King Beto

Game of Thrones Season 8 (HB0)

Rushed production made it possible for show runners, who are straight white men, to display their actual POVs this season. No time for introspection and even getting feedback, as if they care for such a thing. What do we get in the final episode where everything else is re-jigged to make the episode possible (as opposed to plausible?)? First sign things are awry and confirms the white bias of the show are the intact bodies of the Lannister incest couple. Stones rained down on them, but their faces (very important) and bodies remained intact. And spatially almost impossible to find bodies but brother still found them singlehandedly. These are despicable people, but sympathy for them are inexplicably dragged out from the previous episode. What gets contrasted here? Grey Worm killing a soldier. We never got such a personalized view of killing by any of the white soldiers. It was all just random and, in the midst of battle, necessary. But here, it’s to indicate Grey Worm’s viciousness. And it’s not only his, but people of color, like the barbaric Dothraki, are unlike us (the audience presumed white or share white supremacy values), that they are deep down bloodthirsty. The final season in particular completely debases the colonized people and its heroes. That’s why it was easy for the show runners to imagine Danny going mad and violent because the show runners are, and I say this with confidence, ignorant of world history especially when it comes to the Third World/Global South/colonized regions of the world. This is why they completely trash Danny’s vision and her followers. Danny wants to continue liberating the oppressed, but here we finally reach the limits of the imagination of white liberal writers. Freedom for all is imagined as horrific because it will destabilize the status quo, which is why we get that infuriating ending because the guys who have been in charge are still in charge. Despite Danny’s madness and violence, her speech is still stirring in an episode full of idiotic speeches. But Jon couldn’t hear that nor can Tyrion, the white liberals. Yes, they’ve defeated the white fascists and conservatives, but liberation should have been for everyone, which is what Danny wanted. Who do we get in her place? The most mediocre, useless white teen as the leader, probably the teen version of Beto who got crippled doing a skateboarding trick. And we also get independent-minded white women who have no sense of racial justice. What happens to Grey Worm and the Dothraki? They are asked to move away instead of integrating with them, which means like your usual white liberals who are willing to say the proper racial and social justice slogans, they don’t want actual blacks and POCs as their neighbors. Grey Worm should have been the king to follow the episode’s logic. Instead he’s sent off with anger in his heart and a sneering expression because the white boy over here gets off with a light sentence. There will be no POC in the new regime, not even in the council nor in the writers room. That’s the white dream in a world where POCs are here to stay.

#2019 #May