I wrote the following paper for my writing seminar last semester. It is a work that I am very proud of particularly because I got to present it at the Undergraduate Symposium on Utopian/Dystopian Studies. Also it was a very fun topic to write about, so I chose to include it on my domain.
“Built the Wall: Game of Thrones as Dystopic Vision of Trumpian Immigration”
Abstract
Why does American society, routinely called the most advanced and greatest that the world has ever seen, have so much in common with a cruel, medieval world laced with fantasy and horror? Game of Thrones showcases a land where children are sacrificed to the Gods and burned at the stake, where men who flay and torture their enemies gain positions of power, and where newborn babies are slaughtered in the name of the king. This unfamiliar, fictional world is also dominated by racist and xenophobic views of immigrants. It glorifies fear mongers who demonize foreigners and portrays the defeat of leaders who empathize with the horrors that immigrants face in their native lands. While these concepts can be spotted in any episode of HBO’s famed drama, they have also permeated CNN, Fox, and MSNBC over the course of 2016. Our new President-Elect ran his campaign on a platform of alarmist rhetoric: he called immigrants drug dealers, criminals, and rapists, while describing any opponent who sympathized with them as a traitor. Trump’s ultimate success using these tactics begs the question: has our grasp of logic and responsible policies been lost in favor of ideas outlandish enough to fit within a true fantasy world? In this paper I will argue that there are lessons to be learned from Game of Thrones’ fictitious world that can help us prevent it from potentially becoming our reality.
Paper
Two horns blast in the distance. Everyone along the wall scrambles in anticipation knowing the meaning of this warning: they are trying to get over the wall. The leader of the wall’s watchmen rallies his troops, screaming commands to prepare for the coming attack. Each guard along the wall looks down at his oncoming enemies in fear and wonder. “Savages are trying to pillage our lands” the leader declares, reminding the watchers on the wall the reason that they stand guard: to protect their families, their homes, and their country from those beyond the wall who would steal everything they hold dear.
Anyone reading this story in 2016 will certainly have had their perspective corrupted by recent events. A person today can hear the details of this conflict and be lead to an understandable conclusion: that this story takes place in a distant future along the Mexican-American border, and that illegal immigrants are trying to break through President Trump’s famed border wall. Although this explanation is entirely reasonable based on our current political climate, this story is actually the plot of an episode from season four of Game of Thrones, a fantasy series taking place in a fictional, medieval world. Why should we be confusing our own reality with one that is permeated by magic, giants, and dragons? Has our grasp of logic and responsible policies been lost in favor of ideas outlandish enough to fit within a true fantasy world? If this is the case, it may be wise to embrace our delusion, and to learn what we can from the fictitious world that is seemingly on a path to becoming our reality.
Before we transition to the potential fantasy world of our future, we must examine the aspects of our present that may lead us there. Today, illegal immigration has grown to be among the most divisive issues in our country. Around 11.3 million illegal immigrants currently reside in the United States, most of which have entered through our southern border from Latin America. After arriving, these illegal immigrants tend to seek work wherever possible, often taking jobs that pay minimum wage or less. Regardless of the pay of these jobs, many natural born Americans have the perception that illegal immigrants are stealing their jobs, and are consequently destroying the economy.
This perception has led to widespread racism and xenophobia against illegal immigrants, and Hispanic Americans as well. Social scientists Michael R. Alvarez and Tara L. Butterfield sought to uncover what was causing this intolerance. They ultimately found a positive relationship between a lack of confidence in the economy and hatred of illegal immigrants through how if a white person thought the economy was not doing well, they were twenty percent more likely to support a measure to deport all illegal immigrants in their area (Alvarez 167). This relationship indicates that racism toward these immigrants can be incited simply based on opinions about the economy, regardless of the economy’s actual performance nor the role immigrants play in it. Alvarez and Butterfield also found that candidate endorsements for or against illegal immigration had a strong impact on the xenophobic opinions of voters (167). This second relationship draws to mind the more recent example of President-Elect Donald Trump. Throughout Trump’s campaign, he endorsed policies that vilified illegal immigrants as rapists and murderers, and he ultimately shifted public opinion of illegal immigrants to be far more fearful. If a candidate has the trust of a certain demographic of people, these followers will mold their opinions to be based on those of their candidate.
