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I'm kind of Clarington and I'm talking today about of friends, and

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I can't remember what went on the left to whether it was the title from last year.

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This time, I don't think. But last year and indeed in previous years,

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I go for the lecture series on Game of Thrones mediaevalism,

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but partly because I need a new material for

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some things I have coming up. I'm partly because I've been working on a new book about Game of Thrones.

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I decided to change things up this time. And so this

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lecture is about the TV show and it's not really about the books at all.

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And I'll explain why that's the case as we go along. However, if you turns up in the hopes of hearing all

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about Game of Thrones, some of by some far mediaevalism, you can find a version

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of that lecture on YouTube if you search on me, plus the usual

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kinds of pie and this published version of it as well. But it's in a rather

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few two volumes coming out of the University of Crack-Up in Poland,

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which was desperate to see a copy of it. Let me know and I can send you a PBS.

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But what I want to do today and want to do is I'm doing in my new book,

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which will be heavily advertised in the final slice, is to talk about the show.

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Now we have an entire story arc for the TV show.

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We have a beginning and we have a middle and we have an end of some kind.

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We are in the position to be able to talk about what the show was aiming to do in some kinds

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of distinctions. What the book may or may not be aiming to do. As

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we understand it, George R.R. Martin says that his characters will end

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up him more or less the same place as the characters do in the show.

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But several of them may be very different, presumably much longer, a more winding.

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So, first of all, I want to talk a bit about the first part of

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my title. Why Game of Thrones masses? Originally,

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this title was going to be Game of Thrones Mass. But then I realised that was a bit of a hostage to fortune.

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So I changed it to why game of massive. Because as you can

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know that see, if you talk to people who are not in the least bit interested in either the show or

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the books. In some ways it's very easy to

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dismiss great Game of Thrones as being a show that in

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McShane said it's only [INAUDIBLE] and dragons. Now, in MacShane,

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looking back very safely in his in his brief character parents,

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his brother Ray was responding to the fact that the fan community came down on him

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like a ton of bricks because he'd managed to give away a fairly significant spoiler,

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a possible one. Sluggy, today is yes, there are a lot of takes, novels of dragons,

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but there are many, many other things in Game of Thrones itself. But we still have to

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address that particular formulation. One of

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the terms which media critics use about game of friends

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and indeed about other shows is the broadcast on HBO is that they will partake

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in the HBO effect. What is the HBO effect?

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Well, in essence, it's being able to show much more sexual content,

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much more violence, much more disturbing material than you can show on

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terrestrial TV in the U.S. Now, in comparison

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to the kinds of things you can see off of the watershed on UK TV, it's not,

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I think, so disturbing. But HBO is very much so themselves as

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a cable company for which obviously you have to pay a subscription on

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showing you things you couldn't see anywhere else. And this idea of spectacle turns out to be quite

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important to the show. Another important term for which

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comes up in critical discussion of Game of Thrones is sex position coined

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by the journalist Miles. But not. I'm talking about that rather infamous scene in

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Season one, Episode seven, where a piece of Baelish is tutoring roles

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and her friends All Mekka puts you in a convincing lesbian sex

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show full of because of his birdsell. And so it's Rowson. All my Kerl

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fooling around in the foreground. Keeping the audience

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or at least part of the audience interest. This balish is giving us a long piece

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of exposition, explaining what his role is in all of this was his backstories

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and so on. And the show's assumption is we're not going to listen to that unless we got something.

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And we of course, is a highly masculinised audience, unless you something to watch in the

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foreground. So, yes, it is mostly in some

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ways about [INAUDIBLE] and dragons. But we also have to take into account what

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the first part of this talk will be about the fact that it is a huge media franchise

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and perhaps in some ways, maybe with the exception of Lord of the Rings,

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the Lord of the Rings, Trump's media activities are very much limited by the Tolkien

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estate. HBO doesn't have the same kind of limitations. And

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so as well as the books going on on the right track and the show.

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We also have video games. We also have merchandise. And here you can see

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a range of games since whisky's, which I, I snapped when I was passing through Heathrow

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last year. Interestingly, the tall guy in with his Spanish. So what that tells us

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this is, I think even before the finals of the final season.

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So I can't say football all. She went up in flames or anything like that. But their

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game since whisky's there again, two T-shirts. Game of Thrones models,

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you name it. You can buy it. Branded in Game of Thrones style. There's endless Game

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of Thrones. We keep that all get a sense fansites.

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One which I for a lot. Winter is coming is quite an interest. It was a great fight.

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While the show is still running now, they've really run out of stuff, obviously. So

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they spent a lot of time giving us good news about the actors, all speculating

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about other shows some of the actors might be in or just other stuff. They think that

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that target audience might like their comic con

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and we might all do this. George Martin spent less time showing up at comic combs

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and more time writing the books. Then maybe he was a finished fine now, but it is

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not as to question his decision. Of course, YouTube channels

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and you can add your own examples of how the Game of Thrones effect

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is to be found. Widely being commodified because

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this is, after all, a capitalist production in late capitalism. How

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Game of Thrones is being tooled up to make money. And so here's some

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figures, which I think are quite interesting. We all know some three episodes, 566

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characters. It ran for sixty nine hours and six minutes. So when people

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say to me, wow, it sounds really interesting, I think I'll stop watching. I'd always say 70

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hours. And anyone who's on the force, he goes, Yeah, no problem.

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Anyone who says before he goes, I haven't got enough life left to do that. Total

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share of budget. One point five billion dollars. Hang on to that figure.

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And the cost per view overall average, thirty point ninety five point nine

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dollars. And the total money made through subscriptions. And those who get that doesn't count

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the advertising revenues. Three point one billion dollars. You could double your money just on

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the subscriptions for what you paid on the budget. This is the world's most expensive

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TV show ever. So just a quick round up here. Season

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one, you could see there wasn't such a huge audience. By the time we get the latest seasons,

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the audience is really built and built. But of course, the figures are a little depressing, season

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seven and season eight because they're shorter. You can see in terms of overall earning,

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season six was the big one. And that's why it stands out here as

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the one which costs that weight.

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It's the one in the yellow badge is the one that says that it's making the most money. But obviously, that defies

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the cost. 10 episodes instead of six or eight.

