Westeros Done RIGHT | A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Analysis

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]Spoiler warning for the first season of this show and the first novella. So, if you have not watched the show or read the book, hello everyone. Hope everyone's doing well out there as always. Forgive the uh change of scenery, but I am currently moving, but I'm making do uh sitting here outside today and I just couldn't help myself. if I wanted to sit and record a video about a night of the seven kingdoms, the new TV show that you are watching that I watched multiple times that's taken everybody by storm.

[00:00:31]It's smash hit a critical acclaim battling it out with Breaking Bad over who has the shittiest [ __ ] fan base.

[00:00:38]The Aussie Mandius episode 5 in the name of the mother battle that was going on for which which episode is going to be the highest rated episode on IMDb. It's like as if that matters at all. Of course, it doesn't. It's it's entertainment. It's all just about are we enjoying it? Are we having a good time? Is this good art? And uh I'm happy to say in the case of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, it isn't just good art.

[00:01:03]It is exceptional art. It is fantastic storytelling, fantastic film making, fantastic TV writing. When the show um initially got announced and I first heard about it for the first time, I can't say that I was particularly excited for it. Westeros adaptations have just never been all that satisfying to me. As a massive fan of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book universe, the the TV show [ __ ] sucked.

[00:01:33]>> It's a pretty song. I've never heard it before.

[00:01:35]>> It's a new one. I mean, like, I really liked the first few seasons, like everybody did, but even I I'm in the camp that the show was kind of always overrated compared to the books. Maybe not at first. such a great uh first few seasons of TV that it's like, okay, maybe it's a bit melodramatic to call it overrated at the start, but I mean, the the the fracture lines, the like the the issues that ultimately ended up culminating in the shittiest final season in television history, those ruptures in its structure and in its basic formula really started appearing for me in season 5. I think half of the show is really good and then the other half of the show is mediocre. Um, too terrible. It's either mediocre or it's like really really bad. There are bright moments here and there throughout that are a little bit more impressive than the valleys that the show eventually tanks to. But so yeah, original Game of Thrones happens. It's the biggest disappointment in the history of television. And then House of the Dragon comes out and I'm thinking to myself, "Oh boying."

[00:02:41]And I watched season 1 and wouldn't you know it was a pleasant surprise. It was a pretty good season of TV. Not as good as like again the peaks of Game of Thrones but a really solid season of television. I mean like Patty Constantine as Viseris was absolutely fantastic. Uh Matt Smith in that first season as Damon fantastic. Tons of different aspects of that show were firing really well. I mean like the production value was extremely high. The show looked really good. I mean, there were those shitty episodes where the the brightness was just horrible. They did this like day fornight shooting that just looked absolutely horrendous.

[00:03:20]Overall, the first season worked. Then season 2 comes out and I mean, I'm not trying to be one of like over dramatic people that like, oh my god, it's ruined and it's because of Sarah Hess. There's there's like this whole conspiracy rabbit hole that like blames Sarah Hess for how shitty they think the second season of the show is. And more broadly, it's just I don't like what they've decided to do with the writing. I don't think they're handling the writing super competently. And season 2 was just incredibly dissatisfying. I just I really didn't like it. So, that's where my head was at when A Night of the Seven Kingdoms was announced. I get I hear about another Westerosi spin-off. I'm thinking to myself, "Oh jeez, here we go. Here we go again with the with this universe. they're going to they're going to do something with it that's just going to it's it's not going to capture the spirit of George's writing. What I love about George's writing. And then the show actually comes out and it's by far my favorite season of any Game of Thrones property Westeros show, anything by far. Like not even close. As much as I love like you know the the Red Wedding, peak television, Ned's execution peak storytelling moment. tons of great moments in classic Game of Thrones, but like what impresses me most about the story is how much impact it manages to have with how little it's actually doing. Like on the surface of things, this is an incredibly simple story with like nothing really all that special about the plot or like the world building mechanics that are happening in it. Like there's not a bunch of dragons, there's not a bunch of crazy world building, there's not a bunch of whatever. I mean there there is the classic political dynasty, the Targaryenss, that if you are invested in the world of ice and fire, it's all the more meaningful because there's actually it's deceptively simple. That's the thing is that on the surface it is so simple, but it has like just caverns and caverns of depth to it. little details are in these novellas and in this show that allude to that depth and make clear that the story and the world that it takes place in has that amount of depth.

