I think the Boltons did it all through hard power and the Vlad Tepes School of Public Relations.
I think the difference between the Teagues and the Boltons is that the latter understood how to use symbolism and exemplary punishment to build compliance in the long-term (”a peaceful land, a quiet people”).
At the same time, with the Boltons, we can see the limits of that strategy – all of their regional neighbors hated and despised them, and so joined House Stark the moment the Starks showed themselves to be a viable alternative.
credit to ser-other-in-law
Last time, we discussed the geography of the Reach, and the pre-history of Garth Greenhand and how it structured the polity that House Gardener would build. In this essay, we’ll look at how House Gardener went from ruling a fortnight’s ride from the walls of Highgarden to the masters of the Reach.
(more…)
Ok, finally got to see Logan. For the sake of my in-box, here are some thoughts:
Overall Opinion:
Unlike some folks, I wouldn’t say it’s the best superhero movie ever made, although it’s certainly one of the best. It’s definitely the best Wolverine movie ever made by a long margin, and arguably the best X-Men movie ever made, far better than anything that Bryan Singer ever touched.
At the same time, it’s not the model for all superhero movies to come: it’s a very idiosyncratic, small-scale action film that works primarily because the audience has a long-term relationship with Hugh Jackman as this role. It’s not the hard R violence that makes it work, it’s not even the avoidance of 90% of superheroisms that makes it work – it’s that this movie is particularly suited to this particular character, and what makes movies good is when movies are grounded in character.
About the Movie and Its Inspirations:
I’ve heard it described as a “post-apocalyptic western,” but that’s not quite accurate. Things have gone really bad for the people we care about, but modern society (i.e, the post-industrial capitalist U.S) is very much present and ticking along just fine, having rolled over and ground down mutantkind like everyone else who isn’t wanted by the powers-that-be, whether that’s the poor Mexican women and children exploited by the evil corporation with shadowy ties to the U.S government, or black farmers trying to make a living in the shadow of automated agro-business conglomerates and self-driving trucks, or immigrants trying to make it to some sort of safety in Canada one step ahead of ICE. More on those themes in a bit.
That’s not to say it’s not a Western (just that it’s not post-apocalyptic). while the action and the cinematography don’t really evoke Westerns, the landscapes – from the flat Mexican deserts to the rugged mountain forests of the Canadian border – definitely do. As does a rather beautiful sequence halfway through the movie where Logan, Laura, and Xavier stop to help a farming family corral some loose horses before staying the night.
Moreover, the film’s thematics lean heavily on one Western in particular: early on in the movie, Laura and Professor X watch Shane on the TV, especially the final scene in which Shane (one of the most archetypal lone gunslingers ever) explains why he has to leave rather than settle down. This gets recapitulated at the end when Logan dies, as Laura repurposes his monologue as a eulogy, having few other words to explain what Logan’s life meant. It’s not hard to draw parallels here: like Shane, Logan is an initially reluctant combatant who eventually gets drawn into a conflict not of his own making, there’s also a strong theme of eras passing (just as the mutants are no more, Shane points out to the villain that the farm rather than the cattle ranch is the future of the West), and of course, much like Shane Logan is someone whose life has been indelibly marked by violence who finds a final meaning in ridding a community of men of violence before removing himself so that there “are no guns in the valley.”
I’ve also heard Logan described as inspired by Old Man Logan. That is not the case (thank god), and the movie is better for it: the only things the two have in common is that Logan is old, there’s no superheroes anymore (although the supervillains have NOT taken over) and there’s a road-trip. It is much, much closer to Death of Wolverine and X-23: the central plot is an Wolverine whose healing factor is failing him finding meaning by putting an end to one more attempt to recreate Weapon X (with the main difference being that he kills the son of the head scientist rather than the man himself) and the way that his relationship with Laura Kinney allows him to find some measure of fulfillment and create a legacy that will carry on after his death.
