I’ve only seen a bit of Game of Thrones, and read half of one of the books, but don’t need to see or read any more of the series to know this essay is full of idiocy. (As many of the commenters point out.)

It’s a waste of time to refute it all point by point, but briefly, Martin covers the characters involved in the war; the whole land of Westeros is not affected by the conflict, only a small portion. Of course telling stories about those involved in a brutal war in the conflict area in wartime will, duh, have loads of violence, mercenaries, killings and worse.

Strangely, just like a real fucking war!

The land is not always riven by violence, but in a real war, much, much violence occurs some of it so foul and nearly-unbelievable that the survivors aren’t believed.

And at least in the parts of that show that I saw, there was at least one food riot, much talk about preparing for the long winter, and discussion thereof. Many characters opined about who would and would not survive the winter with the implication that they would starve.

Of course a TV show does not show anyone farming. Who wants to watch someone farm? What is this guy, on crack?

I don’t know anything about Jacob Bacharach, but let me do some guessing without even glancing at his bio or using Google: he’s probably a professional writer, with one or two novels that sold poorly. Takes jabs at popular things routinely as he thinks he’s above them, that he’s better than them.

Probably went to an Ivy league school, or at least a well-respected one. Probably has a degree in English, or something similar. Has a job at maybe a college or a theater. Has never been in a fight, and has never lived in another country.

Probably lives in NYC or San Francisco, or maybe Boston. Never shops anywhere but Whole Foods.

Ok, let’s see how I did.

Ha, damn, I am that good. I got nearly all of them right, except he lives in Pittsburgh. That I was not expecting. And he didn’t go to any Ivy. He went to Oberlin.

This stuff is just too easy.