[00:05:32]But what the events that we're following are just so simple, so easy to digest, so easy to root for the main character.

[00:05:42]All the acting in it is incredible.

[00:05:44]Literally from everybody. Dunk is fantastic. Kid egg. My god, what an incredible child performance. Probably the best child performance I've ever seen in anything ever. Like, it's it's it's hard to believe that the kid was 9 years old when they were filming like like scenes where he he's being asked to pretend to murder his brother that he he loves on some level because it's his brother, so he feels a ton of resistance about that, but he also totally hates him for all the abuse that he's caused him his entire life. And it's like all all of those layers are are being portrayed by this like 9-year-old kid.

[00:06:20]It's it's so impressive. Like I I'm genuinely blown away by that kid's performance. To me, it's it's utterly iconic. And this show would have completely flatlined without him being so fantastic. Like I I think genuinely he is the secret sauce to the success of this season of the show. like everyone else obviously also did a fantastic job, but I mean he just is the lovable character that like wins over everybody.

[00:06:49]Nobody some people might not like Dunk for whatever reason. I mean I I wouldn't get that. Dunk's fantastic and he's such a great likable character, but if you don't like Dunk, you'll definitely like Egg. No, no one could dislike Egg. Or I maybe there's someone out there who's just a [ __ ] soulless cretton that doesn't like this kid, but I'm happy to report that I haven't met that person.

[00:07:12]But so yeah, the child performance of the century. One of the most impressive I've ever seen in my entire life. And and and all the side performers really brought excellent performances to these characters. Lionel Baratheon.

[00:07:27]G genuinely this is another like Patty Constantine Viseris example where it's like I could I could see the argument being made that the character is better in the show. He's got this like mercurial sort of trickster energy about him. He's he's a party animal, but also a little self-absorbed, a little sardonic. He kind of can't take anything seriously, but then he's also there for Dunk when he needs him the most. And so, yeah, we do kind of like him. He offers to help Dunk at the end, but he's also kind of pissing and treating him like [ __ ] at the same time. He balances selfish and unlikable qualities with really likable qualities incredibly gracefully. So, Raymond is the the goat.

[00:08:09]Underrated. I love Raymond. Um I love the actor who played Raymond. Him being willing to put his life on the line to help out Dunk this guy that he like just freaking met and became friends with and standing up to his [ __ ] family at the same time. Underrated. underappreciated how dope that actually is. Such a cool character. Uh kind of didn't love the way that the show ended his story where it was like he uh gets married to that prostitute girl and she's like going to pass off someone else's kid as Raymond's. I mean, it's like kind of it's it's nice for the woman in so far as you know, she she probably has an out from her current situation which was having to blow all these uh douchebags.

[00:08:49]So, good for her. Happy that that's the case. But I didn't I didn't like that it came at the cost of Raymond being duped into raising a child that is not his. I don't know. Little [ __ ] up to me. It's it they played it for laughs. It was kind of funny, but it's it wasn't funny enough for me to not like that they were pissing on my boy like that. Oh, the guy who played Bor, absolutely fantastic.

[00:09:13]The guy who played Arion, such a douchy, perfect like >> see to my horse.

[00:09:19]>> I'm not a stable boy, my lord. not clever enough.

[00:09:24]>> He nailed it. All the Targaryenss were great. Mar, like the actor who played Mar did such a fantastic job. Like this, this would have been a character that would have been extremely easy to flatten into something shitty and something like boring and missing layers and missing complexity, but he he pulls it through as this like, oh, no, no, no.

