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Jake

Idle Thumbs 116: Ragnar Calls it Quits

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... Well, setting aside the inside jokes seemingly introduced to this thread with the express intent of making it seem as unappealing to you as possible, I think you actually would dig the Game of Thrones stuff. I haven't seen the show and can't comment on that specifically, but I think dismissing the work on the basis of it being either fantasy or plot-driven is hasty and does a disservice.

 

The fantasy elements are minimal, particularly early on, and largely serve to add spice and drive a few large scale plot points that only start to gain relevance a few books in. Most of the events are based around the intricacies of feudal plotting and warfare, all of which is driven by characters which, though larger than life, are still compelling and relatable, if also at times contemptible or strange. There's a reason why CK2 is the game that people modded for Game of Thrones, since the action that drives the events in that game is, at its core, extremely similar to the action which does so in GoT.

 

Basically, it's kind of like The Wire, except instead of psychopathic drug dealers there's psychopathic feudal lords and ladies. I won't lie, there is the occasional dragon, but the story is more about people reacting to the big surprise that dragons are still a thing and less about omg dragons are awesome.

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Also Game of Thrones will teach you not to become attached to any characters ever.

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... Well, setting aside the inside jokes seemingly introduced to this thread with the express intent of making it seem as unappealing to you as possible, I think you actually would dig the Game of Thrones stuff. I haven't seen the show and can't comment on that specifically, but I think dismissing the work on the basis of it being either fantasy or plot-driven is hasty and does a disservice.

 

The fantasy elements are minimal, particularly early on, and largely serve to add spice and drive a few large scale plot points that only start to gain relevance a few books in. Most of the events are based around the intricacies of feudal plotting and warfare, all of which is driven by characters which, though larger than life, are still compelling and relatable, if also at times contemptible or strange. There's a reason why CK2 is the game that people modded for Game of Thrones, since the action that drives the events in that game is, at its core, extremely similar to the action which does so in GoT.

 

Basically, it's kind of like The Wire, except instead of psychopathic drug dealers there's psychopathic feudal lords and ladies. I won't lie, there is the occasional dragon, but the story is more about people reacting to the big surprise that dragons are still a thing and less about omg dragons are awesome.

 

Yeah, I agree with all of this. If you find the narratives in Crusader Kings II interesting at all, there's no reason you shouldn't at least try and read the first book, A Game of Thrones. The principal reason the genre trappings exist is just because Martin didn't want to have to be confined by the actual historical events in the War of the Roses.

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I'm sure I would find plenty of stuff to like but it just doesn't sound very appealing to me. I'm not super attracted to genre/"gritty" stuff in the first place (I read a lot of it when I was younger and I just feel like I got more than my fill at the time), and the main reason I like all the crazy twists and turns in CK2 is because it's coming out of a game system. I feel like my brain processes fiction sort of differently than it processes game content (just as it also interprets music differently, and film, etc., even if there are plenty of artistic commonalities as well).

At this point for me fiction feels like a respite from a lot of the things that, thanks to games, I'm pretty oversaturated with—stories told as incredibly long multi-volume series, genre tropes, self-consciously gritty worlds/scenarios, emphasis on twisty plots, heavy amounts of invented lore, etc. You can of course produce great work with ALL of those things, but at this point for me they are not really what I generally seek out in literature. (Over the last few years, cable TV has also been burning me out on dark antihero stuff too, it's really doing that angle to death these days.)

There are also some genre tropes I love, which will not be surprising to podcast listeners, including things like 60s-80s-era NASA-inspired space stuff, 70s-era cinema (and if you want to drill down into more specific tropes there, I have a soft spot for 70s-era political thriller stuff), and various other things.

I mean I find most historical fiction pretty tacky as well; there's a sense of affectation that comes off as very cheesy and artificial to me (Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall was a mindblowing exception to this), which is how I feel when I see fantasy stuff. I feel like it's totally fine in something like CK2 because it's really pulled-out and abstracted. If I had to watch a bunch of cutscenes of all this shit happening I can't help but assume it would be unbearable. But when I look at Game of Thrones trailers or hear people describing it, it just turns me off instantly. I don't really know how to describe why in more detail without sounding like a butt, which I know sucks. Even if it's not super-heavy D&D-style fantasy, it still looks pretty unappealing to me.

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Chris you sound like a butt.

 

:fart:

 

OH GOD why do all my dumb posts always start a new page.

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I also haven't read/watched any GoT stuff, even though I enjoy CK2 & the GoT board game. For me, the sort of literature, movies, and and tv shows I most appreciate are the ones where I feel like it removes me from the culture I exist in, and puts me into some other kind of experience. For something as popular as GoT where there are these constant conversations that I see on my facebook page, twitter, etc. it just has turned into this cultural zeitgeist thing that is sort of at odds with what it is that I like about consuming books.

