GoT, Lost, Qanon, Epstein, and the challenge of landing the epic ending

Plus, another high-profile case of a ChatGPT-induced reality tunnel?

Ever since he descended the golden escalator to usher in a golden age from his gold-encrusted Oval Office, golden boy Donald Trump has had the Midas Touch. The man who makes Saddam look discreet in his interior design has survived every political scandal you can imagine - he has publicly mocked the disabled, he was found guilty in a criminal trial while running for office, he was caught on tape saying he liked to grab women by the pudenda, he has a slew of dodgy business deals and even Mob connections, he publicly instigated an armed insurrection in which police officers died. So what? He appeared literally bullet proof. There was nothing he could do to turn the MAGA faithful against him - he enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven. Boris Johnson, by comparison, was booted out of office simply for organizing a small party during Covid lockdown!

But now, the MAGA faithful are suddenly shouting from the pews. All because Attorney-General Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice,, after months of teasing the public with the massive revelations to come about Jeffrey Epstein’s secret list, quietly declared on a Sunday evening that there wasn’t actually any list, and he had died by suicide…When the MAGA sans-culottes expressed their displeasure at this pronouncement, President Trump called them weaklings and losers for banging on about Epstein. ‘Nothing will be enough for the trouble-makers’.

By ‘trouble-makers’ and ‘radical leftists’, I guess he means, Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Green, Laura Loomer, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Jack Posobiec and Steve Bannon - all MAGA-die-hards who have complained about the government cover-up. Charlie Sykes, author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, told the Guardian: ‘Trump is finding out that, if you’ve pushed a conspiracy theory for years, it’s very difficult to suddenly declare that it’s non-existent or a hoax.’

You know what it reminded me of? Game of Thrones fans pissed off at the final season.

Conspiracy theories (whether genuine or fictional) follow an epic narrative arc. Something is rotten, a tremendous evil pervades the land, but it is hidden. A plucky band of rebels band together to expose the evil, there is final apocalypse, a cosmic showdown, a purging and cleansing of the evil, and then a new golden age ensues.

But the hardest part of an epic narrative is the ending. Think of Games of Thrones, how well it built up its epic narrative over the first six seasons, how badly it ended it in the final two, leaving its fan base furious at the failed landing. All those years invested in the story, and then the promised pay-off was botched.

Think of Lost and the fan-fury when it became clear the story was going nowhere, the show-runners were actually making it up as they went, no one was going to explain that polar bear.

Think of His Dark Materials - the brilliant way it weaved wonder and mystery in the first and second books, then the falling-off in the third book with its ridiculous ‘mulefa’. Or Return of the Jedi with its ewoks. Or Godfather Part 3, Matrix Part 3, even Milton’s Paradise Regained.

Epics, like wars, are easy to begin, very hard to end well. Maybe only Lord of the Rings and The Bible truly managed to execute it (and Jews, Christians and Muslims are still arguing over the final seasons of The Bible).

Season Two of MAGA was billed as The Great Apocalypse. Peter Thiel announced in the Financial Times: ‘Trump’s return to the White House augurs the apokálypsis of the ancien regime’s secrets.’ (Sure, Peter, like what happened in Miami right?) All secrets would be revealed: who killed JFK, what was hidden in Area 51, what was going on with the chemtrails, who was on Epstein’s list, what happened in Wuhan, where did all those disappeared children go. It would all come out and heads would roll.

And nothing figured more in the Season Finale teaser than the Epstein revelations to come.

• Here was future FBI director Kash Patel: ‘There will be no cover-ups, no missing documents, and no stone left unturned…If there are gaps, we will find them. If records have been hidden, we will uncover them…You’re going to get all that information… we’re going to give you every single thing we have and can.’

• Here’s JD Vance in 2024: ‘Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.’

• Here’s Pam Bondi, Attorney General, in March: ‘Nothing can be withheld on that … a truckload of evidence arrived.’

• Here’s Elon Musk in 2024: ‘If Trump wins, that Epstein client list is going to become public.’

• Here’s Donald Trump Jr in 2023: ‘Show us all the Epstein client list now!!! Why would anyone protect those scum bags? Ask yourselves this question daily and the answer becomes very apparent!!’

• Here’s future deputy-director of the FBI Dan Bongino in 2023: ‘There are a lot of people who are knee-deep in the Washington swamp who are not telling you the truth about serious allegations out there that Epstein may have had video and audio of people out there doing things they shouldn't have been doing.’

As political narratives go, ‘get ready for the apocalypse of elite evil’ is incredibly appealing. Conspiracy theories are the epic religious narratives of our time, massive co-created fan-fictions where you could be one of the heroes in Donald’s Rebel Army and an orgasmic, violent climax against the Satanic elite is just…around…the corner.

But conspiracy narratives are easy to start and very difficult to end. They promise an emotionally satisfying revelation that, typically, never quite comes. The MAGA-MAHA convoy is now realizing the fuel of conspiracy is great for getting elected, but too combustible when you’re actually trying to govern.

After the paywall, has one of OpenAI’s main investors fallen prey to ChatGPT-induced delusions? Grok turns into an anti-Semitic ‘mecha-Hitler’ who sexually harasses X’s CEO, shortly before she resigns. Plus, the CEO of at-home ketamine company Mindbloom gets enthusiastic about AI therapy.