Living In a Game of Thrones World
Posted on May 19, 2015
"Game of Thrones sign" by Keith McDuffee from Northborough, MA, USA - Game of Thrones sign. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
A wealthy family, blocks from Joe Biden’s house, is held (presumably at gunpoint), murdered and then burned to cover up the evidence.
Another family is murdered by their next-door neighbor, who was apprehended on cruise ship in Alaska.
Two motorcycle gangs clash with the police and with each other. 9 of the bikers are killed.
Baltimore erupts in protest and a baseball game is cancelled. Nobody is killed, but several people are beaten up by the protesters. The National Guard is called up. After peace is restored, Charm City resorts to previous practice, and several people are murdered in the streets. Nobody notices.
Two would-be terrorists attack an event meant to provoke Muslims. A Texas police officer skillfully guns them down.
In the meantime, in a different part of the world, ISIS takes over a huge chunk of Iraq, the Sunni part.
It seems to me that the world is devolving into a real-life version of Game of Thrones.
Winter is coming. Or maybe it's summer.
Statisticians say that the crime rate in America is inching ever downward.
It sure doesn’t seem that way.
Look on the Internet.
Every day, there is a new story of depravity.
In some parts of America, white walkers move through life, hooked on crystal meth, cocaine and pot. They wear tattoos and they break into homes to pay for their addiction. They have given up hope and long ago lost their teeth.
One small town in Indiana had an improbable outbreaks of AIDS, spurred on by drug users who re-used needles. Of all the places.
In the popular television series, a group of religious extremists, called the Sparrows, rise up in violent protest against the moral depravity of Kings Landing. Cersei Lannister cuts a deal with the High Sparrow to try to take her rival down a notch, but it turns out that Sparrows turn against her (I read the book).
Religious fanaticism is rarely the best answer to a moral crisis, but religious fanaticism is often the most common answer.
We live in an Age of Great Transition. Things move quickly, information moves at the blink of an eye, technology kills jobs and then creates them.
Yeats pointed out, back in another Age of Transition, that the worst were full of passionate intensity.
We may not need a religious revival but we certainly need a moral and ethical one.
Either that, or everybody should go and buy a gun.
Game of Thrones is a work of fiction.
I think.