There are many things that we need to stop telling each other, our children, ourselves in fiction. For example, we should stop sending the message that rape is ok or somehow normal.
But before this happens we need to be able to talk about these things intelligently without people saying things like "you are just jealous of the author's awesome talents," or "you obviously haven't read the books," or "you clearly didn't even watch the show, so you shouldn't be talking," or even "you are just stupid, go die." These are the worst examples, but I've seen lengthy dissertation-style discussions and blog posts and articles whose main point basically boils down to this type of "you suck for criticizing this wonderful piece of fiction that I love" kind of argument.
It's as if a fan's enjoyment of a work of fiction takes away other people's right to thoughtfully criticize it. Since when did your enjoyment of something make it perfect? Since when were we incapable of enjoying imperfect things?
If I say that a book or movie or tv show has sexist elements or racist elements this does not mean that the work in question must necessarily suck, or that you are evil for enjoying it. In fact, if nobody enjoyed a book or if it just totally sucked then there would be no point in worrying about the problematic messages it conveys. If a movie was racist but it sucked, I don't think people would waste their breath or their words talking about it or analyzing it. Media becomes problematic when it has a negative message such as racism, couched inside an irresistible/attractive package. When it tells you a really good story, but at the same time tells you that racism is ok. When it has some very good messages in it, but then one or two very negative messages. That's the problem. That's why we need to talk about these kinds of things intelligently.
Why do I bring this up? Game of thrones.
I tried to ignore this phenomenon for a long time. I have purposefully avoided making any comment about it on my blog so far. But there has been a growing number of people around me who are being swept up in this fandom and I find this highly disturbing. Before I go on I feel the need to do a little "here's what I know about the books and movies" explanation:
1 - A teacher recommended the series to me when I was still in school. I put the piece of paper somewhere and lost it and never bothered to ask again. I am now glad that I did not find the series at the time and also horrified that a teacher would recommend something like this to a student.
2 - I once picked up one of the books from a shelf on the library and read it. (I can't remember which book it was, but I do know that it was not the first in the series.) I finished the book because I wanted to know if one character (Arya) survives, but I became increasingly horrified with the material as I went along and after finishing this book and not getting any sense of completion to the story I never went anywhere near the books again.
3 - I have watched enough of the TV series to know the story arc and empathize with some of the characters and understand the good and bad of the show.
So I think I have enough experience with the material to make an intelligent point and if you are reading this and don't agree with me, please tell me why in a way that doesn't hinge upon the "you obviously haven't even watched any episodes" argument. I have. I have found some of the story-lines and aspects of the show gripping and intriguing. This is why I criticize it. This is what makes the bad parts of it so disturbing; they're couched in a well-crafted story.
I find it highly disturbing how much of a phenomenon this is becoming. There are various reasons and the main one is that Game of Thrones is pornographic. The books are disturbingly pornographic. The TV show is explicitly and disturbingly pornographic. I don't care if you enjoy some of the story-lines or if you think there are some other awesome things in the books or the tv show, that doesn't make them any less pornographic. I don't care if they've offered someone a miraculous healing from some kind of personal distress, they are still disturbingly pornographic. This is a fact. It has nothing to do with your personal enjoyment of them or with any other theme or message that can be found, it's just the truth.
One of the arguments it that it's set in a medieval society and that kind of stuff happened so it's just being believable. To the people making this argument I would like to point out that there is a difference between lovingly and painstakingly depicting every last detail of a heinous act to the point that you make it seem or look attractive and between actually showing the negative effect that it has on society and on the characters involved. Game of thrones does the former. It describes things in their every gory detail, but when it comes to actually dealing with the realistic impacts it falls short. If this world actually existed the way Martin and the TV show producers depicted it 98% of the characters would be dying of AIDS and other STDs and/or suffering from severe emotional trauma and PTSD. But no, they continue waltzing about playing their war games and looking like models while they do it.
