GAME OF MEN or MAD THRONES: How Polar Opposites Explore The Same Rotten Humanity

Over this last year my wife and I've caught up on 2 shows in time for their new airings. Two dramatic, critically-acclaimed genre-busting shows which, combined, fill in every bit of dramatic and sensory needs a man could possibly possess. And as fate would have it, last night one of those shows finished their second season with an ominous lack of death, blood, and breasts while the other, 1 episode before its season finale next week, had an unforeseen death and, in fact, some blood. What they shared - the manifestations of tension, power struggle, stress, and regret that make up the experience of any truly ambitious man.

The first of course was GAME OF THRONES and the second MAD MEN. Appropriate that GAME OF THRONES is actually the title of the first novel in George R.R. Martin's series, the series called A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE since such polar opposites as G.O.T. and MAD MEN I can hardly imagine. One's set in a world of fantasy with myriad kingdoms and cities, all distinct, memorable with complex strands interweaving and occasionally magic and dragons and zombie/vampires but more often orgies of tits and blood, occasionally at the same time. The other's set in the suit-and-tie world of New York advertising in the 60's, where the only fantasy is that success and money equals contentment. Yet they both hit on such similar themes, such palpable struggles filled with requisite backstabbing and rallying, both using different ways to preach the same messages.

By the way, spoiler alert, all previous seasons of said shows are fair game here.

• It's tough being a woman in a man's world.
• GAME OF THRONES: Just look at Samsa Stark, who gets traded from house to house and kept by her betrothed as little more than chattel to be mindfucked for his amusement. Or  Khaleesi, who loses the army she'd come to depend upon on the death of her husband and finds herself deserted, though with dragons.
• MAD MEN: Are you Peggy who has to work twice as hard for half the credit? Or Joan who has to fuck and strut her way to the top?
• Though it's tougher being a top man in a man's world.
• GAME OF THRONES: On top of the very real possibility of one's death, a man is also responsible for all those he loves. That is, he must fight not only for himself but for the fact that, if he loses, his wife and daughters will be raped and his sons' heads will be mounted on spikes - possibly before him.  
• MAD MEN: Every decision Don makes affects everybody around him. From blowing off Lucky Strike and as such blacklisting his firm to driving people to compromise their morals, their lives, their pursuit of happiness to raising a daughter thinking his immoral and certainly intemperate life. And he feels this and it weighs on him. Plus there's the fact that these men have to drink and smoke their way through one stressful day after the next, then come home to try and have enough energy and joy to treat their wives and children fairly. Or like this season, poor Lane Price has to come up with the money for his children's schooling and his wife's lifestyle which he doesn't have in spite of his success.
• You don't get to the top without wallowing in the dirt
• GAME OF THRONES: Lord Baelish must mortally betray a man to whom he is somewhat of a friend (though also a romantic rival) to gain royal trust and lands. Khaleesi literally lives in mud and huts with savages on her way to regaining her family's throne.Oh, and she eats a horse heart raw.
• MAD MEN: Pete Campbell has to use his wife to convince her father to get his company to go with Pete's firm. A lot of characters have to sleep with a lot of people to close deals which is much more seedy when it happens in supposedly civilized modern period versus GOT where it can be chalked up to medieval savagery and, to be blunt, a lack of anything better to do. Don literally grabs by her vagina his mistress who's also the manager to an actor they're trying to get to work for them. He holds her by her cunny until she agrees to do what he wants. 
• And once you're there, whatever it brings, it certainly isn't happiness 
• GAME OF THRONES: Witness Cersei Lannister whose Machiavellian machinations positioned her in-bred son into a throne that's technically not his. And yet she finds herself not the powerful Queen she'd thought she would be but at times fearing for her life from the twisted tyrant she birthed and admits may be a punishment from the gods for her indiscretions. Witness Robert Baratheon who, having lived a long life of victory and accomplishment, finds himself wasted and frivolous and bewailing his lost vitality and his one true love who died at the hands of the Mad King he deposed. And we shall witness Joffrey Baratheon's wife live a life as the queen of the 7 kingdoms in exchange for whatever horrors the little sadist will unload on her.
• MAD MEN: Roger Sterling has more money than he could ever spend, his name on the sign and a lifetime of good memories (with, admittedly, a few regrets). And yet in spite of the quips and brilliant one-liners, there's a certain sadness that at all times envelopes him. Not to mention Don Draper who can (and did) have everything, a living model of the American dream and yet it simply wasn't enough and when he went to get it back found it was no longer his.
• Everybody fucks. A lot.
• GAME OF THRONES:  At least one pair of bare breasts are shown every episode.
• MAD MEN: At least one person commits adultery every other episode.
• Finally, there is one good message in these worlds meanness, of backstabbing and double-crossing and rampant catastrophic failure - that in spite of the ugliness of this world and the soul-crushing weight of said ugliness, as long as you're willing to fight and risk and strive there is still hope.
• GAME OF THRONES: Whether your last name is Baratheon or Stark you've been handled plenty of defeat over the past 2 seasons, both at the hands of the Lannisters. And yet you still fight. And don't even get me started on the Daenerys Targaryen, mother of dragons.
• MAD MEN: Don Draper is almost ratted out as to his real identity many times throughout, a prison sentence for desertion and a lifetime of fraud (making a certain event on last night's episode even more interesting, him busting somebody for fraud) if not worse. He loses his family. Becomes an alcoholic. Is almost fired from the company he built up, then is told he can't quit and must instead die a slow death of impotence. Almost runs his new company into the ground several times. And in flashbacks he's a 30-something nobody literally hustling his way in the door at Sterling Cooper because he has nothing else. And yet every now and again he has brief breakthroughs of something resembling - if not full happiness then, at least for a beat, a smile, a single exalted moment, a triumphant fulfillment. The only real true measure of success there is - whether a man feels like he's done everything with what he has, his life, his ability, has worked his ass off and felt, for even a brief fleeting moment, contently fulfilled.

