Nerd Talk: How the Westeros Was Won

Game of Thrones spoilers ahead... If you aren't caught up, here's your warning. If you are, proceed! If you don't care to, you might actually find something worthwhile in my babbling anyway.

Daenerys Stormborn basically just mowed King's Landing into ash. Lots of main characters were cut down, lots of innocents to boot, and we only know for sure that Arya got out in one piece, but clearly in a state of disbelief over carnage even she wasn't prepared for.

Taking down Euron Greyjoy's Iron Fleet was gratifying. Daenerys lost another of her dragons in the last episode and it felt like justice. It's when the Golden Company surrenders and the camera goes to Daenerys's face twitching with cold hatred and that coin-flip Targaryen madness followed by Jon Snow's oh-shit face do we realize we have a Mad Queen on our hands. Amid the pointless carnage and montage of final showdowns, a lot of Daenerys fans jumped ship. At first, I thought the worst of it too but there was one thing I've been certain of while watching this show.

Like in actual human history, monarchies have to fall, in bloody rebellion, for new governments to take place. While we can't say for certain whether this was plain-old Targaryen madness or a sudden revelation that the Iron Throne would never be hers, the choice to completely destroy it was, inevitably for the greater good.

I wouldn't say I condone genocide as a solution in the real world, but facing overpopulation, oppressive governments, the rise of theological laws trumping human rights, and irreversible damage to the planet caused by human fuckery, I'm also not entirely unsympathetic to the extremes caused by dystopian desperation. However, it's the 'good intentions' of human ego that often lead to tyranny, genocide and villains who think themselves heroic.

Didn't we see this same theme with Thanos, where he went from just being the big bad guy to a misguided being with a savior-complex? There are always layers that create these moral grey areas. Genocide, wrong, but human neglect and rampant apathy, also wrong. It often takes centuries, all the while those benefitting become blind to the dirty truths of their golden empires, only to stand in shock when the desperation topples them into dust.

I couldn't be surprised that Daenerys went the route she did. She journeyed from an innocent girl who was promised a kingdom by her twisted brother to needing to wallow through the horrors of reality to get there. All the while, she tried countless times to do the right thing, to be a merciful queen. Yet it always made the oppressors stronger with that perceived weakness and time and time again, she had to secure her power through being the monsters she sought to remove. It isolated her from those closest to her, made them fear her--all but a few who truly cared. They never questioned her because it showed a lack of loyalty but even they started to show in their eyes alone a lack of faith.

Losing Missandei, the one who always looked her in the eye and stayed true, was an incomparable loss. Even Grey Worm/Torgo Nudho, while still unfailingly held her command, stopped meeting here eyes. Jon Snow's doubts were plain as day. In the scene prior to marching against the Red Keep, she asks him if he sees her as more than queen and we see without him speaking that his love for her has cooled. 

So while we could assume that she is a jilted woman, isolated and aware that the Throne could still become Jon Snow's despite his refusal to take it, the role of Queen, no, as rightful heir of the Seven Kingdoms (removing gender as a factor altogether), it is more plausible than even inherited incestual madness is less likely than her resolve to destroy the Throne altogether. It is useless to her in securing the people's faith and loyalty. If she cannot claim her birthright through civilized means, she will acquire it through fear, even knowing fear had brought the people down on her father's rule to begin with.

But he didn't have dragons. Well, dragon. Even though fan theories project Drogon might have laid more eggs when he went missing for some time.

While the tagline intimates that the Game of Thrones means you win or you die, the underlying theme makes that a bit of braggadocio, always whispering through the faceless god and the old Valyrian saying that 'all men must die', overshadowing the idea that nobody really wins at all. And no, 'all men must die' isn't some cheeky feminist hint that women are excluded, anymore than mankind actually excludes women.

No one is meant to win this. With the toppling of all major tyrants leaves most of the brilliant minds gone and the survivors not the fittest among us to pick up the pieces. We lose the glory of those times, and often the knowledge of our advancement. We lose the luxuries that allow for the facilities to advance and simply revert to survival.