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And this is what you get for that money. I think this is an interesting contrast to six million

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episodes, six million dollars per episode spend on season one

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gets you a bunch of pretty miserable looking girls. Rossley wandering through the Northern Irish

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countryside. Fifteen extras, an adult. Somewhere, I think season eight.

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When you got 50 million pounds stolen. Fifty million dollars being spent per

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episode. That's what you guys, of course, a lot of budget going on, CGI effects, but you can just

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afford so much more in terms of effects here. I guess you'll note filming

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in Belfast anymore at this point, you go going somewhere warmer and nicer. You can see the extras extra

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sensitive, about half here. And these figures are astonishing to, I think, brutal costs and

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207 countries. One hundred and ninety four of those on femal costs. That

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is at the same time as it's going out in the U.S. The actual viewing figures are pretty

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hard to come by. But we have thirty eight point fifty two point eight million

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viewers in the US. So season seven physical's is the legal viewers. And that's

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not counting all the rest of the world. And then you got one hundred and forty million per episode,

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illegal downloads, the season seven.

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Something here for a different sector of the audience. Next time I get this, it's

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just how much money. This is why came with friends matters to the locations where

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it's filmed. So I'm quite interested in the fact that the Northern Irish

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governments subsidise the production of the

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film as a subsidy to the production of fifteen point nine five

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million pounds. And look what that brought them back. Two hundred and fifteen million pounds

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in return. This is why telling people stories matters in terms of balance sheet.

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It's estimated that three hundred fifty thousand people visit Northern Ireland every year to do Game of

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Thrones related things. And that's only going to go up when the new Game

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of Thrones theme park opens at the Lynnae Mill in Belfast later this

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year. So this in fifty thousand people are generating 50 million pounds

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of tourist spending. But you might not have got otherwise.

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Game of Thrones is worth 30 million. They reckon, per year for the Northern Irish tourist sector.

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And in Dubrovnik, it's harder to measure. People go to Dubrovnik for all kinds of reasons and

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really very easy to section out. How much of that is Game of Thrones related?

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But the mayor of Dubrovnik was reckoning when he was asked in 2015 that

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tourism is going up year on year by 10 percent. And about half of that was Game of Thrones.

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Related numbers in Iceland have gone up hugely as well. That

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probably doesn't have all that much to do with Game of Thrones. And again, we can't get the figures of how much

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we can actually ascribe to Game of Thrones, but they have got some liki location totals

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going on there. And here you can see me being stopped by a wildling at one

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of the locations from last year and the year before last. I think it was.

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So why? Why does everybody love Game of Thrones? Why is it so popular

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now? One of the major explanations is being put

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forward by fantasy scholars in particular is the

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capacity to go beyond the monolithic good versus evil

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hobbits and humans vs. sour on those kinds of very black and white sorts

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of dichotomy, those old cycles that Tolkien doesn't have some morally mixed characters. He obviously

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does. But Game of Thrones has characters who operate in all

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kinds of shades of grey. But also this is what people really fixated

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on in the first seasons, I think was its willingness to dispose

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of everybody's favourite characters. Now, I guess

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I watched season one without having read the books. So when I got to

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the death of Ned stock, I yelled. I fell out of my seat. I went, Oh, my God.

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What was he thinking? And the list things that must be what was still freethinking rather than

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the show runners. And then, of course, you get the red wedding. You get the purple wedding. Not that anybody,

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I think is that sorry to see your freak go necessarily, but this is a very pathetic that

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now that capacity, that kind of ruthlessness on the pulse of the show runners

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to kill fan favourites. I think we can all kind of dropped off a bit

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in the last season. I find I had to watch the Battle of Winterfell twice

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to figure out what was going on. And at the end of it, I was pretty sure that a whole bunch of people that

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died who turned out not to have died by the time they will regroup in the next episode

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because it was so hard to see. But my guess is that in early episodes,

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a few more of our favourite people were the goat pixel. I did not see Brian making it through

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the back of the Winterfell, but hey, she did. And it said Unexpectedness

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all Taric to death in some way, which said Game of Thrones, apart from quite a lot of other friends

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to see. And you can see up here in the colon the kind of favourite

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Internet post time was lining up your friends and relations to watch

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bits of Game of Thrones when they didn't know what was going to happen. So we have here this

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Piersall girl is saying, oh, my God. Yeah, I just watched. What

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has she been watching? I think she have been watching the death in that stock.

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But this was a particularly a meme around the Red Wedding that you got your mom watching Game of Thrones.

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You didn't tell of what was going to happen. Then you made it watch the Red Wedding, and then you tweeted happily

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about how your mom was going. I'm having an anxiety attack over these prevent and pretend

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people. So there's something about the boldness of imagination

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that doesn't really care about the characters or rather uses that kind of shock

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value. In my first book on the show,

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Winter is Coming. I argued that a lot of its attraction was done

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to the depth and realism. But I'll say realism in a very

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heavily quantified way of the mediaeval.

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Its historical background and the institutions of the imagined

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societies of Westerners in particular, of course, but also in S.O.S.

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And I want to call your attention to saying

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that I have no idea how you pronounce this night to effect cheese. Very interesting blog

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post on Scientific American, where she argues that one of the things

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that maybe went wrong with the show was what happened when they ran

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as a book. And her argument is that up until,

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let's say, the indices and sinks, you have characters story

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arcs, which are very much shaped by the institutions of

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their various societies, whether it's living in slavery or responding to slavery,

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whether it's having to negotiate to run the the pretty hard credit terms of

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the en banc of Bravo, whether it's suddenly the power of the sparrows within

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King Sinding itself, whether it's the rules of the night swatch, all of these

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things. Tramel and conditions the storylines and the choices

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that the characters have to make. And these is pretty well realised. I think we can

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see how the Bank of Bravo's depends very much on the ideas of late mediaeval

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banking practises in the Mediterranean, because they have the sparrows look kind of

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like the Spanish Inquisition, kind of like some mediaeval

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fraternal orders because they have a night watch, like a kind

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of bunch of crusaders, but not the kinds of crusaders who went to Jerusalem, but rather

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those who patrolled the front line of Christian Europe in places like Lithuania,

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Russia, Poland in the 14th century, bringing Christianity at the point of a sword

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to the last vestiges of European paganism there. And

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you can see to how the discourse about slavery in itself is

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conditioned in part by historical thinking about slavery in the US and elsewhere.

