I was going to whine about Game of Thrones, but I waxed poetic about realism and escapism instead.
(This post is spoiler free!)
So I don't like Game of Thrones.
I had so many friends who were screaming about it for so long that I figured there must be something to it, and I was finally compelled to start watching when I wanted to know what the hell everyone in the office was blathering about all the time.
The briefest, simplest way to explain my dislike is this: everyone in this universe is either (1) so unlikable that I don't care whether they live or die, or (2) so fucking dumb that I know they're going to do something super-dumb and die at some point, so I don't care1. (If any of the dumbfucks do happen to live, that won't improve matters; I'll just be thinking "okay he's a fine guy but Jesus who the fuck let him hold power what the hell.")
But the root of my discontent lies deeper, I think. When people explain to me why they like the show/books so much, they generally say something like, "It's fantasy, but it's more realistic, you know? It's not hokey or good-versus-evil, and there's not even that much magic," and I get all frownyfaced.
First, just to get this out of the way: the short answer to the "all fantasy is cheesy good-versus-evil except GoT" line is, you were probably reading bad fantasy, in which case I ain't even mad, I just feel bad for you. I heard this a lot from kids in writing workshops in college, because I was the lone fantasist in a sea of litfic-MFA-aspirants, and they'd always give me comments like "I really don't like fantasy normally, but I liked this; the [X] was so great!" I mean, I was flattered, don't get me wrong, and immensely grateful for their feedback-but I also know I'm leagues behind so many magnificent fantasy writers, so the fact that I was one of the only fantasists they liked just told me they'd been reading a lot of dross. The mass-market paperback stuff is trash; I hate it too. Please read these other lovely books that are so much better than anything I could write.
Then, with respect to that whole "it's more realistic" thing-not to get all hyper-boring-postmodernist-relativist-etc over here, but on a certain level, reality is, in fact, a point of view. I say the glass is half-full and you say the glass is half-empty and we're both right. On a basic level we all know this.
So probably what people are actually getting at with the "it's more realistic" thing is, "other stories seem to be mostly escapism, with simple characters and well-defined good versus evil, and Game of Thrones avoid those things."
And sure, I can respect not digging raw escapism. Escapism is gratifying and fun, but it can also feel like it's glossing over real problems and ignoring hard realities and simplifying human experience in unpleasant ways.
Instead of escapism, which is all awesome all the time, Game of Thrones is just all bad all the time. (Yes, yes, there are moments of nobility, but these are never the point.) And while escapism is relentlessly happy to, y'know, present a rose-colored vision of the world, Game of Thrones is trying to show us... this is the thing that's driving me nuts, that's making me think maybe I'm missing something obvious, because at its core it just seems like it's not saying anything. "Life sucks and then you die," I guess? Everyone's fighting for a throne that doesn't even seem worth it. That could be cool, I guess, if Martin were trying to make some meta-point about the futility/pointlessness of power, but I don't think that's what's happening either. It's just... noise. It's things happening. There's no coherent theme tying the events beyond "who betrays who next," and it's befuddling. I guess it's befuddling because even the most rudimentary, poorly-written stories have something at their heart, even if it's just "BE HONEST AND BRAVE" or "FIGHT EVIL" or whatever, and I'm not feeling anything here.
That's not a proper universe to me. Give me Earthsea, whose misty archipelagoes of scattered peoples present new possibilities with every isle-a different way of thought, a different fishing village, a different set of bonds. Give me the Japanese-occupied post-WWII-in-reverse California of Philip K. Dick, which focuses, quite brilliantly, not on resistance fighters or ruthless overlords or on anything that you'd expect-but instead, an antique salesman, a trade missioner, a teacher-ordinary sorts of people. Give me Twain's Mississippi River. ("But that's not fantasy!" Well, no, but I think it uses a lot of the same devices as fantasy-it's certainly not giving us the Mississippi River literally exactly as it was. Twain was distorting the edges of things, adjusting the lighting, highlighting the strangenesses and absurdities of the surrounding culture in elegant ways, the same way Faulkner's crumbling gothic ruins painted the "dying" south. And it's a powerful effect-when you walk by the Mississippi today, you see, quite directly, the physical reality of the river, almost exactly as Twain described it, and you also feel the soul of the place-a far tricker thing to capture.)
