‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 perverts its own anti-war narrative
From ‘Nazi chic’ to the ‘heroic’ — Season 8 has made a mockery of the show’s core themes
A Game of Woes
George R. R. Martin has never made a secret of his opinions on war. Though not a complete pacifist, having reasoned that the Second World War was worth the fight, Martin was excluded from the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector. It’s interesting that he mentions the Nazis specifically in the Rolling Stones interview linked above (which I strongly recommend reading) given that part of my own objections to the aesthetics of the series finale relate to Nazi chic, but the main part I wish to draw attention to is the following quotation:
World War I is much more typical of the wars of history than World War II — the kind of war you look back afterward and say, “What the hell were we fighting for? Why did all these millions of people have to die?”
In his stories, likewise, Martin has often discussed the nature of war and how delicately it must be considered. Like Tolkien before him, he has dismissed speculations that his books might be read as allegories for specific wars — but by his own admission, his writings on the subject are nonetheless influenced by his experience of war of our time. In other words, we might read the story of Game of Thrones as a more general allegory for the futility of conflict. Consider, for example, how the War of the Five Kings accomplished virtually nothing besides the deaths of each of the eponymous kings — Joffrey Baratheon, Stannis Baratheon, Robb Stark, Renly Baratheon and Balon Greyjoy. In a war where five powerful men and boys squabble, not a single one of them wins.
I don’t want to linger on the books or Martin for too long — after all, I’m far more interested in the consistency of the show than its allegiance to the source material. However, there is one extract I do think is essential, an extract about the dangers of glorifying war through entertainment such as songs and stories and, dare I say it, television:
“They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.
Then they get a taste of battle.”
— Septon Meribald (A Feast for Crows — Brienne V)
Nazi chic
The obsession with Nazis as the embodiment of evil in popular media doesn’t end at stories of the Second World War and concentration camps — frankly senseless allusions to Nazi iconography have pervaded their way into popular culture, from Star Wars to Captain America and, now, Game of Thrones.
Sex, profanity, violence, corruption. The more people are exposed to controversy, the less shocking that controversy becomes. Sometimes this can be positive, as stigmata surrounding LGBT+ issues, as an example, become gradually eroded as we become more tolerant of people’s life choices. But perhaps there are some things we should never become acclimatised to — fascism, perhaps.
For example, I never really took much note of the intentional similarities between the original Stormtroopers and the Nazis, because I knew about Star Wars long before I knew about the Second World War. Undoubtedly, kids of 2015 will grow up and see videos of Nazi rallies in history classes and see nothing they hadn’t already been exposed to in The Force Awakens.
To clarify, I don’t have an inherent problem with a depiction of — or allusion to — Nazis or Nazi aesthetics in media. I don’t begrudge films like Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds which actively seek to make a mockery of Adolf Hitler (and, likewise, revisionism and propaganda) and I likewise welcome those which use ‘Nazi chic’ to explore uncomfortable darknesses within the human psyche, such as The Night Porter. (Although I’m certainly not hailing the film as an absolute success, I also disagree with polemics such as that of Roger Ebert which regard it in more or less the same light as I regard the latest season of Game of Thrones.) As for renowned classics such as The Pianist and Schindler’s List, they are as venerable as the invincible human beauty depicted in their narratives.
The problem isn’t that we allude to the Nazis so much; it’s that a lot of media that chooses to do so isn’t mature enough to handle it. A good starting point to determine whether your film, book, puppet show, etc. meets the absolute minimum criteria of self-aware maturity is this: if you haven’t thought about why you are alluding to Nazi aesthetics beyond the simplest possible explanation (“My character is evil and therefore resembles Adolf Hitler”) you almost certainly should look for a more creative way to illustrate your point. I’m on the fence about whether The Night Porter was a strong enough attempt to handle its atomic subject matter — but it is as clear as day to me that the Game of Thrones finale isn’t.
The problem isn’t that we allude to the Nazis so much; it’s that a lot of media that chooses to do so isn’t mature enough to handle it.
Emilia Clarke has talked about how she watched videos of dictators’ speeches in order to prepare for her performance in the finale, but I don’t think this qualifies as Nazi chic. She isn’t doing a Hitler impression. In context, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an actor to use such methods for the explicit purpose of creating a realistic portrayal of a character speaking a foreign language, rather than attempting to mimic Hitler generally as the embodiment of evil.
Where I do think the show went wrong was in the clear visual allusions, from the set design to the costuming. There is no deeper meaning behind the allusions to Nazis in the Targaryen flag atop the podium or Daenerys’s militaresque black leather: the showrunners simply wanted their audience to understand that Daenerys is chronically evil, deluded by her arrogance in holding the secret to “breaking the wheel,” (Übermensch hijacking, anyone?) and thus did the showrunners opt for the absolute easiest way to achieve these aims.
