Is ASOIAF basically fascist or anti-fascist? (Game of Thrones)
08 January 2019 [link youtube]
Somebody sent in a question about the (shifting) symbolic significance of Targaryen rule and Valyrian "superiority" in the political interpretation of ASOIAF: it's a good question, but, frankly, I think I've got a good answer for it, too. ;-)
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.
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Youtube Automatic Transcription
I got a question from a supporter on
patreon about the political interpretation of Game of Thrones the book series is called A Song of Ice and Fire the first book in the series is called Game of Thrones and the TV series that spun off Furman is known as Game of Thrones this is a brief interesting period in the history of the world where a mainstream work of fiction and a mainstream TV show is actually taken seriously as great literature is a great work of art and also really is taken seriously for its political significance and if you think Game of Thrones with its reflections on the meaning of aristocracy and feudalism and the emergence of democracy if you think that's not politically provocative enough in the English language imagine how it is received and interpreted right now in Arabic imagine how it is received and interpreted right now in Saudi Arabia I was asking uh I was asking Muhammad to appear in this channel few days ago about this he didn't know he never thought about that before I forget if you read the books in English German or Arabic or a combination of all three because he's he's at least trying you'll um and imagine how in future this book is going to be perceived this book series in Chinese I know there are two separate translations one for Taiwan and one from mainland Communist China so it's a book that carries weight and the question I've been asked here has a lot of political significance to it the question is to what extent do the books today and this is taking all the books together as they now exist in 2019 to what extent are the books today pro-fascist in that as the person asks question but at the beginning it seemed as if the rule of the Targaryen household the rule of people of Valyrian ancestry over Westeros was presented as a bad thing but they have more and more become the heroes of the story and again this isn't really like one chapter of the story or even one volume it's looking at this body of fiction as a whole that they seem to be more and more positively presented as time goes on and who are the Valyrians who are toast Targaryen well to some extent they share these characteristics of the fascist master race fantasy about feudalism and a stock receipt not just that there well what was good you can't see blonde haired and blue-eyed they are white haired and violet eyed you know a step further and white skin but that they actually as the story goes on it becomes more and more explicit they don't just have a myth of biological superiority or specialness in their bloodline but that for the purposes of this work of fiction they actually literally have special hereditary biological characteristics that justify their racialist and and racist attitudes now the shortest and most direct answer to this given that in 2019 the book series isn't complete is to look at the precedents we have in some of the simple self-contained political statements in George's earlier writing and the two I'm going to go to here are a song for Leah and seven times never kill man these are relatively short works of fiction I mean Game of Thrones is enormous and then we can jump ahead also and look at the presentation of House Targaryen and the Valerians in the true beginning of the story which is not chronologically the start of the publication history but is the drunk Duncan eggnog right so Melissa that was when you read first you started with Dunkin egg novels I think there's absolutely no doubt in the readers mind that the rule of House Targaryen is sick and twisted and evil and bad there one of the main images were given is of this member of the family of the royal family snapping the fingers of a puppeteer for insane reasons and then that everyone backs him up and the concept in the society was that if you did anything if you if you hit or struck or approached or reprimanded a member of this family you would be killed or the hand or foot that had punched him or kicked them would be would be cut off so we're given a I mean this isn't a kind of value neutral introduction see the system of feudalism and the rule this house this is an incredibly bleak incredibly negative introduction and that is the introduction chronological you have to it you have to keep in mind and indeed at that point the audience doesn't yet know is there a real biological difference between this bloodline and the rest of the society that rule over or is it merely imagined difference you know the pattern that plays out in Georgia our mearns earlier works a song for liya and sometimes never come in is the following he takes a justification for a political view in the real world that he disagrees with that he wants to attack and he shows you even if this were literally true in some parallel universe the justification would still be bad and evil and wrong so in the case of a song for liya what he's showing you is okay in our world the Catholic Church for example justifies its rule over society and mankind especially in the Dark Ages justifies its social influence and power by among other things offering you an afterlife the reassurance that in some sense you will live forever obviously not only the Catholic Church Protestantism Islam and so on to some extent all share in this they're promising you an afterlife in the world we live in it's not real it's a justification but he gives you a science fiction world a hypothetical parallel world in which this is literally true in which people in some sense literally live forever after they die if they join this religion and they're physically absorbed into like a giant jello mass that takes all of their memories and incorporates it into a super brain that lives forever and and they're happy about it they