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But also very much and I'll come on to this a bit later, conditioned by contemporary Middle

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Eastern politics as well. So to fact cheque up until season

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six. You have this very deeply imagined story woes

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as you have the characters manoeuvring their way through the kind of labyrinth of

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the social structures. But what we might describe as the race to the finish,

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that kind of goes out the window. The show runners run out of book and

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we might want to speculate that they have various prises dangled in front of them. They

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have maybe the Star Wars franchise being offered to them, though that seems to fallen through.

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They maybe feel that they would like to just say goodbye to Game of Thrones, let some other

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people work up the prequels. But whatever it is, they suddenly

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decide they want to get to the end of story. And because they want the book

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to factory argues, they fall back on the usual Hollywood

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stereotype of storytelling. How do we tell stories in Hollywood? Normally it's

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all about the character's journey. It all becomes psychological. So we

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get inside the feelings of John. The feelings often there is the feelings of everybody pretty well. We

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get redemptive orcs going on. Not that they were present already,

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but what we lose is this sense of sickness about the built world. I think

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well, it seems to me kind of emblematic of that is the way in which at the

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end of season six, isn't it? So he blows up a whole chunk of

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King's Landing. Does anybody care, Tullman?

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Obviously. But does anybody else care? No. Now, earlier in the show, we've seen

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the morphing King's Landing as a quite volatile urban mass. Who come

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out on the streets for a cowpats at Joffrey, who are quite lively when it comes

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to watching events around the sparrow's reign of terror. We might call

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it their bear ran the great set. But suddenly the queen blows up

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a whole chunk of the city. Nobody cares. And so we never really see the masses again until

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season eight when they're obviously just kind of close to the Dragons. And the same is

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true, I think the en bank of brothels, which I'm pretty interested in for all kinds of

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reasons, it was how you fund everything when you get the resources for the various

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campaigns in the war. The Five Kings. What's really important now

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is it hasn't vanished. It's become simplified. So how the first he gets

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paid for the Golden Company? Well, she uses the gold that she managed to get

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from high garden and which they luckily managed to get into

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King's Landing before the back of the goes roads where Denarius maybe unwisely boasted

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all of the supplies and half of the land estás, which work was great for kind of show

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of force. But that suit was actually kind of useful for people in the kingdom.

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But the whole goes and company and you can argue with me afterwards if you want to disagree.

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The whole Gold Company story line was a bit of a bust. In a way, it was built up. Harry Strickland was

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going to turn up. Would that be Ellison? Wouldn't that be Ellison? The ones in the Ellison budget for

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elephants and the Golden Company turn up this very faithful's along the

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way. Oh, okay. Was it worth it? I don't know. But this is

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one of the kinds of criticisms levelled at the show. And I think there's something in it

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now. I've talked about the mediæval background, so much of the show. But I also have to

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mention that the show is also mediæval. It's in its framing.

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That is, that it not only draws upon the mediaeval literature, mediaeval history,

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mediaeval. Cultural institutions, myths, legends. Which it does to a very great

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extent, but it also draws on those kinds of ideas

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as already mediated in some modern culture. And

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I think the unborn or a particularly good example of this, the unborn

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behaves very much like Vikings. They look like Vikings. They have a lot of them, apart

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from the great joy family, for whatever reason. They have pretty Viking names.

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They get around the long ship and. I have written an

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school which has just come out. In fact, in a book from.

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Kalamazoo called something about reimagining the Vikings. And I go to a chapter

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in that on the Vikings and the on board, which I am fortunate to right before the show ended.

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So some of my guesses about what would happen with the arm bone weren't exactly fun. However, I didn't think

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you ever would get killed. And I was right. So what we have then with

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the on bone is not just a reimagining of genuine eight,

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nine, 10 century Vikings, but we also have, what, Hollywood's most popular culture.

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Think of it as Vikings as well. And in particular, I think because it's exactly George

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Moleskins vintage, we have the Kirk Douglas or the late Kirk Douglas,

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as we should not say film from 1958. The Vikings. And when I

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was first writing on this, I was very struck by the fact

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that in the books that we never see this in the show for obvious reasons. But in the books, we're told

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the battle on great joy is with such a great warrior in his youth. He could run

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along the old ways of a long ship in full sale. And I thought, oh,

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that is pretty impressive. Also, I know that in the saga of King O Love, a

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truthful film, it was said that he could do that. Wow, that is impressive. Research

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of Martin's part. But then I realised is in fact where Morsan got it from was not

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reading the saga of lavatories at all, but by watching the Vikings where you

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can see the lake Kirk Douglas running, doing his own stuff. He was very

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he was very keen on doing this, running along the oles of the ship, which doesn't

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look like it's moving very fast. But is it sailing down the Norwegian field? And

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the birth of the director was he was doing something that nobody had seen for a thousand years.

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So we have to take into account then the mediaevalism qualities

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of the show, as well as the mediaeval qualities, too. And if you're interested in Game

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of Thrones or rather some of ice and fire primarily and mediaevalism,

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I recommend Shiloh Carroll's book from Boys Lambrew, which came out in twenty

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seventeen, I think. OK. Now let's say a little bit

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about fantasy epic more generally. I want to get away, if you like, from

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the economic and the larger media context. I

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talk about Game of Thrones as storytelling in a bit more detail.

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So again, friends is in essence fantasy epic as a genre,

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as epic as you, I'm sure. Oh, no. Takes various books. These

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all the generic conventions that we expect. It's about the fate of men

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and nations. There were large questions at stake. There is

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very possibly a visit to the underworld to get all came. Knowledge, that

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is, the intervention of the supernatural could intervene.

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There is a large imperial destiny waiting for the hero and

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fantasy epic is in some ways no different, except that we move out of a historical

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or a contemporary. Setting into a world

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where distractions suddenly become possible. And this is what Martin has written about

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in a quite important interview in Rolling Stone magazine from 2014.

