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What Game of Thrones is Really About

2019-05-03 · explainer · Hank · 10:37 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature (also: Pop culture) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook

Hank argues that Game of Thrones is an analog of the geopolitics of global warming (a collective-action, prisoner's-dilemma problem where nations that do nothing gain), but that climate change is worse because it can't be beaten, isn't evil and can't be seen; still, resources, technology and coal-to-wind shifts give reason for hope.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Spoiler warning; Game of Thrones as power struggle under an external threat, an analog of global-warming geopolitics; Martin's clip; Westeros' long summer

  • ★★★ Hank argues Game of Thrones is ultimately about people fighting for power in the shadow of an external threat that can't be bargained with, and its real-world analog is the geopolitics of global warming. — 00:00:00 · climate change
  • ★★ George R. R. Martin (quoted): In a clip, George R. R. Martin says there is a broad parallel: we fight over important issues such as foreign and domestic policy, but none matter if we're dead and our cities are under the ocean. — 00:00:33
  • ★ When the story begins, a ten-year summer has made Westeros so prosperous that it has resources left over for armies, backstabbing and war. (fiction) — 00:00:33

00:01:02 — Winter preparation as collective action, unheeded experts, the stages of threat denial and the prisoner's dilemma

  • ★★ In Westeros, winters come at random and can last years; preparing for them is a collective action against famine and death, and going to war just before one ruins it. — 00:01:32 · collective action
  • ★★ The show opens with experts warning that this winter will be bad and long, and no one heeds them, because short-term geopolitics feels more important after ten years of summer. — 00:01:32
  • ★★★ Hank lists stages of threat denial: no one believes it; those who know agree but can't convince those who benefit from the status quo; they go above and beyond; beneficiaries accept the threat but won't sacrifice. — 00:02:01
  • ★★★ It is a prisoner's dilemma: the best move for any individual is not to spend resources on the threat; if others solve it you get it free, and if not you are still better off. — 00:02:30

00:03:13 — Difference one: global warming can't be beaten; we must sacrifice a lot; hope as a constant push on the bell curve of suffering (reply to John's goalie point)

  • ★★ Hank cites a Vox video saying stopping global warming requires the biggest nations, like China, India and the US, to sacrifice a little in the short term and put aside their political competition. — 00:03:13 · China, United States
  • ★★★ Hank calls that ludicrous: we must sacrifice a lot (flights to see parents, big homes, cheap gas, hamburgers), and people who lack that lifestyle would rightly resent being denied it. — 00:03:42
  • ★★★ There is a cost to leaving fossil fuels in the ground, smaller than fossil fuel companies and the politicians they pay claim, but real; there is no single enemy to defeat. — 00:03:42
  • ★★★ Unlike a soccer game or a battle, where someone wins, against global warming we will spend resources indefinitely, not to win but to make life on average a little better. — 00:04:41 · climate change, John Green

  • ★★★ For Hank hope, the thing with feathers, is not a binary switch but a constant push on the bell curve of suffering: each millimeter is a child saved from waterborne illness or a family not forced to flee. — 00:04:41 · hope

    “Not a binary switch, but a constant push on the bell curve of suffering”

00:05:10 — Difference two: we are fighting ourselves; climate change is a new kind of problem and isn't evil; fossil fuels reduced suffering

  • ★★★ Our Night King is ourselves, and our Battle of Winterfell is pushing on the bell curve of suffering every day until we die. — 00:05:10

    “Our Night King is, maybe unsurprisingly, ourselves.”

  • ★★★ Climate change is the first global-scale collective problem our species has faced, so it is no surprise we don't know how to face it. — 00:05:10 · climate change, collective action

  • ★★ We prefer familiar problems with known solutions; as Tyrion says and an Our Changing Climate video argues, we focus on the Cersei Lannisters of the world. — 00:05:10
  • ★★★ Climate change isn't evil or immoral: we blame fossil fuel companies at conferences we flew to, and any green conversion is possible only thanks to a century of burning ancient sunlight. — 00:06:06 · climate change
  • ★★★ Global warming doesn't want to kill us; it results from people trying to improve their lives, and there is less suffering because of fossil fuels, so calling them immoral while exonerating users rings false. — 00:06:35 · climate change

00:07:04 — Difference three: the threat can't be seen; season 8's lesson that the one who did nothing comes out best

  • ★★ Third, White Walkers can be seen and touched; graphs and glacier footage are not like nearly being eaten, so a true-analog Westeros would argue whether they are a hoax, beatable or numerous enough to matter. — 00:07:04
  • ★★★ In season 8 those who saw the threat united and sacrificed, but the person who did nothing kept her resources and is best placed, which turned out to be the right choice. — 00:08:03
  • ★★★ The geopolitics are the same: a nation that sacrifices hurts only itself while helping all, so the game isn't stacked for solutions and the best individual course is to do nothing. — 00:08:32 · collective action

00:09:01 — Reasons for hope: resources, technology, coal closures and wind gains; we always change and move forward; sign-off

  • ★★★ Our problem is also better than Westeros's: a massive, malleable, more predictable planet with huge resources, advanced technology pushing the pace of change, and brains made for problem-solving. — 00:09:01 · Earth
  • ★★★ In the last five years 16% of US coal plants have closed. — 00:09:36 · United States
  • ★★ There may never be another coal plant built in the US. (hedged) — 00:09:36 · United States
  • ★★★ In 2017 the US lost four gigawatts of coal power and gained seven gigawatts of wind. — 00:09:36 · United States
  • ★★★ The shift will take decades, even centuries, but it is happening; this isn't a battle to win or lose, and humans always change and move forward, something we're better at than Westeros. — 00:10:06

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In the description Hank says economics already make renewables more attractive, the path of least resistance but the slowest; governments need to act, a very tall order. — video description
  • ★★ Hank offers a more positive reading of Game of Thrones so far: a common enemy ended some, but not all, petty squabbling, and the alliance it forged may give the last squabbler a very bad time. (hedged) — video description
  • ★★ Hank asks whether the climate crisis will ultimately drive humanity apart or bring it together. — video description · climate change

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: A Song of Ice and Fire · climate change · collective action · hope · Westeros

Also: People: George R. R. Martin

Organizations: Our Changing Climate · Vox

Concepts: energy transition · fossil fuel · normal distribution · prisoner's dilemma

Places: United States

Characters: Cersei Lannister · Night King · Tyrion Lannister · White Walker

Replies to

  • continues · The Thing with Feathers — “John, in your last video, you talked about how a goalie in soccer has to scramble every time, even though 95% of the time it won't make a difference because the 5% matters.”

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2020-08-21 · The Water's Getting Warm (Hank) — continues — “Last year, I made a video about how Game of Thrones can be seen as an allegory for climate change” (00:00:00)