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Well, fair enough. If your first impression is that strongly negative, it's not likely that it could do a enough to win you over in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not sure if the values you're talking about are an entirely fair characterization of this particular series, but I certainly feel some degree of empathy with uh your general outlook on fiction.

 

Eh, I guess all I'd say is try to keep an open mind about it. Someday in the future you may be surprised to find out you dig it, or unsurprised to find out you don't. Whatever. It's not my job to make you like things.

:stan:

(I like this smiley. I like these forums for having this smiley.)

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I think enough gamers/geeks are into fantasy and SF that we just kinda assume all of us are. It's fine not to be. I'd agree that Game of Thrones is relatively low fantasy, but it's definitely in the genre, and I'm not sure it's one of those works (like, imho, Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box, which I even got my mom to enjoy and she hates horror) that hits something that transcends the genre to appeal to a much wider audience. (But maybe it is, I dunno.) 

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It's sort of weird what The Home Box Office Channel has done culturally to the nerd bastion of intensely desperate fantasy-feudal deep political intrigue.

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Is watching Game of Thrones like watching a long chain-reaction in Bejewelled, Peggle, or Every Extend Extra? Lots of set-up and then shit hitting fans that trigger levers that cause train-wrecks? That's the impression I get from all the periphery-talk.

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Basically, it's kind of like The Wire, except instead of psychopathic drug dealers there's psychopathic feudal lords and ladies. I won't lie, there is the occasional dragon, but the story is more about people reacting to the big surprise that dragons are still a thing and less about omg dragons are awesome.

 

But what makes the Wire so good is that it is about issues that are actually important to us today: policing, surveillance, corruption, the war on drugs, failure of education, and so on. The Wire is entertaining as a crime drama, but I think what makes it so good is that it actually has something important to say about North American culture and institutions. I'm not sure there's anything comparable in AGoT: it's basically an entertaining yarn with not much to say about anything. 

 

I don't know, I really disliked the AGoT books so I haven't seen the TV show. I feel like many or most fantasy series are just kind of escapism, which is fine at times, but not something I really want to spend hours of my life watching. 

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But what makes the Wire so good is that it is about issues that are actually important to us today: policing, surveillance, corruption, the war on drugs, failure of education, and so on. The Wire is entertaining as a crime drama, but I think what makes it so good is that it actually has something important to say about North American culture and institutions. I'm not sure there's anything comparable in AGoT: it's basically an entertaining yarn with not much to say about anything. 

 

I don't know, I really disliked the AGoT books so I haven't seen the TV show. I feel like many or most fantasy series are just kind of escapism, which is fine at times, but not something I really want to spend hours of my life watching. 

 

Are you arguing that a work of fiction can only have value if it's directly related to the real world? Because that's a pretty narrow view.

I'd argue that the Song of Ice and Fire books at times have important things to say about the nature of complex political conflicts and the struggles of ruling. Of course, at times they are simply escapism. But the fact that they are escapism has little to do with the fact that they don't take place in our world: romance novels, mystery novels, cop dramas - they all take place within our world but are still escapist in nature.

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No, I definitely think genre fiction, including sci-fi and fantasy, can have important things to say and have a lot of value. I just don't think AGoT in particular has much to say. And I don't think there's anything wrong with escapism, I'm just not personally not that interested in spending hours and hours of time with an escapist epic fantasy series. By contrast, the Wire succeeds both as an entertaining story and as an exploration of the themes and issues I mentioned above (policing, surveillance, corruption, the war on drugs, failure of education, and so on).

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It was explained to me in another thread that "escapism" is not an inherent aspect of the work of art, but instead a particular use of it. It seems that the two of you have a different view.

What makes a romance-novel or Game of Thrones more escapist than ... I don't know... whatever is not escapist in nature.

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I don't know about how other people use the term, but for me escapist media is something that I enjoy as I consume it, but that does not challenge me or teach me anything lasting. 

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As a kid, I had pretty low standards for video games because I hadn't played many. Chex Quest was my only pre-HL1 FPS, and I played TFC at 1-5 FPS for years before I got a faster computer. (Thank goodness for the Engineer class.) My only Star Wars games were Rebellion and X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, both considered the duds of the era, but I played the hell out of both.

This is a long way of saying that despite those blinders and incredibly low standards, even I recognized the main screen music loop and R2D2 sounds as incredibly fucking annoying. Wtf devs

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I think if you like Wolf Hall you're not unlikely to enjoy GoT. Huge cast of characters, lots of medieval intrigue... eh.

Martin's not even remotely as subtle as Mantell of course.

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