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At one point he thought maybe he would just write some historical novels. But the friend of his said,

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What about the Dragons? And he said, Go to have the dragon. So

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he went full fantasy epic where he could have his dragons instead of the historical novel.

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And although you can see the vestiges of the historical novel in a song of ice and Fire,

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you can also see how important the Dragons all. So

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within that larger story line that one of the great things about AIPAC is

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that it plays host to a whole lot of other genres as well in classical

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epic. We very often get moments of what we might describe as romance.

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Let's say if we're thinking about the need, we have the events and call. We have in

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these taking time out from his imperial destiny for a romance

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with Dido, one which kills and tragically for her, not for him, because he clears off

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to carry on with his imperial destiny. So there are places in classical

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epic where the private, the smaller scale come into play. There are

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places, too, where you cross the border between the living and the dead, where you pass into the underworld.

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And we see these speeches, of course, in Game of Thrones as well. But it also brings in different,

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more modern, shewn rules. And so in particular, of course, we have the horror film.

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We have zombies. All be

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quite interesting, animated, quote, high that we have very early on

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in season one, where those two nights watchmen

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are brought in to Cofer Black and then turn that. It's about anyone who thinks there's something

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suspicious about them and they turn out to be undead. And then we end up with

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huge CGI masses of zombies who are

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not that keen on myself. But what is very interesting, I think, in the battle of Heart Home

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is the way that we focussing on coffee, the spare

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life, and the way in which she responds to these

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zombie children up there that that moment of hesitation to kill these children,

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even though that undead killer's home base is what it's fatal for her. And she, too,

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turns into one herself. And then we have, of course, the night

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king with his interesting but unresolved origin

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story, which seems to have some affinity with Frankenstein monster. It's

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been argued, and I think there's quite a lot of truth in that. And one of my frustrations with

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Season eight, of which there was more than a few, was I had kind of hoped that

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at the point where the night King was going to get taken down by whoever was going to do

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it, that we might just have one of those kind of classic scenes that you get in

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in kind of superhero movies where the villain just stops everything for 10 minutes and explains

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why he's a villain. And then the hero had a chance to come in and take him out. And

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I just kind did want to know what the Knight King story was. How did he get from that terrified

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guy being stopped with the the dragon glass knife into this guy?

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What happened there? We shall never know unless he's hands up in in one of the three quotes.

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We also have the detective story at work here. And so that Bozsum picture is

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John Aronne looking for the date, because that's the way we have to see him. Poor

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guy was very much in sports. The first

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book, which is what makes the first book so good, I think. And the first season is

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00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:11,270
exactly that question. Who killed John Aaron and why? And we think we have an answer

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by the end of season one that it's all about protecting first in Jamie's secret. But it is

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not until season four when we're up in the aeri. So we actually find out who was responsible

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for the whole business and what the backstory was. And in fact, it turned out not to have

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anything much to do with the politics of Wetzel's and everything to do with the

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passion and madness of Lisa Aaron herself. We also have

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the Buzzi movie in various forms and this Barratt's A.N.

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They're chatting amiably on the ramparts of King's Landing. One of the interesting

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tropes I think that the show taps into is the idea that the Buddy movie doesn't

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have to be about a couple of blokes going on the road. And indeed, in some ways it works

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least well when in season six they think it's a good idea to send

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Brian and Jamie off on their revenge storm. But what is more interesting,

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I think of those questions by the things the hounds and

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Aria in particular, whether we characterise that as far being factually maybe a bit questionable.

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But Sprey and her various companions, Brian and Jamie Breea and impulsive Rick,

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those types, those cliches of the Buddy movie and rework them in interesting

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ways. And finally and I think kind of a problematic case, certainly

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because it's a show innovation. We didn't have it in the books is the rom com.

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Well, except with a bit less com by the end between to Lisa and Rob Stark

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there. And that has all of the hallmarks, of course, all of the modern rom com that they

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they meet cute. They have this argument about their different ideals

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and positions. She asks him searching questions about kingship. He

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sees that she's a good person, that she wants to heal very slowly because they fall in

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love, they get married, that she's pregnant, and that that's the end of that.

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And in some ways, that kind of romance that she's between them

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is something that is quite exceptional in the world of Game of Thrones. If you try and think

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of anybody else who has a happy, classic romantic story, you might be.

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Thinking for a long time, or we can argue about any cases you can bring up towards

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the end here. OK. But as well as these other troublesome

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jurors that we find in. Game of Thrones, the key one, of course, is the bill who was

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sold on the story of the young person growing into that identity.

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In some ways, that has a very strong affinity with mediaeval romance, too. And indeed, that's what it grows

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ourselves. The hero sets out on the quest willingly or unwillingly and finds

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out various things about him or herself, grows into that adult identity

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and achieve some kind of resolution to that storyline. And indeed, here we can

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see a whole bunch of stocks or pulp starts

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and we can see what happens to Denarius. And we can see a subsidy on in

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here because he has a very nice kind of redemptive storyline as well. But

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interestingly, I think the buildings Bowmont elements of Game of Thrones

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is very much a generational thing. Of course, it tends to be

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because it's about young people. But we also have figures like Tyrian who doesn't really

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belong in the same generation as these people. But he also.

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Changes, grows, then travels from the world to Marine

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and back again. This is the longest journey of all in some ways, and yet, oddly,

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in some ways he ends up almost back where he started.

