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canyonwalkerI've noted already that I needed a break after watching Game of Thrones' first season. It's fundamentally a show about terrible people. A few weeks ago I read a quip online,
After a 6 month hiatus I was ready to watch a drama again in which evil routinely wins over good. How did it go? Well, in GoT Season 2 evil wins again but takes a few lumps along the way. That's better than Season 1, where Good basically got skunked 21-2.
Of course, a lot of the biggest setbacks Evil suffers in season 2 are Evil v. Evil. These start in S2E1 with Tyrion Lannister, younger brother to Cersei and Jaime, arriving at the castle to take over as King's Hand. Tyrion is enormously shrewd about dealing with the conniving liars who surround the king, in a way that the previous King's Hand, Eddard Stark, was hopelessly naive about. He quickly puts them in check. He is also the only person close to King Joffrey who objects to the teenager literally torturing people for his own amusement in front of his court.
Far to the east, Daenerys Targaryen continues developing as a Good person. Early in Season 1 it wasn't clear whether she'd be good or evil. She came from a maligned lineage; her father was The Mad King, who was reputed to torture and murder people for fun (sort of like the current king...). All she desired was to win back rule. She married the violent head of a brigand tribe to build an army to go sack Westeros. Not exactly pegging the needle on the Good-o-meter, there.
In Season 2 Daenerys continues to develop as a wise young leader concerned about the welfare of her own people— and that of innocent others, too. She realizes that she will need to build her army of people who follow her because they believe she is right and just, not because they believe siding with her will allow them to plunder and rape. And she finds her strength to fight back against evil when it besets her. In the Season 2 finale, two powerful men in Qarth steal her dragons. When she attempts to reclaim them, they try to enslave her. She kills one outright (well, one of the dragons kills him outright, at her command), and she and her men capture the other and lock him in a vault, where he'll die of dehydration in a few days if he doesn't asphyxiate sooner.
It's not all wins for the good side, though. In fact evil runs up the score once again. The armies of House Lannister, though they lose battles to the armies led by very wise for his youth lord Robb Stark, still cause a lot of harm to innocent people. The plundering armies of Lord Greyjoy... plunder. In the sibling rivalry of Stannis Baratheon versus Renly Baratheon, Stannis aligns himself with the mysterious Red Priestess who encourages him to be ruthless and, with his approval, summons an evil shadow spirit to murder his brother, Renly. Renly, of course, is the wiser, fairer, and actually good one of the two.
GoT be like,But worse than merely being a show full of evil characters, it deliberately portrays evil as a strength and good as a weakness.
"What were lords and knights like back in the Middle Ages?
I bet they were assholes."
After a 6 month hiatus I was ready to watch a drama again in which evil routinely wins over good. How did it go? Well, in GoT Season 2 evil wins again but takes a few lumps along the way. That's better than Season 1, where Good basically got skunked 21-2.
Of course, a lot of the biggest setbacks Evil suffers in season 2 are Evil v. Evil. These start in S2E1 with Tyrion Lannister, younger brother to Cersei and Jaime, arriving at the castle to take over as King's Hand. Tyrion is enormously shrewd about dealing with the conniving liars who surround the king, in a way that the previous King's Hand, Eddard Stark, was hopelessly naive about. He quickly puts them in check. He is also the only person close to King Joffrey who objects to the teenager literally torturing people for his own amusement in front of his court.
Far to the east, Daenerys Targaryen continues developing as a Good person. Early in Season 1 it wasn't clear whether she'd be good or evil. She came from a maligned lineage; her father was The Mad King, who was reputed to torture and murder people for fun (sort of like the current king...). All she desired was to win back rule. She married the violent head of a brigand tribe to build an army to go sack Westeros. Not exactly pegging the needle on the Good-o-meter, there.
In Season 2 Daenerys continues to develop as a wise young leader concerned about the welfare of her own people— and that of innocent others, too. She realizes that she will need to build her army of people who follow her because they believe she is right and just, not because they believe siding with her will allow them to plunder and rape. And she finds her strength to fight back against evil when it besets her. In the Season 2 finale, two powerful men in Qarth steal her dragons. When she attempts to reclaim them, they try to enslave her. She kills one outright (well, one of the dragons kills him outright, at her command), and she and her men capture the other and lock him in a vault, where he'll die of dehydration in a few days if he doesn't asphyxiate sooner.
It's not all wins for the good side, though. In fact evil runs up the score once again. The armies of House Lannister, though they lose battles to the armies led by very wise for his youth lord Robb Stark, still cause a lot of harm to innocent people. The plundering armies of Lord Greyjoy... plunder. In the sibling rivalry of Stannis Baratheon versus Renly Baratheon, Stannis aligns himself with the mysterious Red Priestess who encourages him to be ruthless and, with his approval, summons an evil shadow spirit to murder his brother, Renly. Renly, of course, is the wiser, fairer, and actually good one of the two.