[00:09:45]We see the pain underneath. And he's like a deeply loving father. Like actually, it's funny. One of an underrated like emotional moment for me is during the trial of seven after Arion gets his leg sliced open by Dunk.

[00:09:57]Chuch-ching. That was [ __ ] awesome.

[00:09:59]He like screams out. He's like, "My boy, my boy." And he runs and he tries to save his son and it's like, "God damn, that actually that got me cuz it's like so sad." Like, yeah, I mean this is your son. I feel bad for him. But I also but I mean of course I'm still rooting for Duncan. It's not like I don't want him to [ __ ] kill the [ __ ] out of Arion, which I absolutely did. But Dunk's a better guy than that. So, he decided not to, which was, I think, awesome. But yeah, name a character from the show and I'll I'll talk about a good performance.

[00:10:30]Even for like parts that I think are not all that interesting, the the performer still doing a great job. Like there's that guy, I forget what his name is.

[00:10:38]He's the one that's always snorting and like spitting [ __ ] nasty mucus. That guy. I didn't like that character or the or really that whole little side tangent in the plot was just it's not like it was bad, it just wasn't all that interesting. But even that guy gives an excellent performance. We talk about the uh music in this show. Instantly iconic with the like whistling folk tune that sort of plays as the theme for Dunk and Egg's relationship.

[00:11:05]Homespun and cozy and just like just the right chord for this character relationship. like just the right chord.

[00:11:13]It's unbelievable. And then there's like the background music is really like carrying and lifting certain moments a lot more than people realize. Like when Dunk is in Lionel's tent, the music that's playing in the background during that is like so weird and like trippy, fun, kind of tavern feel. And then it transitions beautifully into like the more energetic upbeat part of the music where they're dancing and that whole scene is carried by that music and how good it is. And because everything is so good in the show, I feel like the music may get lost as like exceptionally fantastic because everything is so good that it doesn't stand out compared to cuz often times mu great film or like TV music can be in like projects that are not as good as the music. This is like, nope. Everything is a masterpiece and the soundtrack is unbelievably fantastic. Like, frankly, I'm just grateful to be in the timeline where such a great show uh exists and we all got to enjoy it. I mean, like, I had I had such a great time watching it week by week. It was peak TV experience where it's like you just can't wait for the next week's episode because you're just that hooked into it. Didn't start off that way for me. Episode one was all right. Episode two was pretty good.

[00:12:29]Episode three, I'm totally hooked.

[00:12:30]Episode 4, oh my god. Episode 5, [ __ ] me. Episode 6, oh [ __ ] [ __ ] This is This is it. Like, it's one of those. It just builds and builds and yeah, I just I I mean, I bought it hookline and sinker. It was so so good. It's funny, you know, there's the the classic theory, the classic theorizing around whether or not Dunk was actually kned. I think the point is that there is no answer. So, I'm not going to like say he definitely was or definitely wasn't. I like to speculate that maybe maybe Sir Arlin in that moment cuz there was there was that moment in the final episode where it looked like the show was confirming that he didn't get kned, which I thought was at first I was like, "Oh, [ __ ] That's awful. Why would you do that?" And then they kind of brought it back and made it a bit more ambiguous. But I don't know if if I'm carrying that scene on in my head, like as soon after it cuts, he tells Dunc to go get his sword. he wants to knight him and then he's in the middle of knighting him or he's about to do it and then he dies because Dunca is such an honest character that it is like I mean it's not unheard of that he would lie. Um especially you know he's just a person and this is his like whole [ __ ] life on the line. I don't know. I just I think he'd be more comfortable with that kind of lie where it's like, yeah, it's technically a lie, but like come on, he just didn't get to say the words. Like it's it's more about the technicality of it because that's really what the question is. Like do the vows make the night or the actions? We all know it's the actions, Dunks. The the point of that is that the pomp and circumstance around titles and around like your listed role, whatever your your title in society, all that kind of shit's nonsense. It's [ __ ] doesn't mean anything. What matters is what kind of person you are and what kind of things you actually do for people. So, at the end of the day, it it's the point is that it doesn't matter whether he was kned or not. But I just like that the ambiguity makes that so clear that that's the point is that it didn't matter either way. to address like one common criticism that people had for the show. They a lot of people didn't like episode five doing the flashback, doing the cut um from the battle to his upbringing with his friend and the whole backstory of her dying and then Sir Arlland saving him. Some people really didn't like that. And I mean, I just couldn't disagree anymore. Like to me, that was like the best way you could have done it. That's like to to me. We start the scene. We we start from his point of view. It's so oppressive. It's so like brilliantly shot. Like terrifying up close. No vision in his helmet. Loud noises booming in your ear.

