Counter-Currents
Traditionalist & Degenerate Themes in Game of Thrones
Guillaume Durocher1,529 words
Warning: spoilers ahead
Game of Thrones is perhaps the single most popular mass cultural product today. One indicator: In 2015, the show’s Wikipedia page was among the ten most-visited in English, German, French, Italian, and Russian, a remarkable distinction. Game of Thrones really is one of the major planks of our “global culture” as produced by the media masters in America. Given the show’s popularity, it is worth examining the values it promotes.
Game of Thrones’ most pervasive degenerate theme[1] is the gratuitous inclusion of numerous quasi-pornographic sex scenes, something the Jewish-owned company which produced the show, HBO, has long been notorious for. This includes an explicit portrayal of brother-sister incest “doggy-style” in the very first episode. Though I have not read the novels on which the series is based, I am told the author George R. R. Martin’s literary description of that event was much more allusive and vague. (There is, after all, nothing degenerate as such about telling a story involving incest.) The pornographic elements were therefore presumably inserted by the TV show’s creators, David Benioff (born David Friedman) and Daniel Brett Weiss.
Nonetheless, Game of Thrones also portrays traditionalist values, in keeping with the show’s medieval fantasy setting, such as honor, loyalty, and discipline. The two overwhelming facts facing people in the world of Game of Thrones appear to be family and hierarchy, two eminently Right-wing themes.
These values and the show’s violence create a sense of realism, quite different in this respect from the Lord of the Rings films, despite the inclusion of magic. The brutal violence, often eliminating leading characters we have come to identify with, is quite in keeping with the actual violence among the ruling classes of early medieval Europe. White viewers get a taste of the kind of tough and often brief lives of their forefathers, a rarity. Forefathers who, it cannot be emphasized enough, fought on and persevered despite the incredible hardship, making our lives possible as their descendants.
The show frequently portrays younger characters being lectured and educated by older ones in the realities of the world and traditional wisdom, in order to have them better accept the decisions and disciplines expected of them.
On family, Catelyn Stark, the loving mother of the young King in the North Robb Stark, urges her son to not marry out of ephemeral passionate love. She tells him:
Your father didn’t love me when we married. He hardly knew me or I him. Love didn’t just happen to us. We built it slowly over the years, stone by stone, for you, for your brothers and sisters, for all of us. It’s not as exciting as secret passion in the woods, but it is stronger. It lasts longer.
While I am not an advocate of arranged marriages, this is wonderful advice for finding genuine love and happiness, and founding good, healthy families. Catelyn’s words are completely at odds with the glorification of frivolous sex that otherwise dominates Western pop culture today (especially in pop music).
Tywin Lannister, a powerful and ruthless southern lord embodying raison d’État, also speaks to his son, Jaime Lannister, about family, albeit very differently. He tells him:
Your mother’s dead. Before long I’ll be dead. And you and your brother and your sister and all of her children. All of us dead; all of us rotting in the ground. It’s the family name that lives on. It’s all that lives on. Not your personal glory, not your honor, but family. Do you understand?
Tywin, like Catelyn, thus condemns individualist selfishness, albeit in a very different way. Individualism is vain because the individual ends in death. His life can only have meaning if it is part of something greater, more lasting. For Tywin, that thing is family. And what are nation and race but extended families?
The character who is most explicitly schooled on respect for hierarchy is Jon Snow, a Stark bastard who joins a kind of monastic warrior order known as the Night’s Watch, which guards the realm’s northern border. Jon is dissatisfied with his role and frequently criticizes or disobeys his superiors. The Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch takes him aside to scold him saying: “You want to lead one day? Then learn to follow.” Another Night’s Watch superior, Alliser Thorne, on a separate occasion also gave Jon some wisdom on this theme:
Do you know what leadership means, Lord Snow? It means that the person in charge gets second guessed by every clever little twat with a mouth. But if he starts second guessing himself, that’s the end. For him, for the clever little twats, for everyone.
This is something that we who are so critical should bear in mind. Armchair criticism is very easy, actually doing something is supremely difficult. (Personally, I try, though this is difficult at times, to limit my denunciations of others to cases of bad faith, and make only constructive criticism of others’ execution.)
