Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit? The War of the Worlds: The Eve of the War The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.Īnd before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars.
Yet he recognized the devastation the English brought to the people of other countries via their practice of colonialism.Īt the time of its publication in 1897, Britain was at the height of its imperialistic power and it truly was the empire “on which the sun never set.” Wells, like Martin was a pacifist and he wrote a novel that placed England on the other side of the coin where it was not the conquering nation but rather the country being invaded and whose people were being killed, subjugated, and culture destroyed.Īnd we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. While a classic of the genre, there is also inherent racism and sexism on display as Wells who would have been considered a liberal of his time still thought of people of different races as inferior to Europeans and presented females as flighty and of lesser intelligence. However, if you look below the obvious, Wells’ story is actually an anti-imperialistic treatise on England. On the surface, The War of the Worlds is a science fiction story about alien invaders from Mars who land in England and attempt a takeover of the earth. In this article I will take a look at the similarities between the two books and discuss what it might suggest about Daenerys Targaryen’s final arc. Wells classic tale of invaders from Mars are plentiful. The parallels between Martin’s world of fiery dragons, and the H.G. The quote I mentioned above is from the actual book and a soldier says it to the nameless protagonist as they hide out in a house right outside London to evade the alien invaders. Instead, the invasion begins in a sand pit on Horsell Common in Surrey England. Unlike in the movie, the Martians in the book don’t land in NJ or any other American city.
Daenerys targaryen in the keep on the borderlands movie#
Some of you may be familiar with Wells’ classic story either from reading the book or watching one of the many movie versions, including the Tom Cruise one from a few years ago. And as I read it, I was shocked but also not surprised at the number of symbolic parallels between it and ASOIAF- specifically the arc of Daenerys Targaryen. Thankfully, two weeks ago I was able to scratch it off of my list of things to do as I finally read the story that has inspired and scared so many fans over the years. Until recently, The War of the Worlds was one such book for me. Instead it is about one literary influence I recently discovered while reading the book, which I have not previously seen discussed.Īs a fan of science fiction and fantasy, there are some books of the genre that I am almost ashamed to say that I have never read. However, this essay is about none of those. There are numerous others including ones that I would never recognize. This ranges from the obvious and acknowledged influences of the history of the War of the Roses, various world mythologies and literary inspiration like The Lord of the Rings, Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and the poetry of Robert Frost to name just a few. Martin has been inspired by many different schools of thought. It’s long because of the subject and the need to include a lot of quotes from the books to show the comparison I am about to discuss. Only-–”Ī warning in advance, this is a long essay.
There’s the ants builds their cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want them out of the way, and then they go out of the way.