#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #FRANCE #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) France, UCL AL #323 - Culture, Essay: The Middle Ages of Game of Thrones (ca, de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]

 Here is a book to help us understand how series (and literature) feed clichés and

reinforce the conditioning to certain conceptions of society. ---- What is the
Middle Ages ? It is first of all a historical period running from the 5th to the
15th century, with rather arbitrary limits, fixed a posteriori by thinkers who
did not admire much at the time. It is also a multitude of imaginations drawing
from the many sources that irrigate our modern culture, carrying its share of
clichés and images of Épinal. ---- By writing the bestseller A song of Ice and
Fire, then adapted for television with the cult series Game of Thrones, George R.
R. Martin drew heavily on these sources of inspiration to build his fantasy
world. The author also prides himself on a form of realism in his description of
society, darker and more cruel than those usually portrayed in other works of
fantasy, and therefore supposedly closer to what our Middle Ages were like.

"A fantasized vision of a white and virile past"
In their book Une Histoire de feu et de sang, Justine Breton and Florian Besson
set out to put this assertion to the test of modern scientific knowledge on the
subject. Using the pretext of studying the saga and the television series (taking
care to clearly distinguish the two), they playfully juggle between questioning
our modern clichés about the Middle Ages, explanations of the practices and life
of the time as well as reflections on how this period may have been portrayed in
our culture. In doing so they never forget to do justice to the original
material, which of course never claimed to be a scientifically correct
description of a medieval society.

Their book ends with a reflection on the political discourse transmitted by the
saga. By choosing to present a Middle Ages where violence is omnipresent, and
where this violence serves as a guarantee of realism, the author and the
screenwriters are not neutral. They reinforce a discourse that aims to make
violence the primordial element of our social relations, depicting a world where
only authority and force are able to protect us from human barbarism.

This reduction of the complexity of human relations to sheer brute force makes it
possible both to reinforce (no doubt despite the will of the author) a fantasized
vision of a white and virile European past, and to discredit those who as we seek
to build a society rid of its relations of domination.

While saluting Martin's talent, the authors therefore call on us to open our
imaginations and to get out of a very partial and unfair vision of a period much
richer than we usually imagine. A must-read book.

Nicholas (UCL Grenoble)

Justine Breton and Florian Besson, A Story of Fire and Blood : The Middle Ages of
Game of Thrones, Presses Universitaires de France, 2020, 392 pages, 21 euros.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Essai-Le-Moyen-Age-de-Game-of-Thrones
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