There is also a brilliant scene in which Tywin, not disinterestedly, advises in Socratic fashion the boy-king Tommen, his grandson, to hold wisdom as the highest virtue, and to be modest by heeding the advice of those wiser than he is.
Beyond these individual cases, what are the overall values of the show? This article cannot claim to make a comprehensive assessment, and much depends on future episodes (I am writing as of season five) but some observations can already be made.
Game of Thrones is a constant and brutal education in the disasters that sentimentality brings about in a dangerous world. The show’s original protagonists are the Stark family, who are clearly portrayed as the good guys. The Starks, again and again, are defeated, murdered, and even destroyed due to misplaced sentimentality. Ned Stark tries in good faith to be an honest and honorable prime minister (“Hand of the King”) and as a result is quickly outmaneuvered and executed by those who do not have such scruples. Catelyn Stark put a sentimental attachment to her daughters above a higher sense of family interest and loyalty, leading her to foolishly release a major Lannister prisoner and sow discord in her own camp. King Robb himself offends an important ally by reneging on a promise to marry his daughter, in order to follow his heart instead, leading to his and his family’s downfall in the notorious “Red Wedding,” a truly shocking and traumatic event for the viewer.
The story of the Starks’ undoing, which is the main event of the show’s first three seasons, is a lesson in the perils of putting sentimentality before reason and of being honorable with those who are dishonorable. It is an ode to realism. This is a good antidote to liberal illusions.
There is however a second set of good guys, those around the young Daenerys Targaryen, who is busy building an empire in the show’s equivalent of Asia before returning to Westeros (Europe) to reclaim the throne. Daenerys’ adventures are rather disconnected from the rest of the show and have a rather infantile, magical quality. She triumphs without real effort or dramatic tension (her struggles are not, as in the wars of Westeros, between fellow main characters, but between her and secondary characters, leaving no doubt that she will always win).
What’s more, Daenerys not only wins but does so despite ruling arrogantly as a young person and as an idealist (she emancipates slaves, promises goodness to all, et cetera). She promises not to be another spoke on the wheel of the “game of thrones,” but to “break the wheel.” Thus Daenerys can be considered a stand in for an infantile femininity and sentimental egalitarianism, ultimately leading to Bolshevism (which is, among other things, the critique of an existing order based on the lie that one can form a human society without a ruling class or even without inequality in general). Daenerys overcomes the contradictions of all this, basically, through an outsized and implausible character shield.
If Daenerys really does triumph and create an egalitarian utopia, then Game of Thrones will not have been an illustration of the merits of realism, family, and hierarchy, but a denunciation of the real world, with all its viciousness, in favor of a communistic imaginary world.
I am curious as to the direction the show will take in the next seasons, which will apparently not be based on George R. R. Martin’s still-unfinished novels, but will be invented by the producers. Martin himself is incidentally a big fat liberal who cites Emma Lazarus to demand settlement of Muslims in America. Nonetheless, at least for me, Game of Thrones has been an enjoyable romp through an often compelling fantasy world, one which recalls the experiences and wisdom of my European forefathers.
Note
1. I will not discuss gender roles in the show, which are for the most part traditional but feature some unrealistic portrayals of female fighters. The latter is for the most part considered unusual. Nonetheless, the inclusion of a little girl shown physically defeating grown men on occasion is degenerate. This gives women and girls unrealistic portrayals of their own physical strength. In the real world, such illusions lead them to be raped and murdered.
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15 comments
Yes, George R. R. Martin is a liberal degenerate, but the books he wrote are excellent, far better and more realistic; I don’t recall any little girl physically overcoming grown men. Arya managed to kill a few, but by trickery and stabbing them when they weren’t looking. Daenerys’ romp through Esteros is also portrayed as very messy, and the contradictions of bringing about egalitarianism by force on people not accustomed/suited for it are seen in her storyline. All in all, the books are far better works than the TV series, which I stopped watching during the second season. What really makes them stand out is the fact that Martin, though himself a liberal, manages to convincingly construct a world of characters whose values and mindsets belonging to a different era, as opposed to making modern characters and dressing them in Medieval-like costumes.
