{"id":294,"date":"2012-05-22T15:36:06","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T15:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/?p=294"},"modified":"2024-05-28T08:14:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:14:41","slug":"on-the-game-of-thrones-title-sequence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/?p=294","title":{"rendered":"On the Game of Thrones title sequence"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>a map that renders time as well as space!<\/li>\n<li>maps and their dangerous illusions<\/li>\n<li>tricky shadows: questions of power in <em>Thrones<\/em><\/li>\n<li>the <em>Song<\/em>\/<em>Thrones<\/em>\/HBO\/fandom complex<\/li>\n<li>fire-forged swords: GRRM and JRRT<\/li>\n<li>maps and literature<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A colleague of mine at Swarthmore, Bob Rehak, has an excellent blog on special effects in media.\u00a0 Recently he posted some thoughts on the great title sequence opening HBO\u2019s <em>Games of Thrones<\/em>, which won an Emmy last year.\u00a0 Like some other great openings, such as the title sequence for <em>The Sopranos<\/em>, it will be recognized as one of the best ever, successfully \u201cbranding\u201d a TV show with its hypnotic mix of soundtrack and visuals [<a href=\"http:\/\/graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu\/?p=1813\">http:\/\/graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu\/?p=1813<\/a>].\u00a0 I look forward each week to the adrenaline rush it gives me.\u00a0 \u00a0(<em>Thrones<\/em> is now also rocking really cool, rather fugal new soundtracks for the closing credits that are different each week and fit the mood of each show\u2019s ending.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bob\u2019s comments on the <em>Thrones<\/em> title sequence covers the topic of maps, opening sequences, and pop franchise paradoxes as they apply to George Martin\u2019s <em>Song of Ice and Fire<\/em> books as realized by HBO\u2019s <em>Game of Thrones<\/em>.<em>\u00a0<\/em>Some thoughts &amp; responses to Bob\u2019s <em>Thrones<\/em> blog post are below.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022<\/p>\n<p>Bob lauds how the opening sequence for <em>Thrones<\/em> is fun because it \u201crenders\u201d Westeros with a mix of GPS-like and high tech digital mapping (and changing POV, from aerial swooping to ground-up views).\u00a0 There\u2019s even the suggestion of an aerial spy camera\u2019s shutter clicking (and appearing for a split second in our field of view) as we fly over the Wall.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet this \u201cmap\u201d also features throwback technology like (digitally rendered) gears turning to raise cities and castles (sort of like animated Legos, but also like the medieval mechanical arts constructing castle-destroying catapults, castle-building pulleys, etc.).\u00a0 It\u2019s an animated map that maps <em>time<\/em> unfolding as well as space extending:\u00a0 totally rad.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I think, however, that Bob\u2019s comments (and especially those of the experts he cites) may <em>overestimate<\/em> the reliable \u201cintel\u201d of such mapping systems.\u00a0 These mapping systems provide the illusion of omniscience regarding both the present and the future: that\u2019s their deadly attraction.\u00a0 We have the best mapping and strategic technology available in Afghanistan, yet\u2014like other, earlier armies with \u201csuperior\u201d tech too\u2014 we are losing that war because we never really figured out how to map tribal elder allegiances, an alternative economy not built on poppy plants, and other intangibles that are a matter of on-the-ground, not high-flying, knowledge.\u00a0\u00a0 Such anthropological mapping is even more difficult than tracing Bin Laden and plotting the kill.\u00a0 War-gaming strategies only work against forces that play the \u201cgame\u201d by the same rules.\u00a0 What will Lannister and Stark armor and stone, for instance, do against either wildlings or dragons, or Stannis&#8217; &#8220;sword of fire&#8221; against wildfire?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In fascinating ways the first two <em>Song of Ice and Fire<\/em> books and <em>Thrones<\/em> on HBO elaborate this point.\u00a0 The series is brilliant about the over-confidence leaders have in technology and strategy, juxtaposed with the \u201cfog of war\u201d that happens on the battlefield and can\u2019t be predicted or mapped, only reacted to either poorly or luckily.\u00a0\u00a0 A particularly comic version of this occurred in season 1 when Tyrion was accidently knocked out while preparing for battle.\u00a0 Tyrion misses the entire massacre\u2014an absurdity brilliantly rendered via camera-work, as we see the scene literally upside-down:\u00a0 it\u2019s shot from Tyrion\u2019s point of view as he views returning warriors slogging home unheroically when the fight is over, while he wakes groggily from his concussion.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022<\/p>\n<p><em>Song<\/em>\u2019s and <em>Throne<\/em>\u2019s rejection of omniscience is related to its understanding of the paradoxes of power.\u00a0\u00a0 Only the most demented and sinister characters, such as Joffrey, believe their power makes them omnipotent.\u00a0 One of the most famous speeches from season 1\u2014highlighted in one of the trailers for season 2 in a way that seems to make it a truth promoted by Martin and <em>Thrones<\/em> itself, not the opinion of one of Martin\u2019s characters*\u2014was this comment by the spymaster Varys:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u201cpower resides where men believes it resides.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">It\u2019s a trick, a shadow on the wall\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This idea was brilliantly reprised in season 2\u2019s opening episode in the scene where Cersei responds to Lord Baelish\u2019s foolish boast that his \u201cknowledge\u201d of Cersei\u2019s secret gives him \u201cpower\u201d over her.