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And we can also, I think, register the ways in which this generation

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00:34:11,630 --> 00:34:16,730
take notice of what's happened in their parents generation and think about how

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they do not want to be their parents. And you can remember how John all

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argued very passionately with Tyrian in that scene in the cell in the last episode,

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that being a tall Gharyan doesn't mean you have to be completely

390
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barking mad. And we have found that the arguments about heredity

391
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suggests that Tulk Aryan's all 50 50 barking mad pyromaniacs

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or quite nice people that we haven't met too many quite nice Calgarian. It has to be said,

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except that there is some good days. We should also note,

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I think, that one of the things that has policy shows

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00:34:59,850 --> 00:35:05,370
popularity has been its commitment to making fantasy epic, modern

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and inclusive. And it's one of the interesting. Quayside

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facts about the show, at least this is the case in 2013, whether it's still

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true. I'm not sure. But I would take it. It probably is. It's unlike most fantasy

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TV fantasy, at least in 2013, at least in the US. The

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audience was almost 50 percent female. And I think that

401
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had a lot to do with the show runners formulation of

402
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the show world thereafter. Once they realised they got that female audience,

403
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:47,610
they didn't want to lose them because they're pretty hard to get in fantasy. And so

404
00:35:47,610 --> 00:35:53,390
although there was an instance at Comic Con just in November

405
00:35:53,390 --> 00:35:58,530
where either David Ozanne said he never looked to fansites, he didn't care about

406
00:35:58,530 --> 00:36:03,530
feedback he had he just did his thing and he didn't register what fans still to

407
00:36:03,530 --> 00:36:08,900
talk? I thought this was completely unbelievable. This is not how Molton

408
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Show making works. And so. There are obviously some

409
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reasons why the tapes, the gratuitous nudity, the brothel

410
00:36:19,300 --> 00:36:24,430
scenes, the sex scenes which

411
00:36:24,430 --> 00:36:29,740
contribute something, but there's a whole lot to the story. Why all of that gets boiled down. Now,

412
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obviously, when BALISH is brothel, empire is closed. Then you then have those things.

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But at the same time, I think those feelings of the female audience about

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all that nudity condition, what they show around this bit. And I also think

415
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:51,490
probably after the outcry over the sex scene between Damian Searcy

416
00:36:51,490 --> 00:36:56,710
and the great sex that then affected the way that, say, on his wedding

417
00:36:56,710 --> 00:37:01,990
night, this film that we can talk about that if we got time. And although threats

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of rape are legion all the way through the show, off the office, that

419
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particular kind of problem, moments in the show's depiction of violence against women,

420
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:19,600
a kind of face gets dialled back a bit. So how do you how do you get that

421
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:24,700
audience? Well, you have multiple heroes. You have a whole lot of storylines

422
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which sometimes intersect. But you keep switching locations. So even if you do not have a tone

423
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:34,960
about what's going on in dawn, many of us didn't. You only have to hang on

424
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:39,970
for a few minutes. I was back at the wall and maybe we can see some all Star Wars again,

425
00:37:39,970 --> 00:37:45,580
which is kind of what drives my interest largely. So you got

426
00:37:45,580 --> 00:37:50,800
as well as these parallel story structures in the interlaces, very mediaeval way of storytelling

427
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:55,960
between them as they overlap with each other. You also

428
00:37:55,960 --> 00:38:01,150
have a real attention to queering. Now, the

429
00:38:01,150 --> 00:38:06,220
books and the show treat Laura some friendly in quite different ways to some

430
00:38:06,220 --> 00:38:11,410
extent. And I think there's a degree of oversimplification there. But nevertheless,

431
00:38:11,410 --> 00:38:16,540
you have two gay heroes who are treated sympathetically. Now

432
00:38:16,540 --> 00:38:21,760
ya as lesbianism, which has revealed kind of slightly late in the day, I think

433
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:26,800
when she's in the brothel imbalances kind of a surprise. But when

434
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:31,810
you look at the other on board, I think you can see why she might have that particular orientation.

435
00:38:31,810 --> 00:38:36,850
And certainly the fan community, the real Free-Fall as the moment when she met Denarius

436
00:38:36,850 --> 00:38:42,700
and they just shook hands on me. No more reading raising.

437
00:38:42,700 --> 00:38:48,860
No more breathing raising. Something or raping

438
00:38:48,860 --> 00:38:53,910
pledge that you gave in there. And there was there seemed to be something that

439
00:38:53,910 --> 00:38:58,950
the community went crazy and this meme with the kind of dragon love came out of

440
00:38:58,950 --> 00:39:04,020
that. And then you have figures who all asexual

441
00:39:04,020 --> 00:39:09,780
like Pharis and indeed like Paul Salem once he's been

442
00:39:09,780 --> 00:39:15,410
emasculated and Tyrion as well, kind of switches out of a kind of

443
00:39:15,410 --> 00:39:21,630
very traditional folkloric view of dwarves as

444
00:39:21,630 --> 00:39:27,150
sexually obsessed into somebody who actually seems to have grown through that particular state.

445
00:39:27,150 --> 00:39:32,710
So we have also. Characters who are disabled.

446
00:39:32,710 --> 00:39:37,720
We have Jamie losing his hands. We have friends who kind of looks like he might

447
00:39:37,720 --> 00:39:42,820
be going to be the hero in the very first episode. And then you saw tonight of the child that

448
00:39:42,820 --> 00:39:47,860
you've been pushed back to the top. And suddenly whatever storyline he's going to have

449
00:39:47,860 --> 00:39:53,930
is not going to be the action hero anymore and the ways in which

450
00:39:53,930 --> 00:39:59,050
friend storyline is treated. I think we can also criticise that.

451
00:39:59,050 --> 00:40:04,360
But you do have a character in the wheelchair. You do have someone with dwarfism. And you do have Jamie

452
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:09,460
trying to work around his disability. And it's not magic to way. He

453
00:40:09,460 --> 00:40:14,530
doesn't ever become the fighter that he was. And also, importantly, given some of the

454
00:40:14,530 --> 00:40:19,610
tools that there's been around the the race politics of the show, Grey

455
00:40:19,610 --> 00:40:24,850
and my son, they get a really substantial storyline of their own, which is

456
00:40:24,850 --> 00:40:30,190
not quite what is not at all what we have in the books. And although many people

457
00:40:30,190 --> 00:40:35,800
were upset when The Sun met her and Doug was one of them, I have to say,

458
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:41,260
but I also see how that works in the largest story structure.