That Logan ends the movie buried under rocks with a cross turned to the side to indicate that he died in the faith of Xavier after all rather than mummified in an adamantium shell is not much of a difference: what matters is the Beautiful Death seemingly set down by destiny for Logan, that he will die in victorious battle protecting mutant children from the evil men who would exploit them.
Incidentally, for a film that otherwise eschews continuity like the devil, one of the unmistakable callbacks in the film (and arguably the core image around which the film was built) is to the mansion fight sequence in X2 – aka the main reason why Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has such a grip on the memory of X-Men fans. Once again, it’s Wolverine against military baddies, although here we have a double chase sequence as Wolverine hunts Donald Pierce’s Reavers (yes, it’s that Donald Pierce, X-Men’s most fabulous anti-mutant bigot cyborg) as they hunt mutant children trying to make it to the Canadian border.
Themes and Politics:
So as many people have pointed out, there are a lot of political resonances in Logan that probably weren’t intended as a statement on Trump’s America (since the film was written between 2013 and 2015) but it’s not like one couldn’t hear the rumblings and see the signs if one was paying attention.
Logan takes a clear, thematic, but not didactic stance on issues of immigration: it starts from the very beginning of the film where we see Logan crossing a highly-militarized border as part of his daily commute or dealing with drunken teenagers standing up through his skylight shouting “USA! USA! USA!” as they pass by a border checkpoint, and it moves to center stage when Gabriella, a whistleblowing nurse who used to work for Transigen, tries to get him to help an undocumented child cross the border – not into the U.S, because the U.S is clearly no longer a place of opportunity or refuge, but into Canada.
Through Gabriella’s story, we learn about the broader political situation, that begins to link in more and more issues. In an act of globalized regulatory arbitrage that’s straight out of my colleague’s book pictured above, Transigen located itself in the Mexican border region so that it could take advantage of laxer regulations, paramilitary support from the government (thanks in no small part to Transigen’s connections to the U.S military-industrial coalition because they’re really Weapon X), and it is darkly implied, a steady source of disposable bodies of women of color to use as incubators for genetically engineered mutant babies thanks to the ongoing crisis of murders and disappearances in Ciudad Juárez.
From Gabriella’s whistleblowing camera footage, we find that Transigen followed a policy of deliberately dehumanizing its creations – considering them nothing more than patents and copyrights – as both a way to justify human experimentation, abuse, and the creation of child soldiers. And this attitude flows through directly to Doctor Zander Rice’s reveal that they’ve been spreading genetic weapons through the mass market food chain in order to quietly sterilize mutantkind and make the X-gene once more a controllable part of the government’s arsenal, the way Weapon X always wanted it to be.
Arguably, the political story of Logan is one of global intersectionality: the same corrupt, violent corporate/government forces working against poor women and children in Mexico are the same forces working against African-American farmers in the heartland are the same forces who’ve been working to dehumanize mutants from the beginning, and the only way to preserve hope for the next generation is for everyone to get together at Eden and fight back.
Amen! Forging a new polity is fundamentally different from hijacking an existing one. Aegon was creating a new set of rules, Renly was breaking the rules with no replacement other than, well, himself; the former can bring stability and prosperity, the latter is a recipe for society-wide catastrophe.
Good essay, but in contrast to all the hailing of westerosi lords stands the burning of Harrenhal and the extinction of House Hoare. Yes, House Tully surrendered to Aegon, but the destruction of Harrenhal was nevertheless a radical and brutal action. Everyone who didn’t accept Aegons claim was erased.
I don’t think it was a “radical and brutal action”:
I think that’s a misinterpreation of Aegon the Conqueror. As I discuss in my essay on him, far from being based solely through strength of arms, Aegon and his sisters were careful to establish consent from and establish legitimacy with his subjects:
“Having taken a dozen castles and secured the mouth of the Blackwater Rush on both sides of the river, he commanded the lords he had defeated to attend him. There they laid their swords at his feet, and Aegon raised them up and confirmed them in their lands and titles. To his oldest supporters he gave new honors…Heraldic banners had long been a tradition amongst the lords of Westeros, but such had never been used by the dragonlords of old Valyria. When Aegon’s knights unfurled his great silken battle standard, with a red three-headed dragon breathing fire upon a black field, the lords took it for a sign that he was now truly one of them, a worthy high king for Westeros. When Queen Visenya placed a Valyrian steel circlet, studded with rubies, on her brother’s head and Queen Rhaenys hailed him as, “Aegon, First of His Name, King of All Westeros, and Shield of His People,” the dragons roared and the lords and knights sent up a cheer … but the smallfolk, the fisherman and field hands and goodwives, shouted loudest of all.”
