It seems like I am forever playing catchup with my sources of entertainment. Half a decade after The West Wing finished airing, I finally took the time to finish all 156 episodes. Seeing as each episode is 42 minutes long, this is on hindsight an incredible waste of my short mortal life, but goddammit it is the best waste of life ever produced for American TV.

Politics for most people is a battle of words and ideas. Political discourse for the average person is conducted in pretty much the same way most hypothetical physics questions are answered: in a vacuum frictionless room containing a perfect sphere. While convincing arguments can be made on paper and discussion boards, the real problem with politics is that it involves humans who are irrational, illogical and whose shit is generally all retarded.

Politics, as it applies to real-world governing, must therefore necessarily go beyond merely finding out and trying to convince people of the best solutions to society’s problems, but also compromising and making the most of any situation in a debate populated by people who will never see eye-to-eye with you, perhaps even rightfully so.

The West Wing, a serial drama depicting the fictional presidency of bleeding-heart liberal Josiah Bartlet (portrayed by Martin Sheen, who is also the voice of the Illusive Man in Mass Effect), highlights the human side of politics and in doing so paints a picture of democracy that feels closer to the truth than the caricatures spewing talking points on cable news.

Whether you find The West Wing to be an uplifting feel-good story of people trying to do good in an imperfect world or a depressing look into the way backroom political deals that affect the lives of billions are made for the most trivial of reasons depends on how much (or little) you already know about American politics. If you went in like wide-eyed Bambi, happily oblivious to the money politics and unscrupulous maneuvering taking place behind the scenes, you might enjoy the show’s implications less than a more seasoned cynic who got to see the softer side of the story.

My recently rekindled Magic addiction has left me thinking about the idea of the “metagame”, which I think is an appropriate description for the kind of politics portrayed in The West Wing. At the basic level, the game is a debate of ideas: does single-payer work better than private health insurance companies? But the metagame is the larger picture: knowing the opinions of all the other players in the playing field and the facts of the situation, how do you then go about winning each particular game? That’s a level of strategy that most online political debate will never consider.

While ultimately not all rainbows and sunshine, The West Wing presents a compelling case for the audience to be conservatively optimistic in the democratic process. Of course, the real hardened cynic would note that this is exactly what the media would have you believe with its thinly-veiled propaganda film.

Although the series has a clear liberal leaning in that it depicts a Democratic White House and most of the main characters generally fall on the left side of spectrum when it comes to hot-button issues such as the separation of church and state, education reform and gun control, the series does not serve as an advocate for any particular issue. It generally tries to humanize both sides of the debate while highlighting failures and imperfections in the system wherever they crop up, such as how the corn industry in the US wields disproportional influence on the formulation of public policy (such as corn-derived ethanol being pushed as “clean” energy) due to the importance of the Iowa caucuses in determining presidential nominees.

In fact, the show can sometimes be too mind-bogglingly apolitical for a story that is supposed to be set in the White House. For example, throughout the series, President Bartlet does not make a single policy speech on-screen. Major speeches, such as the State of the Union, are always cut off right after he steps up to the podium. The sole exception to this is a presidential debate that takes place in the last season where the two candidates actually speak substantially on real political issues such as education and healthcare reforms. I suppose this is because backlash was no longer a concern for the producers in the show’s final season and they felt it was a good opportunity to help raise the level of political awareness.

The West Wing has a knack of surprising you with fresh insights by attaching abstract ideas — often ones you disagree with — to the passionate voices of flawed but lovable characters as they go about trying to run a country. It will occasionally challenge your preconceived notions by lending voice to other ideas.

One particularly memorable example of this is when the black Democratic mayor of Washington D.C. met with President Bartlet to discuss a rider passed by the Republican Congress to create an experimental program allowing some parents in D.C. to have the option to receive school vouchers to pay for private schools. The rider was attached to the spending bill for D.C.’s budget and President Bartlet reassured the mayor that he was going to veto the bill because school vouchers take funding away from public schools. But the mayor surprised the president by requesting that he signed the bill because public schools in D.C. were not improving and the mayor felt that he owed it to the children of his district to at least try out the Republicans’ idea.

