In his piece of work, Martin makes no secret in his tendencies of mixing the old and the new aspects of life, things notwithstanding. His piece of work draws inspiration from a variety of mythology that is derived from Stan Lee to Tolkien, and in other respects, from the Shakespearean views and approaches. The works of Shakespeare, on the other hand, have been a thorn in the flesh for young scholars who often found the works hard and challenging to understand. However, Williams works have been made a bit comprehensible, thanks to the advent of the Game of Thrones. One of the reasons as to why the book is easily understood now, as opposed to the olden times is courtesy of the television diet where the Game of Thrones has widely found the application and airing privilege.
Those who star in the Game of Thrones have shared in their views and asserted that the Game of Thrones, just like the latest BBC Two Shakespeare would in a similar fashion, air the violence and drama as it is in the Games of Thrones. They say that the movie has everything, the power, battles, and witchcraft, and this is the power of the Game of Thrones. Since the play has attracted a huge following among the contemporary youths, it does not become an alien like show to the present generation. In contrast to the older generation in 40 or 50 years back, this would be a daunting task. Some of the actors have also shared their frustration in acting or shooting in the Lancastrian battle dresses as they were more or less tattered and were left near exhausted and also had heavy weapons and armor set on them.
Hamlet is one of the most revered pieces of art by William Shakespeare. In fact, it tops the list among the most honored literary works. The novel is a piece of literature that has been explored by one too many scholars. The storyline of the novel follows through a series of madness beginning with one Claudius King getting involved in the murder of King Hamlet thereby ending his life with a tragic death that kills almost every principal character in the play. There are some reasons
A look at Hamlet portrays a complex play that is filled with a series and layers of meanings. The meanings are more often than note, revealed through the application of madness of characters in the play as well as the themes of madness in the entire play. Even though Ophelia and Hamlet are seen as the only characters that are afflicted, how other characters react to other characters remains a matter that only mirrors in their preoccupations.
By referring to madness in Hamlet, one would quickly think of Hamlets madness or even at worst, imagining that he pretends to be in the process of getting mad. Even though Ophelia goes mad and commits suicide, the core lunacy in the play revolves around the key figure in the play, Hamlet himself. His plan to behave aggressively is entirely ignored.
The other instance of madness in the text is when Hamlet gets aggrieved and seeks revenge upon the person who kills his father. Through this, Hamlet tends to initiate the scheme so as to come up with revenge so that he might gain the best opportunity to avenge his fathers death, his primary target being Claudius.
Hamlet seems to be insane throughout the play. He is upset by the demise of his father, and whether this contributes to his madness is something that remains to be seen. This is where he gets his motivation to kill the murderer of his father. However, how he behaves towards his girlfriend and mother is somehow disapproval of the indications pointing towards his madness. In other instances, he is a sane man as he attempts to arrange the play and asks one of the characters to help look after his uncle.
He then brings his sanity into question while questioning his presence as well as the purpose of on earth and contemplates suicide. His creation of the nifty and mysterious character in the play is another aspect that shows some pieces of him being sane man recovering from insanity.
In the Game of Thrones, the House of Targaryen bears the trait of madness in the blood. Over the three millennia of massive interbreeding, the siblings, a brother marries the sister so as to continue with the lineage and the bloodline, and these results in the medical issues that are often seen as incest mostly denoted as mental instability. The most notable examples of Targaryen insanity was when the king, Aerys II who later becomes to be known as the mad king. Medically, it could be deduced that the mad king, Aerys II suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He could hear voices in his head, and most of the things he heard were imagined. Interestingly, the imaginations command him to burn everyone alive since he saw them as traitors were working against him.
The other instance of madness is in the other Targaryens who display high bizarre personalities, even though they were not portraying any form of insanity, at least judged by how they spoke. They never showed any form of hallucinations; neither did they hear voices as did the mad the king. Nevertheless, some of these Targaryans had the sociopathic and aggressive personalities. For example, Aeron Bright flame which is the older brother of Aemon and King Aegon the fifth, eventually fall for the delusional belief that by him drinking wildfire, he would get himself transformed into a dragon. Instead, he gets killed.
The effects of these delusions worsened with each generation characterized by inbreeding. In the later centuries of the Kingdom, a joke was cracked to the effect, saying that in the event that a new Targaryen was brought into life, then the God would throw a dice to ascertain whether or not, the king would be insane or brilliant. This, however, did not mean that all the Targaryens were meant to be mentally unstable. This is demonstrated by the fact that Daenerys Targaryen is the elder brother and is mentally upright, though is a brother, Viserys is seen to have mental issues. He seems quite disturbed by issues only known to him.
From a general sense, if a Targaryen begot a son or multiple sons, and only a single one was mentally unstable, then he would be skipped over in the line of succession so as to favor a sober, and more stable younger one. Therefore, just a handful of the Targaryen kings were known to have had mental issues. This is based on the premise that if a king had a mentally ill son, he would not be allowed to succeed his father in taking over the throne. Surprisingly though, in the latter stages of the Targaryen rule, the mental cases seemed to have taken a different turn as the number spiraled into unimaginable levels. This made it impossible to evade the case of having mentally unstable sons inheriting the throne.
Even though not born of the Targaryen himself, the incestuous Joffrey Baratheons bloodline is seen to have the same severe defects regarding sanity and madness. He does not have the blood of a Baratheon in the veins. The parents of Joffrey are twin brothers and sisters, Cersei Lannister and Jaime. While he does not see hallucinations nor hears the voices of people, Joffrey is a sadist and a megalomaniacal sociopath.
The Daenerys Stormborn is not insane, even though her merciless treatment of slave masters is a dangerous hint that she might have in one way or the other, not overcome fully, the madness of the Targaryen. Even while at it, it becomes apparent that her actions are ultimately going against the group that mistreats others, and at the same time trying to help in securing the freedom of slaves on a regional level. It is funny how the mad king genuinely knew he was a just ruler even as much as the people knew he was mad. This is a fact that compels Daenerys to show some shreds of mercy.
Work Cited
Tegelman, Aino. Forgive me for all I have done and all I must do"-Portrayals of Negative Motherhood in George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords." (2013).
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