As Longtime Readers may know, my writings have occasionally caused Bad Feelings among a certain group of people: feministicals of both* genders (Pussification), members of the Perpetually-Offended By Perceived Racial Slurs Club (Let Africa Sink) and wannabe gun controllers, as well as all sorts of people of the liberal inclination who have taken exception to things I’ve written, even when obviously only played for a laugh or to highlight liberal stupidity [redundancy alert].
Those Bad Feelings have occasionally manifested themselves as death threats against me, which I’ve shrugged off because if I see them coming, I can take preemptive action (e.g. shoot the wannabe-assassin in the face with a .45 bullet or two). If I don’t see them coming, well… nothing to be done about it, really.
I won’t say that I’ve deserved such extreme silencing measures, of course, but I will at least acknowledge that my writing — i.e. something I’ve actually done as Kim du Toit — has caused said Bad Feelings. The people making the threats are sick fucks, and that’s all there is to it.
However, I recently discovered that there’s a whole sub-basement of Sick Fuckery, whose denizens are even worse than my brand of assholes. These are the people who have uttered death threats against Dutch actress Carice van Houten, not because of anything she’s done herself, but because of things she’s done while playing a character in a TV show. I speak here of Game of Thrones, of course, and apparently this hapless woman’s character is a pretty bad sort who causes all sorts of misery unto other characters in the show.
Now, I haven’t watched GoT, as the cognoscenti call it, since its first season when I realized that writer George R.R. Martin is a shit storyteller (explanation some other time) and the show was going to suck terribly. But apparently, some totally sick and twisted fans of GoT have somehow gotten the idea that the lovely Ms. Van Houten is personally, in real life, responsible for all those evil misdeeds of her character, and have uttered death threats towards her, I suppose, to try to end her HBO-based “reign of terror”. Here’s this eeeevil woman as herself:
Like I said, this transference of hostility portrays not only delusional stupidity, but industrial-strength delusional stupidity. These idiots make my set of armchair assassins look positively sane by comparison.
I’d like to say that we can safely ignore these fools because, well, they’re fools. But unfortunately, delusional fools such as these have an unfortunate tendency to become non-delusional murderers — John Hinckley over Jodie Foster, David Chapman over John Lennon and so on. So because of that, I want the police (regardless of country) to hunt these assholes down and send them to a non-delusional prison for a lengthy stay. This will achieve two objectives: 1.) it will take them out of our society for a while — at least until GoT finishes its final season and Carice van Houten can go on to star as, I dunno, maybe Maria von Trapp in the next West End production of Sound of Music — and 2.) it may act as a deterrent to the next generation of delusional idiots who want to attack people for abstract reasons. I emphasize “may” because with this kind of stupidity, there are no guarantees.
Oh, God; I just realized that by calling George R.R. Martin a shit storyteller and saying that GoT sucks as an epic tale that I’m probably going to attract these tools’ homicidal attentions towards myself. (I can only hope that they’ll bring a GoT-appropriate sword or dagger to the gunfight that will ensue.)
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the Barbury School for a little further instruction in shooting at moving targets.
*I don’t care how many “genders” are currently fashionable. There are only two — male and female — although there is a case for a neutered third gender which would include both male and female academics working in the Humanities Department at universities, whom nobody wants to fuck.
Perky.
I can see why they would be inflamed. Lust tends to do that.
And that group has to be breeding as otherwise how could you explain them just arising out of the gene pool? By group I am referring to your armchair assassins and other troll like ilk that seems to abound in the comments section of any hi traffic web site.
I also have never seen the allure in Game of Thrones. Not sure how a single person can come up with a winning trajectory. Much like the Living Dead or what ever that dreck is on TNT.
Glad you are having a good time over in old blighty. Enjoy your retirement.
GoT is popular for the usual reasons– it pushes boundaries and features lots of fit, naked people. The story itself is shit, though some of the characters are well cast, and hence interesting (Gwendoline Christie, call your office. Or better yet, mine.) There are many better stories, and many better storytellers, but many of them aren’t so thrilled with selling the film rights to said stories to a format that will by necessity grind them into a fine paste. Martin clearly had no such compunction.
