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In fact in GOT class and gender inequities are constant themes and issues. They are not stable things the way they are in Tolkien.
I should say that they are not ideologically stable things the way they are in Tolkien.
That is, GOT is not a story about progress toward democracy and social democracy.
But the ideological stability of feudal beliefs and belief in its social structures is often very shakey. That is there are characters and types who do not buy in. GOT being GOT, that’s not even “one thing.” It can lead to appalling brutality on the part of lowborns who simply resent highborns. (For those who know the show, see Karl the Mutineer and Locke.) It can lead to ideological rejection of the system too (again see Gendry saying “I am done serving.” Though of course that’s complicated because Gendry the bastard doesn’t even know he has a highborn father.) In Tolkien, class and gender are never questioned–they are simply stable. Not in GOT. They are much more complicated and variable things.
Well, you have a much more detailed knowledge of the show than I do and I won’t argue with the idea that certain individuals question social structures and their place in them. But there is no large group or movement that is trying to create change towards a more benevolent system (Kaleesee’s rule would be more benevolent but it wouldn’t represent a move towards democracy). There is nothing currently happening that would suggest that if you visited Westeros 100 years from now anything would be significantly different.
Restarting the series. Have watched the pilot and the second episode so far. It holds up really well on second viewing. Weird, but the killing of the direwolf “Lady” has impacted me more than several of the human deaths.
Beautiful animals. Not sure the breed, though I’m guessing WV would know. If I had a nice big yard with a fence, I’d definitely want to have one or more. The closest breed to an actual wolf would be preferable. Perhaps huskies or malamutes. Though I love golden retrievers too, as well as German shepherds.
As you know, all dogs are descended from wolves but the breed closest to the wolf genetically is the shi-tzu, followed by chows and other northern Asian breeds. So the dogs that look like wolves aren’t necessarily the closest related to them. I like all dogs but my wife and I prefer German Shepherds for many reasons with their wolf-like appearance being one of them.
BTW, the dire wolves in GOT did actually exist in the Pleistocene. They weren’t nearly as large as they are depicted to be on the show (they are about the same size as the modern grey wolf) but they had larger teeth and a stronger bite force.
You’re not alone in rooting for animals to live over humans. I’ll root for the animal every single time.
Thanks, Nittany. Good article. That’s PZ Myers, correct? If memory serves, he’s really good on the topic of creationism versus evolution.
Yeah, he’s a biology professor who is a leading figure in organized atheism, skepticism, feminism and social justice. He writes well and I usually agree with his opinions on stuff. He is not liked by many in the atheist community though. He often openly disagrees with the giants of organized atheism like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris for their Islamophobic rantings and he attacks organized atheism for its anti-feminist leanings (there are a lot of MRAs and libertarians in movement atheism). So there is an angry rift between those that think the atheist community should embrace social justice causes and those who don’t.
I’m only aware of it because I am into taxonomy/evolutionary bio, etc.
You;ve heard the latest popular argument against evolution, right?
If people came from apes why aren’t apes evolving too?
And…
If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
My take on the Shallows? I agree with PA…it sucked.
****Beware – here there be spoilers***
This movie depicts white shark behavior about as accurately as Jurassic World depicts dinosaurs. But the Shallows tries to be a more serious movie than JW, and that’s part of the problem. Because when you make a serious film you better not have lapses in logic. And this one has plenty.
For example, there is a dead humpbacked whale about 50 yards off the beach. Apparently this is what attracted the shark to begin with. 30 yards away from the whale is our heroine, happily surfing. Why a shark would go out of its way to attack and then stalk a 110 pound bony woman when there is 15 tons of blubber nearby is beyond me. Tbe heroine speculates that she was attached because she entered its ‘hunting grounds’ but that explanation rings hollow. By now everyone has seen footage of white sharks feasting on whales. There is no territoriality at play when there’s that much food in the water. Multiple white sharks will often be feeding at the same time and even other species of sharks will be feeding as well. The sharks often eat so much that they enter a stupor and become very lethargic. They are not aggressive at all. No way would a shark in these circumstances care about a tiny woman on a surfboard 30 yards away.
Also, the shark in this film was easily 20 feet long and would have weighed at least two and a half tons. How did the 110 lb heroine survive the attack? Not only did she survive but her only injury was a 7 inch gash on her thigh. She was able to close the wound by using her ear rings as sutures. Now, the vast majority of people attacked by white sharks survive. However, in those attacks the sharks are not thought to be actively hunting. They are curious about an unusual object (a human) in their environment and bite it out of curiosity. That’s their only method of determining what something is. Since humans doesn’t taste like their normal prey, the encounter usually ends there. But even under these circumstances the wound inflicted by the shark is greater than what our heroine experienced. A two ton monster shark with a two and a half foot wide mouth and two inch teeth bites her and the result is a 7 inch gash?! And the shark wasn’t being curious…according to the film it was aggressively attacking her for entering its hunting ground. If a 20 foot white shark is trying to kill you, you would be killed and there is not a thing you could do to prevent it. The result of such an encounter would not be a seven inch wound that can be mended with jewelry. There were many other lapses in logic but these bugged me the most.
The one thing I liked about it is it was effective at building suspense by filming from the surface of tbe water. From that perspective as waves slowly move up and down you’d get a quick glimps of the view beneath the surface. During these quick glimpses you kept expecting to see the shark but usually there was nothing there. Since the advent of CGI, the creatures in these type of films often look very realistic. I think how good they look often leads the filmmaker to have it get a lot of screen time. However, this over exposure often reduces the level of suspense and the impact the creature has on the audience. In this movie the shark looked pretty realistic but IMO the filmmakers didn’t over expose it.
I disagree with Hillary on just about every issue with the exception of women’s reproductive rights. However that’s not why I dislike her. I dislike her because she’s duplicitous. She tries to show a progressive face to the public while supporting conservative agendas. She is anything but progressive. She simply can’t be trusted.
I would never vote for Trump. The guy is a racist bore but at least with him he’s not hiding anything. What you see is what you get. Strange as it may sound that makes him more trustworthy than Hillary. So if I seem ‘harder’ on Hillary, I guess that’s why.
