My biggest "problem" with things like GOT though is that even as fiction, they sometimes expose the harshness and reality of sin and death. And they do it well. Fascinatingly well.
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| Iron Throne by Rob Obsidian | CC by 2.0 |
Now if you are the unique individual who has never been personally affected by evil then praise God! I can see why GOT would shock you. But I was born in 2015 and I've been set in a world very far away from Eden. So, If you think that the first time I saw naked bodies, or became acquainted with rape, or experienced violence, or learned about magic was on GOT...then you would be wrong. Life exposed me to all of that:
Rape...that was a friend who told me how a guy forced himself on her on the side of the road.
Violence...the many killing sprees that have taken place in our schools, malls, and churches.
Murder...A girl from my HS that left her baby in her band bag and in the closet to die.
Porn...My highschool Chemistry teacher that would sneak it during class.
I could go ON AND ON because We are already SATURATED with sin and darkness in real life everyday. My parents did a wonderful job of protecting me from it all. Heck, I wasn't even allowed to watch Jurassic Park til High School and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was definitely out of the picture because it had a witch in it! Because of their guardianship, but also because of the effects of sin on every day life, I now have a very good understanding of the difference between good and evil.
Honestly I was introduced to genocide, incest, and rape through the Bible. And if you say it wasn't graphic, you are lying to yourself. The Bible includes examples of horrifying death by burning sulfur, drowning, consensual murder, torture, bear attack, tent pole....etc. This wasn't standard gun shot wound death, these were gruesome and the ones I referred to above were just a few of the ones that are viewed as righteous deaths! As I read about these in my Bible, it changed my idea of what a good Christian could read and even witness.
I was also raised around books and libraries. I grew up watching the Faerie Tale Theater series and If you've ever read the real fairy tales then you know that they are just as weird and unusual as the stuff in the Bible. I appreciate the stories I've read and encountered. Many times, these stories and books gave me a welcomed distraction from the hardship and abuse I experienced when I was a kid. This is what they are for. I don't use GOT or any other book or movie as my guide through life or my moral compass. They are fun or informative or challenging and a million other things, but they don't replace my Bible, the Holy Spirit, or my common sense.
Game of Thrones is a story. A well-crafted story. Its nothing new under the sun. I honestly don't understand why people are shocked by it. The Bible is way more shocking. If anything has desensitized me to the weight of sin and death its been the news. When you hear about it all 24/7, it becomes easy to ignore. When surrounded by water, swimming seems normal.... our entertainment reflects the world we live in. When you see sin fictionalized in a TV series, within the context of a story, your morality has a tendency to click back on because you are seeing a bigger part of the story. We want to hear about people's lives and what preceded their choices. I didn't hear the stories behind why Boko Haram kidnapped, raped, and sold the Nigerian schoolgirls...but books and movies can remind us that those girls are real, they have stories, that they have value. They remind us that moral lines are still solid no matter what time or setting they are in or how much we know about them. They remind us that we SHOULD care again. And they also give us a glimpse into the minds of those who do evil. TV shows require you to ask why that character is choosing that sin or hurting that person. The motives of greed, lust, hatred, etc for sin are the same in both the Bible and Game of Thrones. Notice that when evil is happening in GOT that they don't play light dance music...the lighting, music, and setting paint the viewer a picture that evil is happening. They don't lazily trick you into lying to your conscience. Spoiler alter - No one cheered when Ned died or Sansa was raped. Viewers mourn good characters' deaths and celebrate when they triumph. The show (mostly) paints evil for evil and good for good.
Lastly, this world still wants to see the supernatural. We want to see the unexpected and the unexplained. Fire from heaven. Donkeys talk. Angel wrestling. Movies and books obviously can't replace real miracles, but they can remind us that they are possible and we should be looking for them in our lives! In GOT we see dragons fly and whitewalkers come alive, and we are reminded that not everything on Earth is as it seems. Demons and Angels exist and that Heaven and Hell have a tendency to invade Earth. As a believer I see us coming closer to the end as the consequences of our sin invade our culture. GOT isn't the cause. Sin is. If GOT has opened your eyes to whats already going on, then I'm glad you're awake. As for me, I'm not all that shocked by GOT or any other show or book. I'm more way more shocked by what's happening in my Bible and in real life.
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