An Allegory of Thrones

ByPaul Posted on

When you first started reading this Game of Thrones allegory, comparing its characters to those in our political landscape, you may be a bit skeptical. But by the time you reach the Santorum comparison to the closeted gay Renly, you should see the pieces lining up. By the time you get to Gore/Stark, it’s picture perfect.

Fun fact: There used to actually be an Unreality sister blog named “Unpolitical.” It’s offline now, but it was my take on politics using the same sort of writing style I used to talk about Pokemon cosplay. In other words, it was all rather informal. But it was too hard to find traffic for it, and so it disappeared. It was featured on the Daily Show once though when Jon Stewart was making fun of a hyperbolic headline I wrote.  If I started that up again someday, would any of you read it?

I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely, and I've learned a lot these last few years at Forbes. My work has appeared on TVOvermind, IGN, and most importantly, a segment on The Colbert Report at one point.

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21 Comments

  1. I would read it, but really, do you want the hassle? The comments for that site would be a total trollfest.

    My advice: stick to what you’re really really good at. Unreality is an excellent site and it would be better to keep that at top notch rather than split focus and risk losing the quality this site brings every day.

  3. I’ve got to agree with Rbourn. I’d read it, but no matter how funny/insightful/honest a post is, all you’ll get it trolls and hate because people think you’re picking on their candidate.

  4. Dumbest political analysis I’ve read today. Has nothing to do with funny/insightful/honest; it’s just bad and not funny … though I’ll give you for Peter Dinklage, not d.bag Colbert.

  6. E. Lee Zimmerman, I think your problem is that you see a picture labeled “Images, Television” on an entertainment site and call it a “political analysis”. That’s like me saying the old Zinedine Zidane headbutt gif parodies were the worst match analysis I saw during the World Cup.

  7. If you start getting into politics you will probably cut your audience in half. Political beliefs are very personal and people take offense easily.

    Stick to video games and other lighter subjects. I used to be huge into politics when I was in college. I’ve become more moderate since then, and am so happy I have been. It cut’s the blood pressure down and the heart in good health.

  8. Yay! Another SciFi blog wanting to delve into politics, le sigh.

    Stick what you are good at instead of the same tired, played out political commentary we can see ANYWHERE ELSE on the internet. Dren like this is what kills a site and the content on this site has been in decline in recent months. With this post I think we’ve now seen a new low watermark.

    I suppose coming up with original content is difficult but seriously… this just pure pandering crap.

  9. Holy shit guys, calm the fuck down. It was a funny picture, and it was related to Game of Thrones, one of the sites favorite shows, so it’s not like it came from outta nowhere. The site’s content has been as good as ever and this doesn’t change that. He wasn’t trying to push his political ideals down your throat, he saw a funny picture and felt he need to share. Give it a rest. The similarities shown are also startlingly accurate.

  13. though i agree that it is a very supervicaial coamprison i must say they mixed up/cmbined the counter part of palin.

    deniris comes form a farawa land but the one who has lust for power with no idea how to wield it and who uses her children is cerisai lannister. she is regent for joeff and tommen so yeah fucked u there did they

  14. Colbert as Tyrion is genius. A strongly disagree with Palin as Dany, though. As the dude above me said, Cersei would be a better pick there.

  16. Many of you find this funny because you are sympathetic to the overall tone of the comparisons.

    Certainly there are people who read this site who would disagree with the comparisons and not find them funny.

    Instead of posting polarizing political commentary post more polarizing commentary like the 3 part series on the new trilogies, which I thought was a great series and caused me to seriously reevaluate my thoughts on those movies.

  17. While I hate both Republicans and Democrats it is quite sickening to see sheeple really believe that Obama is the best of the bunch. While Romney is just a white version of Obama, Santorum is a nut who needs to be locked away, and Gingrich is an elderly Eric Cartman, Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are just saying things how they are without trying to make people happy in the now. They want things better in the long run and want to save this dying country. Say what you want about Obama but anything is better than socialism.

  19. Obama is most definitely not the best of the bunch. Not even a probably. He has surpassed expectations in increasing our national debt to incredible numbers. 16 trillions of dollars in debt is no laughing matter. This country is screwed!

    While its true that Romney is just a Republican Obama, I don’t know if he’s next in line because I have never met a (rational) Mitt Romney supporter.

    However Ron Paul is the ONLY one of the candidates that has been consistent about what he thinks for over 30 years! Thats outrageous! He’s always been against big government and government spending and pro civil liberty and the most constitutional presidential candidate in 100s of years. The only reason you dont know about him is because you watch too much tv news. Brainwashing and manipulation is one of the medias easiest weapons to use.

  20. See Paul? See?

    This is what happens when you even touch one fingertip on politics. You start getting the standard reponses from people:

    1. I hate Republicans because they’re all evil rich evil people

    2. I hate Democrats/Obama because they/he are liberal elitists interested in bringing Socialism to America.

    3. I hate all parties so my comment adds nothing to the debate

    For context, I’m from the UK so don’t care one bit about American politics which I find suprisingly rude. I’m also a politics graduate so I’m sick of talking about it too.

    I thought the post was funny, it drew some humourous parrallels between GoT characters and real life politicians. I laughed at the Al Gore/Ned Stark one saying “always going on about climate change”. Stick to Unreality please

  21. You guys are taking this way too seriously.
    “Oh no they made a funny something about my candidate/party of preference my feelings are hurt. Prepare to feel my bitterness”.
    That’s how some of you sound.

    It was a funny picture. Get over it.

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