I really like this ask! I do think the snail is woobified by the fandom, or at the very least fans tend to neglect what he represents. As we all know, or at least those of us with critical thinking skills know, HBHF leans really hard into a lot of existentialist, absurdist, and nihilist thought. I think that the snail in particular is often viewed through a really nihilistic standpoint, and I don't personally agree with that. Of course, in general I enjoy absurdist philosophy a lot, so my own biases are almost certainly a factor. I'll be discussing relatively surface-level absurdist philosophy here, as to keep this post relatively accessible (and for my own sake given that I was a chemistry major before I dropped out, so I'm not really an expert on philosophy by any means. Tunny, I believe it was you who majored in philosophy? Feel free to create more coherent points if you wish, haha); namely The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, given that it is one of his most obviously absurdist pieces of writing. Sisyphus, a character originating from Greek Mythology, is condemned to roll a boulder up a mountain for all of eternity. Every time he brings it to the top of the hill, it simply rolls back down, and Sisyphus walks down the mountain and rolls it back up again. Camus compares this to the average modern life at time (1942), and it still holds up to this day. As Sisyphus rolls his boulder, mankind works aimlessly, often doing menial tasks, the same thing every single day. Camus states that "...one must imagine Sisyphus happy." and how could that be? How could one be happy, doing the exact same task over and over, endlessly, confined to his fate? Contentedness has to be found in the absurdity of it; he will do this futile, aimless task, over and over and over. There is no changing anything. Of course, there is no hope in that, no chance things will get better for him, nothing else. And when you have nothing to long for, no hope, you can find contentedness in that. That is the life of essentially every human on Earth; we wake up, go to work, we do the same thing we do every day at work, we go to bed, and the cycle repeats. Of course there is nuance in this; I don't exactly have a consistent schedule on account of running from the law. I don't do the same thing every day in the most literal sense, sure, but I sort of do. I still do tasks that will ultimately amount to nothing and only have the value that I have ascribed them, and the only resolution to anything will be death; and yet I find happiness in the absurdity. Now, to tie this to the sea snail. The sea snail doesn't do anything important in the show in terms of the plot; he doesn't talk to anyone, he doesn't interact with the world around him besides eating algae, he doesn't even have a name. No friends, no family, nothing to cling to and no hope of anything. He is alone, resigned to doing ultimately aimless things. Sure, he consumes algae, and one day he will be consumed by some predator; this benefits the ecosystem in which he resides, which ultimately benefits the whole planet. But none of that has any inherent value in the meaningless, godless universe in which we reside. As humans we place value on it, sure, but there is no intrinsic worth to you or I or Earth or the universe itself. It just is. And yet, the snail is content; the snail is, to some extent, happy. He embraces the absurdity, that all he does will one day be nullified by death, that none of what he does matters, that his fate is set in stone. He finds joy in his own life, even with the absolute knowledge that none of it has true value. His life and it's transience are a core part of who he is. It's remarkable how the writers of the show manage to convey that, even with the sea snail never speaking a word. He is loneliness, he is isolation, he lives with this knowledge, he embraces the absurd, and he is content.
andulkaphoto
annaxmalina
prguitarman
stormborns
gummygunk
baratheonpilled
ellievsbear
snowghoul
