In this blog, I will be analyzing strategies of realism in the TV series that I admire and the one that has the most controversial ending, The Games of Throne (2011-2019).
Games of Thrones started off as a series of fantasy novels written by George R.R. Martin in 1996. He introduced a fictional world filled with unfamiliar creatures and customs but governed by the same instinctive rives for dominance and desire found in our own (Battis & Johnston, 2015).
Realism
Realism in art, in my understanding, is creating a painting, sculpture, or drawing that looks very real and eerily like real life. It sounds simple, but artists rarely create a piece from what they see; rather, they would tweak it to make it look real, at least from their eyes. To see it from another angle, artists would use their creative skills to create their own view of reality rather than imitating things as they are.
In the context of the Game of Thrones series, George R.R. Martin used a historical moment as inspiration for the scene of Cersei Lannister’s walk of penance (Rothman, 2015). The said historical moment would be in relation to Jane Shore, a mistress of King Edward IV of England, who did her penance in 1483. George R. R. Martin might not have existed during medieval times, when the walk of penance punishment was considered one of the worst punishments for women because, as Rothman said, “it would taint their reputation for the rest of their lives” (2015). But for him, using history as an inspiration, it provides viewers with an understanding of how law and culture worked during the medieval period of the series to make it more realistic.
When I was binge-watching the early season of the series, I couldn’t help but notice the similarity of the cultural diversity in the film and the real world. Although the cultures in the series do not exist for us, it is interesting to see how the majority of the cultures in the movie can draw visual inspiration from the real world. The Dothraki, for example, resemble numerous nomadic tribes and their reliance on horses, one of them being the Mongols, as they have a similar fierce warrior culture. Dothraki’s seascape is so much like a part of our earth, like large areas of flat, unforested grasslands typically found in Siberia. Dayna Vettese, a Weather Network meteorologist, compares the region to the Eurasian steppe, where temperate grasslands meet savannas and shrubland. (Weather Network, 2019).
Believability
With advanced technology in the film industry, computer-generated images (CGI) are widely used to manipulate reality. CGI is produced using software to make drawings, models, or landscapes appear as if in 3D (Prince, 1996). This technology has been used to create fantasy characters or creatures that do not exist in reality and can be brought to life in extremely realistic settings. This kind of technology is achieved with the use of mostly green screens, with actors performing in locations with green screens.
Games of Thrones successfully managed to create environments as well as dragons in a very realistic and believable way. Despite dragons being mythical animals, the VFX team’s attention to detail, from the scales to the feel of the dragons’ skin, their emotions, and their aggressive mannerisms, makes them appear believable. But with the added sound effects of their breathing, their screaming, and the sounds of them flying, they boosted the believability and made it more realistic. Even the dragons’ facial expressions and body language are well-animated, allowing the dragons to express a wide range of emotions to the audience, which is important in making them approachable and engaging to the audience, as if the audience has three large, aggressive pets that they love.
After the analysis, I do find it really important to apply these strategies to more of my works, not in games generally, but in concept art. I feel like if I approach my design with realism strategies, I might manage to attract a larger audience just by the visual of the concepts that resonate with history in particular.
References:
- BATTIS, J. & JOHNSTION, S. (2015). Mastering The Game Of Thrones: Essays On George R,R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire. [Online]. McFarland. Available from: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Mastering_the_Game_of_Thrones/2wgyBgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=the+games+of+thrones&printsec=frontcover [Accessed: 5th November 2023].
- BRUNETTE, P. (1985). ‘Rossellini and Cinematic Realism.’ Cinema Journal. [Online]. 25 (1). pp. 34–49. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1224838 [Accessed: 9th November 2023].
- DOUGHTY, R. (2017). Understanding Film Theory, Second Edition [online] Palgrave Macmillan. Available from: https://r4.vlereader.com/Reader?ean=9781137587961 [Accessed: 5 November 2023].
- Game of Thrones. (2011) TV Series. Directed by David Benioff D.B. Weiss. [Digital]. UK: HBO Entertainment.
- LOCKWOOD, S. (2016). An In-Depth Analysis of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. [Online]. 13 July. Available from: https://critiquingchemist.com/2016/07/13/an-indepth-analysis-of-a-game-of-thrones-by-george-r-r-martin/ [Accessed: 9th November, 2023].
- THE WEATHER NETWORK. (2019). This real-life place inspired the Game of Thrones [Online]. 12 April. Available from: https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/lifestyle/travel/real-life-places-inspired-by-the-game-of-thrones [Accessed: 9th November 2023].
- ROTHMAN, L. (2015). The True History Behind Cersei’s Game of Thrones Walk of Shame. [Online]. 15 June. Available from: https://time.com/3921066/cersei-game-of-thrones-history/ [Accessed: 9th November 2023].
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