You will grow fond of these characters and feel like you are watching them every step of the way as they develop as individuals over the course of an eight-year presidency and do their best to make the country better, or at least not collapse under its own weight.

The West Wing is an highly intelligent show and I highly recommend it to everyone with an interest in politics. Of course, given that I am five years late to the game, this is probably a meaningless recommendation.

This is somewhat of a spoiler, but I find it interesting how closely the fictional election depicted in the series’ final season parallels the 2008 elections: The young minority Democrat beaming with naive enthusiasm and the old moderate Republican with a reputation for being a maverick in his own party. The writers must be amazed by their own prescience.

Also, the eighth episode of season five titled “Shutdown” depicts a federal government shutdown after the Republican Congress fails to agree with the President on the budget bill. This is obviously intended to echo the shutdown that happened during the Clinton administration, but it is also very relevant to the on-going stand-off between the Obama administration and the Republican House of Representatives over the national debt ceiling and the possibility of an impending government shutdown. The players may be different, but the name of the game is still “more tax cuts”.

“They want more tax cuts? Screw it.“

Games of Thrones, a new HBO medieval fantasy drama series, scratches an itch of mine that had not been properly addressed since Twelve Kingdoms. It is probably the most amazing thing on BitTorrent television right now, edging out Community which lost points in the second season for recycling its best episode from the first season.

I am not a huge fan of the fantasy genre, partly because it is dominated by the same old epic quest recycled five million times from Tolkien to Dungeons and Dragons, but mostly because many fantasy writers wilfully abuse the “a wizard did it” excuse as carte blanche to violently eject all semblance of plot logic from the decomposing corpse of whatever hideous monstrosity they try to pass off as storytelling. I don’t care if you have teleporting mages or flying monkeys, but for the love of Cthulhu and all that is evil, just make sure they don’t magically stop being able to teleport or fly the second they stumble across a tower that they need to ascend in an excruciatingly inefficient manner.

In this respect, sci-fi fantasy and science fiction writers have always been superior in covering their tracks, leaving behind a believable story universe that doesn’t constantly force characters to perform illogical deeds that contradict their personalities. Good fantasy stories like Twelve Kingdoms also employ an almost scientific approach in designing self-consistent rules governing their worlds.

Game of Thrones is a good fantasy story where the fantasy setting neither defines nor interferes with the storytelling, but silently lends aid to it in the background by stoking the fire of the audience’s imagination. The focus of the story lies in the complex web of political intrigue and rivalries being spun by a diverse cast, each with his or her own private motives that fall somewhere between the spectrum of good and evil. Indeed, the high fantasy aspect is mere dressing to a story that is already fascinating by itself.

The general gist of the story (or at least the first season) is a family feud between two great noble houses, the Starks and the Lannisters. Lord Eddard Stark is the king’s best friend and fought with him to gain the crown from the previous king, but Queen Cersei Lannister sees him as a competition for power as she seeks to groom her son to be the next king. What starts off as benign rivalry played through harmless sarcastic exchanges of words quickly turns ugly due to a series of unfortunate events and a few misunderstandings. At the same time, there are two parallel stories taking place at the northern borders and a foreign land that hint at far greater troubles ahead for the kingdoms.

The Stark House. Tony is somewhere behind

Presumably the Starks eventually reign victorious because one of their own invents a mechanical suit capable of flying and remotely smiting its wearer’s foes by firing repulsor rays from its palms. Also, the Queen’s eldest son, Joffrey, is the splitting image of my personal impression of what Harry Potter’s Draco Malfoy should look like…

Stark’s eldest daugher, the weak and naive girl forced by circumstances to face reality

I am not a well-read person when it comes to classical literature, so I can’t say exactly whence A Song of Ice and Fire, the source material for Game of Thrones, draws its inspiration. But I do know that it shares many similar tropes with the original Dune novel which, when you really think about it, is really a classic medieval story of betrayal and revenge but set in an alien desert with sandworms. Eddard Stark, the righteous nobleman who tries to do right for his family and people in a cut-throat political environment that leaves no good deed unpunished, just reminds me too much of Leto Atreides. Speaking of which, I think the time is right for someone else to take another shot at bringing Dune to live, this time with a proper budget and script.

