[VIDEO] Westeros Vs Nobility

I get the feeling Leon isn’t a Game Of Thrones fan.

Neither am I, Leon. In fact, if it wasn’t for Literature Devil using so many other examples I’m totally familiar with, like Jean-Luc Picard and Superman, I probably wouldn’t post this video as my own frame of reference is discussions on YouTube channels I happen to enjoy. As it is, fantasy isn’t usually my genre, so it has to have something to grab my interest above the norm. The Game Of Thrones franchise is dark, depressing, and ruins anybody worth rooting for. Everyone seems to be a bad choice to run Westeros from my perspective so I’ve had no interest in watching or reading anything from it even if George R.R. Martin were capable of finishing it, which it doesn’t look like he is. Even the tales of Dunk and Egg, based on a graphic novel and praised for being almost anachronistic to the world of Westeros due to actually having a noble hero isn’t drawing me to see it.

That said, while Literature Devil uses the franchise as his opening framing, he goes a lot into the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Family” and Picard’s struggles with his time as Locutus of Borg. He goes into Superman and the false perception of being boring because of his nobility. He goes into the Punisher and who he won’t kill in his war against the mob. Nobility, virtue, the failed temptation of a hero versus the fall of the villain to temptation, are ultimately on the discussion block. So many writers today find the virtuous hero “boring” or “unrelatable”. These people scare me because it means they themselves are neither of those things, yet seek to lecture us on how to be a “good person”. They have no faith in humanity. I’ve seen the evils of man in my 50+ years of being on this planet, but I’ve also seen the good. I can’t believe that the human race as a whole are completely evil or completely good, though there are individuals who could claim something close to the title.

LD’s video runs a little over 45 minutes, but it’s a good watch to see just how these various stories approach good versus evil, comparing it to how it’s done these days, how (as the title states) Game Of Thrones betrays its heroes, and why punishing a character for their strengths and noble deed just brings everybody down, including the audience. It’s not a rejection. He goes over examples of the failed and fallen hero done well and he’s (as far as I’m aware) a fan of the franchise. However, he does make the point that, like Watchmen, writers fail to understand what makes it work and just devolve into cynical deconstruction in the beliefs that heroism is an illusion, and “good” and “evil” don’t exist. That is not good storytelling.

A strange example came into my head while watching this, and you judge if it’s off topic or helps make his point. In the final Armageddon miniseries from 1990’s DC, Armageddon: Inferno, we have a group of beings who are bred not to believing in compassion, virtue, self-sacrifice, or protection. They’re literal cattle as the villain of the story, Abraxis, feeds off their lifeforce, keeping them docile, stupid, and self-interested so as to better control them. On his own, one of the “cattle” chooses something he wished he had when he decides to protect a female who had just been assaulted and her child killed by a group who had their own breeding impulses in mind. Without hope or justice being concepts he understands, he’s unable to bring himself to help, but is horrified by what he sees and later tries to comfort the woman.

Long story short, it’s not until the time travelling hero Waverider brings the Justice Society, the first hero team in the DC Universe that in this timeline (because the DCU reboots in small and large doses constantly) to fight Abraxis in his home reality while other heroes fight his forces in others. The pair we’ve been following during the miniseries as well as the other cattle see these heroes fight on despite what seems to be overwhelming odd, especially to a people more docile and controlled than Darkseid’s followers, and not give up. The “cattle”, especially the man we’ve followed, is inspired to join the fight and soon others join in. They also absorb and channel energy and take some from the Justice Society, who built it up holding back Ragnarok, Together they finally manage to defeat Abraxis and form a new society, even taking the Society’s place in Ragnarok so the heroes can return home and inspire others. (They’re later replaced with some of Abraxis’ generals for a proper happy ending.)

My point is that heroism inspires us to be better. Superpowers are cool to see but they don’t impress me as much as how those powers are used. Villains have powers. There’s an issue of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City featuring a commune of people who developed superpowers but didn’t want to be superheroes or supervillains, just live a normal life, yet probably still tapping a power to make life better otherwise. Deku in My Hero Academia (which I need to watch) decides to be a teacher after years of becoming a superhero, risking his life even before he gains a superpower.Heroes, real and fictional, inspire us to be better regardless of whether or not they have powers. It’s their desire to help others and make the world better, whether enforcing the law, protecting our country, or healing the sick and helping the needy, that inspire us to be better people. We need the aspirational hero, we need to see heroes in action and emulate their better natures or at least desire to be better. Otherwise, what’s the point of the human race?