\u00a0 She responds by commanding her guards to kill him, then at the last moment deciding to spare his life\u2014for now.\u00a0 As she leaves, she taunts him:\u00a0 \u201c<em>power<\/em> is power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But what could Cersei\u2019s tautology mean?\u00a0 Merely that armed strength is power?\u00a0 What causes \u201cmen\u201d to believe where power resides?\u00a0 Varys begs the question by suggesting it\u2019s all just a trick.\u00a0 But the multiple plots of <em>Song<\/em>\/<em>Thrones<\/em> hardly point to one conclusion on this question.\u00a0\u00a0 The opening sequence\u2019s map may mime the way castles and dominions rise and fall, but it has trouble delineating the murky <em>causes<\/em> of these effects\u2014and those causes are Martin\u2019s real subject.\u00a0 \u00a0What are the sources of power?\u00a0 If it\u2019s indeed a trick, why and how does it work? \u00a0Does it really lie in the spectacular display of weaponry, or magic, or brute force?\u00a0 Is loyalty necessary for power and, if so, is it created primarily by fear, or by something else?\u00a0 (Cersei says emphatically that the more people you love the weaker you are.\u00a0 Given her history, you can see at least why she believes this, or thinks she must.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The novels\u2019 leviathanic length is, arguably, justified for just this reason:\u00a0 via each of its many point-of-view characters, Martin gives us vividly different answers to the question of where power resides and what hidden gears turn the wheels of history.\u00a0 It also teaches us that what makes for power in the short run may be a very different thing from in the long run.\u00a0 <em>Gaining<\/em> dominance, in other words, is one thing, while keeping it is another. Compared to most of what\u2019s on television, <em>Thrones<\/em> approaches Shakespeare\u2019s history plays not just in the intensity of its drama but in the richness of its meditations on power.<\/p>\n<p>*It\u2019s also worth thinking about Varys\u2019 power speech in context, rather than as a universal truth of Martin\u2019s.\u00a0 Why does Varys make this speech when he does?\u00a0 Is it part of his own shadow-game?\u00a0 To what ends?\u00a0 There\u2019s been some debate on this on various fan forums, such as:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/asoiaf.westeros.org\/index.php\/topic\/63486-why-did-varys-say-anything-at-all-to-kevan\/page__st__20\">http:\/\/asoiaf.westeros.org\/index.php\/topic\/63486-why-did-varys-say-anything-at-all-to-kevan\/page__st__20<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bob rightly says that Martin\u2019s \u201ccontentious, codependent relationship with his fan base is often battled out in such internet forums, where creative ownership of a textual property exists in tension with custodial privilege.\u201d \u00a0I agree, and would add that the <em>Song\/Thrones<\/em> complex (print and e-books, HBO, fan re-creations, and other online incarnations, including the official supplemental materials on HBO GO) is probably one of the most interesting current examples out there of a pop brand phenom\u2019s multiple incarnations not being in control of a single \u201cauthor,\u201d director, or corporate sponsorship, even though it is also codependent on all of these. \u00a0\u00a0As Bob stresses, the interaction between these elements is neither top-down nor unidirectional.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Three fun examples of these kinds of interactions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the many hand-drawn maps posted online, where fans with loving care pointedly try to surpass the official map provided with the text, or available on HBO GO. One dedicates the <a href=\"http:\/\/elegaer.deviantart.com\/art\/Map-of-Westeros-14022421?q=&amp;qo=&amp;offset=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hand-drawn map<\/a> to the \u201cSeven\u201d gods and to Davos Seaworth, one of the most honorable of any of the characters;<\/li>\n<li>the actor playing Arya (the superb Maisie Williams) in one of the promo videos\/interviews on HBO GO says that she was inspired to have her hair cut for season 2 for a contrarian reason, precisely <em>because<\/em> fans on the Internet were confident she\u2019d never do that.\u00a0 (Was getting her hair cut really solely up to her, though, I wonder?); \u00a0and<\/li>\n<li>the funny April Fool\u2019s joke in Bill Amend\u2019s <em>Foxtrot<\/em> cartoon for 4-1-12, on the consequences if <em>Thrones<\/em> were sponsored by Hasbro, creators of \u201cMy Little Pony.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A less fun example of <em>Game of Thrones<\/em>\u2019 multiple avatars in action:\u00a0 the endless comments on <em>Thrones<\/em> sites, especially Facebook, where readers complain that the HBO series is unfaithful to the books, and in response fans of the HBO series tell them just to shut up.\u00a0 No one\u2019s yet addressed the fascinating ways in which the HBO series is a powerful reinterpretation and revision of the source text\u2014in many cases, going far deeper into important characters\u2019 psychology and changes than the novels do.\u00a0 This topic I\u2019ll try to develop a little in <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/?p=330\">an upcoming blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Near the end of <em>Lord of the Rings<\/em>, the Ring is dropped into molten rock, melting it and dissolving its cursed powers.\u00a0 In many fascinating ways, Martin\u2019s <em>Song of Ice and Fire<\/em> sequence is the most ambitious challenge yet to Tolkien.