Nerd Alert

Fictional Governments: A Song of Ice and Fire Part 2 Daenerys Targaryen and Colonialism

It certainly took a while for me to finish this, and I went in a vastly different direction than I thought I would. I began to catalogue and describe the various governments on Essos, the second continent in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire (there are two more, but as yet they are wholly unimportant to the narrative) but I ran into problems; namely there are too many, they are not described in enough detail, or they are too similar to one another. So I’m going to focus on Daenerys Targaryen and the development of her role as a non-state actor (and indeed, not much of an actor at all until the death of her brother) to a major military power with the fictional equivalent of nuclear hegemony, with particular concentration on her narrative as a colonial power.

(Please be aware that spoilers follow for events up to and including A Dance With Dragons.)

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Fictional Political Systems: A Song of Ice and Fire / A Game of Thrones part 1: Westeros

Power resides where men believe it resides.
- A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin

This is a pretty simple truth about the nature of the governance of humans, known in real politics as consent of the governed.  It’s pretty much the essence of government; we choose who governs us in one way or another, whether we vote with ballots or by stabbing people. You can talk all you want about mandates from God (or The Seven, or Rh’lorr) but at the end of the day one single person can’t do a whole lot unless other people care to listen to them.

The line comes from a conversation between two characters who don’t trust each other. Varys posits this riddle to Tyrion Lannister; a king, a septon (priest) and a rich man are in a room with a mercenary and each wants the mercenary to kill the other two. To whom does the mercenary listen?

In ASOIAF, this theme comes up time and time again. There’s several political systems in several cultures that are explicitly identified and I don’t want to build too big of a Wall of text (haha, I made a joke) so I’ll concentrate on the most explained system and go into the others in subsequent installments.

I’ll be working from knowledge of events up to A Dance With Dragons, the last book released thus far, so there may be spoilers. If you’re unfamiliar with this universe, you’re about to be, but since even people who’ve read the books need to look up characters and countries sometimes, I suggest A Wiki of Ice and Fire, which I’ll also be using because nobody’s memory is that perfect. If your knowledge comes from the t.v. show, that’s a good start, but bear in mind that there’s about 200 more characters and reams of backstory in just the two books that have been adapted thus far.

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At what point do we just start calling 3-D printers replicators though?

I’ve been looking for something to talk about at boring, verbose length, especially since I’ll be using this blog as an assignment for a Social Media class and I guess it’s nice to post about stuff every so often.

I’ve settled on combining my two strengths: comparative politics and fictional universes. So for the foreseeable future, or at least however long it holds my interest, I plan on identifying and critiquing this aspect of world-building, comparing them to the political systems that exist or have existed in the real world. 

If you have any suggestions on fictional governments you’d like me to look into and type about, please let me know. Otherwise, here’s a few of the top of my head I plan on definitely posting:

• The Lord of the Rings
• A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones
• Harry Potter

The first two will provide a few posts in and of themselves due to the varied nature of their universes; they realistically have several different systems within their purview. 

As usual, thanks for following as I continue to use my Political Science degree in new and increasingly useless ways. 

the email I just received:

Do you have the persistence of Superman? The patience of a Watcher? The ingenuity of Tony Stark? The determination of Batman?

If so, then you are ready for Comic-Con International 2013 Open Online Registration! Badge sales will begin at 9:00 AM Pacific Time (PT) on Saturday February 16, 2013.

The Greatest Disappointment Of This Generation: The Doctor Who/Star Trek Crossover Comic

The Doctor Who/ Star Trek crossover comic book Assimilation Squared wrapped up this last Wednesday with a bang. Unfortunately, this was the only bang in the entire run. 

What should have been the geek-out event of this or any year ended up thinner than a crepe and not nearly as delicious. 

The story, involving a combined universe (since we’ve established in DW canon that Star Trek as a fiction exists in the Whoniverse) where the the Doctor, Rory, and Amy must work with the Enterprise crew from Next Generation to fight the Cybermen team-up with the Borg should have been excellent.

And it might have been, in a different medium. The art looked like a paint-by-numbers watercolor. The dialogue, which in both series is full of quasi-sensical techno-babble that lends itself well to the ear, was overwhelming to read, covering entire halves of panels. 

At first, I defended it (A DOCTOR WHO/STAR TREK CROSSOVER! THIS IS THE PINNACLE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION!) as it was slow to start. Then, four issues in when it was still slowly starting, I said “well, both shows have wooden dialogue too, so, you know…”

And then by the last few issues I was reading it out of a sense of obligation. 

There was a moment between the Doctor and Worf that made me laugh, because those characters have such diametrically opposed personalities it was ripe for comedy, but this was only taken advantage of once, and then the Doctor gets to chiding the Enterprise crew for using phasers. In character, but boring in a medium where every panel counts. Midway through the story, we’re shown a new memory the Doctor has of himself (in his Fourth, scarfy incarnation) interacting with the crew of the original series, which was a semi-interesting diversion, if badly paced within the plot. There’s another good bit in the last issue where the Doctor contemplates asking Geordie to be a companion (and really, how awesome would that be?) and Picard tells him not even to think about it. 

The ending was decent, and I’m not just saying that because I was relieved it was finally over. What could have been a fantastic sequence involving Data absorbing the TARDIS fizzled itself out in two pages. “Oh Data absorbed the TARDIS. Cool. This means nothing apparently.”

Doctor Who beat out Star Trek to television by a few scant years, and watching Star Trek, the original series especially, it’s pretty clear that the creators of the show were heavily influenced by Doctor Who. There are many thematically similar elements, and the bridge crew went to planets that were suspiciously identical to past or future Earth (that one with the anti-Cold War message ages particularly well) with little to no explanation. A crossover between the two seems as natural as breathing, but in practice turned into a boring kind of nightmare; one that costs like $4 every issue and never seems to end.

It felt like this entire endeavor was the product of a late night and an impending deadline. The characters, who already exist as fully fleshed out individuals given the immense body of work they appear in between the two series, feel like watery mock-ups, like a bad fan fiction. Which is disparaging to fan fiction as a whole, because I’ve read Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover fics that blow this out of the water. 

Final judgement: WHAT? HOW COULD YOU SCREW THIS UP? DO BETTER!