“the men of the Trident had no love for their ironborn overlords…so now the riverlands rose against him, led by Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun. Summoned to the defense of Harrenhal, Tully declared for House Targaryen instead, raised the dragon banner over his castle, and rode forth with his knights and archers to join his strength to Aegon’s. His defiance gave heart to the other riverlords. One by one, the lords of the Trident renounced Harren and declared for Aegon the Dragon. Blackwoods, Mallisters, Vances, Brackens, Pipers, Freys, Strongs… summoning their levies, they descended on Harrenhal…The next day, outside the smoking ruins of Harrenhal, King Aegon accepted an oath of fealty from Edmyn Tully, Lord of Riverrun, and named him Lord Paramount of the Trident. The other riverlords did homage as well —to Aegon as king and to Edmyn Tully as their liege lord.”
And this went on and on – the homage of the Westermen and the Reachermen ater the Field of Fire, the submission of Highgarden, Torrhen kneeling at the Trident, and Aegon’s anointment and coronation at Oldtown. At every step of the way, Aegon spends as much time establishing the reciprocal bonds of feudal obligation and enacting the symbolism of monarchy as he does fighting. And he continued this policy as King:
“he worked to knit the realm together with his presence—to awe his subjects and (when needed) frighten them…the other half of the year he dedicated to the royal progress. He traveled throughout the realm for the rest of his life, until his final progress in 33 AC—making a point of paying his respects to the High Septon in the Starry Sept each time he visited Oldtown, guesting beneath the roofs of the lords of the great houses (even Winterfell, on that last progress), and beneath the roofs of many lesser lords, knights, and common innkeepers… In these progresses, the king was accompanied not only by his courtiers but by maesters and septons as well. Six maesters were often in his company to advise him upon the local laws and traditions of the former realms, so that he might rule in judgment at the courts he held. Rather than attempting to unify the realm under one set of laws, he respected the differing customs of each region and sought to judge as their past kings might have.”
Aegon of Dragonstone was of a different mind. Once he had joined his power with that of Edmyn Tully and the other riverlords to ring the castle, he sent a maester to the gates under a peace banner to parley. Harren emerged to meet him—an old man and grey, yet still fierce in his black armor. Each king had his banner-bearer and his maester in attendance, so the words that they exchanged are still remembered.
“Yield now,” Aegon began, “and you may remain as Lord of the Iron Islands. Yield now, and your sons will live to rule after you. I have eight thousand men outside your walls.”
Aegon followed the law of war by engaging in parlay under a white flag and offering fair terms for the surrender of a castle – indeed, offering lordship of the Iron Islands would normally be considered more than fair terms. And historically a castle or city that refused terms of surrender was considered to have abrogated all rights under the laws of war. (see Leonard Taylor, “There Shall be Survivors”)
Thanks for educating me on the ‘law of war’. This is something i wasn’t aware of in it’s importance. Yes, Aegon might have offered a parlay, and offered his terms. But an offering can be refused, what Harren the black did. Yes, he paid for it. But this contrasts with
‘
As I discuss in my essay on him, far from being based solely through strength of arms, Aegon and his sisters were careful to establish consent from and establish legitimacy with his subjects’.
There was only one targaryen goal: To take all of Westeros. To their terms only. And this is archieved, in the end, by killing off the ones who had their own ideas of ruling the country. They would have fucked up Dorne if they would have the had the chance.
So, in the end, I don’t see where Aegon is so different from Renly?
Right, but there are consequences to refusing an offer – legally, the besieger is now free to sack and massacre.
