion but they also both have no explicitly articulated political philosophy none and you know Voorhies has a political philosophy and it's articulated arguably littlefinger maybe has a political philosophy that's explicitly articulated I mean it's debatable some of the other old men in power they may also you know articulated political velocity but Jon Snow doesn't have one and Daenerys doesn't have one and I would say that's probably part of the plot to us we're looking at now with both of them having a near-death experience Jon Snow dying coming back from dead Daenerys almost dying and coming back from the wilderness I think when they come back the whole point is going to be that for both of them it crystallizes for them that they need to have a strategy that they selves understand and articulate to the people they're ruling that they need to have a modus operandi they need to have some set of principles that defines what they're doing and and why they're chewing yet um you know again this is part of what makes it all so alien to the world we live in today frankly Francis Bacon is a great example to kick this off with we remember of Francis Bacon as an old man we remember Francis Bacon for his philosophy of science for his philosophy of democracy delivery which is him writing as an old man I have no idea what Francis Bacon was like when he was 18 years old and 20 years old in government maybe at 20 years old Francis Bacon was the worst parliamentarian in the British system you know look I don't I don't what is the youngest work of read by Francis Bacon but Amedeo Francis Bacon his his major contributions to philosophy of science and indeed political philosophy this is all an old man looking back on decades and decades of experience in government and you can say that his political education was serving in government from his teenage years forward right so that was his college he didn't have him you didn't have to go to university and get a BA or something like this he started at such a young agent government II was able to look look back on that but perhaps if we did have access to I don't know maybe some historians do have access to his more juvenile writings or his more juvenile role in government it's you know the difference between him at age you know in his 50s as opposed to him in his 20s must be extreme obviously in a highly traumatized form in these texts we get to see these characters mature we get to see their perspective on Authority itself being transformed by the experience of being an authority in no time flat these books can't drag it out and give us 20 years of Johnstone maturing and has to be remembered you know they aren't the only characters we see turning a corner like that even though it is very briefly handled jail or Mormont the the old bear the Mormont Commander of the Nights Watch on the wall we get to see his political philosophy transform down to his dying day where he's actually having to reconsider why does the why does this pterri service exist what is our relationship to the wildlings why are we fighting the wrong war why are we fighting against the wildlings instead of fighting yes you know fighting against the great other etc etc now with all that haven't been said when Daenerys comes back from her near dead experience what is her political philosophy gonna be I have no idea it seems to me unlikely the gorge is gonna have her come back as a simple fire and blood dictator but it's possible and we already have Cersei Lannister showing one face of dictatorship it is quite possible that Daenerys will come back hardened and having no sympathy any more for the peasants she formerly tried to help formerly tried to feed no sympathy any more for the slaves she formally tried to liberate it's possible she'll come back with no sympathy for the slave owners so that she'll just be exterminating the slave owners instead of taking her more moderate fat I don't know but whatever it is is then going to be counterpose to other people in the game of thrones who have other very different approaches to to politics would have you I mean what lesson can Jon Snow learn what is the conclusion he is gonna draw from his experience where he really did violate both the letter and the spirit of the military code he was supposed to live by he to say he was delinquent in his duties is an understatement he totally abandoned the whole raison d'être for the Nights Watch he's guilty as charged he's absolutely guilty as charged did he do that in pursuit of a higher ideal did he do it with humanitarian attentions instead of sure but I mean you know there's no question that Jon Snow he's guilty of gross dereliction of duty he's guilty of perverting the whole purpose of the Nights Watch and to me that is symbolized very well but Jon Snow going with his with a couple of his fellow officers you know to give away their food and their apples to these starving wildlings sure that alone even though it's a beautiful gesture and it's a contrast to all the other political leaders who just didn't care when the peasants were starving to death um as aren't there apples hahahaha and that's that's not the role the Nights Watch right you know but of course also everyone already knows this is dramatic just before his death when Jon Snow calls for volunteers to go and march against Winterfell so this is an even more clear dereliction of duty so yes I mean it's easy to paint Jon Snow's conflict in terms of racism in terms of racism against the wildlings um and his being excessive of course that is an element I think all the books show an interest in in racism and especially when the the races concerned have a very unclear dotted line between them Georgia likes to set up those situations and play with the you know the ethical ambiguities um but you know in every sense John in the book of whether or not this is true in the TV shows no bill in the book Jon Snow is dead wrong and the group of assassins who move against them if you really think it through it's quite easy to sympathize with their motives so in both cases I don't know are we now gonna see Jon Snow come back as a remorseless dictator I doubt it you know it's quite possible you'll see Jon Snow come back as even more committed to the higher ideals he was trying to serve previously and of realizing that those ideals are not compatible with military service in the Nights Watch but maybe they are compatible with him being the rebel leader of a bunch of wildlings trying to conquer Winterfell wouldn't be hard to you know predict that or maybe he's a rebel leader of a bunch of northern Lords fighting against the Bolton's you know fill in the blanks or maybe he becomes a rebel leader divinely inspired by the red God or one of these other religions unlikely but possible maybe he's divinely inspired by the old gods and the trees or what-have-you um but I mean two big tropes in the books maybe make readers uncomfortable generally I mean I think the books as they've progressed they have gone from a very secular world to a world that is more and more jihadist to be blunt remember talking about this with my teacher here I've been talking about Game of Thrones in Chinese and writing essays about it in Chinese as a way of practicing the language you know um you know at the start of the books partly because the point of views were the point of view chapters were given you know the way the books are written you know we're given a lot of point of view some Tyrians perspective Tyrion is a totally secular anti religious character he thinks organized