MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In the hit HBO series, Game of Thrones, the White Walkers have been said to personify the existential global threat of climate change. The Wall, a vast icy formation is melted by dragon fire, much like our melting glaciers. The phrase, “Winter is Coming” represents the global shift in climate forewarned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate change produces major imbalances in nature, allowing invasive species (the Wights) to move beyond their habitats, causing destruction and death. The Wildlings are forced to relocate to safer ground, just as environmental refugees are driven out of their homes by the increasing effects of climate change. And as discernible evidence of climate change becomes irrefutable, quarreling leaders still cling to denial, just as those in Westeros see the White Walkers as fictional boogeyman derived from folklore. Yet, the Zombie Army of Wights and the White Walkers that control them—like climate change, are a ruthless destructive power that can control the weather; and once unleashed, have the ability to utterly destroy life as we know it. If left unchecked, climate change is the zombie apocalypse that will obliterate life on this planet. Is it the fate of Westeros to be destroyed by zombies? Is it humanity’s fate to be destroyed by climate change? How can we expand agency beyond such a tragic fate? These are the types of questions this paper will investigate. A comic apocalyptic perspective constructs identification between naysayers and believers, and allows flawed humans the ability to affect (at least to some degree) the outcome. How does Game of Thrones frame the climate change/White Walker threat so that human agency is at the center of the narrative, creating a more comic telos for humanity, and what is the final critique of this subject on this award-winning series?