Game of Thrones: Fiction or Reality?

Since the new season of Game of Thrones is coming out on Sunday, I thought this would make an opportune time to organize and present my reflections of the series. No doubt there are thousands of interpretations of the “true meaning” of Game of Thrones, and I do not claim to know with certainty what George R. R. Martin originally intended. Nonetheless I have a few interesting ideas that I would like to share, and welcome the skepticism that anyone expresses towards them.

In my opinion, the world of Westeros is merely a Middle Ages version of the current world order. Think of it this way. Westeros had only recently risen from a terrible age under the tyranny of Aerys Targaryen. I would submit that this represents the Cold War order where the entire world population lived under the threat of MAD (mutually assured destruction) as opposed to the Mad King. Following the death of Targaryen, a brief age of peace and prosperity arises under the leadership of Robert Beratheon, which I believe represents the American hegemonic world order of the 1990s and early 2000s. However, following the death/murder of Beratheon, there comes a violent struggle for power, which we are observing in the series now. I believe this represents the shift from a more stable American unipolar world towards a multipolar world where numerous countries have a similar amount of power, thereby creating environment ripe for a power struggle.  This is very similar to the period before World War 1 when British power began to decline while Germany and the US began to rival Britain as military/industrial powers.  Thus we have our current world order. Now where do the characters stand?

Kings Landing obviously represents the financial and political power centers of the western world, namely New York and Washington DC. In our 21^st century world, the iron throne is capital, financial power, GDP, and technological and military superiority. America and the EU still have the advantage over the rest of the world in this regard, but the future is not so certain.

The same is true for the Lannisters and Tyrells in Kings Landing. While these two houses have a strong hold on the iron throne, any viewer of the series knows there are several threats to their power, the most obvious being the arrogance of King Joffrey. Joffrey represents nationalism, pride, and the national myth that any one nation or empire is permanent. His leadership contains a unique blend of the stupidity and audacity of the Tea Party and the cruelty and pride of neoconservatives. The rest of the Lannisters are more intelligent and competent in wielding power. While Joffrey represents the extremism of the Tea Party, his grandfather Tywin represents John Bohner. He approaches political power far more conservatively, and prefers a patient and incremental approach to change as opposed to Joffrey who wants to take more drastic measures. Tyrian represents an even more moderate part of the Republican Party since he constantly questions his family’s actions yet remains loyal to them when it counts. I believe this is called a RINO (Republican In Name Only) is contemporary society.

The Tyrells represent the Democratic Party. While they also obtain their power through wealth like the Lannisters, they have a more sympathetic view of the poor, and see a positive public image as an egalitarian leader and champion of the poor as the key to power. I see Margaery Tyrell as a Hillary Clinton figure. She appears popular and sympathetic to the public, but is pragmatic and cold on the inside. Nonetheless, despite their differences, the Lannisters and Tyrells (Republicans and Democrats) are part of the same system of wealth and corruption and in most cases are indistinguishable from each other.  

Then there is the rest of Westeros, the most notable being the Stark family. The Stark family represents the political elements that were once powerful in the 20^th century but have fallen short in the 21^st century Gilded Age, labor unions. Once the champions of the worker and the average man, the power of labor unions has diminished in the post Citizens United era. The problem with both the Starks and labor unions is that they refused to adapt to changing political climates. In a world where cheap labor can easily be found overseas, labor unions are more harm to workers in America than help. The same goes for Ned Stark’s obsession with honesty and honor, which leads to his public execution. Like labor unions, the Starks had a brief period of Occupy Wallstreet in the north but were easily crushed due to their inability to lead and manage an army.

However there are two Starks that seem to be competent. Aria and Brandt are the only two Starks whose stories I quite enjoyed. They may not be apart of some large army, but they do play an important part of the story and they seem to know things that others don’t, particularly Brandt who can break into the minds of animals and see the future. These characters also thrive on being independent and antiestablishment. That’s why I see them as pro internet freedom groups like Anonymous, Wikileaks, and the various Pirate Parties trolling European democracies. In the end, these two Starks may prove far more capable of avenging their father than Rob ever could.

Then there are the brothers without banners who are manipulated by a monotheistic cult dedicated to the Lord of Light.  In my opinion this cult is a reference to an Abrahamic religion, and one with a particular violent following that supports murder and terrorism as a means to achieving political objectives. I need go no further in this comparison and will allow you to draw your own conclusions on which of the Abrahamic religions fit this perspective.

