!neolibs according to our magazine GRRM and James Caldwell provide some advice on real life governance. Here's the article in question.
Daemon's tactics differ only in degree from those of Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, who has rounded up tens of thousands of suspected gangsters, locked them up indefinitely and shared a video on social media of them stacked like semi-naked Lego bricks in overcrowded jails. Both leaders want to look tough on crime; neither fusses about due process.
!latinx Nayib Bukele is just like Daemon Targaryen
The second season also has echoes of modern America. King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) is a narcissist with improbable hair who knows nothing about governance and says whatever he thinks will please the audience in front of him. When grown-up officials offer sage advice, he grimaces with boredom. When devious courtiers want to sway him, they flatter his preposterous ego.
OMG AEGON II IS JUST LIKE DRUMPF
Aegon II is incredibly based by the way but Blackcels keep popping up propaganda for Girlboss Traenyra.
The characters in "Shogun" are often cruel, too, but they follow a code. They respect the law—indeed, much of their plotting depends on the assumption that their opponents will not openly flout it. Good luck trying that with Mr Putin.
I dislike Putin but media comparisons are always so cringe. Plus for all the talk about honor, the characters in Shogun are very backstabby so to speak.
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Media comparisons are bad unless the author took real life inspiration. Case in point, Orwell would never have written his most famous works if not for the rise in authoritarianism he saw popping up all over Europe.
Nowadays though we have shitty writers who take shitty inspiration and shittier critics and journos who make shitty media comparisons out of nothing
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