• Why ‘Game of Thrones’ is actually dangerous for China’s rulers
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/05/02/why-game-of-thrones-is-actually-dangerous-for-chinas-rulers

    In “Game of Thrones,” the centralized state — the united Seven Kingdoms of Westeros — is an entity balanced on a thread, forever vulnerable to the whims of the power-brokers of the land. The TV show compels you to root for separatists — the charismatic, stoic Starks of the North — who are trying to split away from the tyranny of the capital. Moreover, the show reinforces over and over in the viewer’s mind just how unnatural and manufactured the centralized authority of a high king is. We learn that Joffrey, an odious princeling who assumes the throne after the death of his putative father, Robert Baratheon, is actually the product of incest among the powerful Lannister clan. Joffrey’s rule as monarch is preserved only through the cynical alliances made by his grandfather Tywin Lannister, a brutally Machiavellian figure in the series. In “Game of Thrones,” after all, earning the right to rule is a game. And the kingdom’s subjects — its “small-folk” — are all hapless pawns within it. That’s not quite the message China’s authoritarian leadership — beset by its own palace feuds and tales of vice and corruption — would want internalized through its own realm

    #GOT #Chine via @alaingresh cc @baroug @mona