[00:15:09]We just watched him throw up. Like God, we are trapped with him in this moment.

[00:15:14]Everybody goes and he stays behind and it's oh god, it just like makes your stomach drop and Egg is shouting go and he gets his moment where he can contribute to the conflict. And then we rush in, we fly into his helmet, and boom, big immediate damage. That was that was such a great decision. I mean, I know that's that's from the nolla.

[00:15:34]Dunk basically right away gets injured.

[00:15:37]But it just it just worked. I mean, like the the anger, the shock that comes with it and like you just feel it's like I mean, it it mirrors the type of shock that I bet a lot of men faced in history when they're they they go into a battle thinking like, "Oh, it could never happen to me. I could never die. I could never whatever." And then 2 seconds later, oh my god, I'm being stabbed. Oh [ __ ] I might die. [ __ ] Th this is where I can understand some people don't like the cutaway because it's like, "Oh, I'm so invested in this and I want to know what's happening." But one, it's the perfect length. At least for me.

[00:16:11]Some people feel that it it overstated its welcome a bit. Fair enough. I don't agree. But I thought it was the perfect length. And it was the point of it was why this fight matters. What Dunc has been living under all this time, what he's rising above by winning the fight.

[00:16:29]It made the victory in the fight feel so much more climactic, so much more heroic for him to rise above this by showing where he comes from, by showing the pain that he's been running away from, by and and that he he gets to directly confront in this moment. Like I know that some people don't like the fact that Rafe was sort of used as a way of reflecting the dynamic with Tanzel like cuz cuz people don't like the idea that Dunc had to have some Freudian psychological reason that he helped Tanzel. They just they preferred it when it was just no that's just the kind of guy he is. It's not it's not like he's trying to undo the trauma of his childhood or something like that. He he's just a good guy and just wanted to help people. But I don't think that the two are exclusive. I think that he is a good guy who just wants to do the right thing. And he wanted to save Rafe just like he wants to save Tanzel. And it only makes it more powerful for me that they make this tie between them because it's it makes it as though Dunc is standing up against the trauma of his childhood. like the worst thing that ever happened to him and he is rising above the pain of that in this conflict or in this climax of the show now. Like they they they tied it to his the most personal motivation that he could have in the entire story.

