Last week saw the premiere of the Daily Wire’s foray into fantasy, The Rise Of The Merlin, the adaptation of Stephen R. Lawhead’s Pendragon Cylce, and now The Daily Wire Plus has fired shots at the George R.R. Martin adaptation, A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms, for their vulgar openings in their first two episodes.
The Daily Wire took a brave first step in culture by adapting an overtly Christian fantasy work to streaming in The Pendragon Cycle, which has been met by applause from fans of the books and critics alike who are thrilled to see an epic fantasy of Arthurian legend developed, and maintaining a family-friendly level of entertainment, something rare in today’s environment.
As the third episode is about to release, The Daily Wire chimed in on criticism of the new A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the latest spinoff of A Game Of Thrones in George R.R. Martin’s fantasy universe.
For those unaware, in the premiere episode, showrunner Ira Parker included a diarrhea scene to which even author George R.R. Martin balked at telling The Hollywood Reporter, “Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise.”
“Not to say that my characters don’t take [expletive], but I normally don’t write about them at any length. When I saw the rough cut, I wrote, ‘What is this? Where did this come from? I don’t know if we really need the [expletive].’ But [showrunner Ira Parker] liked it for whatever reason.”
Parker justified the scene’s inclusion saying, “So in the script it reads, ‘Duncan hears the hero theme in his head’ — which wasn’t necessarily going to be the Thrones theme at that moment. He was going to hear that call to greatness that we all hear that when we decide we’re going to do something really difficult that we’ve never done before. It’s a little scary and you feel like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna be the guy. I’m gonna do it!’ He picks up the sword. He’s thinking about it.”
“But then the reality of doing this, how difficult it is, how scary it is — that turns his guts to water. Because he’s not a hero yet, you know? All we’re trying to say here is that Dunk is not a hero yet,” he said. “He’s just a nervy kid with a nervous stomach — just like me. And as badly as you want to do something great, as soon as you actually have to go off and do it, it becomes trickier. And that’s what the whole season is for him.”
In the show’s second episode, Parker doubled down and included a full frontal scene of actor Danny Webb’s Ser Arlan of Pennytree. Someone actually made a prosthetic oversized member to show the character peeing all over the ground in some of the most disgusting elements of A Game Of Thrones yet.
One fan posted about the contrast in the shows, saying, “I watched The Pendragon Cycle. Zero Complaints. I watched The Knight of The Seven Kingdoms. Five minutes in, it shows someone pooping. Why??? I don't mind violence and gore, but this is too gross.”
The Daily Wire Plus reacted to it, assuring fans, “No poop scenes in The Pendragon Cycle.”
The creators of The Rise of the Merlin are also very different in their philosophies than those in charge of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Jeremy Boreing, former Daily Wire CEO and show creator, spoke about the Pendragon Cycle and its creation into TV on a recent podcast, saying, "There's nothing more rewarding than creation... Pendragon's the biggest artistic project I've ever gotten to be a part of building. A thousand people worked on it. A thousand artists. An unbelievable cast. I think truly there may have never been a better cast of relatively unknown actors that ever came together to make a project. I think when people see the show, they'll think I'm exaggerating here or that I'm bragging. I take no credit for it. The way the cast came together was miraculous."
Conservatives need to push back against degeneracy in film and TV, and that begins with good people taking on ambitious projects like The Pendragon Cycle and bringing them to a different audience than the books through the use of alternative media.
The Rise Of The Merlin can be seen on Daily Wire Plus.
If you enjoy clean fantasy fiction with great worldbuilding and a classic feel, read The Adventures of Baron von Monocle six-book series and support Fandom Pulse!
NEXT: The Daily Wire’s Foray Into Fantasy: The Rise Of The Merlin Episodes 1-2 Review
Jeremy Boering is garbage.
Apparently KINGDOMS is going for viewers with desperate shock tactics-- there are ways to show someone taking a #@$% without being too graphic; the oversized prosthetic while taking a leak just sounds crass...