love it the physical sensation of being consumed by this parasite they experience this great joy and even while they're alive before they give themselves over to this jello like mass that absorbs them and gives them a type of immortal life he sketches out fear the way the sheets the whole society in their behavior and culture it's all you know the awareness of this potential for one day being reunified with all of humanity with all of their alien species the way that shapes their behavior and it creates a world that is in some ways a paradise and in some ways own unbelievably horrible dystopia why does he do this he doesn't do it because he thinks our world wouldn't it be wonderful if people had immortality and live forever it's the opposite it's very clearly trying to show you even if this justification or excuse for religion were true religion would still be bad and evil wrong seven times never kill man is instead taking on the justification for religion and again it's not just religion but in many ways this is a justification for the Catholic social order of the Dark Ages feudalism in Europe's history broadly speaking the justification that well religion may have some downsides and disadvantages but it also provides peace harmony order good government a kind of disarmament of man against man and what he shows you is on a science fiction world where this is literally true where it literally religion stops all all conflict president prevents any kind of war and protects people one against another and organizes every village and it really provides this kind of harmony it's a it's terrible thing so why does Jorge present this kind of fascist Eck fantasy or justification presiding and why does he yet nevertheless present it very negatively to my mind again it's completely clear starting from Duncan egg we're given all the warning signs this is a bad thing being ruled by a royal family who believes that they're the master race and so on and he believes they're biologically better than the people they roll over this is this is introduced to us in a very dark way I mean you know I guess the only the only flipside of that is you can say in the Duncan and also you also see that they are in normal people in many ways one of the first turk Aryans you meet is an alcoholic he's kind of face down in a bar dragged himself we do see the kind of you know well gee they're not so superhuman they're kind of just regular people but they don't think of themselves as regular people so we see that side of it to my mind it is very clear that the structure of the story as a whole which is currently incomplete and may remember part for me and may remain forever and complete that it's going to be this same pattern that we saw in seven times never kill man and and a song for liya that the point ultimately is the justification is is wrong and that the story on a large scale is going to show this the real question the real challenge to this is what is the significance of Daenerys Targaryen being anti-slavery I want this video to be too long but I think there are many morals to the story we're supposed to draw from her war against slavery in many ways of course it's it's an allegory for the American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan for the the futility or just failure of those of those efforts which happened during the years in which these these novels were composed in some ways in so reflection on his experiences in the Vietnam War they're they're different kind of levels and obvious influences to this but I think it also just like why host Targaryen exists why the Valyrian versus Westerosi bloodline question exists it shows that it is fundamentally evil to have someone arrived and conquer your society who thinks they're biologically superior to you that their civilization is superior to yours etc even when they have this ostensibly good intention in mind of abolishing slavery something the audience is going to sympathize with and that the fictional characters in the novel sympathize with nevertheless the consequences are unbelievably bad and tragic and evil and I think already in the books as they exist now if you include the sample champer chapters we get a good sense of why okay so that is my answer obviously to some extent is a bet about what the books are and what they're going to become to my mind there is absolutely zero possibility that the solution to the world's problems in A Song of Ice and Fire is going to be that George tells you the moral of the story is resign yourself to be ruled by a breed of fascist feudal aristocratic supermen because they're better than you and they told you that they were better Q and they consider their bloodline superior to yours and their civilization and their history is better than yours yeah that is completely inconceivable to me and I would also say that probably the thorough literary and political examination of any one component of the story whether that's the history of and Daenerys or the the history of say dawn and its struggle against the the crown or the history of the north and its struggle against the crown and so on you know none of them makes sense if you think that the author's conclusion that he's working towards and definitely not the structure of the works as a whole beginning with Duncan egg never forget the Duncan eggs stories the prequels were written later basically to correct the mistakes he had made when he started book one and what he did chronologically and he didn't yet have the plan for what the books as a whole would be so that reflects the mature author's intent in trying to make a complete work of leadership this guy's I do this commentary because I think it matters I do think the game of Thrones the Song of Ice and Fire book series is going to be remembered as one of the most politically important you know publications of this century and I'm really genuinely interested what does it mean to people in Taiwan what does it mean to people in Israel you know that's a really interesting question I mean it's been translated in Hebrew what does it mean in the you know Arabic speaking world and what are the implications of that legacy gonna be as time goes by it is definitely not gonna be remembered as just another TV show that had a lot of naked ladies on HBO definitely the book series has a lot more to offer a lot more think about and a lot more questions like this worth debating