Finally we get to the big threats to the system. Daenerys Targaryen is the most fascinating character to look at from a political perspective. She is charismatic, pragmatic, and most importantly populist. Daenerys arguably has the most loyal army in the entire series since she freed them all from slavery. She has the hordes of the masses of Easteros at her back as she slowly makes her way to Kings Landing, not to mention she has dragons. Daenerys and her army represent the greatest challenge to the Washington Consensus, the developing world. I see the people of Easteros as the impoverished people of the former third world who have become frustrated by the inequality in the distribution of the benefits of free trade between the global north and south. This is reflected in mass protests such as the Arab Spring. Global income inequality is one of the greatest threats to global stability, just as Daenerys’s armies are to Westeros.  Daenerys’s dragons represent the other foreign threat to the power of the west, the rise of China as an economic power. It’s no secret that China’s economy will over take the size of the US economy in the coming years. It doesn’t mean that China will become the new unipolar power, but there is a general fear in the US that this may come to pass. China’s economic power and the demands for a more equitable international system by the peoples of the developing world demonstrate a shift in the world order that could possibly overthrow the Washington Consensus. Daenerys represents a shift in her world order. Her image harkens back to the great 20^th century dictators such as Castro, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao who rose to power by the support of the masses and ruled over them with an iron fist and a unified struggle towards so called “equality” and “freedom.”

In addition to the human threats to the American world order, there are also natural ones. I think the most obvious comparison that can be made between the 21^st century and Westeros is the winter that is hurdling towards both. The one thing that everyone can agree to fear in Westeros is the arrival of zombified White Walkers from beyond the wall. I see this prolonged winter as the threat of Climate Change. The only thing that separates Westeros from utter chaos is The Wall.  I believe that The Wall is an allegory for humanity’s infrastructure: Roads, bridges, tunnels, temperature control, airports internet, satellite cable, hand held devices and any other modern convenience we have in the 21^st century. These things keep us safe from the harsh elements of mother nature (in most cases). The other side of  The Wall represents primitive human life that lived at the mercy of mother nature, and Westeros’s fear of that represents 21^st century civilization’s fear of once again descending into primitive society due to an apocalyptic scenario. Climate Change of course provides many possible apocalyptic scenarios that threaten major urban centers and the integrity of our infrastructure such as rising sea levels, fires, extinction of insects, tornados, tropical weather, and flooding near rivers and lakes. These possible disasters are represented in the coming of winter in Westeros. Such a winter has the potential to change everything in the story line, just as the environmental impacts of climate change have the potential to produce instability world wide in the 21^st century.

Therefore, perhaps Kings Landing is not so different from Washington DC. As politicians bicker about nonsense, the hordes of Easteros and the winter of the north get closer and closer to destroying the entire order of the kingdom. Either the kingdom will rise above the pettiness of nationalist pride, or a new order will bloom out of the ruins of the old. 

Star Wars: Western Bias and Orientalism

Before I begin I’d like to make clear that I’m not accusing George Lucas or Star Wars in general of being racist. In fact, I’m a huge Star Wars fan and I would not have been able to make the following observations if I wasn’t one. However, it is important to point out that Star Wars is not immune from reflecting the biases of the audience it was made for, which is primarily western. All films do this, and it is fascinating, if not important, to reveal these hidden messages about society and civilization. Star Wars happens to be a perfect example of western notions of orientalism. Orientalism refers to the negative stereotypes of eastern civilizations (especially The Middle East) made by western civilization, as well as western civilization’s fascination with the exotic from the 18^th century onward. I believe Star Wars adequately demonstrates both in the depiction of Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine.

It was no accident that George Lucas chose Tunisia as the location to film scenes of the planet Tatooine. Luke had to come from a dark and barbaric land to overcome his unfortunate situation and have greatness thrust upon him in the form of two droids. Tatooine is depicted as a harsh environment with a dry/hot landscape inhabited by undisciplined tribes, crime lords, poor farmers, slaves, cheats, and scoundrels. To quote the late Sir. Alec Guinness “you’ll never find a place with more scum and villainy.” Tatooine is a personification of western civilizations negative view towards the Arab world. It is untrustworthy, backward, cruel, and malicious. Tatooine is a planet located far from the civilized worlds of Naboo and Coruscant . It is ruled by what appears to be a patriarchal villainous autocrat Jabba the Hut, whose character is based off of Sydney Greenstreet’s role in Casablanca. He makes a good replacement for Saddam Hussein, The House of Saud, or Gadhafi.

