How Not To Win At Life

Looking back at GOT as a whole:

Ned Stark was a standard, high-fantasy main protagonist who didn’t make it past the first book / season and was punished for being honorable.

Oberyn Martell was an Inigo Montoya who failed to kill the guy he swore vengeance against.

Jon Snow is an Aragorn who didn’t return as the king and ended up exactly where he started in the series.

Khal Drogo was a Conan the Barbarian who didn’t get a glorious ending since he dies after getting sick from a stab wound.

The Night King and the White Walkers were a Sauron / Voldemort-type of villain who get axed off before the final act of the series (so, the Ned Stark treatment but to the “main antagonist”).

Cersei Lannister gets the same treatment as the Night King in that she’s the wicked queen stock villain character who you think will be the main villain but gets axed off in order to make way for the actual main antagonist of the series (Dany).

Robb Stark was another standard, high-fantasy main protagonist (the young, handsome white guy who is trying to right the wrongs done to his family) who is killed before he gets the chance to avenge his father’s death and is punished for doing things out of love.

Jaime Lannister embodied the knight-in-shining-armor stock character but was a complete piece of shit.

Bran Stark wasn’t a contender for the throne but won it anyways and his victory was a sign that Westeros is making the push for a different form of government, effectively ending hereditary rule (going against Tolkien since his happy ending was that the rightful king returned).

Daenerys Targaryen is a little tricky to add here since it’s not obviously clear what tropes her character subverted. To me, she fits perfectly with the arc of a Shakespearean villain / tragic protagonist. Maybe you can say that she subverted the idea that the quest for the throne is a noble goal. Because, as seen in the final episodes of the series, Dany proved the quest for the throne was anything but noble.

Gendry and Arya are the star-crossed lovers who willingly don’t end up with each other (at least in Arya’s case) and end up following their own paths.

The final battle in King’s Landing, the “Battle of Minas Tirith” moment of GOT, should’ve been an epic clash between good and evil but is turned into a horrific war crime full of massive civilian casualties and the “heroes” killing soldiers who already surrendered.

Euron Greyjoy was Jack Sparrow if he was an even bigger jackass and completely unlikable (okay, I’m just joking with this one but for real, fuck Euron).

i think it might be a good idea, when you’re designing a villain, if you look at them and think “why do these characteristics make me think of them as villainous” and like, if those characteristics reflect groups of real-life marginalized people….maybe, don’t go with those design choices?

Human beings in a mob

What’s a mob to a king?

What’s a king to a god?

What is a god…

To a non-believer?

Jenny Slate, Stage Fright (2019)

holey fuggen shidd

Can we just STOP with the “Martin Luther King, Jr., Didn’t Riot But He Changed the World” Thing?

First, MLK was relentlessly investigated by law enforcement authorities on suspicion of being a Communist. His supporters were abused and murdered by both civilians and law enforcement over the years. The FBI spent vastly more resources trying to demonstrate that he was causing riots as a paid agent of Soviet Communism than they ever spent investigating the endless murder threats to his life. And, of course, the FBI mounted multiple sting and other investigations to expose and exploit his all too human flaws, particularly his cheating on his wife. His life is hardly a good model of police-citizen relations.

Second, King faced endless, brutal criticism for the peaceful protests he led. Lots and lots of (mostly) white people insisted that now was not the time to protest, that social and political change would best happen at its own pace, over a long period. Heck, has anyone actually read “Letter from Birmingham Jail”? The whole thing is a response to a letter published in the Birmingham paper in which white ministers asked why an “outsider” like King would come to Birmingham to lead protests, leading to his famous response “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” There is never a convenient time for protest, or an acceptable way to demand change from majorities that like things the way they are. Martin Luther King may be an American saint now. But he wasn’t when he was alive. Let’s not kid ourselves.

Third, is it now required that we all be Martin Luther King? Is it required that we all have the patience to endure endless harassment and violence in order to be “worthy” to protest? Do remember that King himself had largely abandoned the philosophy of nonviolence at the time of his assassination. For example, he was only in Memphis in April 1968 supporting a direct action strike by sanitation workers in the city, an action LOTS of people would have called violently disruptive to the health of the community. His movement only seems beatific in retrospect, through the lens of the rioting and social chaos that ensued his marginalization in the later 1960s and 1970s.  There are no perfect protestors even when there is much to protest.

I do not think the Martin Luther King, Jr., you remember is the Martin Luther King, Jr., who actually lived. 

Studies show that approaching youth with a bystander-intervention model is actually a lot more effective for reducing sexual assault, and it is also more enthusiastically received than programs that bill themselves as anti-rape.

We can tell youth that they are basically “rapists waiting to happen” (anti-rape initiative), or we can tell them that we know they would intervene if they saw harm happening to someone and we want to help empower them to do that (bystander intervention). The kids jump in with both feet for the latter! It was amazing to see children (and young boys in particular) excited to do this work and engage their creativity with it. Also, studies show that not only do they go on to intervene, but they also do not go on to sexually assault people themselves. Bystander intervention also takes the onus off the person being targeted to deter rape and empowers the collective to do something about it. It answers the question in the room when giggling boys are carrying an unconscious young woman up the stairs at a house party, and people are not sure how to respond and are waiting for “someone” to say or do something.

Richard M. Wright, “Rehearsing Consent Culture: Revolutionary Playtime” in the anthology Ask: Building Consent Culture edited by Kitty Stryker