patreon about the political interpretation of Game of Thrones the book series is called A Song of Ice and Fire the first book in the series is called Game of Thrones and the TV series that spun off Furman is known as Game of Thrones this is a brief interesting period in the history of the world where a mainstream work of fiction and a mainstream TV show is actually taken seriously as great literature is a great work of art and also really is taken seriously for its political significance and if you think Game of Thrones with its reflections on the meaning of aristocracy and feudalism and the emergence of democracy if you think that's not politically provocative enough in the English language imagine how it is received and interpreted right now in Arabic imagine how it is received and interpreted right now in Saudi Arabia I was asking uh I was asking Muhammad to appear in this channel few days ago about this he didn't know he never thought about that before I forget if you read the books in English German or Arabic or a combination of all three because he's he's at least trying you'll um and imagine how in future this book is going to be perceived this book series in Chinese I know there are two separate translations one for Taiwan and one from mainland Communist China so it's a book that carries weight and the question I've been asked here has a lot of political significance to it the question is to what extent do the books today and this is taking all the books together as they now exist in 2019 to what extent are the books today pro-fascist in that as the person asks question but at the beginning it seemed as if the rule of the Targaryen household the rule of people of Valyrian ancestry over Westeros was presented as a bad thing but they have more and more become the heroes of the story and again this isn't really like one chapter of the story or even one volume it's looking at this body of fiction as a whole that they seem to be more and more positively presented as time goes on and who are the Valyrians who are toast Targaryen well to some extent they share these characteristics of the fascist master race fantasy about feudalism and a stock receipt not just that there well what was good you can't see blonde haired and blue-eyed they are white haired and violet eyed you know a step further and white skin but that they actually as the story goes on it becomes more and more explicit they don't just have a myth of biological superiority or specialness in their bloodline but that for the purposes of this work of fiction they actually literally have special hereditary biological characteristics that justify their racialist and and racist attitudes now the shortest and most direct answer to this given that in 2019 the book series isn't complete is to look at the precedents we have in some of the simple self-contained political statements in George's earlier writing and the two I'm going to go to here are a song for Leah and seven times never kill man these are relatively short works of fiction I mean Game of Thrones is enormous and then we can jump ahead also and look at the presentation of House Targaryen and the Valerians in the true beginning of the story which is not chronologically the start of the publication history but is the drunk Duncan eggnog right so Melissa that was when you read first you started with Dunkin egg novels I think there's absolutely no doubt in the readers mind that the rule of House Targaryen is sick and twisted and evil and bad there one of the main images were given is of this member of the family of the royal family snapping the fingers of a puppeteer for insane reasons and then that everyone backs him up and the concept in the society was that if you did anything if you if you hit or struck or approached or reprimanded a member of this family you would be killed or the hand or foot that had punched him or kicked them would be would be cut off so we're given a I mean this isn't a kind of value neutral introduction see the system of feudalism and the rule this house this is an incredibly bleak incredibly negative introduction and that is the introduction chronological you have to it you have to keep in mind and indeed at that point the audience doesn't yet know is there a real biological difference between this bloodline and the rest of the society that rule over or is it merely imagined difference you know the pattern that plays out in Georgia our mearns earlier works a song for liya and sometimes never come in is the following he takes a justification for a political view in the real world that he disagrees with that he wants to attack and he shows you even if this were literally true in some parallel universe the justification would still be bad and evil and wrong so in the case of a song for liya what he's showing you is okay in our world the Catholic Church for example justifies its rule over society and mankind especially in the Dark Ages justifies its social influence and power by among other things offering you an afterlife the reassurance that in some sense you will live forever obviously not only the Catholic Church Protestantism Islam and so on to some extent all share in this they're promising you an afterlife in the world we live in it's not real it's a justification but he gives you a science fiction world a hypothetical parallel world in which this is literally true in which people in some sense literally live forever after they die if they join this religion and they're physically absorbed into like a giant jello mass that takes all of their memories and incorporates it into a super brain that lives forever and and they're happy about it they love it the physical sensation of being consumed by this parasite they experience this great joy and even while they're alive before they give themselves over to this jello like mass that absorbs them and gives them a type of immortal life he sketches out