I second this, despite it’s flaws, both the TV Series and the books (especially the first three) are well worth watching/reading. If only because of the aesthetic beauty of the sets and the prose.
The books are definitely a worthwhile read. In a previous article, I laid out the racial themes that Martin ironically put into the story.
He’s truly an ironic man. He writes about giant walls separating High civilization from a demonic horde, yet supports open borders in the West. He passionately draws a picture of a Medieval world of quasi-Tradition, yet firmly believes in the democratic process and supports the Left end of the spectrum. He reveres the beauty of fair White women and suggests that darker women are whorish, yet he’s all for Third World invaders sweeping across White lands. Maybe he was never able to get the hot blonde cheerleader, so he subconsiously supports politics that will lead to their disenfranchisement or outright destruction?
On a personal level, he’s a very unlikeable guy. He almost purposefully stalls the completion of his sequels, to the point where now the TV show is ahead of the books. He works to ensure that the science fiction community only allows social justice-themed books to recieve awards. He supported Obama. Yet despite all this, I respect him as an author and cannot wait for him to complete the saga. It would truly be gut-wrenching if he never finishes and the torch gets passed to the HBO Jewish duo (Jew-o?), who have ALREADY ruined the story with the way they ended the last season.
“He writes about giant walls separating High civilization from a demonic horde, yet supports open borders in the West.”
I’m assuming that you’re referring to the Others? If so, one could also mention that the wall, at least for a significant amount of time, was used to keep other humansout as well.
Martin’s contradictions are further proof that most people — even those endowed with remarkable creativity and vision — are unwilling to challenge the status quo. It is fareasier to go along with liberalism, multiculturalism, etc. than to challenge it. And thus most people never even question the premises upon which the status quo is constructed.
I’ve only seen the first season and a few episodes of the second so far. I remember when the show came out that was I hoping it would emphasize the bonds of friendship and loyalty that develop between men as they face shared hardship, which was one of the few ways men could forge meaning and achieve self-respect in the brutish medieval world, and which is a common theme in fantasy literature. While I thought at the time the show depicted some of this, I felt it was marred by the relentless skullduggery (and the handsome returns to it).
While I am not an advocate of arranged marriages, this is wonderful advice for finding genuine love and happiness, and founding good, healthy families.
I think it is a straight ticket to life-long misery. The only way I could ever do that is if I could periodically enjoy the ‘secret passion in the woods.’ Ironically, I’d have much more in common with the behavior of traditional elites than the traditionalists who’d denounce me.
For Tywin, that thing is family. And what are nation and race but extended families?
For medieval elites, nation and race were but resources to exploit, nothing more. We have nothing to learn from them in this regard.
Do you know what leadership means, Lord Snow? It means that the person in charge gets second guessed by every clever little twat with a mouth. But if he starts second guessing himself, that’s the end. For him, for the clever little twats, for everyone.
Bad leadership is a common occurrence so sometimes the critics are right. This is particularly likely in cases where leadership results from inherited privilege rather than demonstrated ability. This effect also pertains to WN somewhat, which has paid a heavy price for the fidelity it has shown WN ‘founders’ despite those founders’ moral and/or strategic shortcomings.
Yes, I agree. What shall I call it, Traditionalism? or “It’s all been downhill since the French Revioution”-ism is a dead end. Progress sine the end of the Middle Ages has been immense in many ways, one of which is in the development of the very concept of nationalism and the understanding of race. There are those among us on the right who will even flinch at the “nationalist” tag (I am thinking of Evola, Benoist, Dugin, Richard Spencer…) because it’s a a “Jacobin” or anti-traditional concept. But if you actually go back and read some history you quickly discover that feudalism was a dreadful system and the liberals of the Enlightenment were certainly on to a thing or two. I am no Hegel scholar but the best way I can think of putting this is to say that I think history needs to be understood dialectically.
