Music and Morbidity

When you are stuck in bed for days with a fever which is not going away and a cold which literally sucks your energy out and the medicines make you so drowsy, getting a simple sentence assembled in your mind becomes a challenge, there is little one can do.

I am not going to go on about this any further than what I try to do in the time I am spending in the bed. One of the constant companion during this time is Music. There is nothing that puts your mind at ease than music. What I am listening to is what I am going to write about.

Today started with this fantastic article in NY times about the royal family of Oudh. It was a fantastic story with a lots of turns and twists and a lot of sadness tinged into it as well. It was fantastic journalism and the fact that I am reading about it in NY times just tells me the state of journalism here.

One of the things I kept not writing about is 'Game of Thrones'. For the way it killed off the interest to see it in the season eight, basically made me piss off the whole thing. But one of the amazing thing about the whole series is the music that come along with it.

One of the consistent themes of 'Game of Thrones' as a story is the grimness of fate. Nothing lasts forever and everyone dies. Some die when on top and some die unnoticed. But for sure, everyone dies.

Such a morbidness is what is brought out in the music of 'GoT' and what a score it is. This version by the Danish orchestra is mind blowing not just because the guy who starts off by singing the 'Rains of Castamere' looks eerily like a younger version of Tywin Lannister but has the same intensity of his evilness as well. The song has a eerie quality to it as it is sung at every moment of Lannister treachery and bloodiness.

One of the iconic scenes of the entire series - which basically sets the tone of things to come (that is, till the eighth season came along!) - when Daenerys becomes the Mhysa - mother- to her people by freeing them from slavery. The corresponding soundtrack probably is the next favorite.

 

But then, there are only a few moments of elation in the series itself - it is a tale of treachery and a lot of killing and that leaves one with mothers without sons, wives without husbands, lovers torn apart and that is a plenty of sad moments to go about. 

However, Cersei Lannister is no ordinary mother. She can literally light up anything that she thinks is stopping her progeny from getting what they want. The piano score which plays around mostly in almost silent scene where Cersei just waits for her triumph at Red Keep is just plainly haunting.

With all that music flowing between the times, the grimness of the life is in full view of us. There are moments when life gets its bright spots but it is full of grim realities which basically grinds one down.

Lying in the bed, there is nothing but to introspect a lot and I was thinking of Buddha and Mahavira and the way they describe death. Like a candle being blown away or like Gosala says like a ball of string unfurls itself to the end and about crossing the river and also about getting stranded in one bank - what is not attempted, can it be considered done?

Sariputra says somewhere - ‘Life itself is a contradiction because birth is the direct cause , in every single case, of death’

With that cheerful note, enjoy the music..

Daenerys Targaryen

After watching the season finale last week, I thought I will not write about 'Game of Thrones' - it was such a disappointing final season to such an wonderful arc of a story. However self-destructing it may be, I also understood the way it ended - though I did not like it one bit.

The reason I invested close to a 100 hours to watch the entire series (not including the numerous times I watched certain episodes) - is primarily for Daenerys Targaryen. It is probably one of the neat characters created in a Television series and wanted to write about her than about the entire series.  I could not read the books - they were tedious and I was not able to move past couple of chapters - so this is entirely based on Daenerys as depicted by Emilia Clarke in the TV series.

'Lord of the Rings' remains my favorite fantasy novel series of all time. Not just because of the quality of the writing, but also because of the characters it threw up. There are some strong women characters in LoTR - Galadriel or Arwen - comes to mind. But my favorite has been Eowyn, who in a mad part of the story kills the Witch-King of Angmar. It is one of the finest pieces of writing in any form - Eowyn emerges as a strong character from being lovelorn about Aragorn. For that, Eowyn has remained my favorite girl for a long period.

Eowyn kills the Witch-king

I prefer the women characters in the stories to be strong, with a will of their own and while I like romance as much as any other person, it cannot be the one defining trait of a women.

'Game of Thrones' is full of such women - in fact, there is no one who is exactly single-dimensional - everyone schemes and have justified reasons for it - and some get redeemed along the way - some die. No one ends up marrying the love of their life and live happily ever after but they find happiness in their own way.

The number of such characters is where GOT differs from the standard story arcs. The entire game for the throne is between strong willed women - Cersei Vs Daenerys Vs Sansa - it is basically a series full of throne-hungry women with some men playing supporting roles. Apart from these, there are others who have their own agenda - Arya, Melisandre , Yara , Brienne or Missandei. It is essentially a series for women (that is exactly why the final season sucked big time!)

Of these, there are two whose story arcs stand out - Daenerys and Sansa. Sansa starts as a doe-eyed girl who wanted to marry the prince and her life goes to hell from that point onward, she is broken but survives to become the Queen of the North. Multiple men use her for their purposes along the way but she takes her revenge by the time it all ends.

However, Daenerys stands tall above all these women in that she goes through all of that and more - but never loses her will to take back the throne and more importantly, she brings a sense of justice to everything she does.

Married to a brutal Khal Drogo and raped at an young age, she slowly finds love with him, only for him to die. Against all odds, she takes over and becomes the Khaleesi. Though her one aim to reclaim the Iron throne for herself, she takes her time in Essos to liberate the slaves and declares breaking the chains to free the world as her aim.

Mhysa by Josu Hernaiz

Called 'Mhysa' (Mother) for freeing the slaves, she has her sense of justice prevails over the masters of the cities, the slave traders and those who oppress. It is with this same aim that she comes to Westeros - to break the wheel for the people who are oppressed by tyrants. It is here that the entire series takes a tumble.

Calling herself the 'Mother of dragons' - she breaks the streotype female of these fantasy stories - and breaks into a newer kind of heroine who is probably more intelligent than her male advisors and who is not hesitant to use force to enforce (what she considers as ) Justice. She has her share of romance - first with Khal and then finally with Jon (who is her nephew - Incest is such a in-thing in Westeros).

So it is that entire arc which was broken in the final season, so that a white boy - who did little in the whole story - could become king. The entire farce of the ending is what is disappointing - to say the least. So, for now, the only thing I decided to do is to just watch the first seven seasons and pretend that the eighth season never happened.