Currently there are multiple potential plans that politicians would like to take to adjust how we deal with illegal immigrants. Most Democrats tend to favor maintaining the current spending level on border security. The Democratic Party’s platform states that they seek to create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants as well as reduce the government’s power to deport illegal immigrants and break up their families (The Democratic Platform). A prime advocate of the Democratic Party’s beliefs on immigration is Bernie Sanders, who has said that “undocumented workers are doing the extremely difficult work of harvesting our crops, building our homes, cooking our meals, and caring for our children. They are part of the fabric of America” (Sanders). Republican politicians, on the other hand, generally believe that we do not have enough security at the border. They therefore favor increasing spending on border security and increasing the number of border security officers. Right leaning politicians also are far less lenient with illegal immigrants than their left leaning counterparts. The Republican Party stands for deportation of all or most illegal immigrants, and is resolutely against a pathway to citizenship (GOP). Our newly elected President, Donald Trump, has promised that “[a]nyone who is in the United States illegally is subject to deportation,” and that “[o]n day one, we will begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, south border wall,” depicting the most extreme iteration of right leaning immigration policies (Bradner).
While Trump’s immigration plans were well received enough to win him the presidency, his policies and the opinions behind them are extreme to the point where they are comparable to those of the medieval world of Game of Thrones. In Game of Thrones, the wildlings, a race of people living to the North, seek to immigrate to the land of another race of people, the Westerosi. In Westeros, there is full public resentment of their illegal immigrants, the wildlings, because they are seen as savages coming to pillage their lands. Westeros also features militarized border security through the Night’s Watch, and a monolithic wall separating their land from that of the foreigners. Through these and other attributes, Game of Thrones’ similarities to our political situation offer a dark warning to Americans of the horrors our country could face if Trump and other politicians like him are able to implement their extreme immigration policies.
In Westeros, there is widespread racism and xenophobia directed toward the wildlings similar to the hatred Americans often show toward illegal immigrants. Throughout Westeros, children in the North are told horror stories about the “savages” living beyond the wall. Jon Snow, a man known for his empathy toward wildlings, grew up hearing “the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns” (Martin, Second Bran Chapter). The wildlings, which is a demeaning name in itself because of the savage images it brings to mind, are a race of people like any other. It is certainly possible that there are bad people within the wildling population who have committed the atrocities Westeros has attributed to their people as a whole; however, to generalize their entire people with the worst actions any one member may have perpetrated is the very definition of racism. Similarly this action is just as intolerant as our President-Elect saying that “[w]hen Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people” (Trump). Creating policies based off of racist beliefs, whether in the case of a fictional medieval world or the United States of America, is universally wrong.
These racist beliefs, in the cases of Westeros and the United States, come from the worst of the immigrant group’s people being associated with their entire society. In Westeros, the wildlings are stuck with the stereotype of being rapists and murderers who only come over the wall to pillage villages and wreck havoc. Although this is a generalization, it does occur in specific cases. An episode of Game of Thrones’s fourth season begins with a father and his son named Ollie walking through their village, discussing everyday topics such as Ollie’s mom’s potatoes. Suddenly, the boy’s father is gruesomely shot through the head with an arrow, as the scene shifts in tone from leisure to absolute panic. Ollie attempts to run to his mother, but before he can get there she is cut down by the axe of one of the wildlings raiding their village. While mourning over his mother’s corpse, Ollie is picked up by one of the wildlings who identifies himself as a member of the Thenn clan, and points to Ollie’s mother, asking: “Those your parents? Open your eyes. I’m going to eat them. Do you hear me? I’m going to eat your dead mama and your dead papa” (“Breaker of Chains). This scene is among the most intense in the show’s history and for good reason. What this wildling does is beyond vile, and he should meet the full retaliation of the victims of his onslaught. He deserves this retribution, but not the rest of his people who were not present nor played a role at this or any other attack. It is possible to acknowledge the wildlings of the Thenn clan as truly evil, while at the same time maintaining the Hornfoots, ice river clans, cave people, and the thousands of other groups of wildlings who have never harmed a soul south of the wall as simultaneously good.