\u00a0 Martin is attempting to out-do the master not just in the number of gods, worlds, magic, and would-be kings, but also in the arena of gender. Martin has created many more complex female characters, both heroines and villains, than Tolkien ever did.\u00a0 And the categories of \u201chero\u201d and \u201cvillain\u201d are too generic for his creations, for unlike in Tolkien most all of them have Gollum\u2019s complex and very human mix of good and evil in their souls.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The alchemical and fire-forge imagery in the <em>Thrones<\/em> title sequence may be another instance of how\u00a0<em>Thrones<\/em>\u00a0respectfully but audaciously challenges Tolkien.\u00a0 For here new weapons of power are created from the fire and molten metal; they are not returned to it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/thrones.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-296\" title=\"thrones\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/thrones.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the title series\u2019 opening shots, a sword is viewed against a belt buckle (?) with the totems of the major rivals to the Iron Throne, including a dragon, a wolf, and a stag.\u00a0 Behind these trophies, generating a muffled roar that resonates through all the music, glows the golden fire from the forge that created all of these precious objects signifying worldly power.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This shot of sword and buckle then gives way to shots of a kind of moving orrery or astrolabe, and this even more sophisticated example of \u201cmedieval\u201d technology and science is also juxtaposed against the forge\u2019s molten fire.\u00a0 The orrery\u2019s arms spin and rotate in the visual field, powerfully suggesting not just shifting planets and stars of the heavens (the traditional referents for orreries and astrolabes) but also the ability to <em>map<\/em> or predict the cyclical rise and fall of all earthly powers in Westeros influenced by those heavenly signs and powers.\u00a0 Vast tracks of time passing are suggested, so that the fates of the five kings competing for the Iron Throne, while they compel us, are understood to be a small drama in the epic scale of history.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Such a perspective of course is very much in the spirit of Tolkien\u2019s epic fantasy.\u00a0 But fans of both authors should not underestimate the ways in which the bard of <em>Thrones<\/em>, born in a federal housing project in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of a longshoreman, seeks to challenge rather than just imitate the bard of the <em>Ring<\/em>, the Oxford professor of medieval languages who was born in South Africa, the son of a bank manager, and grew up in Birmingham, England.\u00a0 Guess GRRM had to challenge JRRT since he too was born with four names.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A quick last thought for now.\u00a0 Has anyone done a good study of maps accompanying great children\u2019s literature and epic \u201cfantasy\u201d?\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking of <em>Lord of the Rings<\/em> and <em>Harry Potter<\/em>, of course, but also remembering that I spent hours as a kid pouring over the detailed maps in the inside-book-covers of <em>Winnie-the-Pooh<\/em> and <em>Wind in the Willows<\/em> to accompany my reading.\u00a0 The maps mixed both geography and snippets of story telling and were great devices for \u201cburning\u201d the characters and adventures permanently into memory.\u00a0 The maps also enforced my understanding that these were special <em>places<\/em> I could secretly visit via books.\u00a0\u00a0 Many children made maps on their own too.\u00a0 One of the most intriguing was a detailed map of an invented country made in childhood by a boy who would grow up to be a famous sculptor, Claes Oldenburg.\u00a0 There are lots other famous story-maps are there, and not just for children\u2019s literature. \u00a0 Borges, for instance, has a little parable about a map that becomes so detailed it eventually grows to be as large as the world it tries to represent. \u00a0What are some of your favorites, and why?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Thrones<\/em> is inspiring a cottage industry of artists doing their own maps of Martin\u2019s labyrinthine world and posting them online.\u00a0 The excellent HBO Go website for <em>Thrones<\/em> is one of the richest archives for any show on TV, and it includes many maps of scenes important to each episode with histories of the localities and events embedded in the mapping.\u00a0 These and the fan-generated (in many cases, carefully hand-drawn) maps are more fascinating than the rather corporate and generic map that comes with the e-book edition of <em>A Clash of Kings<\/em>\u2014an interesting example of how the online \u201csecondary\u201d materials for a text actually improve, not merely supplement, the primary \u201ctext\u201d itself. \u00a0 With the case of <em>Thrones<\/em>, this supplemental material is both corporate (i.e., officially sponsored by HBO and definitely linked to the commercial promotion of the HBO series) and freelance (in many cases, generated by individual fans as a non-commercial gift free to all who are interested, their way of saying thanks to George R.R. Martin and\/or HBO).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>a map that renders time as well as space! maps and their dangerous illusions tricky shadows: questions of power in Thrones the Song\/Thrones\/HBO\/fandom complex fire-forged swords: GRRM and JRRT maps and literature A colleague of mine at Swarthmore, Bob Rehak, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/?p=294\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,8],"tags":[20,22,19,17,18,21],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1294,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/1294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}