What "The Expanse" tells you about ASOIAF

This post comes out of a new series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to mini-podcasts I'm doing with Sean T. Collins answering questions by listeners of the podcast. Give the Patreon a look!

As I mentioned in the podcast, I am currently reading up on "The Expanse" and binge-watched the show. The novels are written by two guys out of George R. R. Martin's orbit, and the whole setting (and parts of the story, from my understanding) came out of an RPG they were playing together.

"The Expanse" takes a lot of its cues from ASOIAF. Not only is there a POV-chapter structure, with the individual chapters bearing the as titles the names of the main characters whose POV they're representing. The story also uses a casual violence that's akin to the random death permeating Westeros, creating a "serious" setting in the process. Politics play an important role, and they are largely a deadly destraction from the true danger humanity is facing. There are a lot of difficult decisions to make in morally grey areas, with few people really innocent or irredeemable.

Halt and Catch Fire Season 1

This post comes out of a new series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to mini-podcasts I'm doing with Sean T. Collins answering questions by listeners of the podcast. Give the Patreon a look!

Based on Sean's recommendation in the BLAH about 2017 in review, I started watching "Halt and Catch Fire". Everywhere you look, people say it's an ok show until it becomes great in season 3. I'm usually not hot for wasting two seasons worth of time until something becomes worthwhile, but Sean isn't someone to say this lightly, so I started on it. This is my review of season 1, spoilers and all. Short version: an ok show. 

Civil Wars, past and a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

This post comes out of a new series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to mini-podcasts I'm doing with Sean T. Collins answering questions by listeners of the podcast. Give the Patreon a look!

 

I only just noticed a weird line by Padmé Amidala in Revenge of the Sith (yeah, weird lines in that movie, shocking). She says to Anakin that the whole civil war between the Seperatists and the Republic only came to pass because "no one listens to each other anymore". This reminded me instantly of the god-awful debate a few months ago, when Chief of Staff John Kelly attributed the much more real American Civil War to a "lack of compromise", which is basically the same thing. It makes about the same amoung of sense in both universes.