Daily, for weeks now, the stars of Game of Thrones have been appearing on late-night chat shows and giving interviews to select newspapers and magazines. There have been pop-up Game of Thrones theme bars and there's a range of GoT wines being launched.
With a new season starting (Sunday, HBO Canada, 9 p.m.) and an end in sight, just two short seasons to come, every dollar is being squeezed from the fantasy series. And every kind of meaning, too. Because the actors can give nothing away about plot developments, they tend to talk in generalizations and anecdotes. This leads to ever-more speculation, not just about the plotting of the coming episodes but about the meaning of it all. Often, fan and media coverage concentrates, in high-blown terms, about what can be extrapolated and learned from the series, especially the political resonances.
There have been many attempts to connect Game of Thrones to Washington politics: DC Always Was King's Landing says a Guardian headline. And British politics – "Westerexit" was a term used in The Washington Post, for blimey's sake – and, for all we know, Brazilian politics. This is a versatile and durable approach to the shenanigans on the series. But it amounts to almost nothing. It is, however, illuminating and disturbing.
The first point to be made on Game of Thrones is that it isn't about politics in the context of parliamentary and other forms of democracy. The series is about power, not conventional politics as it is practised in most countries. It's about power in the sense that power is about subordination, exploitation and humiliation. That form of power applies in personal life, the workplace, personal relationships and family dynamics.
What's disturbing is how easily, these days, some fans and analysts see U.S. politics playing out on the series. Little wonder, in realistic terms, since the drama is about family dynasties, which can be loosely applied to the Trumps and the Clintons. Hillary Clinton can be, and has been, connected to both Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and Cersei (Lena Headey). Somebody has probably been busy finding meaning in how Ivanka Trump fits into the fictional drama's high-octane daddy-daughter twists. Given this past week's events on the Trump front, there is probably an idiot-son theme being nurtured by some in GoT analysis.
Thing is, Game of Thrones is not an allegorical text. It's set in a fantasy feudal world, not a modern country. If there is any connection to today's electoral politics, it is only in the sense that it's about autocrats.
Now, it's true that U.S. President Donald Trump has a soft spot for autocrats and autocratic style is his first-impulse response in politics. But he's an anomaly.
The fact that so many viewers see political allegory in Game of Thrones is actually disturbing because it reveals the visceral appeal of brutal autocratic cruelty. You know who would have probably been taking notes on ways to learn from Game of Thrones? Donald Trump, that's who.
Most TV series do not challenge orthodoxy; they support it. They reaffirm people's biases and prejudices. Often they confirm what people secretly, and in the privacy of their own headspace and homes, think about the world. There's a reason why the formulaic CBS drama NCIS, not Game of Thrones, is the most popular show in the world. NCIS validates what most people like to believe – the world is scary but the authorities will come and sort it all out and save the vulnerable.
Game of Thrones is, in that arena of meaning, a confirmation of perversity. It is sexualized violence and power porn. The very title of the TV series suggests both that thrones of power play a dangerous game against each other and that players in a game compete for acquisition of one of several thrones.
For there to be a game, there has to be rules and the rules, in the books and the series, are rooted in an assumption of the rightness of a small hereditary noble class having power over a much larger group of common peasants. There is a lot of elaborate blather about the intricacy of the laws in GoT' s sprawling landscape, but it all amounts to inherited social standing and the fact that women, no matter their class, do not have the same rights and privileges as men.
In that, Game of Thrones gives succour to sexists everywhere and its most defining scene, traumatic for some and consumed gleefully by others, was Cersei being forced to walk naked through the streets of King's Landing while being verbally and physically abused. Swords, sorcery, some magic and men having risible conversations about honour and betrayal is the gist of much of it. All very male.
This all amounts to a very traditional escapism from the humdrum daily world, in which most of us are obliged to acknowledge that we don't live in feudal times and it is incumbent upon us to be sensitive to the rights of others. One cannot begrudge anyone their enjoyment of it or their admiration for the craft in the acting and storytelling.
The series has some serious admirers, including Margaret Atwood, who announced in an aside in a recent interview, "And I for one will be quite annoyed if Mother of Dragons does not marry Jon Snow. But since both the series and the author of the series have a habit of killing people off in great numbers, who can tell what will happen?"
The crux of the appeal, beyond the layers of possible meaning and the gusto of the mainly British and Irish actors, is that element of, "Who can tell what will happen?"
The fevered analysis of trailers and short interviews with the main actors is a thing to behold. One trailer/preview had Cersei warning of "enemies to the east, enemies to the west, enemies in the south, enemies in the north." And anyone familiar with the plot could only nod and agree that, yes, trouble is coming, big time.
We know that winter has arrived. We know that dangling storylines are being woven together – Daenerys Targaryen, with her forces, is heading for King's Landing. And there she will encounter Cersei, who is currently in residence on the Iron Throne. In another neck of the woods, Jon Snow has been crowned king.
Certainly the synopsis of the first new episode, titled Dragonstone, doesn't give much more away – "Jon (Kit Harington) organizes the defence of the North. Cersei (Lena Headey) tries to even the odds. Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) comes home." Right. People knew that already. Possibly, it will all conclude with justice restored and an emotionally positive twist that will satisfy its many ardent followers.
In the meantime, Game of Thrones means many different things to many people. And it is a strange tool to use in drawing parallels with contemporary politics. Used as such, it only tells us that the principles of feudal power and the magnetism of family dynasties have an abiding, unsettling appeal and barbarity appeals to some people in a way that moral complexity and sensitivity does not. What you draw from it says a lot about you.