A little aside here, but this is also why the Ancient Aliens show is absurd to me. The idea that the only explanation for early humans to advance as they did was for extraterrestrial influence to occur is pretty discrediting to our actual potential. While its true that someone had to observe, eat and smoke the plants to discover their properties, create language, etc. we weren't just poop-throwing monkeys, the oddly grunting caveman, and nothing but drooling morons until our modern incarnation. Even the monkeys we descended from (and projected our brain evolution came from through the Stoned Ape Theory) were rather clever creatures from the onset. The capability for wondrous brilliance of thought and utter stupidity were always a gambit. It's also very possible that many processes were not recorded, only built at the zenith of our ancestors' civilizations before greed once more tore them down before the process could be repeated or passed into general knowledge. While even today our most successful humans could hand you a roadmap of exactly what they did to succeed, the repetition  of great achievements often fails without exact conditions that are lost as being inconsequential at the time.

So, as related to the original topic, our very natures guarantee that our own egos prevent good from coming of progress. Conservatives seek to protect dying structures and those obsessed with change are willing to build with bad materials rather than risk not being able to build at all. What remains is a foundation of tears and blood. 

Daenerys must know that there is no way to win. She never comes off as being too stupid to have realized the futility. It's also true that she is a human, subject to whims, emotion, and ego. Though she also believes that nothing could stand against her dragon and beat her, it is also likely that she will be taken down by something as gentle as a whisper. 

Yet through her tyranny, both terrible lessons and even altruistic retrospection exists. Begrudgingly, she is both wrong and right and neither matters. The game is forever changed. Though thrones may not be restored, powerful humans will sit in chairs again and play with lives once more.

It's the real world parallels that make this fantasy a ripe place for comparisons. Of course Westeros isn't Earth but fiction lovers don't fail to see where our mistakes and imagination create a playground so visceral and breathtaking. While the books are a hard read, the show is truly a team effort of epic proportions. The music alone is award worthy, but the actors are no less perfect for their roles. The opening animation itself is rightfully praised as being the only intro it's hard to skip through, no matter how many times you watch it. While I'm not out to convert anyone to watch it nor shove my morally grey and idealistic views of human progress in anyone's face, I hope you were at least inspired to explore deeper than a first impression of anything.

Our very strong gut reactions are often less gratifying than the long game. It's worth reflecting on the true nature of people and world problems, especially through the distraction of fiction.

Mother's Day

It could have been a harder day. I've endured a few of these without my mother, that turbulent relationship, a woman who was the high-definition two-way mirror and an impassable brick wall nonetheless. The first was still too soon after losing her to feel the brunt of it. I'd lost my grandma two months before her and I stood in shock of being suddenly matronless.

Not that my grandmother or mother passing meant any privilege was passed. I came to terms with it long ago, that I was family only at arm's length. There would be no inheritance and no acceptance there. There would be no change in my life, for better or worse, but for the absence. My mother seemed to have known her time was short and she'd made our visits about confessions of her mistakes and guilt so I made peace with that closure. Yet death doesn't wipe the slate clean. It's not the growing gnawing of a grudge that is left, just the gaping maw of a toothless gear that clicks pathetically against nothing at all.

Yet today, I spent a few hours with my sister and nephews in an arcade/skating rink/play area and I found some joy and peace in the people I do have. It's only when I've been alone that I wince at why a day keeps hooking into me when days never meant so much before. Because, maybe, I might have reached for the phone unconsciously to make a requisite call to someone who is gone.

It still hurts, the decision to not be a mother. Yet, I don't think I could bring a child into this world, knowing they could inherit what makes me dig way too deep into voids I struggle to share. It doesn't matter that I could be a great mother. I did well for my nephews, somehow, but as proud as I am of who they are, it's also the most terrifying responsibility. I get a lot of credit for them, but I didn't do it alone and it gets no easier over time. It takes more than being a good mother or wanting to be to take on motherhood and, at the end of the day, the children I bear must come only from the womb of imagination.

