Game of Thrones

Over the past two months, I've watched the first season of "Game of Thrones" on DVD and found it interesting to compare to the source material to which it is largely faithful. Some background: I read the five books that have thus far been written in this saga over this past summer at the suggestion of a woman upon whom I had certain designs. She said they were about "zombies and incest" and I thought that could be good, and I wanted to have something to talk about with her. So I picked up "Game of Thrones" at the bookstore with a certain skepticism upon seeing its cover.

I quickly realized that "Game of Thrones" was actually some kind of Renaissance Fair bullshit that I never would have read on my own. The prose itself is of the fantasy variety that I have difficulty imbibing without triggering a gag reflex. Nonetheless, I couldn't stop reading. Once I got a couple hundred pages in, I told myself I was going to finish the book, but I wasn't going to bother with the others. But then I bought the second one. Of course, by the end of the third one, which is the best of the lot, I was committed to finishing the series. Only to discover that the series hadn't been finished yet.

Despite this avid reading, I nonetheless thought the books were kind of terrible. My main complaints were of course the terrible fantasy prose, but also Martin's creepy sexual fantasies littering the pages. Also, basically, all the Bran chapters are probably what its like to read the Harry Potter books about 12 year old boys doing magic and shit. Basically a huge component of these books just doesn't interest me. Nonetheless, Martin has a talent for plot and the political intrigues especially are quite engaging.

In the end, I decided to watch the television show with some trepidation and rather low expectations. But the television show, it turns out, is really really great. All of Martin's flaws as a writer are gone, leaving only the things that he is good at: plot, intrigue, dialogue, like-able characters. The show is nothing short of awesome.

But let me also give Martin some credit. In hindsight, part of what I didn't enjoy about "Game of Thrones" when I read it had to do with my own assumptions. I assumed that Ned Stark was going to bring justice to the realm or whatever, and later at least that the arc of the story was about justice for the Starks. And so I read with the idea of basically waiting for the vindication of the good guys. And Stark seemed like a like-able enough character that I wanted to read to see this happen. But I expected a sort of typical fantasy story line.

In hindsight, Martin was totally upending my shit and I respect him for it. Ned Stark is actually kind of a boring asshole, and the Lannister's are great villains. We're not going to watch the Lannister's be brought to justice so much as we're going to wallow in their vanity and charismatic cruelty. Also, hats off to Martin for taking the evil ugly dwarf character and making him sympathetic. It's a similarly great move when you think about it.

Watching the show brought a lot of this home for me. While the books aren't really better than I thought they were, Martin is doing something more interesting than I thought he was. At least for the first three books anyway. Nonetheless, the show is a lot better. One of the ways that this is apparent is in the handling of the sex scenes. There are those who think HBO's tittiness is overkill. I disagree. In the books, the sex scenes are all basically creepy and off-putting, their luridness undone by Martin's flaws as a writer barely able to conceal his own erection. On the television show, these scenes are shot by talented film-makers. This makes all the difference.

It's not merely a difference between visual stimuli and the written word as a theoretical matter either. Henry Miller was talented at writing about fucking. And the sex scenes in the original Swedish (never saw the American remake) "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" film were off-putting in a similarly sophomorically lurid way. The rape scene in that, for example, was all about creepy boners, and the revenge scene doesn't justify those creepy boners, especially when the revenge scene itself is all about establishing Lisbeth Salander as a vehicle for fan-boy boners.

Which can bring us to Daenerys Targaryen and the difference between her rape on her wedding night to Khal Drogo in the HBO version and the reluctant seduction as depicted by Martin. I prefer the HBO depiction. It seems more honest to me. I've read commentary, that is convincing enough, that Martin's approach is more interesting and is more effective at illuminating Daenerys's (and it's a shame that no human being could look like the silver haired anime style cartoon character that I had imagined she looked like) character. But I feel more politically comfortable with what HBO chose to do with that wedding night scene. I think writing about the gentle and moist seduction of a just purchased child slave bride is... icky. Depicting it as the rape of a frightened child seems more True to me. But you can't win for losing George. Martin writing that as a rape probably would have grossed me out too.

All in all, I think Martin shouldn't even bother writing more books. I think he should just give HBO an outline for the rest of the saga, if he even need to be involved at all at this point, and let HBO sex it up as they see fit. It'd be better this way.

By the way, Joffrey's petulant, entitled whininess is so much more fun to watch on television than it was to read.