Tag: Game of Thrones

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Object of the Game

Computers have mastered chess. They’ve cracked “Jeopardy!’ But it seems even they can’t figure out “Game of Thrones.”

Maybe there’s hope for the human race.

For those of you who care about the recently concluded HBO series, be warned – there’s spoilers ahead. (Also, Darth Vader is Luke’s father, Rhett leaves Scarlett, and “Rosebud” was the sled. Just saying.) On the other hand, if Westeros isn’t your cup of tea, stay with me, OK? I promise, we’re going somewhere from this.

OK, back to the computer.

Game of Thrones is known for a high body count among its heroes and villains, with survival rates that are about as good as a Denver Broncos head coach. (The joke goes that when George R.R. Martin logs onto Twitter, he kills off all 280 characters.) So, computer science students at the Technical University of Munich in Germany were given a challenge – create an artificial intelligence algorithm that would predict who had the best chance of surviving the final season.

They programmed the AI. They fed it the data. And they concluded the most likely survivor – a 99 percent chance! – was the Mother of Dragons herself, Daenerys Targaryen.

This would be the same Daenerys who got stabbed to death in the final episode, by the way.

Oops.

I’m sharing this for a few reasons. First, as a reminder that computer intelligences depend on our intelligence, and are only as good as the assumptions we make. Second, to reassure diehard Daenerys fans – and oh, my, there are a lot of you on the internet – that even the experts were on your side.

But most of all, I wanted to point out that the biggest survivor of all wasn’t even on the list. I don’t mean any of the kings or queens or dragons or warlords …  not directly, anyway.

I mean the story.

The story that engrossed people for eight seasons. The adventure that had millions of people arguing about the fate of its characters, before, during, and after its conclusion. Love or hate, agree or disagree, the tale was not being ignored.

That’s powerful.

And it’s a fundamental part of who we are.

I’ve said this here before: we are creatures of story. We look for meaning, narrative, connection in every part of our lives. Sometimes we find them in Westeros, or Middle-Earth, or a galaxy far, far away.

But many times, we find our story in something bigger yet. The causes we stand for. The beliefs we hold. The traditions and histories we carry on, and where we see our role in them. Those are stories on an epic scale, ones that men and women would willingly die for.

Have willingly died for.

We’ve reached another Memorial Day. It’s the time when many of us recount the stories of our fallen – who they were, what they did, why they did it. It’s also a time, perhaps, when we think of the story that motivated them to fight and die in the first place – the dream made real, the ideal made true, the hope that a particular hope could be carried on through generations.

Because ultimately, that’s what our country is supposed to be. A hope. A promise. An imperfectly kept promise, it’s true, at many times to many people. The story is far from finished, always being written, always taking shape.

But it’s still our story. Through all its twists and turns, we still have the power to write the next chapter.  And with that, the duty to remember the authors who came before – military and civilian, young and old – and consider what the story they’ve given us mean, and what our part in it will be.

“There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story,” Tyrion Lannister declared in the final episode of Game of Thrones. “Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it.”

Take up the tale. Tell it well.

Because no computer ever made can do it as well as you.

 

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A Long, Strange Trek

On the day he died, I heard NPR replay an interview with Leonard Nimoy about Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. In it, he mentioned that he wanted to try something different for a science-fiction film: that he wanted to have a story with no real villain to defeat.

“We had done two pictures in a row with black-hat heavies and I didn’t want a bad guy anywhere,” he explained in an interview elsewhere for the magazine Monsterland. “Circumstances would cause the problem. Lack of awareness, lack of concern, ignorance…these would be the problems. Not a person.”

That clicked with me. And it may be the best epitaph for the man in the pointed ears that I’ve ever heard.

I came late to Star Trek. No real surprise there. I grew up a huge Star Wars fan at a time when the fan bases didn’t overlap much and were often perversely proud of it. One was a swashbuckling space opera that found instant mainstream success; the other, an odd mix of conflict and exploration that built its following over years.

Silly, of course. To anyone on the outside, after all, a geek was a geek. But to many, the lines mattered.

But even Star Wars kids thought Mr. Spock was cool.

How could he not be? He was the intelligent outsider, the alien among humans, cool and detached without being heartless. He had an answer for everything, often accompanied by a wry remark and an arched eyebrow. To him, the universe was “fascinating” but never totally inexplicable.

He was, in short, what every young geek and nerd like me wanted to be. Apart, but still a part. Not surrendering an identity to be part of the crew, but embracing it and being valued because of it – even if it still meant we were weird.

I was grown before I found out that Nimoy spent years resenting the character. Understandable, in retrospect. Few actors like to be typecast, to become so strongly identified with a role that they can never really be seen as anyone else. For someone as versatile as Mr. Nimoy – actor, poet, photographer and more – it must have been doubly frustrating.

But over time, he came to embrace Mr. Spock. The Vulcan came to be “one of my best friends,” as he told Starlog magazine.

“When I put on those ears, it’s not like just another day,” Nimoy said. “When I become Spock, that day becomes something special.”

It did for a lot of us, too.

Today, we live in a world where the geeks won. “Game of Thrones” and “Doctor Who” are hit TV shows. “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” commanded huge film audiences; superheroes by the dozen still do. Even roleplaying became mainstream somewhere along the way – with proponents such as Stephen Colbert and the late Robin Williams – and computer gaming is so common a hobby as to barely be worth mentioning.

But saying “the geeks won” doesn’t really capture it. It’s more like the lines got erased. Maybe not entirely (there’s still some discouraging tales about how “geek girls” get treated by a small but noxious crew of self-appointed critics) but enough that the distinction no longer has the same meaning. The geeks became the cool kids, and vice versa. It’s even OK to talk about Jedi and Vulcans in the same breath.

There really isn’t a bad guy anymore.

Leonard Nimoy was a big part of that. And while it might seem like an odd part of his legacy to emphasize– “he helped make it OK to be a nerd” – there are far worse ones to have. Anything that brings people together instead of setting them apart should be celebrated; anyone who builds bridges instead of walls should be cherished … even if the bridge is that of the starship Enterprise.

Thank you, sir. You lived long. You prospered. And you helped many of us do the same.

In an often-dark world, you truly lit a Spock.