It's a tough day, as I've said, but it could have been harder. I have much to be grateful for, skills I've climbed mountains for, people who pull me out of places that could swallow me, wisdom I've nearly drowned in to drink. I stand on the edge and breathe. I cannot fly but I stand firm and dare the wind to shake me. If I fall, may the dive be spectacular. Although it's in me to grow roots and bend as the wind blusters. That much, I had in common with my mother. To all who give life, improve life, and preserve life, Happy Mother's Day.

Tomorrow is another day and one to start anew.

The Glass Left Behind

I vaguely remember the time I first saw writing referred to as bleeding on paper. I'm fairly sure my swollen bleeding brain was drawn to the possibility of giving the excess blood somewhere to go, even if that's probably not what most people seem to think it means (going by the context around it). When people say it, it always sounds as if they are just using a more violent means of 'going for the gusto'. It sounds like a risk you take when you've already given blood or you're anemic, that you're giving something that may be more than you were initially willing to, perhaps. I do know that the concept didn't make me uncomfortable, but I was certainly on edge. It's not giving my blood that scares me; it's drawing the sharks that want more. Very likely why some writers hoard their precious red gold.

Let's skip context for a second and start by saying that it's very difficult to explain emotional abuse to someone who has no experience with it. Even harder to explain to many people that blood doesn't make you immune and some of the worst offenders can be family (and largely because many societies cannot even perceive of disloyal family or that they could even do anything unforgivable-- this give the offenders a dangerous blind spot to exploit). I've seen some books do it well enough, able to plant sufficient terror and unease into the 'beloved' villain that torments the protagonist. To show what it's like to be the hostage when other people see only the luxury of your life. To have people judge you as ungrateful, jealous, lazy, even childish when you're being overwhelmed by someone who becomes more likable the more they tear you down, like their charisma is fed with your destruction.

To survive, I suppressed a lot of both the strengths and weaknesses of those experiences. I've tapped into the surface of those incidents to write in the past, but it's been a trying week to dig them out in preparation for the third book of my series (yes, UnSung is about 5/6 done, but since each book leads into the next, I have to make the lead-ins more fluid). I'm giving one of the characters more of my blood than I've ever allowed before. There are some differences between her and I, but if we sat down together and talked about family and friends, we'd have a great deal in common. Do I kill her or give her some story of triumph? Part of the reason I'm not making her 'me' like some writers do is that I don't want that to be a certainty, an emotional parallel that determines the story. I don't want to make her a Mary Sue or paint her as some kind of victim. Her importance is still a bit of a mystery to me.

Even though I'm dancing around it, the bleeding in the brain is the central theme. My brain as a youth, and my heart besides, was something I left to open air to absorb everything. I liked running around barefoot too, just to strengthen the idea. I never really saw a need for filtering, in a time before trauma could issue the need for caution. Perhaps why most bravado comes off as the trait of someone who bluffs or hasn't been tested yet and rarely through actual triumph under fire. But, experience; I could pick out what I liked and throw the rest back, right? It would be nice if a contaminated brain could just get tossed out and replaced, but instead, it's more like a wineglass shattering next to it and try as you might, you just can't pick out all the pieces. No matter how whole and neat you thought your mind, the broken things find all the imperfections. You settle it back in place, tilt your head to test it and everything seems like new. You probably pat your back, puff up with pride and start to swagger into the day.

The pain is blinding. Your eye twitches, an impossibly fast shadow just out of focus. Your foot turns and you hold your breath, relieved that you don't wrench your ankle at least. A lingering sense of vertigo remains and you shoot a quick sidelong glance, your ego recovering enough to hope no one saw what looked like forgetting how to walk.

You tilt your head like you did the time before, only this time, it's cautious. Before you can meet the same vigor of your first test, the splitting pain strikes again. Damn. You're out now; you can't just go home, root around for the glass again. So you get through the day, recovering from every stab with a sudden smile, every stumble with a silly dance, every whimper with a tuneless hum.

