Chesterton was right. When people stopped believing in God, they will believe in anything to fulfill their mystical needs. Flying dragons, marching armies of the dead and soft porn seem to fulfill that need in many.
Fulfill? It seems they need more and more.
Ahem,
Back in the good old days of universal religion, at the very dawn of printed books, the best-selling category of books in Europe, other than bibles, were medieval romances. The works of Ariosto, of Montalvo, of dragons and griffins and enchanters and damsels in distress, and many of the damsels were not quite as well behaved as one would assume. All the things Cervantes made fun of (though he was a huge fan) a generation later.
The next generation of best-sellers were more “realist” picaresque novels that tended to even more racy material. Voltaire parodied this style (and a lot more of course) in Candide.
Right, because the concept of fiction wasn’t invented until after the secularists rose to prominence...
so all those watching GOT are atheist? Good idea.