HBO’s hit television series, A Game of Thrones (ASoIaF), is still really really good, despite their childish need to pornoshize everything they put out. This show is good like old school Coca-Cola – you know, that Coke that had coke in it? They are similar in two basic ways: a. The formula is solid. Coke is tasty and so is Martin’s story. b. There is a substance present in both of these forms of entertainment that ‘hook’ people hard and keep them coming back with one wicked craving for more. Of course in the case of Coca-Cola I’m referring to the cocaine that was present in the original formulation. As for ASoIaF, there is a substance present that makes people compulsively and crazily throw back episodes, often times slamming 10epis down in a single binge night – this substance is highly addictive, viz. pornography.
The reason I draw this parallel between cocaine and pornography is that they both work on a relatively similar plane. They are both dopaminergic, among other things. If you don’t know much about dopamine, just know that it is an incredibly powerful neurotransmitter that acts in your body as a reward system conditioning you to repeat those things that cause it to be released, etc. It gives you a high.
Obviously Coca-Cola doesn’t need cocaine to sell their product around the globe, but maybe a film or a book does. If you were to take this pornographic element out of the compound you would still be deeply mired in a soup of dopamine releasing agents, among other things. For example, the largest slice of pie in ASoIaF is not porn, but violence. Violence is something that is ~universally present in every story. Violence is basically ~the root of all conflict, with few exceptions. And it would be well to note the violent nature of most pornography – is it not that nearly all pornography is conducted with men as the actors and women as the object being acted upon?
Still, I would appreciate this series a lot more if it didn’t have those classic Tarantino moments where you are watching this super film and then suddenly you are thrown into this immature sex scene that just makes you feel like you’ve walked in on a friend masturbating to a computer screen. Georges Bataille, a dead French author known for his explicit erotica literature (e.x., The story of the Eye) , argues that anything sexual is inherently childish. Maybe this is so, but I can’t help looking at this with eyebrows raised. I mean seriously, HBO is like a surgeon that sniggers in a cancer seminar every time the word breast is mentioned.
The thing I love most about this show is that it has created another phenomena like what Harry Potter did some 10 years ago, i.e. it has become an intersection where nonreaders can slip into the stream of books. So many people have watched this show and loved it so much that they have come to the books for more, and plenty of these people are virgin book readers and don’t know what to read next. This is why having a good local bookseller is so important. You don’t want to sift through the chaff do you, only to find subquality items? Why not go to someone who can just throw the gems at you?
So, you who have watched the show and read the books but have no clue on where to go from her? You’ve found the right place.
If you liked A Game of Thrones, come by today and snag up Promise of Blood by Brian McLellan – this book is brand new, Brian is a new author, and it is completely awesome. This is the first volume in the Powder Mage Trilogy. With a generous mixture of gunpowder, social revolution, and magic, this book is a fast paced piece of flintlock fantasy. So, if you’re lost and you don’t know which way to go, let us here at Lemuria take the reins and guide you into some new and exciting territories.
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