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New Not sure what we are 'missing'--Salon's take:
http://www.salon.com...wing_fantasyland/
('Course I'm missing it because: HBO+Comcast ... and a certain amount of iggerant pre-judgment too.) Iggerant but maybe spot-on(?)


“Game of Thrones”: How Westeros is a right-wing fantasyland
Want to live in Westeros, where there are weapons, massive inequality and violence against women? Just vote GOP

AARON KASE

Fans of the HBO hit “Game of Thrones” can finally escape back to George R.R. Martin’s world of dragons, swordplay and gratuitous nudity when the show’s fourth season kicks off on Sunday. However, the epic tales of war and betrayal are not as big a fantasy as they might appear at first glance. American viewers who want to live in a land just like Westeros have an easy option at their disposal: Just vote Republican. The violent, highly sexualized TV world has a number of disturbing parallels to where GOP policy is steering the country:

Enormous class inequities: ”Game of Thrones” follows the stories of lords and knights, but most of the population lives in anonymous poverty, like the wretched masses struggling to survive in the Flea Bottom slum subsisting on “bowls o’ brown.” The elite live in opulent luxury, earned through the toil of the working people, most of whom have no hope of escaping their fetid lot.

[. . .]

Weapons everywhere: Talk about standing your ground. In war-torn Westeros everybody’s armed, and travelers need to be prepared for a fight at all times. Just about every chance encounter on the road results in a swordfight, someone being captured under threat of violence, or both. Blacksmiths must be making a fortune. It’s like the NRA’s fantasy world.

[. . .]

Lawful succession ignored: ...
Existential threats ignored too: ...
Pervasive rape and violence against women: ...
Gays are demonized: ...
Chaos is a ladder: Lord Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish sums up the show’s philosophy nicely with his “chaos is a ladder” speech, pointing out that the ambitious can use confusion and destruction to their advantage to seize power. “Only the ladder is real,” Littlefinger tells Lord Varys. “The climb is all there is.”




So then: What's the appeal of watching a carbon-copy of Current Events? Ya call this Re-creation?
I try to evade (most-of) the Original already; Murica has become a 98.66% Joyless-place for millions of its inmates.
W.T.F. would someone want to watch 'it' as a Costume show, elsewhere??

Guess we're both Missing-out. (I knew you to be a person of impeccable taste.)
OK.. maybe/finally I can start on Boltzmann's Atom ... at least it's in pursuit of truthiness about the Mystery that Matter doesn't matter: ALL there IS ... is 'Energy'.
Just like In The Beginning! (--interruption of Nothing-ness?)
(Which we also don't grok to anything like Fullness); as RPF observed, ~People think they understand a thing because it has a Name..

Over and out.
New People have different tastes, obviously.
I'm sure the nudity is part of the appeal. That's part of what gave "I, Claudius" its buzz, back in the day.

J is a big fan of "SVU" and various crime dramas like that - it's an escape for her. I've gotten sick of them because they're so formulaic and manipulative. I don't like gratuitous fictionalized violence. The creepy music, the blood, the simulated violence - I don't enjoy it at all. I don't need to see it on TV to know it exists, and I don't take a lesson from it. She finally gave up on "The Mentalist" because she couldn't take the stupidity any longer ("Why are they driving from Austin to Mexico all the time like it's just across town - the border is 4 hours away!!") ...

I don't much care for sports on TV either. I'll watch the Red Sox with J, but I don't get worked up about it. I'm getting good practice for my Curmudgeon merit badge. ;-)

Give me a comedy with a bit of intelligence and the unexpected behind the laughs and I'll be happy. That's my kind of escapism.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Then we both miss:
(In addition to Python--as goes-without-saying)
Laugh-In and Smothers Brothers (one of whom lives around here.)
Both quashed at their peak, by ... the usual meeja rationale, apparently unchanged much, in 2014.

(I have Tee Vee now only because: it's a part of the cheapest-bundle in which I can get Net-BW >3 M-BITS!/sec, in my bucolic locale.
This is spelled, of course, m o n o p o l y.

As a card-carrying owner of The Portable Curmudgeon I can attest that membership does tend to free one from any tendency/pressures to settle-for satisfiction
(however slickly packaged.)
As the two shrinks passed on the street--one opined, You're fine ... how am I?
Maybe this is just civilized--Stand Your Ground?!

;^>

New Yes, uncomfortable parallels over there. But as for his thesis itself...
...sure, that's true, obviously.

Equally true of anything in the fantasy genre, though, since they're all (more or less loosely) based on (usually European) mediaeval or Rennaissance times.

So, Captain Obvious Award With Diamonds And Oak Leaves for mr. Kase.
--
Christian R. Conrad
Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi

(Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)
New mediaeval?
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New Wha was that sound which the immortal-Opus used to limn,
with his tongue sticking out??

;^>
[Recall: you surrendered your © ™ on that..]
     Game of Thrones - (crazy) - (19)
         Er, yeah. - (static) - (1)
             when Stephen King crashed and burned - (crazy)
         GRRM needs an editor - (gcareaga) - (12)
             Resurrected? -NT - (crazy)
             You mean an editor he will listen to. -NT - (static)
             I think I'm going into-my-mind re. This-one (too.) - (Ashton) - (7)
                 I've never read him. (Haven't watched the show either.) -NT - (Another Scott) - (6)
                     Not sure what we are 'missing'--Salon's take: - (Ashton) - (5)
                         People have different tastes, obviously. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                             Then we both miss: - (Ashton)
                         Yes, uncomfortable parallels over there. But as for his thesis itself... - (CRConrad) - (2)
                             mediaeval? -NT - (mmoffitt)
                             Wha was that sound which the immortal-Opus used to limn, - (Ashton)
             He does, and so does S. M. Stirling - (malraux)
             feels like the result of an autocorrecting editor - (crazy)
         Kathleen Geier is a fan. - (Another Scott) - (3)
             Nicely put -NT - (crazy)
             Thanks.. an incisive overview of this phenom. - (Ashton) - (1)
                 Winter is coming -NT - (gcareaga)

I'm picturing tablizer on a laptop dragging around a 486 whitebox running Linux attached to a really long extension cord.
49 ms