You become the image of the morality in which you are moulded. Hence why the state is perpetually expounding the benefits of unlimited state-sponsored schooling.

Something else: I didn’t say it was normal in general, nor normal for me. Though it is true that I’ve spent no little effort developing the ability to simulate it on demand.

It’s a high tightrope. Fall to one side and be eaten; fall to the other and eat your fellow man. Sharks and zombies, and humanity in the balance.

2030 here we come.

I have consumed the Peter Jackson movies and the Game of Thrones series at great and repeated length and they certainly represent very different takes on a medievalish fantasy world and different attitudes about the world.

The TV version of GoT has never troubled me. I’m certainly getting the sense the books might have if I had ever tried to struggle through them.

It does represent a nice counterbalance to Tolkien in one way- I know his secondary work makes it clear that much more has gone on in Middle Earth than just the struggle against the two dark lords, there has been plenty of other conflict, and none of the men or elves or dwarves are free of ambition, lust or conflict. Yet still his work strikes me as assuming all that is just window dressing on the epic moral struggle that unites all history in a common narrative with a beginning, middle and end defined by that struggle. Martin has the epic struggle against the Walkers, but for most of the history of his world and even of this story it was the backdrop to the real, everyday, ongoing, history of humanity.

Tolkien represents the traditional eschatology of Catholic Christianity rendered in fantastic form. Martin represents, at least on this topic, a world in which history is cyclical or indeed just goes on and on, on its own terms.

The thing about the later seasons that actually concerns me is that it is turning into the eschatology of the progressive age- the epic moral struggle is introduced again, it is fought by everyone happily uniting together with the dream of ‘breaking the wheel’ and introducing a newer, better, at least by current standards more perfect world, ideally under female leadership across the board.

We’ll see. I’m still hoping legitimate hereditary succession will put Jon Snow on the throne. No spoilers please, I won’t see episode 3 until tomorrow. I’ve got a version of the story in my head that would make good narrative sense in which he was killed last weekend, but I have avoided finding out.

Here’s a thought experiment for you Martin apologists: Imagine that Martin wrote this dreck a hundred years ago, and he gained the notoriety then that he has now: What, do you suppose, would be the “take” on him, today? Would people consider him a master craftsman of the novel, as they apparently do today, or would he be excoriated as depraved example of the patriarchy, a “dead white male” that should be cast onto the midden-heap of history, reviled and forgotten…?

Seriously, now: What in Martin’s writing makes him any better than, say, Lew Wallace or Walter Scott? Is his prose any more artistic than Samuel Clemens? Is his chosen subject matter any less evil?

The man is a sick, sick bastard, and the lot of you who buy his works and make him rich are complicit in the depravity. You’re also symptomatic of what is wrong with so much of Western society today, which I’ll not sully the concept by referring to it as a “civilization”. It falls far short of the ideal, I’m afraid–And, will likely be seen as what it is, the corrupt descendant of a more enlightened age. Even the robber barons of the late 19th Century would have had the decency to have been embarrassed to be found reading something like Martin’s most successful work.

Yet, Mark Twain is under fire for Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, ‘cos he used the “N-word”.

The SJW types are hypocrisy personified–They’ve made Martin a wealthy celebrity, staging his rape-fantasies in glorious living color, while selling that product to the public at large. In any other era, just floating the idea of an entertainment like Game of Thrones would have gotten you locked up for obscenity.

I’m not sure that this state of affairs represents any real improvement. Given the nature of special effects today, I think I’d almost prefer the Roman arena, because at least there, you’d have to watch all the gory details, not just the cinematically-refined version of gory rape and death.

https://tafkarfanfic.tumblr.com/post/119770640640/rape-in-asoiaf-vs-game-of-thrones-a-statistical

Georgie “Rape-rape” Martin didn’t earn his sobriquet for nothing. This is a sick, depraved human being who lovingly describes everything. You are almost forced to have to visualize him typing with one hand, as he masturbates furiously. Which probably goes a long way towards explaining his low productivity. The man loves him some rape and nihilism.

You are what you seek out for entertainment. Ancient Rome gloried in the sado-masochistic spectacles of the arena, on the theory that it hardened and inured the public to bloodshed. My theory? They were a bunch of sick bastards that got off on other people suffering. Martin’s readers and viewers ain’t much of an advance.

One of these days, all this is going to be rich fodder for academic analysis, by some future culture that has either overcome or superseded our current corruption of the spirit. You cannot imagine Martin ever becoming published, let alone being a best-seller, in any previous era of American history. Think about that, for a moment… What does it say about the publishing industry, and the audience it has cultivated?

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s works are still on sale. Martin receives little or no censure for his lovingly described rape and gratuitous slaughter. I’ve seen grade school kids reading the books, and quite a few parents allow their kids to watch HBO. In a decade or so, you’re going to hear young adults telling the world that their first exposure to sex and/or nudity was watching Game of Thrones with either parental approval or obliviousness. Care to extrapolate how that is going to affect their psycho-sexual development…?

Martin belongs in a fucking mental hospital, along with most of his enablers, and a fair chunk of his audience.