{"id":1321,"date":"2016-06-22T05:42:55","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T05:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=1321"},"modified":"2026-07-17T14:03:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:03:40","slug":"game-of-thrones-climate-change-global-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=1321","title":{"rendered":"A Song of Ice and Fire and Global Warming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\u00a0\n

A<\/span>fter weeks of non-stop spoilers, leaks, memes, and internet overreactions, the largest collective cultural experience of our times is coming to an end. You\u2019d think I was talking about the American presidential elections or something of that magnitude, but I really just mean the conclusion of a season of <\/p>Game of Thrones<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>\n\nWith it shall end the countless debates waged between <\/span>people<\/span><\/a> who take the lives of fictional characters much more seriously than they do their own. The tendency to overanalyse the show\u2019s themes is as commonplace among fans as regret is amongst Americans who voted for Trump. Theories about <\/span>Jon\u2019s<\/span><\/a> parentage, <\/span>Arya\u2019s<\/span><\/a> true identity, and <\/span>who<\/span><\/a> will finally sit on the Iron Throne fly thick and fast when the show is on air. <\/span>\n\nBut buried under this mountain of geek gold is a portentous interpretation of <\/span>Game of Thrones <\/span><\/i>that turns it into a cautionary tale about the state of our world. This rollercoaster of tits and dragons that we\u2019ve been riding for the last eight years is a veiled allegory about the threat of climate change. And this isn\u2019t merely a theory put forth by fans who live and breathe <\/span>GoT<\/span><\/i>, attempting to impute more meaning to the show than necessary. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nOn the surface, it\u2019s an unlikely theory, but it gains credibility the longer you think about it. For starters, there are the constant hints about how \u201cwinter is coming\u201d. Despite these ominous weather forecasts being bandied about in Westeros, the lords and ladies of the land choose to discover increasingly creative ways to kill each other. If there is another accurate parallel to the world that we occupy right now, please send me a message in a bottle about it. \u00a0<\/span>\n

Right from the first season, the show made a point to steer clear of established escapist fantasy tropes, and ensured its world is far more rooted in reality than other works in the genre.<\/blockquote>\nIf the parallels still elude you, let me compare two ill-tempered, irrational blondes who have no real business holding a position anywhere close to head of state: Donald Trump and Cersei Lannister. Cersei choosing to ignore the army of the dead North of the Wall to focus on killing everyone who has wronged her is a lot like Donald Trump pulling out of the <\/span>Paris Agreement<\/span><\/a> and then <\/span>threatening<\/span><\/a> to rain fire and fury (the unwanted sequel to Hiroshima and Nagasaki) on North Korea. <\/span>\n\nAnd then there are the wildlings from north of the Wall. As winter set in and the White Walkers rose from their slumber, the wildlings were the worst hit. They lost their homes, their families, and their livelihoods. Still, because they had no representative to speak to the nobles, their plight was ignored. Just the way farmers in the Maldives and the Sundarbans won\u2019t get a ticket to the next G8 summit when rising sea levels swallow their villages.<\/span>\n\nThe most obvious parallel here would be the show\u2019s Big Bad – the White Walkers. They are the literal personification of the oncoming cold. They make no distinctions between their victims, killing the bad guys as well as the good guys with equal detachment. Chilling. Implacable. An unstoppable force of nature, much like our planet\u2019s changing climate.<\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s interpretations like this one that make <\/span>GoT<\/span><\/i> the defining TV show of our generation. Right from the first season, the show made a point to steer clear of established escapist fantasy tropes, and ensured its world is far more rooted in reality than other works in the genre. If <\/span>Lord of the Rings<\/span><\/i> were written by George RR Martin, Frodo wouldn\u2019t have made it out of The Shire, let alone completed his trek to Mordor. Rather than embodying the lofty ideals we usually seek out in our heroes, <\/span>GoT<\/span><\/i> presents a tapestry of <\/span>flawed<\/span><\/a> characters riddled with human failings. If its depiction of people and personal relationships can be so true to life, it is only fitting that its themes reflect the same reality.<\/span>\n\n\"Game\n
\n

If the parallels still elude you, let me compare two ill-tempered, irrational blondes who have no real business holding a position anywhere close to head of state: Donald Trump and Cersei Lannister.<\/p>\n

Image Credit: HBO<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\nRight about now, I know what a fellow <\/span>GoT<\/span><\/i> nerd is going to say in the comments. Someone is going to point out that the climate change allegory does not hold true because the first book in Martin\u2019s <\/span>A Song of Ice and Fire<\/span><\/i> series hit shelves in 1996. Those were simpler times, when <\/span>Michael Jackson<\/span><\/a> performed in Mumbai and <\/span>Michael Jordan<\/span><\/a> played basketball with the Looney Tunes. Climate change was not the looming bogeyman it is today. That the watershed moment for the climate change issue came ten years later, when Al Gore\u2019s <\/span>An Inconvenient Truth<\/span><\/i> released in 2006 and added phrases like \u201ccarbon footprint\u201d to our collective vocabulary. That we\u2019re attaching too much importance to what are essentially <\/span>Walking Dead<\/span><\/i> zombies in a <\/span>Conan the Barbarian<\/span><\/i> setting. <\/span>\n\nBut I beg to differ, dear <\/span>GoT<\/span><\/i> bro.<\/span>\n\nFor me, the greatest achievement of the show is that it manages to stay relevant, despite it being a literary adaptation of a yet-to-be-completed series of novels. Whether the author intended it or not, the show has become a mirror to our world today. A world that is currently under threat from climate change.<\/span>\n\nThe latest season might have drawn more criticism than its predecessors for a variety of reasons, but it\u2019s also the season where this allegory has been brought to the fore. Finally, we got to see rulers make attempts to reach out to one another to jointly tackle the threat of winter. The usual political machinations and intricate plotting was discarded in favour of swift, decisive action. While some may rue the departure from <\/span>GoT\u2019s<\/span><\/i> signature slow-burn style, the series has clearly grown larger than its source material. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s no longer just a TV adaptation of a particularly dark set of novels, it\u2019s the crown jewel of the millennial zeitgeist, and if this generation isn\u2019t more conscious than the one that came before, then winter will have well and truly come for us all. (Or summer, depending on what part of the hemisphere you live in.) \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Game of Thrones, this rollercoaster of tits and dragons that we\u2019ve been riding for the last few years, is a veiled allegory about the threat of climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":1324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[120,2210,2245,309,483,2092,2213,2246,1972],"class_list":["post-1321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-climate-change","tag-daenerys-targaryen","tag-emilia-clarke","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-got","tag-jon-snow","tag-khaleesi","tag-littlefinger","tag-sansa-stark"],"yoast_head":"\nA Song of Ice and Fire and Global Warming<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Game of Thrones, this rollercoaster of tits and dragons that we\u2019ve been riding for the last few years, is a veiled allegory about the threat of climate change.\" \/>\n<meta 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