Although this dual mentality is certainly possible, it can pose a problem for all people, whether they live in the fictional Westeros or the actual United States. Throughout America, there is a fear of illegal immigrants that in truth is not entirely baseless. As President-Elect Trump has suggested, people fear illegal immigrants as if they are criminals, rapists, and murderers. The Republican platform itself argues that the presence of illegal immigrants increases human trafficking, criminal activity, and violence, therefore “the presence of millions of unidentified individuals in this country poses grave risks to the safety and sovereignty of the United States” (GOP). The issue with this argument is that it is simply not based in fact. While studying the crime rates of illegal immigrants, the American Immigration Council, or AIC, has found that from 1990 to 2013, the population of illegal immigrants has tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million, yet during that same span, “FBI data indicate[s] that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent” (Ewing). Additionally, first generation immigrants in the United States have been found to be involved in less crimes than native born Americans across the board (Bersani). It may be true that some illegal immigrants have committed horrible crimes, but with this data in mind, it is clear that conflating the crimes of one illegal immigrant as the crimes of all illegal immigrants is entirely unfair and ignorant of the facts. For this reason, both the people of Westeros and the citizens of the United States must not stereotype their foreign “invaders” as criminals.
Although the wildlings, and often illegal immigrants, are interpreted as savage beings hell bent on evil, in reality they both are average peoples seeking safety and prosperity. Thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the wildlings and the other inhabitants of Westeros lived together in peace and harmony. This paradigm shifted before the events of Game of Thrones with the rise of the White Walkers, a horde of undead beings seeking to destroy all life around them. The White Walkers were the most menacing threat anyone at the time had ever encountered as they did not only endanger Westeros’ safety, but also its very way of life. In order to prevent the nefarious plots of the White Walkers, the people of Westeros took drastic measures: they decided to build a 300 mile long wall of pure ice along their northern border. And this plan mostly worked; the people of Westeros were saved from their eminent threat. The only issue with this solution is that it trapped innocent people on the other side who were just as vulnerable to the White Walkers’ horror. Thousands of years later, the White Walkers are now returning, and the descendents of those trapped on the other side of the wall, the wildlings, face a sinister danger that the people of Westeros simply cannot understand. When the king of the wildlings, Mance Rayder, attempts to explain the danger his people face to Jon Snow, the leader of the Wall’s watchmen, he asserts that: “My people have bled enough. We are not here to conquer, we are here to hide behind your wall, just like you… Now we both know that winter is coming. And if my people are not south of the wall when it comes in earnest, we’ll all end up worse than dead” (“The Children”). People throughout Westeros maintain the baseless perception that the wildlings only come over the wall to commit acts of horror. As previously discussed, these acts do occasionally occur, but they do not encompass the sole reason that people immigrate over the wall. Life beyond the wall has had a death sentence hanging over it ever since the rise of the White Walkers, and the thousands of innocent people residing there are aware that safety in their homes has become close to nonexistent. Presented with their situation, the wildlings have two options: stay and die, or immigrate over the wall. Crossing the border includes myriad problems: the dangers of the journey, getting past the Night’s Watch, the border security force, and thriving in a land that perceives them as a threat. But all of the issues that come with leaving one’s home and crossing the border outweigh the risks of staying for the wildlings, as well as illegal immigrants.
While the wildlings fear the power of the White Walkers, illegal immigrants often flee their home countries because of the power of drug cartels. Throughout Mexico and other Latin American countries, drug cartels manage to wreck untold havoc upon innocent people. They create corruption by buying police officers and politicians to allow them to peddle their drugs, and it is estimated that drug cartels and other crime syndicates have caused over 80,000 deaths since 2006 (Mexico). To Antonio Chavez, fleeing his home country was the only option as “[h]e had seen others disappear at the hands of the cartel, whose members are also known for decapitating perceived enemies and leaving the heads in the street. He didn’t doubt they’d do something similar to him…’I wasn’t going to survive a year there’” (Hastings). More than 23,000 Mexicans sought asylum in the United States to protect them from drug cartels in just the first nine months of 2013, however, more than ninety percent of asylum requests are rejected by immigration judges. With this in mind, many Mexicans follow the lead of the wildlings by opting to immigrate illegally; not to rape, murder, and steal jobs, but to save themselves and their families from certain death.