[00:17:57]It it just made it so much more powerful than than I think it would have been if they had only done the joust. And some people wanted to like see other uh members of the joust fighting during the joust. They were disappointed. They're like, "I wanted to see this person, that person fight." Totally disagree. Totally disagree. I think it would have made it worse. Um, I think it it draws us away from what we're actually interested in, which is Dunk and his story. Like, sure, we like Raymond. We like Lionel, but this is Dunk's story. This is Dunk's consequences. This is him proving himself. We're We're in it for him. And everything's been framed from his perspective. Everything we're inside his helmet. We're experiencing the battle through his eyes. So, he's not seeing everybody else. He's not watching everyone else do this battle. He's focused on not [ __ ] dying. I don't know. To change it from that to just a more typical battle on a very superficial level could make sense, but it's it's the complete wrong choice in my opinion. There are a few points of uh common criticism that I I can't agree with uh people on. As much as they did a great job pacing the show for television, they're extremely short episodes, it wasn't satisfying enough at first for the week by week to feel warranted. Like episode 1 and episode two, I was watching the show and enjoying the episodes as they came out, but like h I don't know. It just it almost didn't feel like enough. I almost would have preferred if they did two episodes at a time with the show instead of like stretching it out. Something about how little content there actually was in these weekby- week episodes made the weekly release something that I didn't totally love. And there's a sense maybe you could argue that it feels somewhat padded here and there. Not not not really, but it's it's something that you could make the argument for. But but those are more minor criticisms. I don't really care about those things really at all. I don't like the stupid like gross humor that they put into the show. Like the uh the diarrhea, the uh the projectile [ __ ] That was gross and not funny. Like it just wasn't funny. If it I can deal with gross funny. Just Dunk just [ __ ] I don't know. Like it's not funny. There's nothing funny about Dunk just [ __ ] and me seeing the [ __ ] leave his ass.

[00:20:20]That's just [ __ ] gross. So, I didn't like that. The the Sarland giant dick was a little bit funnier. Um, actually, you know what? I did like that one. That one.

[00:20:31]>> Whoa.

[00:20:33]Like, what a man. Like, I don't know.

[00:20:35]There's just something funny about like Dunk's shitty but also badass at the same time. Mentor, just being this quietly, not really overstated, giant [ __ ] Daddy O. It's like, and I just I loved Sir Arlin, man. And the guy who played Sir Arlland was so good. It was so funny. And that's another thing that they did that was interesting was they they used some flashbacks. They didn't use it excessively, but there were flashbacks in the show in a way that like basically never happens in uh Game of Thrones. And uh yeah, I thought it worked. They they did a lot of things that were like outside the normal Game of Thrones formula. My biggest like creative criticisms there it's twofold.

[00:21:17]One is just it's a sad thing about Peter as Dunk. As much as I love his performance and I really like him as Dunk and what he has done with Dunk, Dunc is supposed to be 17 years old.

[00:21:29]Dunk, this is this is actually supposed to be Dun's coming of age story where like he's he's on the cusp of manhood and like this is his first real battle with death. Like this is like this is where he goes from being a boy to being a man. And I loved that about the book so much. And I loved how it complicated the egg dunk dynamic where it's like, yeah, sure, surrogate father, but really it's more like brothers. It's more like older, cooler brother. I don't know. I ju I just think that it works better with a younger character. Like Peter, he just he seems like he's almost 30 and it gives the impression that like this isn't a young man who's like stepping out onto the world on his own for the first time. that's that's who Dunc is in this part of the story. And instead, it feels like a guy who's almost washed out at 30. I prefer the the younger coming of age element of the story um that I feel was lost. And then, of course, fans have already talked about, you know, uh the lines of dialogue during Dun's speech where he's talking to the lords and he calls out specific people or right before the battle where Dunc gets blessed by all these different people.

[00:22:41]with with the show being as short as it is, it's like, man, why would you take those moments out? For basically everything else, they kept it in and either rearranged it or, you know, only changed it slightly, like they did a really good job at sticking to the source material. So, it's like, man, why would you why would you get rid of those? I just don't get it. And then I I don't love the egg running away at the end thing that it's like his he his father didn't know and it's like he just decided to go off on his own. It's like uh it it worked better in the book where it was like no, you're you're going with permission and we're going to give you this token so if you ever run into trouble, you can use this token and get yourself out of trouble. I think that just works better. It just it just doesn't make like there would be a manhunt after Dunk. It's it would be an issue if he just [ __ ] kidnapped Egg, which is what they did in the show. And it just kind of doesn't make sense. I get the feeling that what they're going to end up doing is sort of retroactively retcon that detail. Maybe at the start of season 2, he'll get like a letter or something from his dad that's like, "Hey, I know you ran away. Take this.

