Game of Thrones
Kimberly and I have been watching Game of Thrones, and we both like it, although she likes it more than me. (That has more to do with personality than different tastes. Kimberly, bless her, just has more enthusiasm for life than I do.)
I was told the show was a giant rape-fest, and that (blessedly) turned out to be untrue. Still, I'm not sure I can keep up enthusiasm for a show in which every decent person is murdered and every rotten scumbag triumphs. Yes, I know life isn't always fair, but Game of Thrones manages to make the Middle Ages look even worse than it was. I heard GoT was inspired by the War of the Roses, and I'd guess that Joffrey Baratheon is the stand-in for Richard III. The thing is, Richard was only on the throne for two years, as he got a reputation as a sociopathic back-stabbing bastard and it earned him a lot of bad press. Call me an idealist, but even in the Middle Ages there was a limit to how much torture and beheading you could get away with.
That all being said, Game of Thrones is a fascinating show. It has great characters, and the world of Westeros is an interesting one. One small quibble: Like most fantasy worlds it has a hopelessly exaggerated sense of time-scale. We hear the Night Watch has defended Westeros for 6,000 years; that's longer that recorded history in our own world, the length of time between us and the European Neolithic, and I can't imagine any human institution surviving that long. Tolkien's world had a similar scale, but at least he had immortal Elves interacting with humans, and Westeros has no such influence. It's a small point, and doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of the show, but it stands out for me sometimes.
I was told the show was a giant rape-fest, and that (blessedly) turned out to be untrue. Still, I'm not sure I can keep up enthusiasm for a show in which every decent person is murdered and every rotten scumbag triumphs. Yes, I know life isn't always fair, but Game of Thrones manages to make the Middle Ages look even worse than it was. I heard GoT was inspired by the War of the Roses, and I'd guess that Joffrey Baratheon is the stand-in for Richard III. The thing is, Richard was only on the throne for two years, as he got a reputation as a sociopathic back-stabbing bastard and it earned him a lot of bad press. Call me an idealist, but even in the Middle Ages there was a limit to how much torture and beheading you could get away with.
That all being said, Game of Thrones is a fascinating show. It has great characters, and the world of Westeros is an interesting one. One small quibble: Like most fantasy worlds it has a hopelessly exaggerated sense of time-scale. We hear the Night Watch has defended Westeros for 6,000 years; that's longer that recorded history in our own world, the length of time between us and the European Neolithic, and I can't imagine any human institution surviving that long. Tolkien's world had a similar scale, but at least he had immortal Elves interacting with humans, and Westeros has no such influence. It's a small point, and doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of the show, but it stands out for me sometimes.