Although the wildlings and illegal immigrants often want to cross borders for good reasons, politicians who attempt to help them are commonly defeated by those who villainize these newcomers. In Westeros, the Night’s Watch has stood to defend their people from the savages beyond the wall and has been fighting wildlings for generations. The coronation of Jon Snow as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, however, ushered in a new mentality in Westerosi diplomacy. During his training, Jon Snow worked undercover north of the wall as a traitor to the Night’s Watch seeking to join the wildlings. Throughout this mission, Jon Snow was able to witness the threats the wildlings faced and empathize with them as people, and this new mentality stuck with him upon becoming the leader of the Night’s Watch. From his new position of power, Lord Commander Jon Snow ordered that the wildlings be allowed to come over the wall so that they can be kept safe from the oncoming White Walkers. Jon Snow’s experiences allowed him to see his decision as the humanitarian, right thing to do; his troops however did not have such experiences. From the perspective of Ser Alliser Thorne, one of Jon Snow’s fellow watchmen and political adversary, Snow was betraying the Watch’s creed and allowing their enemies through the gate they were sworn to protect. To remedy this situation, Thorne rallied the men of the Night’s Watch, branding Jon Snow as a wildling-loving traitor and leading a coup, assassinating their leader chanting “for the watch” with each strike (“Mother’s Mercy”). Jon Snow attempted to do, what was in his mind, a good thing, and if the other men of the Night’s Watch could share his experiences, they would never see his actions as treason. Sadly for Jon Snow, they did not share his experiences, so a man like Alliser Thorne was able to rally the fears and hatred the Night’s Watchmen have for the wildlings and direct it toward Jon Snow, their trusted commanding officer. In this case, fear mongering ultimately overshadowed any goodness a leader tried to create, a paradigm that carries over into real life as well.
During the 2016 Republican Primary, illegal immigration understandably was a crucial issue. Marco Rubio, a rising star in the Republican Party, sought to do what he could to help illegal immigrants by sponsoring the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill. This bipartisan bill would have bolstered border security, yet at the same time help illegal immigrants in the country by creating a pathway to citizenship, as well as future immigrants by improving our country’s visa application system (Kim). These measures would surely help innocent people in need, but as with Jon Snow, helping a group that your base despises has its costs. Seeing Marco Rubio as a threat, Donald Trump, a rival candidate for the Republican nomination, demonized Rubio in the same way that Thorne demonized Snow: by fear mongering against immigrants and using the hatred it generates to make any rival who helps them seem like a traitor. This devious political practice seemed at home in the fantasy world of Game of Thrones, but seeing it act out in our presidential elections was an omen of the depths our society has stooped to.
Our society has grown to be one of the most advanced and routinely called the greatest that the world has ever seen, so why does it have so much in common with a cruel, medieval world laced with fantasy and horror? Game of Thrones showcases a land where children are sacrificed to the Gods and burned at the stake; where men who flay and torture their enemies gain positions of power; where newborn babies are slaughtered in the name of the king. Yet at the same time, this unfamiliar, fictional world features racism and xenophobia dominating people’s view of immigrants. The actions of the worst people the immigrants have to offer are generalized for the whole group, limiting the livelihoods of the majority of immigrants who are truly good. Immigrants are still barred from entry even though they face truly horrific struggles in their homelands, and the hatred natives harbor for these immigrants prevents any empathy. Any politician who is capable of and acts on such empathy is immediately rebelled against by fear mongers calling such an action betrayal of the native born rather than help to people in need. We need to break our society off its path from America to Westeros before the lighter aspects of fantasy transition into the full fledged monstrosity that it is.
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