Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

The trouble is, while Monarchs are the worst sort of government to have, Westeros is just not ready for their equivalent of the French Revolution.

Mostly because the only people who have kind of an idea to make it work (The Maesters of the Citadel) are politically meaningless, and the Nobility have absolutely no interest in seeing their power denuded unless the situation is so beyond fucked that no matter what they do they will lose.

So suffice to say, a King is what they'll get. For the record, I don't think it should be Bran - guy is creepy as all get out, and I get the feeling that he doesn't really have the empathy necessary to be a good Monarch.

The problem is, every other candidate is even worse.

Targaryen? No thanks - one millennium showed they're just shit at their jobs. The Starks? Who among them except Bran? No one is going to accept a Dwarf as King, because Beauty Equals Goodness even in Westeros, so Tyrion (or any Lannister, for that matter) is right out.

The Dornish? They don't have any skin in the game, and their support base is limited enough that they won't succeed even if they try. And people will burn Westeros to the ground before the accept Ironborn rule. No one else is left after all that elimination.

Gray-and-Gray Morality? More like Evil Versus Evil is the norm in the World of Ice and Fire.

Technically, the Targaryens were the greatest period of Westeros' history. It was mostly a time of prosperity and peace.

See the Dunk and Egg novels.

Another reason why it was so damned strange to portray Danny as bringing back an Age of Darkness like she was ****ing Sauron.

Only the reign of Jaehaerys I was especially peaceful. I think one of the overarching points to GRRM’s Targaryen histories — besides wasting the last couple decades of his life on trifles — is a rejection of the Targaryen Rule as Golden Age thesis.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Jun 10th 2019 at 3:40:17 PM

I disagree.

The majority of conflicts were minor ones like the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

• Baelor the Blessed
• Aegon the Unworthy

Lots of Kings had peaceful reigns.

Aegon didn’t, fighting a losing war with Dorne that cost one of his queens. Neither did his sons, one of whom was overthrown by the other and the latter of whom instituted a tyrannical reign overthrown by Jaehaerys. Viserys I profited from the peace of his grandfather’s reign, but mismanaged the succession so the Dance of the Dragons happened, ruining the Kingdoms and taking a generation to recover and impacting the reigns of Aegon III and Viserys II. Daeron I had a futile and wasteful Dornish war. Aegon IV has a “peaceful” reign, but marred with so much tyranny and corruption that the fact he lived to complete his reign is probably a black mark on history. He also created the conditions for the Blackfyre Rebellions of Daeron II, Aerys I, and Aegon V. Maekar died putting down a rebellion and Aegon V just barely managed to avert a Baratheon rebellion happening fifty years early. Jaehaerys II had the War of the Ninepenny Kings, and Aerys II had Robert’s Rebellion. When the only other claimant to a peaceful reign is that of a nutcase who burned books and starved himself in a fit of religious zeal, it’s pretty clear the family was mostly trash and Jaehaerys was the exception.

As for whether Dany would become a tyrant — that was probably the only direction it could go. Dissenters are threatened and eliminated with dragon fire, she has a messianic cult of personality that she fully buys into, and her soldiers aren’t Westerosi natives, but foreigners and barbarians who have pledged themselves to be her personal goons. She doesn’t have anyone telling her she isn’t that great; even Ser Jorah comes across as a lickspittle who fans her egomania. And her liberation ideology is directly undermined by a competing desire to place all of Westeros under her own boot heel.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Jun 10th 2019 at 4:10:19 AM

The Fire and Blood novel doesn't make Jaehaerys look that great either. Daeron The Good honestly comes across as the only actually good King.

I think it depends on how you define "peaceful" and "good."

Wait, I'm confused, I thought it was only three centuries?

Yeah, thought the point still stands.

It was a war than involved many of the Kingdoms and their lords, it wasn't super devastating, but calling it minor understimate it's importance.

Honestly, while "how the ASOIAF world would look when/if they reach the Industrial and Digital Age" is my favorite ASOIAF fanfic idea. I wonder how the "Modern" Ghiscari would look, especially when looking back at their past, they will be Lost Causers (especially because Daenerys will end up dying as a very polemical figure In-Universe, loved in Essos but hated in Westeros) or they will look at their past and say "Oh fuck, i hate myself"?.

Thought Essos' economy sans Braavos really don't make sense and is pretty much Rule of Creepy. I mean, Volantis' economy isn't literally based on their Sex Slaves

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jun 10th 2019 at 8:33:00 AM

Most of the Free Cities were not rebels. They were The Remnant of the Valyrian Freehold.

Braavos is the only exception.

The remnants of the Ghiscari culture are also different from the Lost Cause since the Valyrians were a lot more thorough when it came to exterminating the Ghiscari. There is practically nothing left of Ghiscari culture — what there is now is almost entirely guesswork. Even their language is dead — there's a reason Slaver's Bay mostly speaks Valyrian.

Edited by M84 on Jun 10th 2019 at 9:41:07 PM

That's almost tragic.