[00:23:48]Shave your head." Blah blah blah. But apart from those couple minor gripes, the show's perfect to me. It's literally perfect. It's the optimistic heroic story that people want right now. It's the goodhearted character that you can just so easily [ __ ] root for because he's a good man. Just just so simply a good guy. People love that. People just love a good person, good character that they can root for unambiguously. And that's not to say that he's perfect or that what we really need is to write fake, moral, perfect people. It's it's what George does to earn this type of character is present the world the way that it actually is. because this is this is the other part of this video. I I did want to just talk about the show, how much I loved it and whatnot, but also I wanted to talk about George's writing in general and his overall philosophy when it comes to heroism and morality that I think people miss because I hear it said a lot that George RR Martin is too nihilistic or he's postmodern. It's interrupting our fantasies and our beautiful archetypal storytelling. This I've seen this type of video be made all the time. People who don't like George R. Martin because it's too nihilistic. It's too cynical.

[00:25:06]It's too whatever. It's punishes the good guys. It's a big thing that I hear people say all the time with George R.

[00:25:12]Martin is he just loves to go out of his way to punish the good characters.

[00:25:16]>> Why do all the good people die and all the bad people get to live?

[00:25:21]>> Like this is this is a normal opinion and I and if that's how you feel, I just think you're wrong. It's not a like I don't care in terms of like well I don't know I do get frustrated because there is a lot of like people who in my opinion arrogantly put that out as like that's the correct interpretation of what this is and like you're liking something that is like morally inferior to something like Lord of the Rings with its classical morality and storytelling and you know that attitude I just I I do find obnoxious. the narrative is that he's just a nihilist or cynical or just loves killing the good guys. What's so interesting to me about that is not how that is like that statement is actually reflective of George and his work, but how it's like reflective of human psychology and how we experience positive and negative things. Because just look at Game of Thrones. I could sit here and make the argument that it's like, well, the show is just way more nihilistic and cynical and blah blah blah, but the books are are way more with that human touch, which I do think that they are, but I think that's beside the point. Ned dies, Rob dies, Catelyn dies, and Tissa dies. Those are like the big, oh god, these were the great good guys that died. Oberin as well, you could say. Um, Jon doesn't really die.

[00:26:37]No one can talk me into believing that that meant anything in the show. it will mean something in the book. Jon's going to come back as a different guy. That's the point. But in the show, it's just a it's an interruption to his life. He just goes to sleep for a little bit and wakes up totally the same. So, it's pointless. And he didn't die. So, there are those examples, right? But it's like people also forget that it's like how many how many honorable good characters are left alive in Game of Thrones? For every Rob, Ned, there's a John, there's a Daenerys, there's a Brienne, there's Jamie, we discover that a character that we didn't like was actually a pretty good person all along. Arya is still alive and we love her. Sansa is still alive and I love Sansa. Sansa is an underrated character. The show made people dislike Sansa, but Sansa's [ __ ] awesome. I don't know. Game of Thrones is full of good people who don't die, who aren't murdered for being good people. And that's not even to mention like for think of how many evil characters bite the dust and eat [ __ ] in the show. Like it's a selection bias. I swear to God because we're so used to stories being these mechanisms for rewarding moral goodness that it feels like the the main characters and the good guys are just dying like flies all the time in Game of Thrones. Like my point is good characters and bad characters die in this universe at essentially the same rate. It just makes sense. That's what the world is like.

[00:28:05]It's funny cuz that's that's the other thing is that people people dislike George's world for its moral ambiguity.

[00:28:11]They think that it's just like ah everything is just too cynical and everyone is evil. And it's just like I don't know. I don't agree with that at all. Like I feel like Game of Thrones had very clear good guys and bad guys actually. The Starks are the good guys.

[00:28:24]The Lannisters are the bad guys. Yes, there's moral greyness in between there.