None of these universes, or the stories that take place there, are what I would call escapist. And they're not realistic in the GoT sense of the term, but rather, they are realistic in the best sense of the term-using all their fantastic trappings to present themes, moral realities, and struggles that are real and complicated and difficult without resorting to raw suspense/page-turnerism or nihilism.
Take the most magnificent novel of Earthsea, The Farthest Shore. I can tell you The Farthest Shore is about the fear of death, and Arren's coming of age as he grapples with the realities of death all around him, but that feels like such a woefully inadequate way to summarize the point of the book. To understand what The Farthest Shore is trying to say, you have to sit in the boat with the man from Lorbanery, and you have to feel the rhythm of the Long Dance with the raft-people at the edge of the world, and you have to journey with Orm Embar, and wow I am tearing up just typing this as I remember those things. Giving just a mere summary of all that is like-it's like someone asked to see the sun and you drew a yellow circle with lines coming out of it. Inadequate.
Actually, just writing that, I think I stumbled on a side realization without fully realizing it. Novel-writing is just saying a bunch of words to get at something that can't be put into words. Maybe that's a good mark of a story succeeding-when you can say it's about death, or friends growing apart, or grief, or whatever, but it feels righter to say it's about this one scene, and also this other scene, and really you should just go read the book...
* * *
As a kind of side point, suppose you still hold that "realism" must ground itself in bad shit happening-okay, compare that to Oyasumi Punpun. That manga is so relentlessly depressing and so much bad stuff happens that I still haven't finished it; I had to keep putting it down every couple volumes because it was just too heavy. And the fact that I had that reaction to Punpun but not to GoT should speak a lot to the "realism" of GoT. Horrible shit happens in Game of Thrones and you're like "WHAT THE FUCK" and throw your remote and then click to watch the next episode. Horrible shit happens in Oyasumi Punpun and you feel the weight of that shit. (And I think the depressing-ness of Oyasumi Punpun is undoubtably in service of something that reaches beyond mere nihilism.)
* * *
And-going way back to the "things I hear people praise about GoT" thing-when people mention "there's not even that much magic" like it's a good thing, I want to tear my hair out, because why are you even reading fantasy if that's a pro in your book. I mean, I'm not saying more magic makes better fantasy. I'm saying some sort of magic or fantastic element is what distinguishes the genre, and you're kind of wasting the opportunity if your magic/fantastic element is not fundamental to the plot. I mean, replace "dragons" with "nukes" and "white walkers" with, idk, the depletion of fossil fuels or something, and I'm not sure how much would be different. The point's not the fantasy, the point is medieval politicking and backstabbing; you kind of wonder if the guy should've just written loosely historic fiction instead. Which I find kind of ironic considering this is the same dude who has that oft-reblogged "On Fantasy" schpeel.
I just realized that this sounds really vitrolic at this point. I'm sorry. I'm trying to stem the vitriol, really. It's not all bad. I mean, that's part of what's frustrating-the dude clearly has chops, he clearly knows how to leave a bunch of people hanging on at the end of each episode/page for what happens next (I know I'm an outlier in that I don't really care, and I'm possibly defective), and to his credit, his characters really do feel quite realistic and complex a lot of the time. Which is what makes it all the more disappointing that I feel so disconnected and alienated from this world he's made.
* * *
(Relatedly, you could also just go read some satire that says a bunch of this but way more succinctly.)
(There was also some stuff about gratuitousness but this has already taken too long to write so whatever, that'll be another day.)
* * *
1 I will say that I at least enjoyed season three quite a bit more, since the Tyrells are likable and clever and entertaining. And yes, of course I like Tyrion, but that feels a bit like cheating; he's written in such a way that it'd be very hard to dislike him, and he can't carry the show by himself.
