Recent headlines
World: Nothing good or noteworthy, if I’m perfectly honest.
Gaming: ‘Minecraft’ Creator Excluded From Anniversary Due to ‘Comments and Opinions’ (Being a transphobic white supremacist definitely merits being written out of your legacy. Justice is sweet.)
It’s time to write this week’s Year by Year journal post, but I’m just sorta sat here in shocked silence. For context, yesterday I saw Avengers: Endgame and today I saw Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3, ‘The Long Night’. That these two major, climactic battles that have been being built towards for about a decade each should occur within the same weekend seems like some cosmic commiseration for the dull chaos occurring in politics. Whereas both the movie and the show dealt with characters of uncommon values coming together to face an overwhelming existential threat, the governments of today continue to ignore climate change and prejudicial hatred amongst society. That may seem like an odd segue, but when you think about it, fictional works of science fiction and fantasy are created to mirror our world, with enough differences to get us emotionally invested so that we can learn about the follies of humankind without feeling preached at. If we do fall to inaction or hatred, we will have one emotion to blame: our pride.
Speaking a little more directly about Avengers and Game of Thrones (and mild, year-old spoilers ahead), I have to say that the most exciting thing is speculating about where they go from here. The Marvel Cinematic Universe still has no end in sight, though the first three ‘phases’ of the MCU from Iron Man to Endgame have been labelled as ‘The Infinity Saga’ – I have to wonder if they’ll spin up some new over-arcing storyline or whether they’ll concentrate more on individuals with the occasional crossover. Game of Thrones has, by the end of The Long Night, tackled what most people would label the definitive threat of the show, and while there’s still [the only other threat] left to deal with, I can’t see that stretching for three episodes with a satisfying conclusion, at the pace they’re going. So for both of these franchises which I love so much, I’m at a place where I can’t predict much about what’s going to occur. I write this down because, of course, perhaps Future Kristian will know more!
Part of the reason this project exists is to preserve a memory of my perspective of a period of time in my life, and I’ve found that the fastest memories to fade are ones of how I felt about a piece of fiction when first experiencing it. I can’t tell you what my reaction was to the Red Wedding, whether I even read it or watched it first as it was around that time that I paused my reading of the books to try out the show. I’d love to know what my thoughts on the nascent MCU were after watching Thor. I can tell you that my first lasting experience with Star Wars was the Lego Star Wars videogame, and I’ll never disassociate the two.
A lot of my life right now is just me being absorbed in the worlds I love. I was concerned for a while last week that I was too invested in fiction as I often use it for escapism, but given that I’m in a fairly good place right now, I think it’s just that everything’s getting really fucking good.
We have three weeks left of Game of Thrones. Afterwards, I’m sure I’ll be less distracted and will write about things of more consequence.
Perpetually Perturbed 