[00:28:28]Some of the Lannisters that we met at first maybe we didn't like. Turns out they're not as bad as we thought they were, allow Jaime. And maybe we learn some complicating factors about characters like Ned that shows that they weren't complete saints. They weren't utterly perfect people from the very beginning. But there are clear good guys and bad guys. Uh George is writing characters that are the heroes that you like and you want to see succeed. And there are the characters that are antagonists and villains that you don't like. They're evil and shitty and you want to see them fail and die. Sure, the stereotypical good character did get killed um in Ned Stark and in Rob, but what also is really fascinating about those examples is that the things that Ned did and that Rob did that were good will be carried on and will play a role in the story moving forward. Yes, Ned dies, but Ned's life still matters in the context of the story. The fact that he made honorable choices is still impacting the story in the current timeline that we're at in the books. Like Rob's will is probably what's going to make Jon Snow the king in the north. His his life and his honor and his love for Jon and the fact that he doesn't give a [ __ ] about the rules of like bastards and all this [ __ ] will matter, will mean something, will contribute to the ultimate end of the entire story. And that that to me is where it's like I don't understand how anybody could call George Martin's writing cynical when it's like in reality what what it's doing is making honor even more heroic and valuable because just like in reality you're not getting rewarded by some like overall oh like like I don't believe in in karma in the sense of like hey you do good things and then just good stuff's just going to happen to you. I don't believe in that.

[00:30:23]But it's like you doing good things in the immediate moment does have a ripple effect. Does matter even when in the immediate circumstances you're not rewarded for it. That's how life really is. You could do a good thing and get [ __ ] killed for it or get or get tortured for it. That's reality. Being a good person doesn't earn you immediate good things. It's it's it's something deeper. And to me, that's what George Martin and the way that he writes morality and heroism is really about. It's like because he makes the stakes of doing the right thing as consequential as it is in the real world, it's even more meaningful when a character decides to do the right thing.

[00:31:08]Like, you know, I love Lord of the Rings. I love Lord of the Rings. It's great. It's absolutely fantastic. Do I find Aragorn in Lord of the Rings as interesting as a character like Dunk? I don't know. At at times I do and at times I don't for different reasons.

[00:31:25]Aragorn, he's the archetypal king. Like Tolken's whole philosophy isn't let's take real people and ex explore realistic human behavior. It's more like let's take the part of you that's evil and the part of me that's evil and collect that into this archetype. We'll call him the dark lord. He's the he's the ultimate imaginary collective of all our shittiness. And there's a heroic part of me and of you and of this person and that person. And let's put all those attributes into this character. And he's the he's the idealized representation of the best parts of all of us. And these two archetypes clash. And that's where the enjoyment of the story can come from. The the archetype of evil and the archetype of good duking it out. What do we think goodness is? What do we think evil is in that context? And there's a value and a purpose to that type of fantasy storytelling. But there are people who act like not telling a story like that is inherently cynical, inherently nihilistic, post-modern by by design because the real traditionalists all know that you have to be making these big symbolic stories or whatever.

[00:32:36]And it's like, I don't know. I mean, some Shakespeare may may disagree with you a little bit there. There's there's been nuanced uh literary portrayals for a very long time at this point, but with with gray morality, with like anti-heroes and things like that, that stuff is older than, you know, the Dark Knight or whatever or Game of Thrones.