fear the way the sheets the whole society in their behavior and culture it's all you know the awareness of this potential for one day being reunified with all of humanity with all of their alien species the way that shapes their behavior and it creates a world that is in some ways a paradise and in some ways own unbelievably horrible dystopia why does he do this he doesn't do it because he thinks our world wouldn't it be wonderful if people had immortality and live forever it's the opposite it's very clearly trying to show you even if this justification or excuse for religion were true religion would still be bad and evil wrong seven times never kill man is instead taking on the justification for religion and again it's not just religion but in many ways this is a justification for the Catholic social order of the Dark Ages feudalism in Europe's history broadly speaking the justification that well religion may have some downsides and disadvantages but it also provides peace harmony order good government a kind of disarmament of man against man and what he shows you is on a science fiction world where this is literally true where it literally religion stops all all conflict president prevents any kind of war and protects people one against another and organizes every village and it really provides this kind of harmony it's a it's terrible thing so why does Jorge present this kind of fascist Eck fantasy or justification presiding and why does he yet nevertheless present it very negatively to my mind again it's completely clear starting from Duncan egg we're given all the warning signs this is a bad thing being ruled by a royal family who believes that they're the master race and so on and he believes they're biologically better than the people they roll over this is this is introduced to us in a very dark way I mean you know I guess the only the only flipside of that is you can say in the Duncan and also you also see that they are in normal people in many ways one of the first turk Aryans you meet is an alcoholic he's kind of face down in a bar dragged himself we do see the kind of you know well gee they're not so superhuman they're kind of just regular people but they don't think of themselves as regular people so we see that side of it to my mind it is very clear that the structure of the story as a whole which is currently incomplete and may remember part for me and may remain forever and complete that it's going to be this same pattern that we saw in seven times never kill man and and a song for liya that the point ultimately is the justification is is wrong and that the story on a large scale is going to show this the real question the real challenge to this is what is the significance of Daenerys Targaryen being anti-slavery I want this video to be too long but I think there are many morals to the story we're supposed to draw from her war against slavery in many ways of course it's it's an allegory for the American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan for the the futility or just failure of those of those efforts which happened during the years in which these these novels were composed in some ways in so reflection on his experiences in the Vietnam War they're they're different kind of levels and obvious influences to this but I think it also just like why host Targaryen exists why the Valyrian versus Westerosi bloodline question exists it shows that it is fundamentally evil to have someone arrived and conquer your society who thinks they're biologically superior to you that their civilization is superior to yours etc even when they have this ostensibly good intention in mind of abolishing slavery something the audience is going to sympathize with and that the fictional characters in the novel sympathize with nevertheless the consequences are unbelievably bad and tragic and evil and I think already in the books as they exist now if you include the sample champer chapters we get a good sense of why okay so that is my answer obviously to some extent is a bet about what the books are and what they're going to become to my mind there is absolutely zero possibility that the solution to the world's problems in A Song of Ice and Fire is going to be that George tells you the moral of the story is resign yourself to be ruled by a breed of fascist feudal aristocratic supermen because they're better than you and they told you that they were better Q and they consider their bloodline superior to yours and their civilization and their history is better than yours yeah that is completely inconceivable to me and I would also say that probably the thorough literary and political examination of any one component of the story whether that's the history of and Daenerys or the the history of say dawn and its struggle against the the crown or the history of the north and its struggle against the crown and so on you know none of them makes sense if you think that the author's conclusion that he's working towards and definitely not the structure of the works as a whole beginning with Duncan egg never forget the Duncan eggs stories the prequels were written later basically to correct the mistakes he had made when he started book one and what he did chronologically and he didn't yet have the plan for what the books as a whole would be so that reflects the mature author's intent in trying to make a complete work of leadership this guy's I do this commentary because I think it matters I do think the game of Thrones the Song of Ice and Fire book series is going to be remembered as one of the most politically important you know publications of this century and I'm really genuinely interested what does it mean to people in Taiwan what does it mean to people in Israel you know that's a really interesting question I mean it's been translated in Hebrew what does it mean in the you know Arabic speaking world and what are the implications of that legacy gonna be as time goes by it is definitely not gonna be remembered as just another TV show that had a lot of naked ladies on HBO definitely the book series has a lot more to offer a lot more think about and a lot more questions like this worth debating