What is also frustrating is that Daenerys’ intrinsic madness is fundamentally incompatible with the reality of National Socialism. Hitler wasn’t “mad.” He was certainly deluded in many ways, his hatred fuelled by his own shortcomings, but he retained as firm a grasp over his beliefs and actions as anyone. He attempted the annihilation of a race of people, as well as homosexuals, the disabled, and political dissenters such as Communists, all for the benefit of his believed Übermensch and because he blamed his problems on innocents — and he knew the horror he was inflicting on those people. Daenerys’s justification for slaughtering thousands of innocents for the sake of “liberating” future generations is equally appalling — yet the show seems to find it acceptable to make these direct aesthetic comparisons in one breath, and then romanticise her death in another.
Her characterisation in the finale reminds me of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War — senselessly “mad” with no grasp on reality whatsoever for the sake of pure drama. It is not only untrue to Jon Snow’s character to permit him to pander to Daenerys for an entire episode in spite of her war crimes (and then to romanticise her death with the cliché deadly hug), but it is arguably dangerous. At the very least it is pointless and unimaginative, which are qualities nonetheless worthy of criticism.
Don’t be tempted to believe I’m being too critical. Producing a hit TV show is a job as much as any other — as such, it comes with its own responsibilities that extend beyond turning a profit. Anyone else caught acting against best practises in their 9-to-5 would expect, at the very least, to be given a stern talking to, which is more than I could realistically expect this article to achieve. I’m not calling for them to be fired. I’m just stating that I think their product is crass and uninspiring.
Tragedy and Comedy: The Heroic Epic
Unfortunately, the aesthetic sins of Season 8 don’t end at Nazi chic. The finale echoed the unfortunate “epic” moments of Episode 3, all of which would have been great in almost any other contexts, but are particularly jarring against old-school Game of Thrones. Remember how the show used to depict violence and, in particular, war as utterly senseless? Remember when a cinematic duel between Ned and Jaime was interrupted by a rogue soldier with a spear in ‘The Wolf and the Lion,’ which forced Ned to walk with a cane for the rest of his short life? Remember when Oberyn Martell’s arrogance and insistence on hearing Gregore Clegane confess cost him his life in ‘The Mountain and the Viper’? Remember when all your favourite characters were brutally stabbed to death in ‘The Rains of Castamere’ because Robb Stark broke a diplomatic promise?
These scenes were not just entertainment for the sheer and senseless sake of it — they were pure revulsion, inspiring an anti-war message that survives in the overwhelming sense of loss when your favourite character dies in the least poetic way possible. They showed how virtuous, likeable people and families were annihilated in the name of war. Ellaria Sand didn’t leap out of the shadows grandiosely when Oberyn was in danger to bring righteous Judgment upon the Mountain. Robb didn’t slip a dagger between Walder Frey’s ribs under a kiss when the band started playing the Rains of Castamere.
And yet, what do we have in Season 8? A show where all of these things are allowed to happen on screen to grand applause. A show where good characters don’t just win, but they become romantic heroes, the kind Martin explicitly intended to avoid. Again, even if we sit in the camp which dismisses Martin’s intentions as irrelevant, these heroic moments are incongruous with the themes that made the show what it is.
The icing on the cake comes at Sam’s suggestion of total democracy at the council of Lords which meets to discuss the future of rule in Westeros. Sam suggests that — since it is not only Lords and Ladies who suffer the rule of kings, but the common people — the common people should likewise receive a vote on their next king.
The scene is a frustrating near miss because the inevitable dismissal of his idea presents an opportunity to linger on the notion that in war, nothing changes for the common folk — in other words, to appeal to the same themes of the earlier episodes — but suddenly, it’s turned into a great big joke, which seems to throw the whole idea out the window:
Everyone laughs. The audience is expected to laugh too, but not for the same reasons as the characters. If we laugh, it is because we — that is, those of us who are citizens of Western democracies — find amusement in the insinuation that once upon a time, our enlightened ideas of rule were considered ludicrous. Never mind that our democracy can only exist because of modern technology and infrastructure, and never mind that even then it is hanging on by a thread, and never mind that it was democracy that voted in the National Socialists— it is apparently very comical to think that once upon a time the uncivilised barbarians of yore were incapable of wrapping their monkey brains around our modern ideas of equality, freedom, and democracy.
For a moment, the characters are little more than puppets, dancing to a tune of enlightened, Western-democratic intellectual superiority. If there is one thing the West values above all else (or, at least, claims to value) it is democracy. The dismissal of Sam’s suggestion tries to establish a boundary between us, the real people, and them, the fictional people. But the characters of the early seasons of Game of Thrones were never meant to be puppets or caricatures— they were meant to be mirrors, opening up a gaping abyss into a problematic humanity and demanding we look in.