I say almost because there nothing to sympathize with the Ghis.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jun 10th 2019 at 9:16:21 AM

The Ghiscari Empire was definitely an Asshole Victim. The Valyrians however did take it really far — they stamped out a lot of the Ghiscari culture, enslaved most of the survivors, and destroyed most of the natural resources of the region. One of the reasons slavery persists in Slaver's Bay is because it's the only reliable source of income in the region due to the lack of natural resources. It's similar to the Ironborn, who Rape, Pillage, and Burn in part because the Iron Islands have little arable land.

I should note that even the Ghiscari ethnicity is almost extinct. All "modern" Ghiscari are mixed race.

Edited by M84 on Jun 10th 2019 at 10:28:17 PM

...I really can get that situation.

Really.

Also, predictably, the Russian goverment hates the HBO' Chernobyl series and decided to do their own version of the story.

Blaming Americans. Of course!

...is so predicable, I can't even say "Disgusted but not surprised" because I have get used to this.

Remember kids. Now, every time you commit a mistake, have the comfort that it wasn't you. It was the CIA

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jun 10th 2019 at 9:36:29 AM

Yeah like I remarked in the thread for the series... The whole of them seem like a bunch of Fomins and Dyatlovs. Especially Dyatlovs.

There was a time when Western "progressives" would eat that shit right up, too. I'd like to think that modern ones wouldn't be so gullible.

Putin is rapdily being less an apologist for the USSR and a full on Stalinist.

You noticed that just now? Putin always seems to go in whatever direction, that allows him to hold power. Such as preying on nostalgia and nationalism. Why do you think most of the russian movies, that go in russian theaters, are about World War 2?

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Jun 10th 2019 at 6:09:15 PM

Isn't Putin literally an Ex-KGB guy?

Yep

The late John Mc Cain supposedly once said that whenever he looked into Putin's eyes, all he could see were the letters KGB.

So, those are Putin's eyes?

@VVV: Yeah, I also admit that it's why I'm also iffy of the SOVIETS WON THE WAR BY THEMSELVES that some contrarians thrown as a way to overcompensate for their belief of MURICA WON THE WAR ALONE.

Have to.admit that as someone that tries to follow.closely the current Venezuelan Crisis. The whole "Our extremely devastating accident was caused for the CIA!" hits close. Is a very common excuse, but it works, so they continue using it.

In also predictable ways. r/vzla (Venezuelan subreddit) loves the series.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jun 10th 2019 at 10:40:24 AM

I wanna talk about Nazis in contemporary media.

• In Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, they are shown in their full vacuous corruption, pettiness, and unwarranted self-assurance. It's a very satisfying game to play.
• In American Gods, Nazis show up pretending to be American patriots, hire and sponsor a Nordic model strongman, Donnar, to be a wrestler of some sort... then fix his match against the German team! As a result, Donnar and his manager/father, who had talked him into it ("They're just sheep, looking for a shepherd!") have a violent falling-out, and Donnar ends up committing suicide.
• There's of course The Man in the High Castle, where somehow Imperial Japan is less crazy and cruel than the Nazis.
• In Doom Patrol, the team encounters a secret Nazi lab in Paraguay. It's all very cartoony and Stupid Jetpack Hitler, but also very satisfying in how utterly self-righteous the Nazis are.
• In Happy!, an obsessive collector Nazi memorabilia collector is framed as an actual Nazi and forced to spend the rest of his days in a Nazi retirement home, where people openly watch old Nazi propaganda reels and decorate with Swastika banners. The protagonists try to extract him as a witness and end up massacring both the residents and the orderlies.

A common thread among these representations tends to be a sense of... schlockiness? Strangely enough, Wolfenstein seems to be the one that treats the subject with the most maturity, when it's being mature.

I don't understand how Nazis do not come across as practicing hate speech simply by declaring themselves such. Advocacy for the Extermination of the Other and a perpetual incitation to violence are fundamental parts of the Nazi ideology, so much so that removing them gets you out of being "technically a Nazi", and I understand that either of those things are illegal? Or is it a state-by-state thing?

Wolfenstein 1 (the remake 1, that is) treated the subject with the weight it merited, I think. 2 felt like it went too pulpy with it, what with giant airships and that one scene with Anya. You know the one.

It's been a while. Can you remind me?

Also, my feeling is that II is less pulpy than I. I seems to glorify the Reich's architecture and technology to an extent, with the villain being motivated by uninhibited curiosity first and cruelty second. Meanwhile II's main villains are entirely motivated by what they can get out of the Reich; it's not about any higher ideals or goals, it's about consolidating power, flaunting it, and abusing it.

Plus, II has a diverse Resistance team where even Communists get to have a say, and where the Nazis' evil is taken beyond generic exploitativeness and into specific forms of bigotry that alienate specific people with stories and characters that you learn to, if not like, at least respect.

Edited by Oruka on Jun 11th 2019 at 7:15:25 AM