The first characters we are introduced to on Tatooine are the Jawas who are little clocked people who come out of caves not dissimilar to those we see the Mushahadeen residing in Afghanistan. The Tuscan Raiders are a nomadic people who are violent and barbaric nature, which could easily be seen as a reference to a great many Middle Eastern tribes. In the second set of films we see the young white Anakin and his mother enslaved by a cruel and shrewd businessman who is depicted as untrustworthy and dishonest. The list goes on in on. We as the audience identify with Luke and want him to escape Tatooine because we perceive it to be a backward and hostile world unworthy of his extraordinary attributes as the protagonist. Therefore, a location that appears to be similar to the area of our own planet we refer to as the Middle East serves the purpose perfectly. The important question to ask is why?

Well let’s put Star Wars in historical context. I could talk about western civilization’s relationship to the Middle East from the crusades onwards but that would be a waste of 100 pages. Let’s fast forward to the 20^th Century when America takes the lead as champion of western civilization. Since our support of Israel in 1948, America has had a cantankerous relationship with the Middle East. Following the west’s support of Israel in the wars with Palestine in 1967 and 1973, the Muslim world took a step to punish the west for its insolence. Thus the 1973 oil embargo was implemented by oil producing Arab nations. This was America’s first economic crisis that was intertwined by an energy/resources crisis. It severally changed Americans’ perceptions of the environment, energy, economics, and especially their view of the Middle East.

Furthermore, America’s war in Vietnam was ending, and Asia as a theatre ceased to be important. The late 1970s would witness a great shift from American military involvement in East or Southeast Asia to American military involvement in the Middle East. It is during the peak of this shift that the first Star Wars film is made. Then in 1979, Iran overthrows the American supported Shah and replaces him with the Shiite Islamic Cleric Ayatollah Khomeini and establishes the Islamic Republic of Iran. Following this, Iranians storm of the US embassy and take 52 American citizens hostage. Following their release, the Iranian and US relationship became silent and cold and has remained so to this day. Before the second movie featuring Tatooine was made in 1983, another crisis enveloped in Lebanon when terrorists blew up a facility containing French troops, thereby forcing President Reagan to withdrawal all security personnel from the country. By the time the second trilogy of films was being produced the relationship between the US and the Arab world only became more antagonistic following the Gulf War. Once you put the Star Wars movies into historical context it makes sense why the dusty rock of Tatoonie was depicted to appear Middle Eastern.

Now take Tatooine and contrast it to other worlds. Coruscant is depicted as metropolitan and multi-global like an intergalactic New York. However, those individuals who speak English in the film have European/Anglo American accents. Naboo is ruled by Anglo-Whites, the Death Star is completely British, and a Token Black character commonly placed in 1970s pop culture manages Cloud City. Furthermore, the rebels themselves, while less advanced militarily than the empire, are majority white or have American accidents as opposed the imperial British in the Death Star. This distinction is made to separate American hegemony, which supports the virtues of freedom, independence and self-expression from European hegemony, which seeks to merely dominate, intimidate, plunder and exploit.

One more thing I find interesting about Star Wars from a civilization perspective is the Ewoks. The Ewoks reside on the forest moon of Endoor, which is largely untouched save for the Death Star’s defense shield reactor. The Ewoks are wild, unbridled by the constraints of technological advancement and social progress. They reflect many of the same attributes as the American and Meso-American Indian civilizations. While western civilization certainly had its antagonisms with Native American civilizations, there also existed a sense of fascination and admiration of their way of life.

Western ideas of liberty, equality, and democracy were influenced by the discovery of these new civilizations. Following the discovery of native peoples in the New World, European society was forced to reflect upon its own ideals and expand western philosophy into new realms of science, rationality, economics, religious freedom, and eventually republicanism. A perfect example of this was the Spanish myth of the city of Eldorado in South America, a glittering city made of gold where prosperity was plentiful and harmony permanent.

When Luke and Han come across the Ewoks for the first time, the Ewoks attack them and make them the sacrifice for C3PO (who appears to them to be some sort of deity). This demonstrates both the humor and dangers of their innocence. But soon Luke is able to fool the Ewoks into thinking they will be doomed if they kill him and his companions when he uses his Jedi Powers to lift the flamboyant C3PO off the ground. This demonstrates that while the primitive minds of the Ewoks can easily turn to violence, it can easily be molded into submission. The Ewoks soon become friends with our protagonists and help them bring down the Empire with the use of asymmetrical warfare, very much in the same way the American colonists took down the British Empire.

To conclude I just want to say once again that racial biases are common in any form of creative expression whether in literature (Heart of Darkness), Poetry (The White Man’s Burden), or film. What’s important isn’t to purge these classic pieces of the humanities, but to analyze them and reflect upon what biases we hold ourselves. May the force be with us in our quest to do so, always.