I enjoy Game of Thrones, otherwise I wouldn’t bother with this modest little post. As a lifelong fan of fantasy, I admire its adult approach to the genre. I’m not a fanatic, just a fan. I don’t get my knickers in a twist if they kill a cherished character, though the Red Wedding did put me off my food for a while.
That said, much as I hate to pile on or follow anyone else into battle, I have to join the chorus of people howling about this past season. Rather than howl, let me whimper about a couple of things that I have not heard any other professional critics, fanboys or viewers complain about. Needless to say, spoilers follow.
Two of them involve story elements that are not properly prepared for. I haven’t read the books; that shouldn’t matter. If it’s a major plot point in a 30-plus-hour TV epic, it shouldn’t just pop up out of nowhere to fuel the body count and make the characters more miserable.
Exhibit 1: Sons of the Harpy. There’s been waves and waves of wholesale slaughter of innocents this season (and every season, come to think on it), and it just grows wearying and meaningless. White walker attack on the wildlings? Fine, I get it. But to give that episode some impact, why not cut back on the random, out-of-nowhere mayhem? The most egregious example: In Meeren, the Sons of the Harpy just sort of appear and start attacking everyone, everywhere. Slash slash scream scream yawn yawn.
If we must see Daeneyrs trying to manage her kingdom and restore order, couldn’t it be grounded in some social reality: policing the markets from thugs; mediating disputes between merchants; striking down laws and customs; deploying the Unsullied in novel ways. Does this sound tedious and lame? Think about the opening sequence in The Godfather, when Don Corleone listens to one grievance after another at his daughter’s wedding. His way of dealing with trivial matters was intriguing, built character and didn’t feel small. It was a little short of slash slash scream scream, but hey.
Exhibit 2: Sparrows? WTF! This may have been prepared for properly in the books. There may have been a stray remark or two in the series, but seriously: The religious commandos, the Sparrows, are suddenly the Power? For four seasons we’ve thought of the King as the ultimate power, the Iron Throne the ultimate goal…and now we find that the High Sparrow outranks the King? Wait, whoah. That is seriously, dramatically wrong. It seems thrown in just to give Cersei and the rest a hard time. And that leads me to…
3: The unremitting darkness. Yes, there’s been a bazillion justifiable complaints about how dark and bleak and hopeless the show is, but let me point out how predictable that darkness is: Blissfully happy couple about to get married. Wham. Red wedding. Davos, Stannis’s second in command, has a tender, fond chat with Stannis’ daughter Shireen. Boom, five minutes later she’s being burnt alive. Jaimie and daughter reconciled, tenderness, understanding. Oops, poison; she’s gone. Every moment of joy, of happiness, of tenderness between characters inevitably is followed by something horrible to one or both of them. Not only is it unrelievedly bleak, it’s predictable.
I’m on your team, Game of Thrones. Shake it up, grow up, button it up. And take care of Arya.
Nuance Cubed 