It seems that “Game of Thrones” fans have been getting their beloved fantasy story all wrong. According to its author, George RR Martin, the miserable perils of Westeros are all just a message about global warming.
In an interview with The New York Times, the acclaimed fantasy author, whose books have formed the basis for the hit HBO series, confirmed that “GOT” is “a perfect metaphor for understanding climate change” in the modern political sense because his characters are often battling each other while the “winter is coming” threat looms in the background.
It’s kind of ironic because I started writing “Game of Thrones” all the way back in 1991, long before anybody was talking about climate change. But there is — in a very broad sense — there’s a certain parallel there. And the people in Westeros are fighting their individual battles over power and status and wealth. And those are so distracting them that they’re ignoring the threat of “winter is coming,” which has the potential to destroy all of them and to destroy their world. And there is a great parallel there to, I think, what I see this planet doing here, where we’re fighting our own battles. We’re fighting over issues, important issues, mind you — foreign policy, domestic policy, civil rights, social responsibility, social justice. All of these things are important. But while we’re tearing ourselves apart over this and expending so much energy, there exists this threat of climate change, which, to my mind, is conclusively proved by most of the data and 99.9 percent of the scientific community.
Martin concludes that while issues like jobs are important, it pales in comparison to the importance of climate change. In fact, the author thinks that climate change should be the top priority for any politician.
And it really has the potential to destroy our world. And we’re ignoring that while we worry about the next election and issues that people are concerned about, like jobs. Jobs are a very important issue, of course. All of these things are important issues. But none of them are important if, like, we’re dead and our cities are under the ocean. So really, climate change should be the number one priority for any politician who is capable of looking past the next election.
But unfortunately, there are only a handful of those. We spend 10 times as much energy and thought and debate in the media discussing whether or not N.F.L. players should stand for the national anthem than this threat that’s going to destroy our world. Will Florida’s Ex-Felons Finally Regain the Right to Vote?
The GOT author has been playing the leftist allegory game quite frequently in the age of Trump. Last year, he compared President Trump to none other than the slimy King Joffrey.
“I think Joffrey is now the king in America,” George R.R. Martin told Esquire. “And he’s grown up just as petulant and irrational as he was when he was thirteen in the books.”