Who Lives, Who Dies, Whose Skeleton Sits on the Iron Throne
I’m seeking help today. I don’t have the answers. I’m writing this at two in the morning because I’ve come the closest I got so far to asking the right questions. I know if I fall asleep now, I will never return to the proximity with which I’ve come to the best possible words. They’re not the right words, but they’re the best I’ll be able to muster, I feel. You can’t put this sort of thing into words.
And I know I’d be better off not revisiting an element of the culture upon which I’ve touched already. But Game of Thrones. Has a show so medieval ever felt so relevant?
As Targaryens and Lannisters and the Tarlys (kinda) fight among themselves about who gets to rule in Westeros and who has the rightful claim to the throne (dragons burn soldiers in the name of halting a humanitarian crisis), is there an undercurrent of a message about Jon Snow, the supposed bastard of Ned Stark, being the only one to rise up and call for something to be done about the White Walkers that are coming?
“If we don’t put aside our enmities and band together we will die,” says Ser Davos in the show’s seventh season. “And then it doesn’t matter whose skeleton sits on the Iron Throne.”
It’s obviously a metaphor for climate change. Right? Or has this piece of art come to be shaped by the world around us? Do metaphors change over time or do we search for answers in our media because of our reliance on our favorite stories to be reflective of something we deal with today?
Nothing in the realm of television or books or music or film or what have you could ever compare to the past couple of weeks so I feel safe returning to Game of Thrones. Mass shootings, sexual harassment and rape allegations against one of Hollywood’s biggest players, the dissolution of the National Football League, hurricanes in Texas and Florida and Puerto Rico, the death of Tom Petty. Have I even listed one tenth of the problems we face? Have I even scratched the surface of the plague we tell ourselves to fight against day after day after day after tiresome day? To those who say it will never end because it has always been like this and the past couple months have been merely sensationalized, I struggle to think of another period so tumultuous that it could easily serve as a substitute for the jokey warning signs of an apocalyptic comedy starring Rob Lowe and no one would be the wiser.
And can it truly be temporary if we don’t know if the world will end before our glorious forty-fifth presidency does? These issues are all important. They are necessary to discuss so we may improve upon the quality of life we experience here on Earth.
But what will it matter if we don’t have an Earth to live on? How is it that climate change keeps receiving seventh billing, eighth billing, last billing? There’s no energy left to care by that point. Instead, we’re left hoping that perhaps an aging ex-vice president and the star of Blood Diamond will be able to rescue us by themselves.
I don’t want to discredit the importance of stopping gun violence and systemic misogyny (problems that deserve to be railed against every day) and helping the victims of natural disasters that our leaders have failed to rise to the occasion against. And I feel like silence is violence.
But sometimes I also feel like Jon Snow and I can’t compartmentalize and I can’t prioritize. And no one cares about the white walkers. And I’m not sure what else we can do to stop them because it’s all getting to be just too much. Because I don’t know anything about science. All I know is Game of Thrones references. And I only just got good at those this year!
So, like I said, I’m seeking help today. How do we do it? Is there room for both? Was there ever room for both? What balance do we strike? Have we been numbed so much that it’s too late and we might as well try to do what we can with the time we and our planet have left? These are my questions. And no one is going to give me the answers.
I have always been amazed by the fact that people know they are going to die and they remain okay with living out their lives. We’re the only species that knows. And yet, we continue our march forward. It’s a fact that should cripple us, but it doesn’t — and it moves only a select few to action against it, however fruitless. I guess I just never thought that those same sentiments would translate to the way some feel about the end of all life.
