Game of Thrones. Created by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss. Based on the novels by George R. R. Martin. Sundays at 9pm on HBO.
Back in 2001, after the first Lord of the Rings movie became a big hit, a Hollywood producer raised eyebrows with his prescription for healing the wounds of 9/11: “America needs more hobbits!” The death of Bin Laden doesn’t necessarily end the threat of catastrophic terrorism, but it does feel like the closing of a chapter in that story. By the evidence of HBO’s new fantasy TV series, Game of Thrones, our collective need for hobbits seems to have died with him.
For Thrones, based on the Songs of Fire and Ice series of novels by George R.R. Martin, is a strange sort of fantasy. It doesn’t have time for hobbits—much less orcs, wizards, or lugubrious tree-creatures—because there are political scores to settle. Set in a vaguely feudal world beyond history or real geography, it surveys a vast landscape of machinations surrounding the throne of the mythical kingdom of Westeros. The story primarily deals with four noble families—the Starks, a decent lot who rule the rough and wild north of the country; the Baratheons, whose patriarch seized the throne some twenty years before; the perfidious Lannisters, who back the King but scheme behind his back; and the bitter Targaryens, who were deposed by the Baratheons but hope to return on the strength of an alliance with a barbarian horde.
If Thrones has anything, it is scale and sweep. Three episodes in, just summarizing the plot requires a dissertation, with a cast of characters that promises to swell into the scores (or the thousands, if the books are any guide). That said, much of the emotional weight is planted firmly on the shoulders of Eddard Stark (Sean Bean, from the BBC Sharpe series and a supporting role in Rings movies), a warrior-noble of sturdy virtues who prefers to do his own beheading if it comes to that. Even more remarkable is Peter Dinklage as the Lannisters’ black sheep, the mordant and vertically-challenged Tyrion.
Every Sunday night we get to watch Eddard and Tyrion and the rest move around the chessboard of Martin’s model universe, much like the clockwork miniatures depicted in the show’s opening credits. All in all, the show is visualized, cast, and acted skillfully enough to be thoroughly involving—a high-stakes evening soap at a time when the afternoon variety is all but extinct. After investing the time and energy to take in Martin’s vast tapestry, it’s hard to be anything but “all in” for the whole ten episodes.
It’s politics, politics, politics all the way, and while we Americans profess to loathe the gamesmanship of real government, we can’t get enough if the politicians happen to wear tunics and broadswords. But the lack of magical elements raises further, existential questions. If it’s all just scheming and backstabbing, but no wraiths or trolls, how is this kind of fantasy any different from a show based on, well, actual history, like HBO’s own Rome or Showtime’s The Tudors? Watching the latter the viewer enjoys intrigue that has the bonus virtue of being rooted in approximate fact. Devote yourself to the intricately concocted worlds of George R.R. Martin and you haven’t learned anything factual at all.
True, there is a school of thought that the fantasy genre shouldn’t necessarily be defined by magic, any more than “fantasy baseball” should include the possibility of throwing a 300 mph fastball. In principle, human nature alone should offer twists enough for any epic. If J.R.R. Tolkien had written hobbits and elves out of his trilogy—if Sauron was just a bad-tempered guy with a tower and a telescope—what would have been lost? Arguably, the supernatural is not just there for its exotic flavor, but to refresh the same old power struggles by making them less familiar, more a matter of childish fear and delight.
Game of Thrones trucks in none of that. Indeed, it not only lacks the dragons of medieval myth (at least so far); it drops the tiresome pieties of organized religion too. A world inspired by the mores and institutions of medieval Europe, but without something like Christianity, is a fantasy indeed.
Alas, while Martin’s world is wholly detached from historical facts, it is not free of historical clichés. The Starks are upright and honest, after all, because that’s what we expect about denizens of the frosty North. By any other name, they’re Scottish highlanders—albeit the sanitized ones of Hollywood myth and not the unwashed cattle-rustlers remembered by their lowland neighbors to the south. The Lannisters, on the other hand, dwell in the vaguely Moorish-styled capital of “King’s Landing” and must therefore be, like all Southerners, effete and treacherous. With these and other half-digested generalities, Thrones doesn’t teach history, but does teach the prejudices that sometimes come with superficial knowledge of it. Begging milady’s pardon, but shouldn’t a king’s ransom buy us more than that?
© 2011 Nicholas Nicastro
No comments:
Post a Comment