Note: This piece contains spoilers for "Game of Thrones" season 8, episode 6.
“Love is more powerful than reason. We all know that,” said Tyrion Lannister, captive prisoner of Daenerys Targaryen, as he tried to persuade Jon Snow to kill Daenerys, newly installed as queen, and save the Realm. As "Game of Thrones" wrapped up its eight-season run on Sunday night, Tyrion’s bit of wisdom explains quite a bit about both the highly divided reception to the show’s final season — and a little something about our divided politics.
Prior to Sunday night’s show, I had been deeply let down by season 8’s “The Bells,” the episode which both provided the audience with unbelievable spectacle and with the divisive choice to have Daenerys snap at the moment of her total victory, needlessly burning hundreds of thousands of innocent residents of King’s Landing. For me, despite seasons of establishing Daenerys as capable of both great kindness and tough leadership, the choice to suddenly turn her rage onto completely innocent people en masse felt rushed, without a proper precipitating trigger to send her over the edge at the very moment she had won. Emotionally, it didn’t work for me.
It worked for my friend Nicole. It worked a lot. Over the course of the next week, we each tried to persuade each other that the episode was either an achievement or a disaster. “But Dany just lost all of her advisers!” (I don’t care.) “But she’s been burning stuff since season 1!” (I don’t care.) “She’s always been kind of crazy!” (I don’t care.) Absolutely no attempts to reason with me could persuade me that, well, actually showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff had properly executed Daenerys' turn to the Mad Queen, and none of my complaints worked for her.
Fast forward to this week’s finale: It worked for me. It worked a lot. The execution of the scene where Jon Snow dispatches his (aunt? ex-girlfriend?) Queen Daenerys in the destroyed throne room? Grief-stricken Drogon melting the throne and then picking up his mother’s body? It worked for me on every level.
Once I was emotionally won by the episode, I was more than willing to ignore the many issues with the rest of the episode. “But why does Sansa get independence for the North but Dorne and the Iron Islands don’t ask for it?” Sure, you’re right, but I don’t care. “Why does literally no one bring up the fact that Jon is an actual Targaryen and that winds up having no real purpose?” Sure, you’re right, but I don’t care. “Why are these people even invited to this meeting?” Look, I got Sansa shutting down Edmure Tully, so I don’t care.
At an intellectual level, I completely understand that there are gaping holes in the way that Game of Thrones was wrapped up. But the episode won me emotionally, and therefore I was ready to forgive all manner of logical and logistical sins. Similarly, “The Bells” did not work for me, and Nicole, try her hardest, was not knocking me off of this position.
I think this “emotion trumps reason” point is essential to understanding not only why you are not going to be able to persuade your friends who disagreed with you about "Game of Thrones" to change their minds, but also why you probably also can’t change people’s minds about our emotionally charged national political conversations.
I’m often asked if I ever see anything in my focus groups or polls that show what would persuade Democrats to support President Trump, or persuade Republicans to break from him. “But don’t the Democrats like the economy?” That doesn’t matter if they are emotionally repelled by him and his presidency. “But don’t Republicans dislike his trade policies?” That doesn’t matter if they think, at an emotional level, that he’s the first person in a long time to fight for people like them.
Deep division requires strong emotion. Love him or hate him, the Trump era has been characterized by a lot of strong emotion.
Nearly a decade and a half of working in public opinion research has fully convinced me that emotion is an incredible force, and once we are emotionally invested in something — a story, a show, a person — it is exceedingly hard to persuade someone through reason that their emotions are wrong. Emotions are what we remember and what shape our worldview. As Maya Angelou put it, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Weeks from now, I probably won’t be wondering if Infrastructure Week in King's Landing made any sense. I’ll be thinking about the way I felt as Jon fulfilled his destiny and saved humanity from fire-made-flesh, just as Arya saved humanity from ice-made-flesh weeks before. So to all my friends with their perfectly logical arguments about how Bronn as Master of Coin is beyond silly or how it’s strange that the Dothraki are all now conveniently totally fine with boats or how Bran’s reign doesn’t make sense: I hear you.
But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I loved it anyway.
[Also read: More trash: 'Game of Thrones’ finale accidentally shows modern water bottles]
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/love-is-more-powerful-than-reason-on-game-of-thrones-and-our-real-life-allegiances
2019-05-20 12:50:00Z
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "'Love is more powerful than reason.' On 'Game of Thrones' and our real-life allegiances - Washington Examiner"
Post a Comment