When you can finally get around to it, it's gone too deep. You can't be sure if it had already been too far even before you felt it or not, but you tell yourself that you should have looked harder, been more careful. You frantically look for it anyway, only now it's not just glass, but the dirt under your fingernails, the errant hairs floating around, the dust, the icky sticky bugs...

It's bad enough when you have only yourself to blame. Sometimes your glass was put in by a surgeon and it will take a surgeon to get it back out. Yet you swear you know yourself better than anyone and don't want just anyone rooting around in there.

People suffer in silence for reasons that outnumber the sands on this earth. The problem with something getting in is that it has little to do with a fault of strength. We get sick when we need to eat but sometimes we miss the signs that the food was prepared wrong. We get sick when the invisible germs travel by air when we take a breath or nibble on a nail that touched the contaminated door handle. Sometimes we'd rather show up to work barely able to stand rather than admit we aren't invulnerable. Some fault is seen in our life choices, how we take care of ourselves and we are never allowed to blame anyone because all fault is supposed to begin and end with us. There's often more to lose than gain and it's easier to pretend things are handled.

Sometimes we are only so sick because we just tell ourselves it's glorious to be broken. No life is without struggle, but perhaps it is only so bad because the generic band-aids that are in fashion are only making it worse.

People might think our smiles and show of strength and optimism are signs that we're onto some secret of happiness that they covet. There's almost a societally acceptable amount of misery that must be worn to be invisible to this scrutiny or at least not attract the psychopaths that can't tell the difference (or don't care even if they can).

As you can see (or have even done before), it's not difficult to find the analogies, the physical reactions and defenses behind the psychology but it's a very different beast to dissect the psychology, form the characters and the subtlety of the situations. Experience is still limiting since, like my abusers, they were very much counting on the trauma to make it difficult or even impossible for me to find aid or peace. Even parts of my childhood have been eaten away. Your brain sometimes takes more than it needs to, just in case.

I want this for my story though. I can't bear the thought of what hell a memoir would open so I don't even entertain it as non-fiction. What this woman goes through, I won't even dare to assign the same offenders by relation to her lest the comparison be damning, but I'll Frankenstein my experience into this theme because if I don't, I'll make it too sterile and safe. If this is what they mean by bleed, it comes mixed with pain and relief but also the apprehension that I'll have to let it go before it festers. Which means if I write it, I'll be itching to publish it just as much.

But hasn't that always been the case?

I've said many times before, but there is no need to assume all writers are only coming from a place of damage and depression and torment. Sure, for many of us, it's a fact of life, but one thing that is certain is that that mindset is useless to me when I work. Yes, useless. This is inherently why I go through a vulnerable planning phase, to take notes and tap into the messy parts then fortify myself to be the observer to work, to dive back in with the experience, the plan and the narration ready to make sense. I did this as a musician and I do it as an artist. How well do you think I can play flute when the music sneaks up on me and makes me sob? How well do you think I can draw when I'm trembling with emotion? Those things are a complete nuisance to the actual process so finding the mastery to interpret them will never work when I'm in the mindset to work and end up blubbering on my keyboard (the silicone cover on my keyboard is for possible coffee spillage, not my tears).

I know that many people are emotional writers. It's not that I'm not at all, but I can't say that I actually keep the resulting mess of that. It's just not where my stories work.

If only to defend my method, I can't tell you how many times people are surprised when they find out authors like JK Rowling and Sherilynn Kenyon started their famous books in the thick of depression. It doesn't really show, does it? They weren't looking to be locked in that stagnation but to turn magic on it. How many comedians turn their pain into laughter? This obsession with the idea that creatives are locked into this tunnel of only focusing on their real problems is just myopic.

In a sense, you could romanticize their shards of glass as prisms of transcendent light. Can't say I haven't tried to look at it that way. However, I think the glass still cuts sometimes. Life is what we do with the pain.

... Scratch all that. I think I've found my newest writing method.