Game of Thrones' lovers irritated me, found them too devoted, too involved in the epic saga. And, I finished watching it yesterday (binge-watched actually!). The other story I can think of which actually was nearly as brilliant as this was probably J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, but, maybe this overtakes it by miles. Anyways, comparisons of classics are futile.
I am in a daze really, the series based on George R.R. Martin's book (A Song of Fire and Ice), the writing/script is extremely brilliant with very strong female characters. If one can ignore all the violence (and the skin show!) the story takes over with its twists and turns. You invest in a character and that person gets killed soon afterwards. The politics is highly intriguing.
Tyrion Lannister's character in the final episode gives a speech (where he advocates for a new king's name) and talks about what keeps people together.
“What unites people?” Tyrion asked. “Armies? Gold? Flags?” No. It’s stories, he said.
“There's nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it..."Thsi reminded me of Benedict Anderson, who in his classic 1983 book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism talks about the condition that led to the development of nationalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in the Americas, and famously defined the nation as an “imagined community.”
Despite differences, people imagine themselves as belonging to the same collectivity, sharing a common history, traits, beliefs, and attitudes. Anderson further defined this imagined community as limited, because even the largest nations recognize some boundaries and the existence of other nations beyond them; and sovereign, because the nation replaced traditional kinship ties as the foundation of the state. A nation as an 'imagined construct' for which countless people have willingly sacrificed themselves and continue to do so. Nationalism got help from capitalism and print media as it came to define this era in the post-industrialisation period, along with urbanisation and modern education.
Anderson was criticised by post-colonial writers such as Partha Chatterjee, as he overlooked the colonial experience where nationalism as an ideology was super-imposed by the colonial masters. The work of Anderson' is still a landmark study where it questioned and provided answers for the rise of nationalism in the modern period.
The stories, Martin through Tyrion says, unite people and similarly the vernacular press through print media made imagining a community possible in the 18th century and thereafter. It was print media that played a big role in creating the thought of unity of different groups and families together as a 'community'. It is the communities that form the societies and societies have to create folk legends and myths for their survival. Politics is the about governance, how do you make sure that people do not dissent and remain committed to the state, ready for battles and hardships as and when called upon.
The kind of politics we are witnessing in India, is also based on stories, often concocted narratives that sway people to vote for the right wing majoritarian party, BJP. The nationalism, the emotional high-pitch speeches about the humble background of the PM, the Ram-setu controversy, Babri masjid/Ram janambhoomi issue and many such instances where facts may say otherwise but the narrative is build through stories (media propagation) to appeal to people's emotions.
The games around thrones continue being played, nationalism is a tool to keep people together. But, is nationalism really imaginary or the stories are so powerful that we are almost characters living in them?
