Redartz: Good day, all! How many of you are fans of the HBO series “Game of Thrones”? A lot of you, most likely. The show tells the story of the conflicts between several families vying for control of the “Seven Kingdoms” of the land of Westeros. “GoT” is violent, complex, and rife with ‘adult material’. It also is magnificently filmed, with engrossing writing and fascinating, deeply drawn characters. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it highly.
Anyway, watching the show got me thinking about some of the Marvel Universe’s royalty, and their conflicts. There is Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner – monarch of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis.
There is Doctor Doom, Lord of Latveria...
You have Black Bolt, leader of the Inhumans. And then there is the Black Panther, scion of the kingdom of Wakanda.
Continuing on, youhave Ka-Zar, the Mole Man, and so on and so on. Knowing what we do of these individuals, which do you think would be most capable to overcome the others (either by battle, by cooperation , or both) and take control of the whole world? Who would their allies be?
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| King Joffrey Baratheon |
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| Danaerys Targaryan |
Would they be benevolent, caring, working to make a better world (as in Danaerys Targaryan; freer of slaves and Mother of Dragons) ? Or would they be a tyrannical, cruel despot ( think Joffrey Baratheon, sadist, liar and overall creep).
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| Lord Peter Baelish |
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| John Snow |
Is there someone who has their fingers in everyone’s pies (Peter Baelish, manipulator , lurker, plotter par excellance)? Who in Marvel would you entrust with protecting the world from the evil forces threatening all Kingdoms (a noble, courageous John Snow, after all ‘Winter is coming’)?
Ponder all this, and post your thoughts. Or, you can always ask your Maester to send a raven.
9 comments:
I may be the one person in modern society who hasn't watched a moment of Game of Thrones, I believe. What I've gleaned of the gratuitous violence and its treatment of female characters has kept me at arm's length-- but to be honest, "dynastic" storytelling in general just does not seem to engage me very well. Inner machinations in the halls of power, etc, etc-- who's going to achieve the throne--- it's just never grabbed me as a reader or viewer. That's largely why the Inhumans have always held a lower tier of interest for me-- the whole "royal family" scenario gets me to yawning at the first convening of the Court. I recognize that I am atypical with this, though. (It's also why I think I would fail miserably in any political arena-)
HB
Now we're talkin'!
Awright now, Namor would be a powerful leader obviously, although he would focus more on his Atlantean kingdom, similar to the Martells of Dorne in GoT.
Doctor Doom would be the most aggressive in terms of expansion; in GoT terms, he'd be most like Joffrey Lannister, utterly ruthless and ruling with an iron fist.
If I have to pick a defender of the realm in the Marvel Universe, I'd go with T'Challa, the Black Panther, ruler of Wakanda. He at least has good diplomatic relations with other countries, and would not be feared like say, the Inhumans; also, Wakanda up to this point has not been interested in hostile takeovers of other kingdoms.
- Mike 'wants to look like Jaime Lannister but really looks like Tyrion!' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Don't give Marvel any ideas!
I like GoT fine (read and recommended the books long before the HBO show, and think the show is pretty well done), but the last thing I'd like is for Marvel to do what mainstream comics have long done, and jump on the cultural zeitgeist bandwagon on this particular fad. The cutthroat tone of Martin's books and the show work great for it, but I wouldn't want a crossover event "Annihulus is Coming" or something like that, where all the "heroes" kill each other in the meantime, but then (like Age of Ultron - comic series, not the movie) it is all fixed by time travel. :/
Never watched a complete episode of Game of Thrones, but I've heard the ballyhoo. That said, I have read a lot about Marvel royalty. Here's my take.
Atlantis - The denizens of Atlantis have proven fickle over the decades and Namor has proven to be an unsteady leader. When he's on his game he's good, but his mind and interests wander.
Latveria - The Latverians are put upon by a despot and while Doctor Doom might be mighty, he cannot really generate the support to make him powerful much beyond the reach of his tiny land.
Attlian - The Inhumans are isolated and appear to like it that way. I'm not keen on modern takes on these folks, but in olden times they seemed pretty touchy about the outside. No doubt their range of super powers make them formidable, but they seem to lack the motivation and Black Bolt doesn't operate that way.
