Game of... Wine? (spoiler alert)

I, like millions out there in the world, love Game of Thrones. Unlike millions out there, I do not drink (for no particular reason, before you ask!) so this blog will be like the blind leading the blind drunk!

Game of Thrones (GoT) has a huge fan following and there is so much to enjoy including:

• The socio-political feuds between families who may or may not be related to one another
• The acting, music, setting of the fantastical world of Westeros
• The witty, sassy and intensely clever dialogue that leaves everybody on the edge of their seat. 
• The inventive, albeit totally unnecessary sheer violence that viewers are subjected to and we almost crave.

Crave is an operative word. It is a show that wants an audience hooked, hungry for more. It is far too easy to become susceptible to the grip and binge on seasons at a time without any concept of time. I'm pretty sure I watched all of the second season within the space of 4hrs... Not sure how that is possible as each episode is about an hour but it happened.

I suppose in some sense I get hooked, enter the 'meta' of the GoT universe and lose control of my normal inhibitions. Sounds a little like an addiction of sorts right?
I happened to come across this video a little while ago and it really does hit home how prevalent wine is in the show.

A tally is created each time someone takes a tipple and the score is marked against their respective family crest. It really isn't much of a spoiler to see the Lannister family topping the charts.

It seems that in the first 4 seasons alone there are around 176 instances of wine/another alcoholic drink being consumed. That works out to be 44 instances per season, or 4.4 instances per episode. This may not sound like a lot from the show that has shown rape, beheadings, shadow spectral/astral projection births, incest, massacres and many burnings... but in actual fact it kind of is a lot.

An audience witnesses somebody drinking just over once every 15mins. As an audience we are saturated with wine. Now one logical reason for the dependance on alcohol may well be that the water supply may not be considered safe and the processing of alcohol makes the drink safe for consumption. To me the most obvious link is Victorian London, where Cholera was just as common as murder in Game of Thrones.

One huge flaw in this line of thought is that beer exists in the GoT world. Generally speaking, beer has anywhere between 3-6% alcohol content but can be made weaker or stronger dependant on the brand. I can only hope the children in the image below were not absolutely trollied by lunchtime!

Wine, on the other hand, is usually at least 10% alcohol though more often around 12-14% mark. So if you wanted a 'safe' drink in King's Landing, beer should probably the drink of choice over wine... right?

Wrong. I think that is precisely the point that wine is consumed. Wine is intended both represent and undermine the pomp and power of those who consume it.

According to the 'Wine Mix' - the first character to drink wine is a Lannister. Audiences are constantly reminded about the wealth Lannister's have. With this in mind, wine is therefore not only infused with whatever fruit or additional flavours, but status. A lot of the wine consumed is accompanied with a meal, denoting civility and wealth in order to afford the seemingly bottomless bottle to top up the glass. However, a lot of wine is just casually drunk regardless of food and it is in these moments that we see the darker suggestions of wine.

In the clip below, wine is clearly used as a weapon. The final clause of Margaery's sweet and polite offering of food or drink to Cersei Lannister is laced with a shady undertone, as the final clause in her "I wish we had some wine for you, it's a bit early in the day for us" is laced with a shady undertone. The newly appointed queen's use of language is incredibly telling, establishing a clear divide through the use of pronouns as "you" (Cersei) is made distinctly different or other to "us" (Margaery and the other women at the table). This is emphasised even more by the reaction of silence and a glazed glare. This is one of many moments where wine no longer has the splendour or glamour associated with a Lannister. Instead wine is part of the core implication that Cersei is an alcoholic.

Another clip, another Lannister. This time an interesting quote that frames the perils of wine:
"It's not easy being drunk all the time. Everyone would do if it was easy".

It begs the question what makes it difficult, or at the very least not "easy"? The unsustainable health issues of being drunk all the time maybe? Perhaps the high chances of being impaled by a someone in the violent continent? Could it be the cost of affording the endless fountain of wine. Sure, the Lannister's have the wealth for a great deal of wine - but all the elegance associated with wine is immediately lost when those who consume it succumb to the effects of alcohol: slurred speech, loss of inhibitions, generally being a sloppy mess.

I think it would do the livers of Westeros good to have a brief prohibition, or maybe we should just show Cersei the 'wine mom' meme for jokes - what are your thoughts?

 or 

References:
Prohibition image: https://media1.britannica.com/eb-media/63/116463-004-F04F918E.jpg accessed 13/1/17
Tyrion drinking clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22e2V526DNU accessed 13/1/17
Cersei and Margaery clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLqhlpWbnr8&t=15s accessed 13/1/17
Wine mix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPf-sXqMb90 accessed 13/1/17
Pinot Grigio gif: http://68.media.tumblr.com/406a2d5569a1b82bb74c16da4464a1d3/tumblr_n2365hljkv1ql5yr7o1_500.gif accessed 13/1/17

The addiction of consumption

Without too much thought, food is one of the basic needs of life. We need it to sustain our bodies to develop and grow and maintain our strength.

