‘The North Remembers’ is the second season premiere episode of HBO’s fantasy television series Game of Thrones, first aired on April 1, 2012. Since I’m using the series as Rorschach images to project ideas of my own now that I see the series again, I confess that nothing new has come to mind except to reiterate what I’ve said.
(Jack Gleeson as Joffrey Baratheon.) The teenage King Joffrey begins to emerge as the villain of the first few seasons. Acting under his orders the king’s Guard, led by Commander Janos Slynt, tracks down and murders several of the late King Robert Baratheon’s bastard children, including babies under the screams of their mothers.
Still, if we assume a return to the monarchy in the 21st century, even a scoundrel like Joffrey could be infinitely better than any current democratic government. Without checks and balances but under the motto L’État c’est moi, a single king could expel the millions of non-whites from his lands. Under democracy, no current president could do something similar, even if he wanted.