I have only ever read one other thing by Martin. It was a short story in an anthology and I found his writing at once gripping and deeply disturbing. In the case of that short story it wasn't sexually explicit or pornographic, but it was horror depicted in a very detailed way. I don't like horror and that's the main reason I didn't like that particular short story, but when I look back on it and compare it to Game of Thrones I realize that Martin does have a talent. His talent is in describing disturbing things with utmost, painstaking, detail.
From the one book and one short story that I've read I can say that his writing isn't in any way a literary or epic kind of writing. You're not going to find sentences or paragraphs in his work where you grin or smile or even laugh just because of a turn of phrase or his use of language as you would in true masterpieces like Dickens or Tolkien or a Harry Potter book (I can no longer simply say Rowling after the fiasco that was Casual Vacancy). His writing is full of vulgar language (which, by the way is very jarring in a tale supposedly set in a medieval-type world) and gore and pornography. What makes the reader, or viewer of the TV show, want to go on is that so many of the characters are so harshly and unfairly treated, they go through so many horrific experiences, that you want to know if they will survive, and how. He's good at foreshadowing certain doom or depicting a coming disaster or apocalypse so that the reader wants to see how the poor characters that have already gone through so much will deal with this.
Moving past the explicit, excessive pornography and violence and back to the main thread of my post, one of the most disturbing messages in this Game of Thrones phenomenon is about rape, and the other is a colonialist message, and both can be seen in the sub-plot of Danaerys Targaryen. Danaerys, everyone's favorite "strong" female character is sold by her brother Viserys to a barbarian "horse-Lord" who proceeds to rape her before they have even learnt to communicate with each other. As you can see, her situation is so dire and unfair that the reader and viewer sympathizes immediately. Instead of trying to escape or the hundred other possibilities that Danaerys could have pursued, she asks a former prostitute who is now her slave (also thanks to her brother Viserys) to give her sex lessons so she can impress her new barbarian husband, and, of course, she falls in love with him. And after he dies she never thinks of him with anything but complete love and fondness.
There are young people all over the world, intelligent young people who can actually read thousands-page books, nice/good kids, who are reading this and getting all kinds of messed up messages from it. It becomes worse on screen because you don't get to hear the victim's thoughts to see any kind of emotional struggle with any of this, and all the while the actors and actresses are looking attractive. The perpetrator of the crime looks attractive and the victim looks attractive even while she is being raped. Forget whatever enjoyment you got from the show and just pause to think about this portrayal for a moment.
Moving on, after all she's been through Danaerys manages to use her husband and dragons to maneuver herself into a ruler position. She maneuvers herself into the dominant role of a queen, not over her own people, but over her husband's tribe of barbarian horse lords. In a very short time period she not only manages to learn their language (or at least enough of it to give orders) but also to earn their respect and worshipful adoration. Somehow she goes from a frightened little girl - and physically she is very small compared to them - to ruling over them.
Those who resist her position of power are shown to be the most barbaric of the barbarians and their objections are simplified to "she's a woman, how can a woman rule us" effectively making the audience hate them and support Danaerys. Even while she is becoming dominant and gaining all this power we are made to feel that she is the underdog and that we must support her because she's a woman who is being unfairly attacked. It was ok when she was the victim being raped, but now that she's become the dominant ruler over these people who don't want her we're supposed to see them as the evil-doers.
For those of you who don't see what's wrong here yet, it's called colonialism. Those "barbarians" need a white, blond ruler to lead them and civilize them. They have no legitimate concerns when they object to an outsider ruling them, because she has some kind of superiority that makes it ok for her to do this. She has some kind of right to take them, whether they enjoy it or not, away from their homes and lead them back to her land so she can use them as soldiers in her bid for the throne, for more political power back home. This is exactly what the English, and other colonial powers, did to the people they colonized. They looked down on their cultures and called them barbarians in need of civilizing, which gave them the justification to do what they wished, and then they proceeded to steal the people's resources and use them as soldiers in their various wars and bids for political gain back home in Europe. Much of the world is still suffering as a result of these attitudes and policies.
