"There's a great tradition in storytelling that's thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that's really what I wanted to do"
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It’s a telling move for Aaron Sorkin to reach for “kings and their palaces” while talking about modern storytelling: he’s not chasing nostalgia, he’s laundering contemporary power through the oldest narrative filter we have. Call it a prestige move. If you frame presidents, founders, CEOs, and media moguls as monarchs, you instantly grant their decisions a mythic stakes upgrade. The audience arrives primed for court intrigue, moral tests, public spectacle, and private rot. That’s Sorkin’s home turf: people in ornate rooms talking fast because the room itself is a weapon.
The intent here is almost disarmingly candid. He wants to write about institutions the way epics wrote about dynasties: a choreography of influence, loyalty, and ego. “Really what I wanted to do” reads like a shrug, but it’s also a claim of lineage. He’s positioning his work not as topical “political drama” but as the latest installment in an ancient genre: the palace story, updated with better lighting and worse coffee.
The subtext is trickier. Calling these settings “palaces” both critiques and flatters them. It admits that democracies still fetishize royalty; we just renamed it “the West Wing” or “the boardroom.” Sorkin’s dialogue often venerates competence and idealism, yet this framing quietly concedes that power concentrates, rituals harden, and the court always has its favored insiders. You can admire the craft and still hear the warning: when politics becomes a palace, citizens become spectators.
The intent here is almost disarmingly candid. He wants to write about institutions the way epics wrote about dynasties: a choreography of influence, loyalty, and ego. “Really what I wanted to do” reads like a shrug, but it’s also a claim of lineage. He’s positioning his work not as topical “political drama” but as the latest installment in an ancient genre: the palace story, updated with better lighting and worse coffee.
The subtext is trickier. Calling these settings “palaces” both critiques and flatters them. It admits that democracies still fetishize royalty; we just renamed it “the West Wing” or “the boardroom.” Sorkin’s dialogue often venerates competence and idealism, yet this framing quietly concedes that power concentrates, rituals harden, and the court always has its favored insiders. You can admire the craft and still hear the warning: when politics becomes a palace, citizens become spectators.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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