TrueGentleman

It's not that some people forget but rather that they're simply not invested in imagining a quasi-Luciferian supernatural entity with air support from a group of cursed ghosts in an allegory of the temptations of power.

For them, the entirely human motivations of greed, lust, honor, and sacrifice and the political machinations of dynastic rivalries in Game of Thrones will probably be much more to their taste.

"That's just... babytime frolics."

While I appreciate the ennobling quality that high fantasy can offer, sometimes I'm concerned that in featuring elves and wizards so prominently, it may instead distract us from what we're capable of precisely as human beings. Stepping outside our shortcomings through the imagination to create fantasy races with idealized qualities can place virtues and vices in sharp contrast, but this can also overshadow the complexities of human existence.

The obvious expample is of course Tolkein's obsession with elves over portraying recognizably human characters - the Eldar virtually embody perfection in contrast to the stiffly rendered race of Men. It took Sean Bean to add some recognizable depth to the character of Boromir in Lord of the Rings, so there are high hopes he can do the same for Martin's epic.

Perhaps King Lear and Richard III should be avoided on those grounds, but such is the tragic point of view, where the bad end unhappily and the good unluckily - and the final body count is rather high.

You did mention the recent examples of Libya, Egypt, Iran, to say nothing of the headlines of, well, the past decade. I suspect that in this context, some portion of the viewing audience just can't engage with uncomplicated escapism and unquestioned idealism any more. The Lord of the Rings movies' success came at the beginning of the decade, after all.

For the record, I think Dexter is a profoundly intellectually dishonest show, despite individual actors' performances in its favor. In adapting a series of thrillers, it's trying to have its cake and eat it too when attempting to portray a pure sociopath as a vigilante - a fantasy of a very different nature. It's also impeded from real growth by the success of its formula, which it now is struggling to find variations on since Showtime can't afford let one of its best-rated shows come up with a concluding arc. This is the kind of trap that A Game of Thrones will at least avoid if it manages to stick to the one-season-per-book schedule.

The difficulty in studying history, apart from its natural resistance to dramatic conventions, is the real-world baggage we inevitably bring to topics, no matter how far removed. (It's surprising, say, how bitter the French are about Azincourt and Waterloo.) Fantasy can supply a little distance for analagous topics it wishes to explore.

On the contrary, you're raising some interesting issues that at least part of Game of Throne's potential audience will no doubt share, to say nothing of the mainstream audience.


EDIT: I certainly did cite Lord of the Rings a great deal here, but mainly because it remains the gold standard of fantasy adaptations in film, in both fidelity and mainstream success, not because I regard it as the best fantasy series.

As do I, which is why I'm intrigued by a fantasy writer taking inspiration from them -- it worked for Shakespeare after all. It's also encouraging that the plots revolve around recognizable human politics for the most part, instead of, say, the cliche of the Hero's Quest or another Orcs vs. Elves showdown. (Martin does suggest in that NYT interview that he will introduce elements of magic into the TV series gradually.)

HBO's combination of shows with tragic outlooks (The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood) and shows about escapism (Sex and the City, Entourage) certainly plays to opposite ends of the spectrum, but at least cable is willing to cover the former after network TV neglected it for so long. Again, it worked for Shakespeare.

I agree, the sound editing for the dialog is phenomenal in Archer. Adam Reed's team honed their skills on Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo (did anyone watch the two Xtacles episodes?), and they're katana-sharp here.

Separately, it would seem. (There's a behind-the-scenes clip on Amber Nash, the voice of the redoubtable Pam, on Hulu.com that features the recording booth.)

PG-14? Is the ratings system undergoing inflation??

That said, although HBO has a warning scorecard in front of this preview, I'll add a TV-MA (LSV) tag. Apparently, this is a selling point in favor of the adaptation's fidelity {Language}.

I'm not participating in a Nemesis Plot! Why would you think I'm participating in a Nemesis Plot?! Who said anything about Lord Nemesis anyway? Say, isn't that a Rikti dropship over there behind you?

/walks hurriedly away with ill-assumed nonchalance

Bonus points for inscribing Byron's Destruction of Sennacherib on her back (Cape Fear, eat your heart out).

Which he's performing with aplomb in the animated Bob's Burgers, which is just lifting off on Fox.

His voiceover career seems to swing between "schlubby everymen" (e.g. Coach McGurk in Home Movies) and out-of-left-field roles (e.g. the Devil in Lucy, Daughter of the Devil).

"Hm? Sorry, I was picturing ***** Island."

The NYTimes, now behind a weird paywall scheme, not unlike SoIaF's, had a good interview with Martin about his career as an author and TV writer (io9 excerpted the good bits here, along with stuff from a New Yorker profile).

That said, Martin admits Dances with Dragons isn't actually finished (the make-or-break deadline to submit a final MS for a July publication won't be until the end of this month unless the publisher is willing to rush it through). I'd be surprised if he'd made much headway into writing the final volume, no matter how much preliminary work he might have done.

April 23rd can't get here soon enough.

Well, that and the decent reviews and box office for Source Code and Super, both of which seem like good, though not great, movies.

Unfortunately, the message movie execs are likely to take away is WB president Jeff Rubinov's notorious aversion to female leads, Sucker Punch, and maybe the underperforming Red Riding Hood, being the only major non-rom-com exception to his rule this year for the studio that I can think of.