Wakanda - This is the one to watch out for. The Wakandans hid themselves and their technology away from the larger world for the exact reason that they wanted to be both powerful and safe and influential to an outsized degree beyond their borders. T'Challa is a chess player like Doom but he has devoted (mostly) followers.
As for the Moloids of the Mole Man and Tyrannus, they were the "Minions" of their day and were less dangerous than the currently famous crop of diminutive and roundish yellow henchmen.
Rip Off
Rip Off
I, too, confess to having only watched 1 - 2 episodes (sort of while working out) of GoT and then stopped. (Some explicit scene about a dwarf with hookers told Charlie "this ain't household material.")
Anyhow, Captain America as I knew him up until around 1976 would do well running the show! Though he never had an empire I think he understands leadership. And he has no kids / entangling family alliances / political parties with their hands out ...
Like CH47 and HB I have not really watched GoT. I caught only one scene where a warrior got his head squished by a huge gladiator. Never had any interest for some reason.
Though I did laugh when somebody on the internet recut scenes from GoT, redubbed it, and added modern music to make it a Summer-job-at-Medievel Times comedy/romance movie trailer. Hilarious.
Red - when I read your post the first thing I thought of was "Super-Villain Team-Up" as I would have liked to have seen Doom and Namor team up to the point where Doom ruled the land and Namor ruled the sea. Then they could take on Asgard or Mount Olympus. And of course you could have Captain America trying to protect the average people along the way.
Okay, so some of you are GoT fans...:)
I truly understand how the show's violence can be off-putting; there are scenes where I just turn my head. But there is much more beyond that, especially the strong cast and characterization. And the quality level of the series is incredible. Like a full cinematic blockbuster each week.
Aaaaanyway...
Mike from TnT- I like your comparison of Namor with the Martells. He may focus on his own, but if threatened, look out.
Dr. O- yes, hopefully Marvel won't get any inspiration from the Lords of Westeros. Of course with the plethora of Big Battle Events in recent years, one could argue they already have...
Rip- nice analysis of the Wakandans. They could take many by surprise.
And those little rounded yellow henchmen are a lot of fun, my wife adores them!
Marti- great observation on Super villain Team-Up. I always felt Marvel could have taken that book farther than it ever went. Your Namor-Doom partnership would have been most formidable.
I haven't seen the show but I'm (finally!) reading the books after finding a complete slipcover set at a garage sale for ten bucks; I just finished Storm of Swords.
I'm not sure if there are any exact parallels to comics. Somebody like the Calculator could equate to Littlefinger, though Littlefinger's network seems to have a wider range and he's more ambitious than Calculator. I think Marvel tried to make the resurrected Norman Osborn a Littlefinger/Varys type, a guy who had his fingers in every pie and manipulated from behind the scenes, though with mixed success as far as I'm concerned. Namor is a bit like Ned Stark; honourable (sometimes to a fault) but not afraid to be ruthless when it's called for.
Wow, I didn't expect that much apathy around GoT, I love it myself. As for the kings, Doom wins every time. One aspect that separates him from the rest is that the others were all born to their station. Black Bolt and T'challa inherited most of the aspects of their power, and Namor got a boost due to being a hybrid. Doom was a gypsy orphan, who rose on his own and made Latveria a force to be reckoned with. This is actually one of the threads of GoT, neither Daenarys nor John Snow were born great, nor were in they seemingly destined for it. Yet seven years later, they're the front runners north and south.
I like to seem Doom as the villain, surely, but I kind of find him more compelling when he plays this sort of antihero as he did with Namor in Super Villain Team-Up where they went up against other more conventional villains like Attuma and the Red Skull. Doom also never let Latveria suffer anything like what Atlantis, Attilan or Wakanda have in the books. The only time I remember Latveria being in really bad shape was actually when Doom was overthrown with the help of the FF, and the FF kind of had to own up to the consequences of their actions. Just like the Targaryens. Oh well ...
Have a great weekend all!
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