So I don't like Game of Thrones.
I had so many friends who were screaming about it for so long that I figured there must be something to it, and I was finally compelled to start watching when I wanted to know what the hell everyone in the office was blathering about all the time.
The briefest, simplest way to explain my dislike is this: everyone in this universe is either (1) so unlikable that I don't care whether they live or die, or (2) so fucking dumb that I know they're going to do something super-dumb and die at some point, so I don't care1. (If any of the dumbfucks do happen to live, that won't improve matters; I'll just be thinking "okay he's a fine guy but Jesus who the fuck let him hold power what the hell.")
But the root of my discontent lies deeper, I think. When people explain to me why they like the show/books so much, they generally say something like, "It's fantasy, but it's more realistic, you know? It's not hokey or good-versus-evil, and there's not even that much magic," and I get all frownyfaced.
First, just to get this out of the way: the short answer to the "all fantasy is cheesy good-versus-evil except GoT" line is, you were probably reading bad fantasy, in which case I ain't even mad, I just feel bad for you. I heard this a lot from kids in writing workshops in college, because I was the lone fantasist in a sea of litfic-MFA-aspirants, and they'd always give me comments like "I really don't like fantasy normally, but I liked this; the [X] was so great!" I mean, I was flattered, don't get me wrong, and immensely grateful for their feedback-but I also know I'm leagues behind so many magnificent fantasy writers, so the fact that I was one of the only fantasists they liked just told me they'd been reading a lot of dross. The mass-market paperback stuff is trash; I hate it too. Please read these other lovely books that are so much better than anything I could write.
Then, with respect to that whole "it's more realistic" thing-not to get all hyper-boring-postmodernist-relativist-etc over here, but on a certain level, reality is, in fact, a point of view. I say the glass is half-full and you say the glass is half-empty and we're both right. On a basic level we all know this.
So probably what people are actually getting at with the "it's more realistic" thing is, "other stories seem to be mostly escapism, with simple characters and well-defined good versus evil, and Game of Thrones avoid those things."
And sure, I can respect not digging raw escapism. Escapism is gratifying and fun, but it can also feel like it's glossing over real problems and ignoring hard realities and simplifying human experience in unpleasant ways.
Instead of escapism, which is all awesome all the time, Game of Thrones is just all bad all the time. (Yes, yes, there are moments of nobility, but these are never the point.) And while escapism is relentlessly happy to, y'know, present a rose-colored vision of the world, Game of Thrones is trying to show us... this is the thing that's driving me nuts, that's making me think maybe I'm missing something obvious, because at its core it just seems like it's not saying anything. "Life sucks and then you die," I guess? Everyone's fighting for a throne that doesn't even seem worth it. That could be cool, I guess, if Martin were trying to make some meta-point about the futility/pointlessness of power, but I don't think that's what's happening either. It's just... noise. It's things happening. There's no coherent theme tying the events beyond "who betrays who next," and it's befuddling. I guess it's befuddling because even the most rudimentary, poorly-written stories have something at their heart, even if it's just "BE HONEST AND BRAVE" or "FIGHT EVIL" or whatever, and I'm not feeling anything here.
That's not a proper universe to me. Give me Earthsea, whose misty archipelagoes of scattered peoples present new possibilities with every isle-a different way of thought, a different fishing village, a different set of bonds. Give me the Japanese-occupied post-WWII-in-reverse California of Philip K. Dick, which focuses, quite brilliantly, not on resistance fighters or ruthless overlords or on anything that you'd expect-but instead, an antique salesman, a trade missioner, a teacher-ordinary sorts of people. Give me Twain's Mississippi River. ("But that's not fantasy!" Well, no, but I think it uses a lot of the same devices as fantasy-it's certainly not giving us the Mississippi River literally exactly as it was. Twain was distorting the edges of things, adjusting the lighting, highlighting the strangenesses and absurdities of the surrounding culture in elegant ways, the same way Faulkner's crumbling gothic ruins painted the "dying" south. And it's a powerful effect-when you walk by the Mississippi today, you see, quite directly, the physical reality of the river, almost exactly as Twain described it, and you also feel the soul of the place-a far tricker thing to capture.)
