Interesting to read here about your gut reaction to Viserys, which was much more sympathetic than my own. The stooped man playing with his models like a child obsessed with a doll house - it seemed to me to imply contempt - but after watching Episode 2 I think your take is sounder. Viserys is wise - he is measured - he is a king for peaceful times, committed to war as a last resort only.
Like Tennyson's Telemachus, son of Odysseus (Ulysses), of whom the father says:
"This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine."
Television specials are about men that strive with Gods, not administrators, and yet... you are right: Viserys deserves our sympathy and a kind of respect.
Interesting to read here about your gut reaction to Viserys, which was much more sympathetic than my own. The stooped man playing with his models like a child obsessed with a doll house - it seemed to me to imply contempt - but after watching Episode 2 I think your take is sounder. Viserys is wise - he is measured - he is a king for peaceful times, committed to war as a last resort only.
Like Tennyson's Telemachus, son of Odysseus (Ulysses), of whom the father says:
"This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine."
Television specials are about men that strive with Gods, not administrators, and yet... you are right: Viserys deserves our sympathy and a kind of respect.