459
00:40:41,260 --> 00:40:46,450
I think it's quite admirable. At least these two got

460
00:40:46,450 --> 00:40:51,940
into some serious screen time. And whatever you think of the Doom storyline, that also

461
00:40:51,940 --> 00:40:57,190
gave some space to actors of colour to

462
00:40:57,190 --> 00:41:02,230
play out there. Maybe not very well thought through Rose, though. If you're interested in what

463
00:41:02,230 --> 00:41:07,810
happened in Dawn, there is quite there's an interesting interview with Alexander

464
00:41:07,810 --> 00:41:13,420
Sediq, who played Dora Motel, in which he talks about his feelings

465
00:41:13,420 --> 00:41:18,490
when he saw his contract for the final season. And he was saying, OK,

466
00:41:18,490 --> 00:41:23,830
so what was it all about then? Largely, and this is

467
00:41:23,830 --> 00:41:29,440
a kind of join together the different themes that that we've been touching on.

468
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:34,450
It was about power and absence. Any on

469
00:41:34,450 --> 00:41:39,700
from now existing thanks to drogue on life, including a picture of me sitting on the on throne

470
00:41:39,700 --> 00:41:45,400
in the pub in Northern Ireland, because I think in some ways I could have made a decent job of ruling

471
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:50,650
the Seven Kingdoms better than any of the rest of them. It would be true to say

472
00:41:50,650 --> 00:41:55,750
so. One of the things all the show has been power and how

473
00:41:55,750 --> 00:42:01,030
you use it, power and rule and who makes a good ruler and who doesn't

474
00:42:01,030 --> 00:42:06,850
and won't be idealism behind good rule might be no

475
00:42:06,850 --> 00:42:12,490
other power. Of course, is political power. We also have influence

476
00:42:12,490 --> 00:42:18,610
the ways in which somebody like me, Alesandro, can suddenly turn up mysteriously in Dragonstone

477
00:42:18,610 --> 00:42:23,650
and change everything for that particular part of the Seven Kingdoms and play

478
00:42:23,650 --> 00:42:28,690
an enormous role, some of which has to do with the transcendent, the powers

479
00:42:28,690 --> 00:42:34,240
of the laws of life. But a lot has to do with, frankly, the fact the Meller sound

480
00:42:34,240 --> 00:42:39,430
is a pretty attractive looking lady. And I think styluses turn to the red. Gold

481
00:42:39,430 --> 00:42:45,700
was not just because he was persuaded of the field of, gee, let's say

482
00:42:45,700 --> 00:42:50,710
we also had the way the power intersects with knowledge. And I wanted these things I do like about

483
00:42:50,710 --> 00:42:56,290
the show is the way that Sam is that little intellectual that beavering

484
00:42:56,290 --> 00:43:01,570
away, going to the library, getting the books out, doing the work, doing the research,

485
00:43:01,570 --> 00:43:07,180
and coming up with all kinds of pretty important bits of information for the plot.

486
00:43:07,180 --> 00:43:13,270
Then we have questions of identity. And one of the things which I think is pretty interesting here

487
00:43:13,270 --> 00:43:18,850
is the way that the show and to some extent maybe the books subvert

488
00:43:18,850 --> 00:43:24,050
some of the most important tropes of fantasy. And one, of course, as you all know, I'm sure

489
00:43:24,050 --> 00:43:29,230
there's a favourite tropes is that special child, the hidden child, the lost a

490
00:43:29,230 --> 00:43:34,450
guy who has a destiny, but it can't be revealed because

491
00:43:34,450 --> 00:43:39,640
his enemies are massing around him. And of course, archetypal is the story

492
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:44,920
of King Orfa, taken away, protected by Merlin, drawing the sword as though

493
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:49,960
a bit of kind of political negotiation. But then he's king of all England. And then we have John

494
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:55,240
Snow, who gets this revelation goes, Oh, my God, does

495
00:43:55,240 --> 00:44:00,370
anybody know I don't want power? I don't want no, no, no. It's completely screwed up. My

496
00:44:00,370 --> 00:44:05,630
relationship with the Lovington there is that to be my arms. I can't deal with it.

497
00:44:05,630 --> 00:44:11,020
I do want to be a star guardian and I'm out of here. And so that whole motif

498
00:44:11,020 --> 00:44:16,120
of the loft that is completely subverted and so, too, is the kinds

499
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:21,130
of saviour figure as well. Mother become very heavily problematise with Denarius

500
00:44:21,130 --> 00:44:26,500
already, I think when she's a Marine and by the time her project is not just to to

501
00:44:26,500 --> 00:44:31,820
save these slaves, all slaves to say. But it's. All right, everybody.

502
00:44:31,820 --> 00:44:36,920
From the war to cost, you can see the hurt save a complex who's got Elizabeth asked

503
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:42,170
to control that. And it's also a show that's really interested

504
00:44:42,170 --> 00:44:47,180
in family. But one of the things that is very striking about it, I think, is also the idea

505
00:44:47,180 --> 00:44:52,370
of family is valorised the great deal in terms of

506
00:44:52,370 --> 00:44:57,590
your primary loyalty is supposedly to your family. Taiwan is very keen

507
00:44:57,590 --> 00:45:02,640
on this. We are lambesis. This is our primary identity. That is something that Attarian

508
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:07,970
visit. And the source groups draw a great deal of strength

509
00:45:07,970 --> 00:45:13,940
from that idea as well. But the idea, I think in some ways quintessentially

510
00:45:13,940 --> 00:45:18,980
American idea that family is all important, that if you can get

511
00:45:18,980 --> 00:45:24,860
back to the family, if you can reconstituted, there'll be lots of hugging and lots of happiness

512
00:45:24,860 --> 00:45:30,770
somehow. There's a lot of sand expectation that Randle's the STULTZ eventually getting back to Winterfell,

513
00:45:30,770 --> 00:45:35,810
that there would be lots of hugging. And it was all, in fact, a low key. Is still an

514
00:45:35,810 --> 00:45:41,030
Hijau news you got there with you. Interesting brand is just sitting there

515
00:45:41,030 --> 00:45:46,910
in his wheelchair hugging anyone. And however rubbish

516
00:45:46,910 --> 00:45:52,210
that line was about, Orien incenses suspecting each other that Baelish engineered

517
00:45:52,210 --> 00:45:58,230
that to interfere with that kind of packie ending.

518
00:45:58,230 --> 00:46:03,270
Right. Almost winding up here. So epic is always

519
00:46:03,270 --> 00:46:08,720
about the time in which it's set. But it's also always about the now in which it's written.