None of these universes, or the stories that take place there, are what I would call escapist. And they're not realistic in the GoT sense of the term, but rather, they are realistic in the best sense of the term-using all their fantastic trappings to present themes, moral realities, and struggles that are real and complicated and difficult without resorting to raw suspense/page-turnerism or nihilism.
Take the most magnificent novel of Earthsea, The Farthest Shore. I can tell you The Farthest Shore is about the fear of death, and Arren's coming of age as he grapples with the realities of death all around him, but that feels like such a woefully inadequate way to summarize the point of the book. To understand what The Farthest Shore is trying to say, you have to sit in the boat with the man from Lorbanery, and you have to feel the rhythm of the Long Dance with the raft-people at the edge of the world, and you have to journey with Orm Embar, and wow I am tearing up just typing this as I remember those things. Giving just a mere summary of all that is like-it's like someone asked to see the sun and you drew a yellow circle with lines coming out of it. Inadequate.
Actually, just writing that, I think I stumbled on a side realization without fully realizing it. Novel-writing is just saying a bunch of words to get at something that can't be put into words. Maybe that's a good mark of a story succeeding-when you can say it's about death, or friends growing apart, or grief, or whatever, but it feels righter to say it's about this one scene, and also this other scene, and really you should just go read the book...
* * *
As a kind of side point, suppose you still hold that "realism" must ground itself in bad shit happening-okay, compare that to Oyasumi Punpun. That manga is so relentlessly depressing and so much bad stuff happens that I still haven't finished it; I had to keep putting it down every couple volumes because it was just too heavy. And the fact that I had that reaction to Punpun but not to GoT should speak a lot to the "realism" of GoT. Horrible shit happens in Game of Thrones and you're like "WHAT THE FUCK" and throw your remote and then click to watch the next episode. Horrible shit happens in Oyasumi Punpun and you feel the weight of that shit. (And I think the depressing-ness of Oyasumi Punpun is undoubtably in service of something that reaches beyond mere nihilism.)
* * *
And-going way back to the "things I hear people praise about GoT" thing-when people mention "there's not even that much magic" like it's a good thing, I want to tear my hair out, because why are you even reading fantasy if that's a pro in your book. I mean, I'm not saying more magic makes better fantasy. I'm saying some sort of magic or fantastic element is what distinguishes the genre, and you're kind of wasting the opportunity if your magic/fantastic element is not fundamental to the plot. I mean, replace "dragons" with "nukes" and "white walkers" with, idk, the depletion of fossil fuels or something, and I'm not sure how much would be different. The point's not the fantasy, the point is medieval politicking and backstabbing; you kind of wonder if the guy should've just written loosely historic fiction instead. Which I find kind of ironic considering this is the same dude who has that oft-reblogged "On Fantasy" schpeel.
I just realized that this sounds really vitrolic at this point. I'm sorry. I'm trying to stem the vitriol, really. It's not all bad. I mean, that's part of what's frustrating-the dude clearly has chops, he clearly knows how to leave a bunch of people hanging on at the end of each episode/page for what happens next (I know I'm an outlier in that I don't really care, and I'm possibly defective), and to his credit, his characters really do feel quite realistic and complex a lot of the time. Which is what makes it all the more disappointing that I feel so disconnected and alienated from this world he's made.
* * *
(Relatedly, you could also just go read some satire that says a bunch of this but way more succinctly.)
(There was also some stuff about gratuitousness but this has already taken too long to write so whatever, that'll be another day.)
* * *
1 I will say that I at least enjoyed season three quite a bit more, since the Tyrells are likable and clever and entertaining. And yes, of course I like Tyrion, but that feels a bit like cheating; he's written in such a way that it'd be very hard to dislike him, and he can't carry the show by himself.