I don’t want to write this. I want to write about Avengers: Endgame, but in order to do that properly I need to first rave about Avengers: Infinity War and try to write something vaguely polite about Captain (Un)Marvel(ous). That’s a lot to unravel, so I guess I really do want to write about the self-immolation that is HBO’s Game of Thrones. Warning: SPOILERS.
GoT was addictive from the prologue of the first episode, which immediately set up the central conflict of the show being humanity’s conflict with what we would come to call White Walkers. This was ignored for the rest of the first season, but that was all right because we met a slew of fascinating characters, including a doomed hero (Eddard Stark), a bastard (Jon Snow), a tomboy (Arya), a ditzy blonde (Daenerys), an insane blonde (Cersei), and a too-clever-for-his-own-good dwarf (Tyrion). There were others, sure, but let’s stay focused here.
Over the course of ten episodes, we learned where each stood and a new conflict would be bloom, the titular Game of Thrones. The fantasy element of the show wouldn’t rear its head again until just about the final shot, namely there be dragons here.
The second season picked right up where we left off, giving us more characters and more threads and more conflicts and, well, just plain more. Magic became a thing, violence was a given, and look, more boobs because it’s not HBO without enough nudity to challenge of the adequacy of the word “gratuitous.”
At its core, though, the show was about the futility of seeking a crown when the very existence of life itself was on the line. All the squabbles over the Iron Throne, over who would reign over the seven kingdoms of Westeros, were pointless. The White Walker threat, eventually in the body of the Night King, was the true threat, the genuine story. The horror was that few believed it.
The series slogged along. “Slog” is the operative term because during season four it all started sliding sideways. It hit the skids for season five and never truly recovered.
There was, of course, Jon Snow. He makes a great non com; he’s a terrible general. Doubt me? Name a major battle that he’s led and won. Every time, he gets his troops slaughtered and someone else comes in to save the day (I look at you, oh terrible and awful Battle of the Bastards). Despite that, Jon remained focused on the true threat from the north.
Season six tried to rally, but alas. Season seven was a rushed mess. It was pretty clear we weren’t in for a good and clean finish during season eight.
It's tempting to blame George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the series upon which GoT is based (GoT being the title of the first book in the series). You see, GRRM hasn’t finished the series yet, there was still two books to go. It’s been eight years since the fifth book (A Dance with Dragons) was published, and this in a series that started in 1996, so GRRM is kind of dragging his heels here.
GRRM isn’t the worst in this regard. That might be David Gerrold and his War Against the Chtorr books. It was supposed to be trilogy but expanded to be a planned six-book series. A Season for Slaughter (book four) was published in 1993 and we’re still waiting for A Nest for Nightmares (previously known as A Method of Madness, now the working title of the sixth and final book). At least Gerrold can say his writing was interrupted by his adopting and raising a son (see Martian Child, the novelette, please, not the film). What’s GRRM’s excuse?
To be clear, though, the ASOIAF books are dreadful (I'm also not a Tolkien fan, except for The Hobbit, so I'm a double heretic). The first, the actual GoT, is pretty good, but it’s downhill from there. For the first few seasons of the show, I found it commendable that the producers could extract such a rich and wonderful story from the word salad of GRRM’s writing.
Alas, they needed that word salad because they haven’t a clue what to do without having the novels as a guide. Season six’s problems are a direct result, as are all the issues in both season seven and, now, eight. Worse, they apparently didn’t know what the actual story is (death versus life; ice brings death, fire brings life; etc.) and are now irrevocably focused on who wins the Iron Throne.
Who gives a damn?
It was Gerrold, writing in Starlog, who taught me the importance of theme. Theme underlines everything in your writing, in your stories. Theme is what it’s really all about. GRRM has written that he wanted to show the futility of struggles for power, that it’s really all for nothing.
The underlying theme of ASOIAF and GoT would seem to bear that out. Pursuit of the Iron Throne was pointless; winter is here and bringing death for us all. The heroes are dead, it’s up to the survivors to, well, survive. Jon is a terrible general but he’s exactly who you want fighting for you. Dany’s drive for revenge and the throne has turned her into her father; she now the Mad Queen.
This is all great stuff and it’s all turned to ash. The moment Arya Stark took out the Night King, and that moment wasn’t the climax of the entire series, the series was dead. The moment Dany went insane and slaughtered a million civilians (as opposed to simply destroying that big castle she’s glaring at when she snaps), her fate was sealed; she’ll be dead by series end.
And who will sit on the Iron Throne? We’ll find out this coming Sunday night and I just could not care less. I’ll be watching for closure because there’s no other reason to. The show is already done, dead and awaiting burial. Or, more fittingly, cremation.
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