To the traditionalists’ way of thinking, you either ‘get it’ or you don’t, and if you don’t you’re considered so hopeless that there’s little point in vouchsafing you any explanations. “Read Evola!” is as much as you’re likely to pry from them. Left guessing at their motivations, I’d say that what animates them is something like the medieval ‘great chain of being,’ in which, as the traditionalist sees it, every person had his place and accepted it unquestioningly and solemnly devoted his earthly efforts to executing the tasks required by his role.
Modern traditionalists may accept that none of it was God-given, but they place such high value on the order and stability and the removal of uncertainty that result that they’re eager to resurrect that social rigidity, and their intellectual endeavours are devoted to establishing the sort of ‘life principles’ necessary to consecrate it. Some traditionalists behave as though this latter task has already been accomplished, and that the principles they espouse are so self-evident (at least once the intellectual undergrowth has been cleared) that none could gainsay them.
As for Richard Spencer, I’m not so sure that he flinches from (narrowly defined) nationalism because it’s anti-traditionalist. I think his reasons are paradoxically both more pragmatic and more utopian that that. They are more pragmatic in that he wishes to avoid a rerun of the internecine blood-letting of the 20th century (in his mind, presumably a realistic possibility), as well as to more effectively face down global challenges; more utopian in that, well, who knows what glories, what spiritual possibilities, may await a white imperium united around a foundational racial standard?
I only cared about the series through the board and card games produced by Fantasy Flight Games, and that was wayyy before the series debuted! I picked up the first book, put it down when the kid fell out the window. I never thought the HBO show would exploded into popular culture. I thought the show would be another pulp and then long forgotten. Now Thrones is everywhere.
I don’t know much of the story. But I do know Starks good, Lannister bad. Also, fanboys go crazy over “spoilers,” whatever that means. I only watched the first episode. Too much sex. Jon Snow and Khal Drogo are my favorite characters.
Thrones will always be a fantasy pulp. It’s really hard to look beyond that. Yes, white people love the European past. It works like cheese to mice. Martin wrote some good pulp stories. Not sure if he is qualified to stand next to Tolkien, especially with his pretensions, middle initials, “R.R.”
Very interesting piece — well done!
With regard to the issue of graphic sexuality: the book is indeed quite graphic. I read this series as a teenager; my parents were quite horrified when they flipped through the pages of one of these books to see what their kid was reading. Nevertheless, some scenes — such as the homosexual one between Loras and Renly — did not take place in the books and instead were simply alluded to.
Also, where is the evidence for HBO being owned by Jews? I’d hardly be surprised, but I couldn’t find anything. Its parent company, Time Warner, is operated by a gentile — remarkable, considering the rest of the “Big Six” are largely run by Jews.
IMO, everyone should pass over Martin and Tolkien and go back to fantasy’s founder– William Morris. His epic poem The Story of Sigurd the Volsung (not his translation of the Volsunga saga) has all the pros of GoT with none of the cons; it’s probably greatest long poem in English since Paradise Lost. Some of his novels are too idealized, but I find them more rewarding than any of his heirs.
GMMR has a nihilistic vision of human life. Despite this, I have to admit I did enjoy the first three books in his series. They’re works of genius in their own way. I do think people can skip them without losing too much in terms of a compelling reading experience. As for telling people to “pass over” Tolkien, those are fighting words amounting to high apostasy. Y¿ou watch your mouth around here…
“Nonetheless, the inclusion of a little girl shown physically defeating grown men on occasion is degenerate.”
I don’t remember little girls beating up grown men, but I do remember the Hound being killed by a woman, which is very unrealistic.
What about the racial aspect of the show? Westeros is completely white, but the characters don’t seem to have a racist bone in their body. I can’t remember anyone ever even commenting on the fact that people from different regions looking different. Strange, no?
If “Westeros” represents Europe than that’s how Europe should be white!
I haven’t followed the books or the series of Game of Thrones, but it seems clear enough that there would be no place for SJWs like George R. R. Martin in the world it depicts (I believe there are several references to his antics as a SJW in Vox Day’s SJWs Always Lie). Is that part of their charm?
Strongly evoked in G. R.R. the medieval theme – Honor, family and loyalty, strange coming from a staunch liberal?
Anyhow I always believed in the Medieval principals and we became what we are today and we shall survive as a family if we stick together!
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