Front Burner - Winter is ending: Game of Thrones' impact on pop culture

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

HBO's Game of Thrones has just launched its eighth and final season. Since 2011, it has shaped everything from the way that television is broadcast to conversations about gender, politics, and power. Today on Front Burner, we break down the cultural significance of the show with Vox critic-at-large Todd VanDerWerff.

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Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Over the last eight years, I've learned a few very important things. Winter? Oh, it's coming. You know nothing, Jon Snow. A Lannister always pays his debts. It's not easy being drunk all the time. Everyone would do it if it were easy. Chaos is a ladder.

I'm not going to stop the wheel. I'm going to break the wheel. A girl has no name. First lesson, stick him at the pointy end. But most significantly, when you play the Game of Thrones. When you play the Game of Thrones. You win or you die. There is no middle ground.

Since its premiere on HBO, Game of Thrones has been this cultural juggernaut, shaping everything from how television is broadcast to our conversations about sex, race, gender, politics, and power. Sunday marked the beginning of the end for this epic fantasy, with the series finale just a few weeks away. And whether you're a rabid superfan like me, if you can't already tell, or you couldn't care less if George R.R. Martin ever finishes those books, Game of Thrones' mark on popular culture is really undeniable. So that's what we're going to talk about today, with help from Vox critic at large, Todd Vanderwerf. That's coming up on FrontBurner. Todd, thank you so much for being here with us today. Hey, it's good. It's good to be here.

So a little podcast magic. We're recording this conversation before the premiere, but since this podcast is dropping on Monday, a lot of people will have seen the episode last night, including me. I'm actually having a viewing party. But I know that you actually got to see it early. So, you know, what's everybody going to be freaking out about today? Well, I thought it was a really bold choice to make the show just about Melisandre taking a job in the big city and like becoming you know getting a job at an office and

working as a news producer and redoing the Mary Tyler Moore opening credits with Carrie Stunthout you're gonna make it after all perfect I think people are gonna think that's weird

but it really kind of jives. Yeah. What is everybody going to be freaking out about today? I really don't want to spoil people who haven't seen it yet, but there is a pretty big scene featuring Danny's two remaining dragons that I think will prove controversial. Because when I walked out of the screening, some people just hated it and some people were like, that was really nice. I should say two warnings here for everyone that's listening. First is that, spoiler alert, we're obviously not going to be talking about last night's episode, but we are going to be talking about other plot points in Game of Thrones. So if you haven't seen it, then you should maybe stop listening if you want to see it. And the second thing is, you know, I try very hard on this show to approach every interview in a very unbiased and curious fashion.

And I don't feel like I can do that today because I love this show so much. So I feel like I'm really going to have to rely on you to sort of maybe give us a bit of balance. have to rely on you to sort of maybe give us a bit of balance. But we're eight years in here. And why do you think people like me love this show so much? When you were talking about kind of how all the topics the show has touched on, it made me think this is really the perfect show for the 2010s think piece culture. And that sounds dismissive, but I don't intend it as such. Like, it is a show where if you are interested in questions of, like, political gamesmanship and political theory.

So much of the show is not just concerned with the taking of power, but with establishing that it is legitimate. Tyrion Lannister talking about alternative governance strategies for Westeros. It's just that those people are thinking politically and socially, not economically. And I think it speaks to the fact that we have a series of anxieties about war and violence in the current international system, which make us feel extremely insecure. Like you can watch it and get a lot out of it and write a think piece about that.

If you're interested in questions about gender, you can watch it and get a think piece out of it. it and questions about gender you can watch it and get a think piece out of it game of thrones i think is at once a deceptively deep and a deceptively shallow show it is kind of about a lot of things but it's not about them in especially great depth and then it has like this extra layer of blockbuster production values and gigantic special effects sequences and dragons and fantastical events and this rich, gigantic web of characters. I think that there's so much there for people to grab onto. And as an example, my sister is not a fantasy person, but she is super into Game of Thrones and it has gotten her into fantasy, which is like not a thing I would have predicted when she was making fun of me for reading fantasy

when we were teenagers. And why do you think that is? Because I'm not a fantasy person either. So how is it crossed over for people like Gus? So it is kind of the perfect HBO show in that HBO's MO is taking genres and making them feel more adult, more mature, more realistic, for lack of a better word. That kind of started with really Sex and the City and The Sopranos. Both of those shows take a very established genre, the romantic comedy, the mob drama. And they're like, we're going to show you a side of this you don't always see. Look, it's impossible for me to talk to a psychiatrist. Any thoughts at all on why you blacked out? I don't know. Stress, maybe.

We should just admit that we live in a culture that promotes impossible standards of beauty. Yeah, except men think they're possible. Because it goes on for week after week. It's not just a movie. And they've done it with the Western, with Deadwood, with the police drama, with The Wire. And now Game of Thrones is really their fantasy take on that. So it starts out as essentially historical fiction. Like there is this threat beyond the wall that we see in the first scene. But then after that, the first season is basically just a medieval costume drama that wouldn't have been out of place on PBS in the

70s outside of the production values are obviously much better. In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him and help me return him to Winterfell to await the king's justice. And then the last scene of season one has some dragons in it. So you firmly know you're in fantasy. But like everything else in that first season could have really happened. And I think that that's probably what got a lot of people involved because it really got you invested in those characters, even though like three of them are still alive. Right. And this idea that the show did not seem to care who they killed. Do you think that that also was part of its appeal?

