Beheadings in Stoppage Time
Why I Watch Soccer Instead of Game of Thrones
When it comes to the game of thrones, you play or you die. More accurately, you play and you die. When it comes to those of us who read and/or watch the game of thrones, it is not an exaggeration to say we come away from it suffering from a kind of trauma disorder. When I first caught wind of the buzz surrounding HBO’s announcement that they were going to produce a live-action series based off the great tomes of GRRM, I gobbled up the first four books in a hurry. I don’t know why I was hurrying. I wasn’t among the happy few who actually have a premium cable subscription and couldn’t bother with pursuing some of the less-than-legal avenues to watch. So by the time the first season came to Bluray, I already knew poor Ned’s fate and had crashed the Red Wedding.
Somehow, though, living it again on the screen made it worse, as if the immediacy and empathy induced by the image on the screen turned the sorrow and heartbreak I felt whilst reading into a violent trauma I couldn’t work past. I found myself double checking the locks on my doors, dreaming up horrific accident scenes whilst sitting through a red light. My wife and baby girl would run an errand, and my mind would spiral down a rabbit hole of despair until I had convinced myself they had already become the victims of a lone gunman or a drive-by shooting. The ordinary brutality and ready violence, the trivialness of life in Westeros was bleeding into my life. I was putting up walls in my real universe to protect myself from the awfulness happening in a fantasy universe. By the time the Viper and the Mountain met, I decided I could no longer continue to endure the violence and the loss, I owed it to my family and my own mental health. I would quit the field and give up the game of thrones.
But I wasn’t done with trauma and unexpected violence and loss. For there is another game which has all of those elements, all of the drama and immediacy of Westeros but none of the trauma.
I am of course writing about The Beautiful Game.
Watching soccer can often be a trying experience. The game never stops, and it can change in the blink of an eye. It can be hard fought, unjust, and heartbreaking, subject to the whims of imperfect beings — known in the parlance as officials — but it can also be glorious, triumphant. In short, it is a nuanced ride of emotion, complete with its dramas and epic confrontations. Soccer filled all the gaps left by my abstention of GoT before I had even realized there were gaps that needed filling. It struck me as I watched France lose to Germany in the Women’s World Cup. Here we had one team, Germany, the favorite, a behemoth of soccer prowess against a team with its own considerable reputation. No one expected France to win and yet — and yet! — here they were, outplaying Germany at every turn. Creating more chances, shutting down the German offense, scoring in open play. The game was won! Then the unthinkable, a handball in the penalty area in the final minutes. It wasn’t France’s fault, but it was still a handball, still a PK, and Germany converts and triumphs only after a final mistake, an unfortunate final shot during a shootout and Germany advances. Heartbreak. Tears. But the better team lost, I cried. As I watched Lavogez collapse into tears, I felt the same hollow feeling in my chest after Oberyn, victim of a similar final mistake, had his brains dashed out by the Mountain.
Then there’s NYCFC against Toronto FC. Like Arya Stark, they took on a well-established machine and triumphed, but played such dirty football as to compromise themselves to the point where it’s impossible to sympathize with them anymore. Clint Dempsey channels Joffrey Baratheon during the Open Cup match against Portland, and like the Lannisters always seem to do, he gets away with it! Finally, there is Michelle Betos, who, in the Thorns’ darkest hour, climbs through the flames and like a true Khaleesi, delivers salvation to her people with the most dramatic goal I’ve ever seen.
The same dread and anxiety is there when I watch Columbus play as when I watched, Brienne or Daenerys or my favorite Stark jaunt about in Westeros: I love them, I know they’ll pull through, they have to, look at how wonderful they are. But then, in the blink of an eye, it can all fall apart, and I can have my heart ripped out of my chest (cf., CLBvCHI or CLBvORL). The difference is, with the Beautiful Game, the trauma is transitory, because there’s always another match, always another season. In the game of thrones, the trauma is always there, lurking around the corner — probably with another wedding invitation.