As to idiots making threats, it’s been my experience that the vast, vast majority are nothing more than keyboard warriors trying to talk tough with a few thousand miles between them and a punch in the nose. I’ve had a few myself over the years. Fortunately, I’m single, so I can provide them my home address and the suggestion that they be able to out-run ten or more 10mm hollowpoints should they decide to visit.
WRT George RR Martin, my exposure has been limited but my take on it is the same as yours. Years ago, long before GOT was a thing, my brother gushed about GRRM and recommended one of his books to me. Can’t even remember the title, some kind of vampire thing.
I think I got through the first couple of chapters and then just lost interest. Horror and fantasy are not my favorite genres but even so, I just couldn’t take the plodding pace of the book (by contrast, whatever else you can say about him, Stephen King is a hell of a story teller and I’ve read more than a few of his books simply because they “hooked” me from the beginning.)
I have enjoyed GoT, though season five almost lost me. I like some of the characters and some of the story lines, but some of them are too ridiculous even for me. Overall the show is a narrative mess. I’m not sure they can bring it to a satisfying conclusion.
As to hating actors and actresses for the characters they play, some people can’t seem to tell the difference between light entertainment and reality. Some of the major villains in GoT are reportedly very nice people in real life. There are also tales of people who play wonderful characters on screen being absolute jerks in person.
I too have not been watching GoT: I watched the first couple of episodes and, knowing of the author, decided that I’d only watch it once the series was complete. So I’ll be binge-watching next year, if my interest is still there.
That’s the advantage I love best about being Christian. If they sneak up and martyr me, all they can do is send me to heaven. Oh, don’t throw me in that briar patch!
As for old George Rape Rape, you were right to drop out. It is still inflicted upon me because of the wife’s interest, and it never really picked up until the current season — when Rape Rape finally threw in the towel, admitted that he was a lost cause, and let the TV writers take over to wrap it up.
“…when Rape Rape finally threw in the towel, admitted that he was a lost cause, and let the TV writers take over to wrap it up.”
Probably got just as sick of the never-ending nihilism and the constant death of likeable characters as the rest of us.
I read most of the books. I liked the first one, second one, got a bit fed up with the constant nihilism by the third, and dropped out at the fourth, when it became clear that old Rape Rape was going nowhere.
By that time, any characters I liked were dead, and I was wishing for the Sweet Meteor of Death to hit & kill the rest of the miserable lot.
This kind of stupidity is not new. It took years for Margaret Hamilton to live down playing the Wicked Witch of the West.
Contrariwise, some actors who were rat bastard lice in real life became beloved by the public because they played “nice” characters.
This thread on Arrse may be of interest: https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/bravest-british-luvvies.264710/
>>
I’ve been thinking, which actor – male or female – has been the bravest in the military. I have done a cursory search with the words “actors brave” and nothing much turned up. Job done so that ought to keep those tedious c*nts with long memories at bay.
I want to exclude American’s because Audie Murphy would sweep the board and probably rightly so.
So British actors and actresses who were brave before becoming famous. My thought has to go to Peter Lutterworth of Carry On fame.
>>
There was also Jimmy Stewart, USAF General, who fought to get an actual combat assignment during WWII, and flew in some of the nastiest bomber raids of the war.
As for Brits, there was Sir Christopher Lee.
I’ve enjoyed reading the GOT books and some of Martin’s other shorter stories (Sandkings for instance). But, he’s a lazy slob and lost interest in his own story – so he stopped writing GOT novels. The showrunners took over the story a couple of season’s ago – the same way a 2-year-old would take over a chess match – by smashing everything.
Why I despise social media: A teenage girl in California committed suicide because of haters’ comments against her. Her crime? Loving hunting and blogging about it. The Fakebook thing. I’m guessing that her parents didn’t realize the effect of the “You should die!” responses.
The idiots going after Ms. van Houten remind me of the woman who, upon waking in the morning, promptly bashed her husband over the head.
“What was that for?”
“For what you did in my dream last night.”
There’s no hope for some people.