【双语阅读】《权力的游戏》为何会风靡全球？

　　英文原文：

　　The return of Game of Thrones, back for a fourth season of sword fighting, bed hopping and mud flinging, reminds us once again what a clever gamble HBO took in squeezing this massive production through our TV and laptop screens. Yes, George RR Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice novels, on which the series is based, were bestsellers. But the size of the audience for epic fantasy fiction is a fraction of what is needed to make a profit on television. Martin’s forest-dense family trees of characters – knights in dented armour, damsels in bodice-bursting distress,and a nest of dragons imported from fairy tales – could not have been an easy sell. Legend has it that writer-producer Vince Gilligan sold Breaking Bad to TV network AMC with the pithy phrase, “Mr Chips becomes Scarface.” One imagines the folks peddling Game of Thrones to HBO calling it “The Sopranos with swords”.

　　It was a risk to build the series around a mythical world like a cracked-mirror reflection of medieval Europe, but executive producers David Benioff and DB Weiss had a clear vision. They were wise enough to add thriller-fiction pacing and exploitation-film nudity to the mix. This kind of graphic naughtiness got the attention of a large audience – and by the end of its third season Game of Thrones was attracting 5m viewers a week. But blood and breasts alone don’t explain why the show became a social media phenomenon. This is because Game of Thrones, for all its grimness and brutality, represents a return of old-fashioned escapism. Game of Thrones invites you to join a world where you can solve your problems with a sword and saddle.

　　Breaking old ground

　　In appealing to its audience’s need for escapism, Game of Thrones  revitalised a genre that few knew needed revitalising: the sword-and-sandals saga, a once-hardy movie sub-species that gave us serious-minded epics like Ben-Hur as well as primitively-animated Ray Harryhausen monster movies. The sword-and-sandals genre – and its cousin, the sword-and-chainmail medieval epic – often flirted with kitsch and camp. TV producer Robert Tapert tapped into this in the 1990s with Xena: Warrior Princess, playing it for knowing giggles. Game of Thrones also contains some of the swashbuckling flair of 1938’s classic film The Adventures of Robin Hood – Errol Flynn-calibre wit and wordplay fly as quickly as the show’s many severed heads. This particular tone is where the TV series benefits from the fact that Martin is not a literary writer; he’s a wooly yarn-spinner, rolling out a cleverly stitched tapestry of interconnected subplots.

　　Unlike Game of Thrones’ style of escapism, the typical costume drama is most often based on, and constrained by, historical fact – and facts can be irritating mosquitos circling the heads of viewers annoyed at having to recall stuff they dozed through in school. It’s a tedious reliance upon history that slowed down and sometimes mired the clash-and-duel TV shows that preceded it, such as Rome and Spartacus. Game of Thrones, as a fantasy, is unfettered and free to soar, to spit dramatic fire like the dragons belonging to Emilia Clarke’s Princess Daenerys.

　　It helps, of course, that Game of Thrones features many fine actors who make their characters so identifiable. Chief among them is Peter Dinklage, whose Tyrion Lannister is a silver-tongued devil with a prodigious capacity for wine, women and revenge scenarios. He absorbs any ridicule of his diminutive height not by getting mad but by getting even – a fantasy for anyone who’s suffered bullies. Dinklage plays him as a Dirty Harry who keeps his hands clean, so clever is he at coaxing others to execute his will. Less well-known actors such as Maisie Williams as the plucky tomboy Arya Stark and Lena Headey as mistress of deceit Cersei Lannister also quickly established themselves as fan favourites. And the presence of esteemed actors like The Jewel in the Crown’s Charles Dance and The Avengers’ Diana Rigg shows how Game of Thrones’ producers are as invested in rooting their series in show business history – and old-school showmanship – as they are in adapting Martin’s elaborately conceived, fanciful history to the small screen.

　　There is, at root, a primal appeal to this material. Author George RR Martin’s web of characters and lineages may be confusing, but there’s a moral simplicity to Game of Thrones that attracted audiences to it in a way that another HBO show, Laura Dern’s cancelled tragicomedy of contemporary manners Enlightened, did not. If your primary concern is keeping your head – or not being eaten, as in The Walking Dead, another show with a similarly appealing back-to-basics premise – all your other problems and worries seem minor indeed. At a time when people fear upsetting the boss lest they find themselves tossed into a frighteningly small job market, or are scrimping to make the monthly mortgage payment, the escapism of a programme in which bosses can be cut down to size with one precise slash of a sword exerts a gut-level allure. That particular fantasy of revenge and triumph is very real – and we can relate to it. Even if you know you’ll never command dragons to do your bidding.