So there it is. These explorations of the ambiguity of real life, of the ugliness that tinges this world's beauty and glamor and of how nobody's perfect but nobody's all evil and, even more, of how our failings and weaknesses are also what make us human  is no doubt to be expected from such a brilliant workplace drama as MAD MEN with a writer of such caliber as Weiner. And I've written before about the merits of the show and why you should watch it.

But to a certain extent it's a bit surprising that such ambiguity and real, relatable humanity should be so prevalent in a story about knights and kingdoms and priestesses and dragons.

At some moments in MAD MEN you think Don Draper's the biggest scumbag in Manhattan and others - in others, especially this season, he's a model for masculine perfection, for being the man that all men should aspire to be.

In GAME OF THRONES the Lannisters are scumbags. And yet Tyrion Lannister - you can't help but cheer for him. So as the Lannisters get attacked, you find yourself worrying for them if only because you're worried about the poor brilliant dwarf Tyrion. And no saint himself, he spends a good portion of his time fucking prostitutes and recovering from the hangover of the night before, at least in season 1.

Therein lies the secret of these shows. They're profound explorations of life as we know it, of ambition and greed and immorality and nobility and courage and cowardice and the ways in which they intersect or, simply, what we call life. Specifically for those striving to great things.

It's amazing that, in a day when every other person has a reality show and sitcoms try to depict real families and dramas try to depict real struggle, the shows which best encompass our struggling but brilliant humanity in all its glorious ambitions and shortcomings are a 60's period piece about rich people in Manhattan and a medieval voluminous series about rival kingdoms based on a sprawling fantasy book series. Maybe the lesson is that a man simply needs a throne and a nice view of all those below and before him.

And all insulting everything else on TV aside, if the best television I get is MAD MEN and GAME OF THRONES, I'm okay with that. I mean, imagine if almost everything else was HALF as good - I'd never get anything done.

- Ryan