Yes, it is just a fantasy story, but it sends messages to people who are enjoying the story and legitimizes certain wrongs that were and continue to be committed. That's not to say that these issues should not be brought up in fiction, they should be brought up in thoughtful, intelligent ways that are thought-provoking, not in ways that legitimize and normalize injustice. Just like I said before with the pornographic and violent details, there's a different between something being depicted in great detail, and on the other hand actually being handled appropriately. There are ways to bring these things up maturely in fiction, ways in which the reader/viewer can clearly pick up on the difference between the views of the characters in their own shortfalls and environment and the views or messages the author is trying to present. In the case of Game of Thrones these things are not handled maturely so the message is conveyed that there is nothing wrong here.
When someone does come out and criticize these aspects of the series there is a fan outcry. Hundreds of fans become personally offended. People don't want to entertain the possibility that the book/tv show they like and enjoy might have some negative aspects. As a society it seems we're not mature enough to appreciate both the good and the bad of something. Game of Thrones fans claim that they love it because it shows grey characters with some good traits and some bad traits, it's "complex". So why, then, can we not see the series itself as equally gray and complex? Why must it be perfect and beyond criticism just because you enjoyed it?
This is the reason I never liked English class even though I have always loved reading. When you're in English class they make you read books and short stories and poems - often horrible ones - and then they make you sit through hours of grueling dissection of every single theme and symbol in the story, whether it is real or imagined, but nowhere in that tedious process are you ever taught to critique something. Nowhere in that tedious process and that environment are you taught to look at the piece of literature and say that x was not a well written scene, or that y was not a very well-developed character, or that z just plain sucked when it comes to believability.
They don't teach you the language through which to make this kind of thoughtful criticism, and they don't encourage it. In fact, from my experience this kind of thing is actively discouraged. The teacher picked the piece of literature and likes it, so therefore it is above reproach. Believe me, I've tried. I began to criticize one aspect of a book we were "analyzing" in class and the teacher response was "oh, so you are saying you disagree with the wonderful moral of equality for women that this book portrays, this is very disappointing," and I was shut down.
I am not saying that English teachers are terrible people. I'm merely suggesting that because they enjoy the books they pick for the class to read it makes it difficult for them to see the negative aspects of it and instead of a class truly analyzing the book and offering both praise and critique they end up saying all kinds of good things about it and holding it up as some kind of perfect creation. And in my opinion this culture that is bred in English classes spills over into the outside world and we get into situations like where you are not allowed to criticize something because the fans like it.
This is dangerous. Young people are out there raping and being victims of rape, hurting each other and being victims of violence, and all the while everything they see around them glamorizes rape and violence. If the adults can't even discuss these issues when it comes to fictional characters without being shut down and told not to criticize then how do we expect the 15 and 16 year olds to deal with the emotional consequences of real-life rape and violence? How do we expect them to navigate this world and all the "grey areas" that they come across?
I'm not trying to blame anyone for terrible things that happen. I'm not trying to say these issues shouldn't be dealt with in fiction and it should all be joy and sunshine, what I am trying to say is that it's time to start talking about these things seriously, thoughtfully, and constructively. It's time to take a careful look at what we are recommending to others, especially young people, as a good read. I'm tired of picking up fantasy books or watching fantasy shows only to discover that it's more of a gore fest or an excuse for pornography. I'm tired of seeing people who point out the negatives of a fantasy tale being shut down by fans. I am a fan of many series which have been unjustly attacked and reviled by many (ex. Harry Potter) but I don't try to silence anyone who doesn't like the books or tries to point out flaws they've noticed in them.
I will end with something positive. If you like Game of Thrones and think it's the best thing since sliced bread I would like to suggest you try reading the works of Guy Gavriel Kay. They have all the things that fans say Game of Thrones has. Kay writes from many points of view and does not shy away from gory or explicit detail, but in his works it is never gratuitous or pornographic. There is always a well-crafted tale and any violence or explicit content serves that story. He is much better with language than Martin ever was and much of his writing is beautiful. The settings are also medieval-ish/based on historical settings. There you will find the work of a true master, and while there were some parts of some of the books that had my stomach churning because the violence was so detailed in that case I can honestly say that it was handled well and their impact on characters was addressed. No, they're not perfect, but they are true masterpieces of fantasy and will stand the test of time.
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