I think so. But I also think it's been a little overstated. Like they have definitely had some big, exciting deaths. The major death that comes in the ninth episode of the first season, which I'm not going to spoil in case someone has not heard about it already, episode of the first season, which I'm not going to spoil in case someone has not heard about it already, like gives you this sense that everything, everyone is unsafe. And then there are a couple more in season three where you're like, oh, I can't believe they did that. But for the most part- Right. I mean, we could probably talk about the Red Wedding. I feel like a lot of people have talked about their, where they basically kill an entire family of your favorite characters. For the most part, when you start that show, you're like, you see John Snow and you're like, I bet this guy's going to make it a long way.

And he's still around. You see Arya and you're like, I bet she's going to make it a long way. And she's still around. So, like, it is pretty clear who the protagonists of this story are, who's safe from dying. And, like, the show distracts you with the big death in season one in a way that makes you think nobody's safe. But now that we're in the end game, especially as the characters are coalescing into two locations, it's become clear how indebted this story is to things like Lord of the Rings where everybody kind of is safe, you know. everybody kind of is safe, you know? And this idea that it taps into like political theory or gender issues.

Madam Secretary, which is closer to reality of life in politics? Which TV show? The West Wing or Veep? Oh, probably Game of Thrones. What are some themes that you think have been particularly salient? I really thought in its early going, when I loved it, it was a show about questions of how you use power and how systems of government can be set up to help or hurt people and what it means to have a just ruler. Sort of these questions that go unquestioned in other fantasy. Because you cannot build a better world on your own. You have no one at your side who understands the land you want to rule,

the strengths and weaknesses of the houses that will either join or oppose you. I will have a very large army and very large dragons. Killing and politics aren't always the same thing. And here's the HBO thing again. Obviously, this is a big theme of George R.R. Martin, but the reason it makes sense on HBO is HBO is always like, let's question the things that go unquestioned in other genre stories. And Game of Thrones did that really well for a while. Game of Thrones really was about, well, what does it mean when we say at the end of some novel, oh, and then he was the best king the country ever had.

You don't – George R.R. Martin has frequently said you don't hear about his tax policy. You don't hear how he dealt with like tensions between humans and orcs, et cetera, et cetera. How does he feel about crop rotation? And it's not enough to be a good man, to be an effective ruler and it never has been. That is what Game of Thrones is really about. And one of the things that has kind of hurt the show as it's gotten past the novels is it's increasingly turning toward this fantastical battle

between good and evil, which you need to deal with. You need to deal with the White Walkers at some point, but it has kind of gotten away from that idea of what does it mean to be a ruler? What does it mean to be a good ruler that drove its earliest seasons? And that's why I've kind of detached from a little bit. It's more pure spectacle now than it used to be. I take that point. And is the idea here because the show has now gone beyond the books?

I think that's probably it. My opinion has always been that the battle between good and evil was fought within the individual human heart. All of us have the capacity for good. All of us have the capacity for evil. The same people have the capacity for doing that on different days. They have apparently the outline that George R.R. Martin wrote for the final two books in his series.

He's proposed a seven-book series and has written five. And they have that outline. But when you watch season seven, especially, you can feel them adapting an outline. Things happen in that season that just are like, okay, we need this to happen now. And there's no connective tissue. As opposed to, I would say, the first three seasons. Many people would say the first four, so I'll give them season four. There is this kind of rich emotionality that knits all the characters together. And those four seasons are primarily based on the first three books, which are probably the strongest books. Do you think that it's moving towards this more fantastical narratives of good versus evil because that is also what people these days seem to be drawn to.

There are parallels between some Game of Thrones episodes and these big Marvel movies that we're seeing, right? I don't know. I feel as though the audience for this show kind of tapped into it because my, my friend Rowan Kaiser, who's written a lot about the show, like one of the things that he has said is that the way people talk about the show is the way they kind of talk about sports. Like they have a rooting interest. They have characters they want to see win.

And like, that is how people talk about Game of Thrones. And Game of Thrones. That is, I, And like that is how people talk about Game of Thrones. And Game of Thrones. That is – I would be just devastated if Jon Snow had died any sooner than this season. I don't know if he's going to die in this season. But yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that that's fair. Yeah. I think that there are definitely characters I feel like I really love Cersei. I don't know that I want to see her like win the Game of Thrones quote unquote. But I think that she is such a fascinating character. I want to see her stick around for a while. I think Lena Headey gives the best. Right, you just like to watch her.

