14
May
2016
0

Why Game of Thrones is Fundamentally Stupid

I want everybody to stop what they are doing and pay attention for a minute.

Do you know why I think Game of Thrones (TV series) is fundamentally stupid? No, it’s not all the rape, though I’m far from thrilled about that. It’s not the slow pacing and divergent stories that reduce the main characters to bit parts. It’s not even the lazy way the show handles the Dothraki as Mongols as Others.

I think Game of Thrones is fundamentally stupid because it doesn’t understand that people need to eat.

Go ahead and scroll back up to the banner image. I can wait.

What do you see in that external shot of King’s Landing? Ocean and boreal forest. When we see people outside King’s Landing the scenery is forest as far as the eye can see. Dirt roads through forests may look suitably medieval, but they ignore the very obvious fact that the pre-modern city only existed when it was surrounded by extensive farm land.

But Adam, King’s Landing gets its food from Highgarden.

Oh for fuck’s sake. Maybe you are not hearing me. Pre-modern cities weren’t supported by farms deep out into the country once you get past the suburbs. There are literally no pre-modern cities in human history that didn’t have farms within spitting distance of their walls. An army rampaging through King’s Landing food supply would mean that Robb Stark or Stannis Baratheon’s bannermen were literally, not figuratively, be at the city’s gates. I don’t recall seeing any of Stannis’ men burning crops during the battle of the Blackwater, do you?

Bravo, HBO. The Legend of Korra has ever-so-aptly proven that its writer’s room was smarter than yours.

Behold the endless farms outside the walled city of Ba Sing Se. Tell me again how Game of Thrones has the best writers on television?

Behold the endless farms outside the walled city of Ba Sing Se. Tell me again how Game of Thrones has the best writers on television?

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