520
00:46:08,720 --> 00:46:13,890
And one of the things which I have thought is really striking about Game of Thrones from the first time I started

521
00:46:13,890 --> 00:46:18,990
watching is the way it absolutely hates political. Particularly

522
00:46:18,990 --> 00:46:24,060
in the Anglosphere. So back in the day and the day here, I think

523
00:46:24,060 --> 00:46:29,580
it's about twenty, fifteen, sixteen.

524
00:46:29,580 --> 00:46:34,650
If you haven't seen interest trumping. I solely recommended it seem really funny at the time. It doesn't

525
00:46:34,650 --> 00:46:39,780
seem quite that funny now. Theresa May, I'm

526
00:46:39,780 --> 00:46:44,790
guessing I have never seen the show but that mean came out within about 30 minutes of

527
00:46:44,790 --> 00:46:50,150
her declaring the disastrous twenty seventeen election that

528
00:46:50,150 --> 00:46:55,620
she is not raising the debt of the Tory policy and that just a Murray the hides

529
00:46:55,620 --> 00:47:00,930
quote. Just from the end of last month on the day of Brexit, I think

530
00:47:00,930 --> 00:47:06,030
sums up very nicely the way the political commentators absolutely love Game

531
00:47:06,030 --> 00:47:11,520
of Thrones. So Brexit. What was that all about? It had the energy of Midsummer Night's Dream.

532
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:16,710
It went home for three and a half years. That was the golden age of television drama going on. But people just spent

533
00:47:16,710 --> 00:47:21,930
all the time watching BBC Parliament initially capable of making one comparisons

534
00:47:21,930 --> 00:47:27,170
with Game of Thrones, but eventually lacking the energy to do anything we should dragonfly

535
00:47:27,170 --> 00:47:32,490
apocalypse on everyone involved. Now, Marina Hyde is super keen on Game of Thrones.

536
00:47:32,490 --> 00:47:37,710
Has to be said that even in the last couple of years, you could get a round

537
00:47:37,710 --> 00:47:43,140
Tory policy leadership elections, of which we have had many little guys

538
00:47:43,140 --> 00:47:48,150
mapping the various contenders onto various Game of Thrones characters and

539
00:47:48,150 --> 00:47:53,280
that the fulsom here, a picture of scenario and her

540
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:58,590
remains of her callosal turning up in the gardens of bones outside cos in season

541
00:47:58,590 --> 00:48:03,930
two, because that struck me as a very interesting moment

542
00:48:03,930 --> 00:48:09,360
indeed. I am one of those things which I think has been particularly resonant

543
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:15,090
about the contemporary politics with the show is the ideas of wolves. Now obviously

544
00:48:15,090 --> 00:48:20,550
the presence of the US picked up the wall and ran with it in a big way. We're told that

545
00:48:20,550 --> 00:48:25,920
Martin was inspired by Hadrian's Wall when he saw it on the trip to Scotland

546
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:31,050
and of course, when he started writing a song of ice. And for the most salient wall at the time

547
00:48:31,050 --> 00:48:36,300
was the Berlin Wall, which had only just come down at the point that he began writing.

548
00:48:36,300 --> 00:48:41,490
But the idea of the war, who can come through it, who is often

549
00:48:41,490 --> 00:48:47,430
who is, then who has to be kept. That was, I think, very much dramatised

550
00:48:47,430 --> 00:48:52,710
at that moment outside. When Denarius and Callosal

551
00:48:52,710 --> 00:48:58,230
turned up outside the walls, of course, and the 13 with all those horrible, sinister

552
00:48:58,230 --> 00:49:03,540
warlocks, that their personal lipstick come out and say, no, you can set that and die

553
00:49:03,540 --> 00:49:08,880
because the whole place is littered with people who died. We will not let you in now. Then, of course,

554
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:14,040
there's some negotiation around how having some dragons can be a bit of a game changer

555
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:19,260
in that situation. But at that point, when that episode was broadcast in the middle of the migrant

556
00:49:19,260 --> 00:49:24,600
crisis in Europe and that scene outside cost to me was very resonant

557
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:29,730
of how Europe was looking at refugees from Syria and beyond and saying,

558
00:49:29,730 --> 00:49:34,990
oh, no, maybe we won't let you in. Maybe you can stay out there in the garden

559
00:49:34,990 --> 00:49:40,020
of. So where do we get to at the end?

560
00:49:40,020 --> 00:49:45,210
Well, as happens in EPIC, we get the re-establishment

561
00:49:45,210 --> 00:49:50,250
of order. It's a new ish order, but it is a bit. Meet

562
00:49:50,250 --> 00:49:55,550
the new boss. Same as the old boss. Very often in EPIC. And we might want to talk

563
00:49:55,550 --> 00:50:00,750
also about how radical is that new small council we see

564
00:50:00,750 --> 00:50:05,880
in that in the throne room. We

565
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:11,010
also have and this is an important part of ethics, too, I think there is a morning of what's lost.

566
00:50:11,010 --> 00:50:16,920
We have a memory of all those characters who didn't make it through to the end.

567
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:22,080
We might have if we were more interested in the social fabric, we might have a bit more mourning

568
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:27,120
of what happened to King's Landing as well. But certainly we have a

569
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:32,270
sense that we've been on a really, really long journey and we have seen things

570
00:50:32,270 --> 00:50:37,320
that we didn't expect to see. And we have lost friends along the way that there's been a lot of sacrifice

571
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:42,600
involved to get to where we are now. What struck me

572
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:47,940
when writing the last part of my book as really interesting is that

573
00:50:47,940 --> 00:50:53,040
traditionally when people were asking me after I published my first book, has it all going

574
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:58,080
to end? I would say pretty thoughtfully. Well, I think traditionally ends

575
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:03,620
with a whipping or a homecoming. And even if we didn't have the Aeneid

576
00:51:03,620 --> 00:51:09,810
and it's finished full, nevertheless, it's pretty clear that this is going to marry Lavinia and fund the

577
00:51:09,810 --> 00:51:15,150
Roman faith. But no weddings. Nobody gets married.