But I really disagree that Aegon and Co. didn’t go out of their way to try to bring opposing centers of power in: Aegon doesn’t go straight for Argilac’s head, he tries to negotiate a marriage pact with him; he doesn’t go straight for Harren’s head either, he’s willing to make a deal even after the Riverlands have risen and Harren is besieged inside his hall; he raises up the Lannisters and the Starks and the Arryns who bend the knee, etc.
And another important point: Aegon set up a fairly stable principle of succession by passing the throne to his firstborn son Aenys. Renly deliberately undermines all principles of succession.
Amen! Forging a new polity is fundamentally different from hijacking an existing one. Aegon was creating a new set of rules, Renly was breaking the rules with no replacement other than, well, himself; the former can bring stability and prosperity, the latter is a recipe for society-wide catastrophe.
Good essay, but in contrast to all the hailing of westerosi lords stands the burning of Harrenhal and the extinction of House Hoare. Yes, House Tully surrendered to Aegon, but the destruction of Harrenhal was nevertheless a radical and brutal action. Everyone who didn’t accept Aegons claim was erased.
I don’t think it was a “radical and brutal action”:
I think that’s a misinterpreation of Aegon the Conqueror. As I discuss in my essay on him, far from being based solely through strength of arms, Aegon and his sisters were careful to establish consent from and establish legitimacy with his subjects:
“Having taken a dozen castles and secured the mouth of the Blackwater Rush on both sides of the river, he commanded the lords he had defeated to attend him. There they laid their swords at his feet, and Aegon raised them up and confirmed them in their lands and titles. To his oldest supporters he gave new honors…Heraldic banners had long been a tradition amongst the lords of Westeros, but such had never been used by the dragonlords of old Valyria. When Aegon’s knights unfurled his great silken battle standard, with a red three-headed dragon breathing fire upon a black field, the lords took it for a sign that he was now truly one of them, a worthy high king for Westeros. When Queen Visenya placed a Valyrian steel circlet, studded with rubies, on her brother’s head and Queen Rhaenys hailed him as, “Aegon, First of His Name, King of All Westeros, and Shield of His People,” the dragons roared and the lords and knights sent up a cheer … but the smallfolk, the fisherman and field hands and goodwives, shouted loudest of all.”
“the men of the Trident had no love for their ironborn overlords…so now the riverlands rose against him, led by Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun. Summoned to the defense of Harrenhal, Tully declared for House Targaryen instead, raised the dragon banner over his castle, and rode forth with his knights and archers to join his strength to Aegon’s. His defiance gave heart to the other riverlords. One by one, the lords of the Trident renounced Harren and declared for Aegon the Dragon. Blackwoods, Mallisters, Vances, Brackens, Pipers, Freys, Strongs… summoning their levies, they descended on Harrenhal…The next day, outside the smoking ruins of Harrenhal, King Aegon accepted an oath of fealty from Edmyn Tully, Lord of Riverrun, and named him Lord Paramount of the Trident. The other riverlords did homage as well —to Aegon as king and to Edmyn Tully as their liege lord.”
And this went on and on – the homage of the Westermen and the Reachermen ater the Field of Fire, the submission of Highgarden, Torrhen kneeling at the Trident, and Aegon’s anointment and coronation at Oldtown. At every step of the way, Aegon spends as much time establishing the reciprocal bonds of feudal obligation and enacting the symbolism of monarchy as he does fighting. And he continued this policy as King:
“he worked to knit the realm together with his presence—to awe his subjects and (when needed) frighten them…the other half of the year he dedicated to the royal progress. He traveled throughout the realm for the rest of his life, until his final progress in 33 AC—making a point of paying his respects to the High Septon in the Starry Sept each time he visited Oldtown, guesting beneath the roofs of the lords of the great houses (even Winterfell, on that last progress), and beneath the roofs of many lesser lords, knights, and common innkeepers… In these progresses, the king was accompanied not only by his courtiers but by maesters and septons as well. Six maesters were often in his company to advise him upon the local laws and traditions of the former realms, so that he might rule in judgment at the courts he held. Rather than attempting to unify the realm under one set of laws, he respected the differing customs of each region and sought to judge as their past kings might have.”