The absolute best part about Game of Thrones is, in my opinion, the acting. With a few exceptions, the acting is simply amazing and completely immersive. Scenes in the show tend to be more drawn out and conversations are littered with meaningful glances and double entrendes masterfully delivered and faithfully reproduced in glorious high definition. Particularly noteworthy is Peter Dinklage, who plays the midget Tyrion Lannister. He is definitely going to win an Emmy for it.

Lord of the Rings just puts me to sleep whenever it’s not showing me something exciting and shiny because the actors and lines are terrible and Frodo is nothing more than Harry Potter with fairy feet, but Game of Thrones manages to stimulate and engage the audience’s mind to make even a moment of silence between two characters feel so meaningful and intriguing. There is so much depth to all the characters, even many of the minor ones, that sometimes you just can’t predict what is going to happen next. It is nourishment not just for the heart but for the brain.

You get to see her boobs. Alot

One important thing of note: the show features many boobies. As anyone who has seen Sasha Grey‘s guest starring in Entourage can attest, HBO is not shy of letting its actresses show off their frontal nudes and Game of Thrones is no exception. There is plenty of almost-explicit fornication to be had by all, along with the short flashes of boobage where contextually appropriate. In my opinion, this is actually a rather sensible way to produce television/movies because it doesn’t break immersion by constantly making me marvel at how the leaves/flowers in the foreground always manage to position themselves at such opportune angles that obscure the actress’ nice lady parts. Of course, it may have the opposite effect with certain people. Your mileage may vary.

Yes, there are girl-on-girl scenes

And in the same vein, gore and violence in the show are depicted where they are required and appropriate, instead of the usual Hollywood-style diametric extremes of either ridiculous censorship (i.e. magical sword fights featuring no blood or cut limbs) or gratuitous violence (i.e. gore porn). So there is no excessive gore for the sake of it, but you get to see the entire swing when Lord Stark beheads an oathbreaker and there is even a scene where one of the characters skins a moose (or was it a deer?) as he speaks. It’s pure class.

Unfortunately, the first season of Game of Thrones is merely ten 1-hour episodes long. The good news is that the show is so well-received that a second season was approved almost immediately after the first episode aired, but the bad news is that it is at least one year away. Well at least it didn’t turn out to be this decade’s Firefly.

You can see the longing in his eyes

So absolutely check out Game of Thrones if you are into good storytelling, awesome writing and brilliant acting. The fantasy aspect is really incidental if that is what you are weary about.

I would read the novels, but I have quite a bit of required reading to do before college starts and all the time I am not making any headway into it. Though, I do have the nagging feeling that I wouldn’t enjoy the novels as much and reading the story ahead would end up spoiling the show instead.

Top right corner: 410,000 people over 3 days!? The massive gathering at this summer event.
Left: This person in the queue…
Bottom: …has been queuing since 5 am.

Same as above.

Top right: A hot summer of “Comiket”. A gathering of 410,000 people from all over the nation.
Left: An attendee.
Bottom: “What is does Comic Market mean to you?” “It’s what I live for.”

And the most WTF of them all…
Bottom: A mother taking leave from work to buy things for her daughter who is having tuition.

Wow. Japanese mothers are so cool that they take leaves to buy yaoi pr0n for their daughters. o_O Either that or she’s actually buying it for herself… DUN DUN DUN!!! I think one can write a few thousand words worth of social commentary base on this picture alone. Seriously. Only in Japan folks.

And for those of you who are wondering why they don’t queue overnight, well I can assure you that it’s not because they are not hardcore enough; it’s against the rules to do so. Comiket bouncers are kowai… I’d imagine.

Now back to refreshing Heisei Democracy…

Rin didn’t die… Damn.

Personally, I think the ending was well done and the impact is there, but it’s just not my type of ending. That part towards the end, where the scene jumps to the various characters and a tune plays in the background, was pretty emotional to watch, though. Gao…

I want the ED song “Hikari” by Jyukai…