Hi there! Randomly sliding in your ask box, but do you think GRRM overglorifies D and the Targsa bit too much? Right now, the son of an ousted dictator is dangerously coming close to being the next president of the country. I've noticed that some relatives of mine who blindly support him were also D stans, and while I understand GRRM's intention was too study how tyrants are made, some people just don't seem to get that and think that this type of character is what we should look for in a leader. Do you think the show or GRRM himself failed to get that point across to viewers and readers by glorifying the Targs for popularity and profit?
Hi there!
And the son of a dictator even made it. Yikes... 😑
I don't think GRRM failed to be honest. He hasn't finished the books and it remains to be seen how he'll bring Dany's arc to an end. I think people actually see the red flags and there is the famous Meereenese essay whose author was praised by GRRM for "getting it right". And it's not as if "Fire and Blood" glorifies the Targs. Even Targs we might have thought beforehand were pretty decent (like Jaeherys the Old), we now know to be almost as bad as the others. I don't think anybody can read Fire and Blood and stick to the believe that the Targs are good.
I think it is a bit different for the show. D&D prioritized the hiding of the DarkDany twist over everything else and then they managed to even botch that. They did such a bad job that people just refused to believe that Dany burning King's Landing will be canon and accused D&D of doing "fanfiction".
They postponed Dany's fall to the very last moment, by alternating her "red flag" moments with triumphant moments. They wanted to milk their cash cow to the last moment and that is why they failed. They should have committed to really depicting Dany's fall.
So, I would say that D&D failed to unmask Dany as a tyrant in a convincing and compelling way. But that does not alter the fact that the character is a tyrant and that people just refuse to see it. And sadly enough this is what happens sometimes as well.
One of the most haunting experiences I ever had was reading the diaries of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda minister. These are not personal diaries but were meant to describe Hitler's ascent to power. And despite knowing that he was an evil man, that he supported an evil dictator, I could still feel the pull of his words and was always on the edge of catching myself to nod at the easy explanations, the black- and white painting of political problems, the disdain for the slow procedure of democratic politics. To this day I shudder how easy it would have been to be lured in, if I had not known who wrote these books.
This is imho exactly the reason why we need to unmask dictators - fictional and real ones. We shouldn't fall for their "everything will be solved once I'm in charge" or their "I'll do this a lot more efficiently". They spoonfeed us easy explanations. We should reject them and talk about the complexity of the world that doesn't have easy solutions.
Thanks!