Aegon of Dragonstone was of a different mind. Once he had joined his power with that of Edmyn Tully and the other riverlords to ring the castle, he sent a maester to the gates under a peace banner to parley. Harren emerged to meet him—an old man and grey, yet still fierce in his black armor. Each king had his banner-bearer and his maester in attendance, so the words that they exchanged are still remembered.
“Yield now,” Aegon began, “and you may remain as Lord of the Iron Islands. Yield now, and your sons will live to rule after you. I have eight thousand men outside your walls.”
Aegon followed the law of war by engaging in parlay under a white flag and offering fair terms for the surrender of a castle – indeed, offering lordship of the Iron Islands would normally be considered more than fair terms. And historically a castle or city that refused terms of surrender was considered to have abrogated all rights under the laws of war. (see Leonard Taylor, “There Shall be Survivors”)
I think that’s a misinterpreation of Aegon the Conqueror. As I discuss in my essay on him, far from being based solely through strength of arms, Aegon and his sisters were careful to establish consent from and establish legitimacy with his subjects:
“Having taken a dozen castles and secured the mouth of the Blackwater Rush on both sides of the river, he commanded the lords he had defeated to attend him. There they laid their swords at his feet, and Aegon raised them up and confirmed them in their lands and titles. To his oldest supporters he gave new honors…Heraldic banners had long been a tradition amongst the lords of Westeros, but such had never been used by the dragonlords of old Valyria. When Aegon’s knights unfurled his great silken battle standard, with a red three-headed dragon breathing fire upon a black field, the lords took it for a sign that he was now truly one of them, a worthy high king for Westeros. When Queen Visenya placed a Valyrian steel circlet, studded with rubies, on her brother’s head and Queen Rhaenys hailed him as, “Aegon, First of His Name, King of All Westeros, and Shield of His People,” the dragons roared and the lords and knights sent up a cheer … but the smallfolk, the fisherman and field hands and goodwives, shouted loudest of all.”
“the men of the Trident had no love for their ironborn overlords…so now the riverlands rose against him, led by Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun. Summoned to the defense of Harrenhal, Tully declared for House Targaryen instead, raised the dragon banner over his castle, and rode forth with his knights and archers to join his strength to Aegon’s. His defiance gave heart to the other riverlords. One by one, the lords of the Trident renounced Harren and declared for Aegon the Dragon. Blackwoods, Mallisters, Vances, Brackens, Pipers, Freys, Strongs… summoning their levies, they descended on Harrenhal…The next day, outside the smoking ruins of Harrenhal, King Aegon accepted an oath of fealty from Edmyn Tully, Lord of Riverrun, and named him Lord Paramount of the Trident. The other riverlords did homage as well —to Aegon as king and to Edmyn Tully as their liege lord.”
And this went on and on – the homage of the Westermen and the Reachermen ater the Field of Fire, the submission of Highgarden, Torrhen kneeling at the Trident, and Aegon’s anointment and coronation at Oldtown. At every step of the way, Aegon spends as much time establishing the reciprocal bonds of feudal obligation and enacting the symbolism of monarchy as he does fighting. And he continued this policy as King:
“he worked to knit the realm together with his presence—to awe his subjects and (when needed) frighten them…the other half of the year he dedicated to the royal progress. He traveled throughout the realm for the rest of his life, until his final progress in 33 AC—making a point of paying his respects to the High Septon in the Starry Sept each time he visited Oldtown, guesting beneath the roofs of the lords of the great houses (even Winterfell, on that last progress), and beneath the roofs of many lesser lords, knights, and common innkeepers… In these progresses, the king was accompanied not only by his courtiers but by maesters and septons as well. Six maesters were often in his company to advise him upon the local laws and traditions of the former realms, so that he might rule in judgment at the courts he held. Rather than attempting to unify the realm under one set of laws, he respected the differing customs of each region and sought to judge as their past kings might have.”
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