If we go without food, we become irate and most of our functioning decreases. Going without food for too long our body goes into starvation, where it kind of eats itself in order to sustain itself. I suppose if you take this on its logical face value, we are in one sense addicted to consuming food both physically and cognitively.

Up until this point, I have also pretty much kept within the boundaries of our relationship with food, its meanings that we attribute to it. Today I will look at food’s relationship with humanity, or rather dark substitutes that, sadly, many consider as routine as ‘food’.

‘Weak and Powerless’ by A Perfect Circle is an interesting song with an even more harrowing music video. In fact, the album to which this song is from The Thirteenth Step (which ironically only has 12 songs in its track listing!) is predominantly focused on the different perspectives, dimensions and consequential recovery of drug addiction.

At no point is food (human food at the very least) shown within the music video, and the only overt reference to food in the lyrics is simply the word ‘feed’ and ‘ravenous’. However, the multiplicity of symbols, allusions and slightly harrowing imagery show the dangers of consuming the wrong products - in this case hard drugs.

A woman with long blonde hair, naked, standing up. The camera edges closer and it becomes seemingly apparent that something is not quire right. Focus is placed on her navel, which instead of a belly button there appears to be this gross, almost burnt looking hole (much unlike some of the graphic anti-smoking campaigns and adverts). It isn’t clear to me whether the intended effect of this is to make it look similar to a black hole, that is commonly understood to have such a poignant gravitational pull even light (a cliche symbol for happiness and life?) cannot escape it OR this is one of the few examples of necrosis in a music video.

I digress.

The initial lyric takes no prisoners to immediately throw the audience into the dark depths to which the song is based on. Using a simple metaphor, “tilling my own grave to keep me level” the speaker outlines the conflict of the entire song - doing drugs to make yourself feel better, however it is bringing him closer to death. It’s matter-of-fact tone directly correlates consumption with decay: the antithesis of what consumption is designed for (see above).

The chorus carries this reading even further:

Desperate and ravenous
So weak and powerless
Over you

Only three lines, the speaker clearly defines the relationship of enslavement. Though subtle, the repetition of the word ‘and’ demonstrates a deeper level of addiction, as the speaker is unable to even form sentences without using a different conjunction or alternative to fuse the clauses together. The first two lines have a similar amount of syllables. By comparison, the final line feels disjointed, which can easily be reflective of the incoherence that substance abuse has led the speaker to.

"Someone feed the monkey while I dig in search of China
White as Dracula as I approach the bottom"

Feed the monkey is an idiom for a serious problem that you cannot forget. A much more sporadic reading into this line conjures an image of organ grinder… although what that has to do with anything I don’t quite know. Meanwhile, ‘dig in search of China’ is an interesting phrase. While ‘China’ is an allusion to opium, if the phrase is taken literally it seems absolutely ridiculous. Somebody digging to find China, picture that for a second. Madness. It is this nonsensical logic that masterfully maps out the mind of an addict, as rational thought is abandoned in order to ensure the next fix.

Intertextuality is used as the speaker refers to one of the most famous Victorian Gothic fiction novels: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The effect of this technique immediately evokes connotations of horror, disgust and the inhuman as the ‘white’ ‘China’ again recalls the motif of the grave earlier seen in the initial line.

It is during the second chorus that clusters of Amblypygi appear. If you are not a fan of their general appearance - do not worry. I have a newfound fear/loathing for Amblypygi. Horrifying demonic looking creatures. I hate them. I suppose that is the exact purpose in this video.

Amblypygi - horrific looking creatures. Nightmare fuel. 

The more observant of you may notice that the size of the animal that is thrown into the hole gets progressively bigger as the video continues. A lizard, small snake, iguana-based creature and finally a massive python. Each time without fail the insects shred the flesh of the creature and devour it almost immediately… as the hole in the woman’s stomach grows larger and larger. Towards the end of the video (2:41-2:42) the hole incases the entirety of the woman’s body, as what looks like a field of gravity drifts into the cavity that has now formed.

The video, sadly, ends with the creatures leaving the leftover pieces of animal carcass into an imperfect, broken symbol - the symbol of the group. This insignia flashes in the woman’s eyes and in a daze falls into a pit. As an audience we do not find out her fate… but I think it is pretty obvious what this represents.

References:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/AmblypygiDorsal.jpg - accessed 21/02/16