I honestly think Game of Thrones fucked up the media landscape just as much as Harry Potter, hear me out.
It started the trend of nihilistic defeatism and capitalist realism being presented as mature and adult. "The world is shitty, it can only every be shitty and trying to change things for the better is childish and leads to worse things than just accepting that you live in a shitty world."
I swear you can pin the decline of hopeful stories and happy endings in adult media to this shitty book/show that thinks it's deeper than it is. You can't have anything now without it trying to pull off a "totally deep bittersweet ending" in an attempt to be mature and subvert expectations.
Although, media literacy is so bad that this author thinks Trump is just like Daernerys Targaryan, who was about one of the only characters who wasn't a sex offender, so maybe libs haven't internalized GOTs shitty ideology too much
That's an interesting idea. How do you see that theme expressed?
Most of the "good" characters aren't exactly in the game for power and wealth. They're fighting for their values or for their long term survival. Most of their values are "good" virtues like truth, justice, order. Once the magic zombies come about, many of them are also fighting to take care of the existential threat instead of carving up their own kingdom out of the rotting corpse of the old empire.
There are also "good" characters that are more selfish, but still effect change in a mostly positive way. I guess you'd say they're "realists". Littlefinger and the bald eunuch (its been 10 years since I've read them and I gotta get back to work) come to mind. Both probably are still a "bad" people, but do good things because it advances them/their vision and as a bonus, is good.
People bring up Dany and Ned a lot, but Robb Stark is also a good example. Young idealist, he upsets the traditional structure by breaking an engagement with a lord's daughter. Specifically he does this to "preserve the honor" of a lower born (still noble) lady he sleeps with. He gets rewarded with being murdered by the lord for the slight.
Robb is also implied to be winning overall. His people and army adore him, he is winning battles, the south is getting worse, etc. A old lord who only cares about his line destroys probably the best hope for many people because of a personal slight.
Probably my biggest gripe is that people like Robb and Ned and Dany are appreciated and respected in universe by people with and without power. Like, at some point, it would have been interesting to see blowback for every "good" character eating shit. But I thing GRRM isn't interested in no name peasants torching a Lord's house because he royally fucks everything up. He's interested in a named knight doing it and then getting shot to death while shitting.
I can see how good is not rewarded and evil is, but I guess I just don't see how that shows that good is important in this world.
Mostly in the Starks and Danny’s arcs, but it’s everywhere tbh. One example: Ned dying for his morals, for trying to do good instead of acting in self-service. And his death causing the whole world to move. He had no rewards for his goodness, but the world still needed it to move and have a chance to change for the better.
Good example. I definitely saw how good is not rewarded and evil is rewarded, but I didn't really see how they represented good still being important in that world, except to some small individuals where acts of kindness are very important to them on a personal level.
But you have to see how those small acts cascade into actually giving a fighting chance for change, in the world and in individual people.