Game of Thrones
Article
Game of Thrones is a recurring film in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between June 03, 2022 and September 03, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “Varys , the eunuch spymaster from Game of Thrones”; “The last season of Game Of Thrones”. It most often appears alongside 18th century, 1980s, A Eunuch’s Dream.
Metadata
- Category: Films
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: June 03, 2022
- Last seen: September 03, 2024
Appears In
Related Pages
-
- 18th century (1 shared issues)
-
- 1980s (1 shared issues)
-
- A Eunuch’s Dream (1 shared issues)
-
- Air Force One (1 shared issues)
-
- Alessandro Moreschi (1 shared issues)
-
- American football (1 shared issues)
-
- anal probing (1 shared issues)
-
- Anglophone countries (1 shared issues)
-
- Anna Mons (1 shared issues)
-
- Anonymous (1 shared issues)
-
- Anthropic (1 shared issues)
-
- Antigono (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
Before turning from the past to the present and future, a brief word should be said about the wider history of eunuchs. The Castrati were not unique simply because of their eunuch status; what made them unique was the fact that they formed a special caste of individuals who were systematically produced for purely artistic purposes over a period of three centuries. That some of the castrati came to also serve as trusted members of royal courts was actually par for the course. Since the dawn of civilization, eunuchs have served rulers from across the world (notably in the Assyrian, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires, and in various Chinese dynasties) in a variety of roles—domestic servants, cuckold-free harem guards, advisors, and spies (there was some historical basis for Varys, the eunuch spymaster from Game of Thrones). Eunuchs were preferred for these roles for obvious reasons: it was presumed that they could be trusted to a greater degree than non-eunuch males and females as they would be less interested in seizing dynastic power (no offspring to which they could pass on their rule) and less power hungry in general (and their lack of family ties meant it was easier to kill or exile them without retribution). History doesn’t offer a clear verdict on whether or not the presumption of greater trustworthiness was warranted, but examples of eunuchs who were decidedly not trustworthy—because they usurped the rulers who employed them—are not hard to find. This was a particularly common theme in Chinese history where eunuchs served emperors, and sometimes became emperors themselves (Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian), for over 2000 years, from the Qin dynasty (200s BC) up until the abdication of the last Qing emperor in 1912 (Sun Yaoting, the last imperial eunuch, died in 1996).
“Luke. Nice to meet you. I see you’re interested in a position in our ‘Secretly Funding All Media That You Personally Dislike’ division. Give me just a second to view your resume…wow! The last season of Game Of Thrones! That’s quite the accomplishment! We just need to ask you one question - what’s something you believe, that very few people agree with you on?”