I think Lena Headey gives the best performance in the show. The more people you love, the weaker you are. You'll do things for them that you know you shouldn't do. You'll act the fool to make them happy, to keep them safe. And like, to me, that's just like, I love watching her work. What do we know about George R.R. Martin and where he is on these books? He's written the first five of seven. They're in bookstores now. You can buy

them. He's written any amount of Game of Thrones lore. There's like a big encyclopedia type thing you can buy. This is a very rich world. I think one of the reasons it became such a popular show is you can disappear into this world and like somebody will be like, look at that hill over there. And then there's like a Wikipedia page that's like 3,000 words long about the history of that hill. So that is one of the reasons people love this show. But I have started to wonder if he'll ever finish the books. I do think he's – I almost think he's deliberately waiting for the show to end. So if everyone's mad about the show's ending, he can be like, well, that's what you do when you don't adapt my books and then write like a better ending at one point i was having a huge pressure on myself to

try to keep ahead of the show and i failed and but like they are working from his original outline there's a moment in season six involving the minor character hodor that is such a gutting reveal. And that is very obviously taken from George R. R. Martin's outline because in addition to like how gutting it is in a way that is very true to how he writes, like there have been times over the years when people would give them their fan theories about Hodor and he'd be like, you don't know how right you are. And like then the show confirmed it. And like how depressing does that have to be? You know, like I would be so depressed.

If I spent my life – like I write this thing because I've been working in Hollywood and everybody said this show you want to make has got too big of a budget. this show you want to make has got too big of a budget. And famously, one of the things that kind of soured George R.R. Martin on Hollywood was this, he wanted to make a show about parallel universes. And the network was like, that's going to be way too expensive. And no matter what, no matter what they did, they couldn't find a way to budget it. So he starts writing this novel series and he's like, this is way too big to ever be adapted. It's going to be done on my terms. But like those first three books come out in rapid succession and then it slows down because they blow up, like they become a big deal. And then they get optioned by HBO and suddenly this thing you thought was unadaptable is being adapted. But then you realize, yes, it was

unadaptable because they can't adapt it chapter and verse. It's just too big to do that. So they start condensing it. That changes the story. And then, you know, they are working off your outline. So they are spoiling the end of your books for everybody who's watching. And all of these wonderful twists you've had in mind for decades. I don't know. I would have trouble getting over that.

I'm also interested to hear how you think some of the issues that the show has tackled will age. So, I mean, sexual assault is an issue that the show tackled. There are some very, very graphic scenes of brutal sexual assaults in this show that received a lot of criticism at the time. And so how do you think that we might look back on what was done in the future? You know, who knows? That's the kind of thing where so for instance the first season is just full of female nudity and at the time people didn't really say too much about it and the season eight premiere is very clearly meant to resonate with the original series pilot and as such it has a scene that's full of naked women uh which is the thing the show has

largely gotten away from it like it has kind of responded to its critics in terms of like elevating its its women characters and you know doing less gratuitous nudity but the season eight premiere has a scene with gratuitous nudity in it, which is not really a spoiler. And that feels so jarring in 2019 where it kind of didn't in 2011. And it's a choice where you're like, oh, wow, the culture has really changed. So I don't dare predict how the culture will change. That said, I think Game of Thrones' treatment of sexual assault, occasionally, yes, it was clumsy. It was not artistic or moral value but like there have been a lot of times when it has told stories about like sexual assault that are clearly about what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal system that

doesn't value you as anything other than a piece of chattel right it's worth grappling with that part of our history in a fantastical context I I think. Right. And the other side of it, what these characters, the perpetrators are capable of as well. And of course, there have been similar criticisms around how this show has dealt with race and slave narratives. In the books, I think I make it very clear that the slavery of Slavery's Bay of Yunkai and Astapor and Meereen is not racially based. It's not American slavery. But talking about women, you know, I also think it's worth noting that there are some really incredibly strong female characters in the show. Sansa, Arya, Cersei, like you mentioned, Daenerys.

Yes. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you that those who would harm you will die screaming. And that in and of itself within the fantasy genre is unusual enough that Game of Thrones, you know, I was speculating earlier as to why my sister, who had never read fantasy, latched onto this series. And I think I know why. Final question for the day. If you were to bet who ends up on the throne at the end of this, unless they're all killed by White Walkers. Who is it? I think they're going to destroy the throne and install some sort of proto-democracy. And one of the last things we see will be them kind of trying to figure it out. And then we see the Iron Throne being melted down and turned into more swords. That feels to me like what's going to happen. Perfect. I feel like that is a bet I would be willing to make myself too.

Thank you so much, Todd. Really appreciate you coming by. I really enjoyed it. So I don't know about you guys, but I'm in a Game of Thrones prediction pool with some friends. You know, who's going to die? Who's going to sit on the throne? That kind of stuff. And now I really wish that before I submitted

my season eight predictions, that I'd spoken to a group of computer science students from the Technical University of Munich in Germany. They've created an algorithm to predict which characters are most likely to stay standing from data online about Game of Thrones. And even though the data that the algorithm uses is based in fantasy, it's using the same kind of techniques that artificial

intelligence is using in the real world, which is very cool. That's it for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back.

Gay Girl Gone. Available now.