[00:32:56]To give credit to this argument where it's due, yes, he is using the surface look of these types of traditional stories, but inserting realistic moral dynamics into it. And in that sense, if you're saying it's a deconstruction, okay, then fair enough. But like in the same way that like Watchmen is is a deconstruction of superheroes, it's not saying that superheroes suck and that the [ __ ] you or whatever. Like, and if you're if you believe in heroes, you're an idiot and an [ __ ] or something like that. It's it's like what if real human behavior got mixed into these circumstances? George Martin's work is so similar in that regard and it's how he earns the power of a character like Sir Duncan the Tall. Everybody is like talking like what? This is so out of left field. I expected George to be whatever, super nihilistic, blah blah blah. And I'm sitting here watching this like, yes, this this is what I've always seen in his writing actually cuz cuz Dunk Dunk is like the perfect example of all these things that these people who made these like I don't like George, he's postmodern, whatever videos make is like let's take the traditional view of something, turn it on its head, and put real human behavior into the mix. That's what Dunk is. That's what Dunk's story is actually. a a night. This isn't a glamorous night. He's a homeless teenager. He was an abused kid who came from like a back alley street and and where people would knife each other over like needing to steal some coins and [ __ ] like that. He had a rough, shitty, [ __ ] up hood ass [ __ ] upbringing.

[00:34:33]And that's that's not the ideal, the archetypal ideal, whatever. That's that's not what that is. But everybody, that same crowd of people, they're loving this and and they're identifying with the straightforward heroism that he's just such a good guy and blah blah blah and all these things and that's what they think the secret ingredient is. But it's like if that's all it was, then like every boring shitty hero thing would be popping off like this, but it's not. And the reason that it's not is because George earned this morality, this heroic character. He really really earned it by making one the cost of being a good person realistic. Like you know Dunk Dunk is up against societal forces that are beyond his control. The the order of things. This is a prince.

[00:35:21]You're a [ __ ] hedge knight. [ __ ] you.

[00:35:24]That's life. And that's what he has to stand up against to be a good person.

[00:35:28]Just like in reality like I wish that the world was like Lord of the Rings. I do. I wish that like, you know, when you're a good person, an elf is going to come to you and give you a magic jar with a [ __ ] star in it and it's going to help you defeat the evil whatever people. That that would be great. But in reality, it's more like you'll punch the prince in the face and then you'll be on trial maybe to die um and you have to fight for your life because it's just super unfair. It's and it'll be set up in an incredibly unfair way. But but the story also has the element of, hey, when you do good things, people notice and people give a [ __ ] about that and and it earns that realization. It earns that reality being put into the story. This is the tough story. This is the harsh reality. But that's what makes heroism so good. That's what makes heroism so valuable. That's what makes his heroic actions so meaningful. George R. Martin isn't the nihilist that uh some people were in my opinion angrily describing him as the negative things and the challenges that his characters face are reflective of life. Not exaggerating the problems of life. If it if it felt like it was a story where like yes, being a good person just automatically means that you get [ __ ] struck by lightning and [ __ ] you or whatever, then okay, yeah, then then I would agree this is an excessively pessimistic story. But he earns he earns all of the character deaths that happen for reasons beyond I'm just being an [ __ ] and I'm trying to be deconstructive and I'm trying you know whatever it's he's following the logic of the story and letting there be a cost to doing good things. Some people interpret that as nihilism and as cynicism, but to me all that is is understanding the reality that makes genuine heroism and good morality meaningful. But what did you think of uh A Night of the Seven Kingdoms? Did you love the show? Did you read the book and watch the show and were disappointed by it as an adaptation? I know some people were, but almost everybody seems to be loving it. Do you agree with me that George's storytelling is long game heroism and that that's actually what makes his heroism more meaningful than more straightforward archetypal types of storytelling? Or am I just a postmodern [ __ ] with round glasses who's probably woke and but yeah, feel free to let me know um any and all thoughts about the show or the books in the comments. If you're interested in more content like this in the future, feel free to subscribe. by uh will be uploading as many videos as I can in the near future. But yeah, just wanted to talk about the show and uh George's writing in general. It's something I've always thought about his writing and just seemed like a perfect opportunity to discuss the show and get into a little bit of a deeper conversation about George's writing in general.

[00:38:23]That's all I got for you guys today.

[00:38:24]Thanks so much for watching. Thank you for bearing with me with the uh different environment and all the flies around. If you made it all the way to the end, I owe you something. Just keep just thank you. But uh yeah, that's all I got for you guys today. Thanks for watching. See you.