- Joined
- Dec 29, 2000
- Posts
- 13,175
One thing troubles me about the series is that everything almost seems like it could really happen, but then frozen monsters attack an outpost which make me kind of scratch my head... and if Khal Drogo survives because of blood magic it may ruin the realistic aspect that I enjoyed from the show.
I remember when I showed some friends the anime for Berserk and they were all on board with the politics and the violence and the human intrigue. And then, the way that show ended with everyone being sacrificed to monsters, they were like 'wait, what?'
I had to remind them that at the very beginning, the first episode, Guts fought a giant snake guy. And then in early episodes, they fought Zodd. And Griffith wears a behelit around his neck that occasionally blinks. The hints are always there, but the monsters are all waiting for a big event ot happen before coming back into the world full tilt. There are reasons the supernatural elements of Berserk are subdued in the early stages.
Likewise, Thrones had supernatural stuff happening in the very first scene, beyond the wall, when the white walkers killed those two rangers and one of them saw the corpse of the girl. Early on, I was wondering what it was all about, even in the book. Was this in his head? Was any of it really happening? Then I started seeing more instances of the truth throughout the book and series. Old Nan telling stories from long ago and Osho talking about how things are stirring in the north, driving the wildlings south into Westeros. And then Lord Commander Mormont talking about how the rangers are finding whole villages abandoned beyond the wall. Then there are other things that weren't explained until later on in the series, like why the trees have faces and what actually lives north of the wall and whatnot. And through it all, the ominous saying 'winter is coming.'
It was all verified when John Snow torched that one zombie before it could kill him and Mormont. I started to think about it. Tyrion doesn't believe in 'snarks and grumpkins.' He says that's all mythology and that there is nothing different north of the wall than what is south except for cultural differences.
But why build a huge fucking wall to keep it out? Why does it have to be so big if it's just a bunch of disorganized savages without the science or tools to craft arms and armor or the command structure to gather into a real army?
That wall is there for a reason. Mysticism has been pushed out of Westeros, and only exists on the fringes of the 'civilized' world where Lannisters and Targeryans and Baratheons and their kind don't hold sway. Later events in the series explain it further, but the precedent is already sent: people don't believe because it's been pushed away. Guys like Tyrion and the maesters call it bullshit because they are men of knowledge and science. Only the more primal people still believe it, or those that have seen it with their naked eye.
And remember that Sam Tarley was reading maester Aemon's books at Castle Black (on the wall) and he read very old tomes that talked about the 'Others' in very great detail. Surely, such things would seem like myth if they were written about thousands of years ago and no one's actually seen them since then, eh?