578
00:51:15,150 --> 00:51:20,280
And that, I think problematise is further what I was saying about the family when starting your own

579
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:25,410
nuclear family. The ending of romance par excellence

580
00:51:25,410 --> 00:51:30,840
doesn't happen. None of the kids, none of the heroes, the ones who are still alive, want to get married

581
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:36,420
and somehow perpetuate whatever it is that their families have done to them.

582
00:51:36,420 --> 00:51:41,430
The only exception is because you, anyone think of an exception,

583
00:51:41,430 --> 00:51:51,200
any happy couple at the end.

584
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:56,720
That's pretty bleak, isn't it? Well, it's Sam and Gilli, maybe,

585
00:51:56,720 --> 00:52:02,730
but I'm I'm still disturbed by the fact the sun turns up in that last mile constancy

586
00:52:02,730 --> 00:52:08,940
as apparently the grand Maisto of the order, which is supposed to be celibate,

587
00:52:08,940 --> 00:52:14,280
maybe some has overturned the whole institution of the older. Maybe

588
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:19,370
they've had a kind of reformation like the Catholic Church. Maybe he and

589
00:52:19,370 --> 00:52:24,510
Gilly and little Sam and baby John are living happily in some nice house in

590
00:52:24,510 --> 00:52:29,550
kings trendy. Maybe he's fumbled her off to Home Hill to live with his mother and

591
00:52:29,550 --> 00:52:34,650
his sister doesn't go to. That's the way. I don't know. But I think we could have heard a bit more

592
00:52:34,650 --> 00:52:40,050
about that since that was the only happy heterosexual relationship

593
00:52:40,050 --> 00:52:45,300
in the show. I mean, that focuses impulse or rather child

594
00:52:45,300 --> 00:52:50,670
is a product of incest. So we go to family reunion as well. We got the stuff back together.

595
00:52:50,670 --> 00:52:55,860
But straightaway they go off in different directions again. The family as the pace you come

596
00:52:55,860 --> 00:53:00,930
home to home, the place that Denarius was longing for. Partly

597
00:53:00,930 --> 00:53:06,090
because of those stories, the serious beating to her that returned home for her

598
00:53:06,090 --> 00:53:11,150
is disastrous for everybody else. Going home just

599
00:53:11,150 --> 00:53:16,600
makes them think they need to go somewhere else again. Except for, of course, sunset.

600
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:21,660
And so where we end up does seem to be and again, going back to American storytelling

601
00:53:21,660 --> 00:53:26,730
cliches, a kind of American frontier style individualism. Now, there's a lot of

602
00:53:26,730 --> 00:53:32,310
talk here that Orio was heading off westward. And next thing we know, she'll discover America

603
00:53:32,310 --> 00:53:37,350
and have 12 hours adventures amongst the Native Americans, which

604
00:53:37,350 --> 00:53:43,020
would be fun and interesting. Whether she was going to be like a kind of

605
00:53:43,020 --> 00:53:48,120
Viking life, Erickson discover of America whether she was going to be Columbus with

606
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:53,580
a diable. Such. I didn't know. But they the show runners do seem to do that. Aria

607
00:53:53,580 --> 00:53:58,800
discovers America, which I think maybe just as well. And there was Joan heading off

608
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:03,840
with Ghost with his best buddy Tollman off to establish

609
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:10,440
a new kind of life with a very different, more democratic social setup

610
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:15,510
up there north of the wall, which presumably is going to be a nicer place to live now. There aren't any walkers

611
00:54:15,510 --> 00:54:20,580
around. And of course, we do end up with some women in

612
00:54:20,580 --> 00:54:25,920
charge, some to Brienne, a powerful presence

613
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:31,500
on the small council. But there's something I think a little bit disheartening about the way the show ended

614
00:54:31,500 --> 00:54:36,810
with Teria and wisecracking away about the goes in the honey in the brothel

615
00:54:36,810 --> 00:54:42,240
and the the way in which not in the end

616
00:54:42,240 --> 00:54:47,580
that much has changed. Having elected kingship. I think it's not going to be a great

617
00:54:47,580 --> 00:54:53,580
game changer. Is it going to make everybody happy when the election comes on? I do not think so.

618
00:54:53,580 --> 00:54:58,740
But in the end, what this show has done, I think, is

619
00:54:58,740 --> 00:55:03,900
to completely redevelop the tropes of modern

620
00:55:03,900 --> 00:55:09,210
fantasy. It has captured imaginations and audiences the fantasy

621
00:55:09,210 --> 00:55:14,270
in a way that nothing else has some before on which all TV companies

622
00:55:14,270 --> 00:55:19,890
are desperate to replicate. Now, if you've seen is X the new Game of Thrones stories

623
00:55:19,890 --> 00:55:27,700
or across the media, you'll probably be of the view that mostly. No, it isn't.

624
00:55:27,700 --> 00:55:32,950
Will we see its like again? I don't know. Do we care about the prequel that many know about

625
00:55:32,950 --> 00:55:39,250
that either? I thought the first one, the one they cancelled, sounded pretty interesting. It's gone now.

626
00:55:39,250 --> 00:55:44,560
But all in all, it has been an extraordinary achievement which is worth taking

627
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:49,900
seriously for all kinds of reasons. So finally. Yes. Who?

628
00:55:49,900 --> 00:55:55,080
All the real monsters? Maybe that's the question that the show leaves us with. It's

629
00:55:55,080 --> 00:56:00,130
something that mountain keeps saying. Who's the really scary person? Is it

630
00:56:00,130 --> 00:56:05,270
the night king? Was he really scared me? Actually, I have to say. But in the end, then there

631
00:56:05,270 --> 00:56:11,620
is killed way more people than the night King did. And that.

632
00:56:11,620 --> 00:56:17,610
Suggestion that the supernatural. Projects. Mirrors.

633
00:56:17,610 --> 00:56:22,740
Allows us to talk about all always terrors. But actually those words terrors are

634
00:56:22,740 --> 00:56:27,810
embodied by the human. Is an important take away moral

635
00:56:27,810 --> 00:56:33,180
maybe from the show. So the book was just written. All Men Must Die is coming

636
00:56:33,180 --> 00:56:42,267
out from Bloomsbury. This autumn. And thank you all very much for your attention.