religion is a joke etc etc um we we get the sense at the beginning that of course magic is dead in the world that religion is a joke we have this very cynical secular down-to-earth view of the world and then graduates the books progress we realize that's not everybody's view of the world there are a lot of very sincerely religious people even fanatical religious people and on the contrary the fever-pitch of religiosity in this world seems to be elevated of course you know with the Iron Islands plot there that religion and you know the rise of Euron as a semi fanatical you know religious figure and the rise of the cult of the red God but even the you know what we see bran go through with a peculiar gods the old religion um this world has become more and more a world dominated by religious warfare religious ideology as the books progressed partly because our perspective changes as readers and partly because of the real political developments in the world and on the other hand I think we also see you know the resolution of formerly irresolute political ideologies right so varies comes out of the shadow and reveals exactly what his political philosophy is and exactly what it means back in book 1 there was a lot of dancing around about that you know um it was genuinely secret and we got a lot of kind of peculiar provocative hints at who he was what he was about what objectives he was pursuing and now it's crystal clear when he's standing there murdering Kevan Lannister exactly what Varys is about exactly what his political philosophy is both in theory and in practice a lot of people wonder are we gonna see a figure a major figure like Jon Snow or Daenerys supporting democracy well my light motif for this video is Francis Bacon Francis Bacon believed in democracy and he talks about democracy it very interestingly in the context of his philosophy of science he believes the progress of science is itself democratic which is a very interesting concept also very much debatable I mean in some ways the progress of science is very elitist not everyone can participate in the progress of chemistry or biochemistry or in you know advanced research into the human genome via biochemistry there are elitist aspects they're very undemocratic aspects of how science works now scientific research works how science progresses but he also has some really interesting points in saying that that science is a democracy of knowledge or is democratic and it's obvious that in his own political milieu he was a voice for democracy in a sense why do I mention that well in another sense you could say that in Francis Bacon's period of time in England there was no such thing as democracy and there was even no real concept of democracy or that the philosophy was incredibly weak and distant this is a totally this is a period of history in Europe completely dominated by monarchy and where you know democracy was a very far off and muted concept and you could also say in Francis Bacon's career well if that was his objective if he was serious about democracy he failed it's also a very interesting way to look at the career of a major politician like Francis Bacon you know what was he a success he left us these writings about democracy and science did he actually managed to transform his own society to reflect those ideas no it was always a failure or he's a dreamer or he was ahead of his time whatever you want to say ok that's all interesting worth talking about is it possible in a fictional universe like Game of Thrones for someone to come out advocating for an idea like democracy when it's totally alien to that society yes I think like Francis Bacon I think you could have someone advocating for science in some sense I think you could have someone advocating for democracy in some sense is it gonna be Jon Snow or Daenerys I doubt it you know maybe we're gonna see both of them harden their political philosophies before those philosophies become brittle and break I don't know I mean when you look at Daenerys Targaryen is there anyone in a position to say to her you were supposed to be representing the slaves and you I'm out your original principles were that nobody would ever be tortured again and you sold out you started using torture there's nobody in barristan selmy could do it but you know who is going to criticize her or give her that comeuppance she is in the position of being an unquestioned dictator in many ways and there's nobody to even have that debate with her it's a very interesting debate to have but yes it's quite possible we're gonna see Daenerys return as the you know bringer of fire and blood as his unrepentant dictator type of figure and then maybe at some point we'll see her realize how far she strayed from her original ideals in the hardening of her own political ideology and maybe we'll see a similar arc with Jon Snow where Jon Snow now becomes a more brutal leader of a resistance movement maybe like Lady Stoneheart or something men maybe he is successful right away maybe right away he's able to take over Winterfell George rarely makes it that easy on his per day is rare for it to be that easy right it's possible but yeah I doubt it but again maybe we'll see him harden into a more brutal and less humanitarian sort of political leader before at some point eating a realization that he has straight very very far from the ideals that led him to erode his own political position at Winterfell by trying to help the people who had been for centuries you know the enemies of the Nights Watch the the that resulted in him going into the storerooms of the Nights Watch at the wall and getting out their apples and bread and handing them out to a bunch of refugees whom he had no obligation to help that idealism you know maybe lost and then refound in this period of civil war but obviously George can do whatever he wants to do with it but at bottom what we're shown again and again is that teenagers make terrible rulers whether it's Joffrey or Robb Stark or Jon Snow there is simply I believe in George RR Martin's view of the world there is no such thing as a good 16 year old tyrant there is just no such thing there is no such thing even as a good 19 year old dictator and again that's not a critique that's applicable to politics United States right now it's not even applicable to parliamentary democracy right now we're just i think legally it's possible to elect 19 year olds and 20 year olds but we don't do it anymore culturally we've drifted so far away from that but part of the overall harsh tone of Georgia's writing about this is I think a sense of repugnance for what he sees happening in the history of the world again and again in his reading of ancient Medieval and Renaissance history that as soon as power is put into the hands of these young people whether it's because their fathers have been killed in war or through rebellion or some other circumstance things tend to go downhill quick and the last thing that George would ever show us I'm disagreeing with president right the last thing George would ever show us is that these political problems are resolved simply because the person who ends up sitting on the throne at the end of an intern a scene civil war this guy happens to be a philosopher king there's no such thing as a philosopher King not in real life and not a game of Thrones and if you think that Jon Snow making the decisions that lead up to his own assassination is acting as some kind of benign dictator or some kind of perfect philosopher king you're dead wrong that's not the point of the text at all