The connection is entirely illusionary and in the game, as always, no real casualties; and in turn less and less real empathy for the real casualties of actual modern conflict that spills real blood like that of a slaughtered Jo Cox.

There's an imaginary world where imaginary things take place, then we switch it off and go home for dinner. Then there is a real world where real harm happens, real blood is spilt, real and often absolutely mind numbing real pain is suffered! Where the slaughtered never ever get to kiss their kids again or do something as ordinary and innocuous as sit down at the dinner table to share a family meal?

Eaten as real food in a real world, prepared by someone real, who cares enough to take the time and trouble to do something real for someone else!

Some folks, real people gunned down or stabbed by nutters with real lethal weapons, never ever get to go home ever again!

There is no connection with any blood thirsty imaginary world that can ever be transferred or otherwise imposed on or in anyone's literal reality!

It's desensitizing stuff like this that turns murder into boy's own adventure?

There's nothing wrong with games or building dream castles in the clouds, always providing you don't move in as a permanent resident!?

A defence of politics? Get real!
Alan B.

Redheads (blood-nuts?) are a cold climate phenomenon and hence probably there is an under-supply of these colourful people.

Yes, GoT is an unashamed defence of politics from the top. It creates a stunning world inhabited by privileged, born-to-rule people who neither know nor care about the lowly unpeople whose enforced tithes and taxes keep them in spectacular opulence - leaving them free to play out their petty power struggles with others who are also clinging to their peasant-financed lives of spectacular opulence.

Naked servant girls are passed around like jugs of wine. Harmless jesters have their tongues cut out for singing innocuous songs of political satire. Thousands of lowly soldiers are burnt alive in sea battles, so that some ruling class dude can test how well his latest war invention works.

I was introduced to GoT by my sons. I was happy to sit down with them to share their passion for this series. After a while, I asked: 'Who are the good guys?' My son answered: 'There aren't any. They're all a bunch of sh**s.'

Over time, despite GoT's brilliant production values and masterful storytelling, I became increasingly horrified by its putrid homage to misogyny and born-to-rule cruelty - to the point that I could no longer bear it anymore.

I might add that, the more I talked about this with my sons, they gradually stopped watching it too.

//Over time, despite GoT's brilliant production values and masterful storytelling, I became increasingly horrified by its putrid homage to misogyny and born-to-rule cruelty - to the point that I could no longer bear it anymore.

I might add that, the more I talked about this with my sons, they gradually stopped watching it too.//

Presumably you are equally horrified by 'the Scottish play'. Chock-a-block with misogyny, violence and born-to-rule cruelty. Same goes for Hamlet. And no doubt a lot of the Bard's more obscure plays. One can only wonder how they were popular in their own time, let alone today, when they are so full of misogyny and born-to-rule cruelty.

Oh yeah, now I remember. It's because they're good.

I sure hope you never let your kids watch the Lion King. It's based on Hamlet.

It has violence and cruelty, as does the real world. But isn't it also a commentary on how and why these things come about, and what can be done politically to prevent or lessen bad things from happening to people? You're going to be relegating a large chunk of the world's literature and film to the waste bin if you think the presence of violence or cruelty or even misogyny makes a film/book unfit for consumption (including Hamlet, but also Les Misérables, and most of Dickens).

Neo99

Who said anything about relegating anything to the world's dustbin? I made a choice to stop watching a series that, to me, had far more negatives than positives. Just because a work of art is good does not mean that everyone who views it must genuflect to it. Don't read the long arm of mass censorship into a simple individual viewing choice.

Tony Lavis

Ditto. I've always talked a lot with my sons about film, TV and books, which could be why they have both chosen to work in the film and television industry, and why they write a lot themselves. As for Hamlet and MacBeth, I've never liked either play, or much of Shakespeare for that matter. Again, why should I genuflect to a centuries-dead white guy for whom real people are only the male rich and powerful, while the common folk are ugly, stupid caricatures? So he had a way the words. Big deal.