　　中文翻译：

　　《权力的游戏》的第四季重回刀光剑影、芙蓉帐暖和摸爬滚打，HBO再一次地通过把大部头作品硬塞进我们的电视和电脑屏幕这聪明绝顶的赌博让我们心悦诚服。不得不承认乔治.R.R.马丁的原著小说《冰与火之歌》也是畅销小说，但仅靠这部史诗魔幻巨著的读者数量颇难让电视台获利。以马丁书中充斥着角色间盘根错节的家族关系——凹陷盔甲中的骑士，待从束胸中解放的少女，一窝从童话偷来的飞龙——此书不太容易成为畅销品。而传说中编剧及制片人文斯·吉里根把《绝命毒师》推销给AMC电视台时用了一句“老师变恶棍”来包装。由此可想在向HBO 推销本剧时或会戏称它为“刀剑版黑道家庭”。

　　将故事构筑在像中世纪欧洲一样山河破碎的虚拟世界是个冒险举动，但剧集出品人大卫·贝尼奥夫和丹尼尔·威斯对此有清晰的规划。他们明智地加入了悬疑小说的紧凑节奏和B级片的裸体泛滥元素。这种绘声绘色的乖张顽劣吸引了大量观众——在《权力的游戏》第三季结局周引来了5百万人次的关注，但仅靠鲜血和乳房不能完全解释此剧为何能风靡各大社交媒体。而当我们看透《权力的游戏》那冷酷和残忍的表面后，其内里所展现的是古典逃避主义的回归。它把观众邀进了一个仅需刀剑和战马就能解决问题的世界。

　　破旧立新

　　为了满足观众的逃避主义需求，《权力的游戏》重塑了一种影视体裁：历史神话传奇，这是一种曾经连影视子类型也算不上却出了严肃如《宾虚》和雷·哈里豪森的早期动画神怪电影的风格。

　　古典神话电影和它的近亲——中世纪神话传奇，通常充满媚俗和堪鄙。电视制片人罗伯特.塔珀特在九十年代曾通过《战士公主西娜》中作出探索。《权力的游戏》还包含了1938年经典电影《侠盗罗宾汉》里神气活现的气质——埃罗尔·弗林的嘴炮功力和片中刷刷落地的人头齐相辉映。这部电视剧因乔治.R.R.马丁不是纯文学作家而得益，他就像一只羊毛纱纺锤，巧妙地地织出一幅充满相互交缠支线情节的大挂毯。

　　与《权力的游戏》的逃避主义风格不同，典型的古装戏通常基于并局限于历史事实——而历史事实对于观众来说是些在学校里睡了过去的内容，像蚊子一样烦人。对历史的依赖往往会拖慢剧情的推进，让本应热血贲张的电视剧陷入泥潭，如《罗马》和《斯巴达克斯》。《权力的游戏》作为魔幻剧，却能让剧情无拘无束地发展，像艾美莉·克拉克饰演的丹妮莉丝公主的火龙一样喷出戏剧性的烈焰。

　　当然，亦有赖于《权力的游戏》里面一个个被优秀的演员诠释得令人难忘的角色。其中最瞩目的要数彼特·丁拉基，饰演提利昂·兰尼斯特——对美酒、美女和打击报复有天才般驾驭能力的贵族小恶魔。他忍受对自己矮小身材的一切嘲弄，默默地从中获利而非暴怒发飙——简直就是每一个被欺凌者的梦想。 丁拉基把这个角色视为不用动粗的“辣手神探”，通过三寸不烂之舌操纵他人为己谋利。名气较小的演员比如饰演勇敢假小子艾丽娅·史塔克的麦茜·威廉姆斯和饰演诡计女王瑟曦·兰尼斯特的琳娜·海蒂也快速地笼络了一大群粉丝。受人尊敬的老戏骨比如《皇冠上的宝石》的查里斯·丹斯和《复仇者》的戴安娜·瑞格的登场既反映了制作人通过用传统表演造诣，将剧集载入影视史册的决心，同时又将马丁精心构思的、富于幻想的历史大部头塞进一个个小银幕。

　　这个题材从根本上带有一种原始吸引力。作者乔治.R.R.马丁构筑的人物角色网络虽然杂乱，却有着令《权力的游戏》能吸引观众，而在HBO的被腰斩剧集——劳拉·邓恩的现代礼仪启蒙悲喜剧中缺乏的简单道德准则。如果你的要务仅仅是保住脑袋不搬家——或是不被吃掉，像《行尸走肉》——另一部返璞归真的剧集——那么其他的问题和烦恼都显得无足轻重。在这样一个人们每日生怕惹恼老板而被迫回到令人恐惧的求职市场，或者精打细算地偿还每月按揭的时代，看着逃避主义的电视剧中那些可以被畅快淋漓地干掉的领导，整部剧集就马上从骨子里透着迷人魅力。因人们对复仇和胜利的幻想无比现实——每个人都会有共鸣，即使你知道永远无法命令火龙为你效命。