Game of Thrones Is Getting Better, Not Worse

I wanna lay down a little truth about Game of Thrones, and the first part will be spoiler-free. The second half, however, will spoil like goat cheese on a summer day in Arizona. I’ll let you know when to stop reading. 

Right up to the end of season five, Game of Thrones was owning its story, and it was glorious. It’s as if it didn’t care WHAT fans wanted or expected, it just told the story in the best way possible. It didn't pander, and this is a GOOD THING, not a bad thing. 

Not enough people seem to get it, and a lot of it stems from those darn books. I’m not knocking the books, and given that I have not read a word of them, it would be pretty arrogant of me to do so. 

Buuuuuut on the other hand….

TV is not literature. They are two different things. One involves a television set, and one does not. 

Unless, of course, your bookshelf is a TV set.

There is too much whining going on every time the show does anything that it’s drowning out the few voices that see the genius for what it is. 

People are lining up to eviscerate Game of Thrones. Some don’t hate it, but think that it’s lost its way in recent years. These days, this has become sort of a tradition. A very sad tradition, though. But they are missing the point. 

Personally, I think the show is like a pH balance water tester, but for political correctness. And that always wins brownie points, in my book. Someone somewhere is not happy with what just happened in the most recent episode, and they want the WHOLE world to know just how much they are NOT taking it anymore. 

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

These aren’t people who didn’t really like the show. These are fans. So it’s perplexing. I haven’t seen this much of a love/hate relationship with a show since the writers at Lost introduced a three-toed statue and then took six seasons NOT explaining where it came from. 

But it’s not the explanations that have GOT fans in a tizzy. For some, it’s the story itself. They don’t like seeing lovable characters get killed. And those folks need to find some healing crystals and a small furry animal of some kind, and then when they gather up the gumption, take their beef up with Mr. Martin himself. Because that’s his fault. 

My beef, though, is with fans that don’t like the deviations from the books. Boo hoo that your favorite character is still alive in the books. Cry me a river because the thing went down, but not EXACTLY like it did in the book. It will be ok, I promise. 

I see this every time there is an adaptation of anything, and it bugs the hell out of me. It’s annoying because many book fans have unobtainable expectations. Even the most openminded of them will draw blood at the first sign that their favorite character doesn’t get the attention they deserve.

Folks, chill. 

When I wrote my blog on why I thought Katniss Everdeen was a terrible character, the main criticism I got was that I hadn’t read the book. Well I did read the book after that, and while it clarified some expositional stuff, it didn’t change my opinion of Katniss. In fact, I concluded that the experience of watching the movie was (for me, at least) much more enjoyable than reading the book. I would much rather see the world of Panem on screen than have it described to me by a 17-year-old. Maybe that’s just me.

The point is, not only is it possible for adaptations to be successful, but they can even improve upon the source material. I won’t know for sure unless I read George Martin’s books, but I will say that every time someone complains about an event that was changed on the show, the way it plays out in the book (as told to me by the magical interwebs, and by friends) always seems lame by comparison. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

I like to think that, being a writer myself who pays close attention to story mechanics, that I can recognize good storytelling when I see it. And I gotta say, Game of Thrones is one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. While many are out there saying the show is going down hill, I could not disagree more. It has never been sharper.

This show is like Pinot Noir, and it’s getting better with each season. The improvements they’ve made to the pacing and plotting of each season is measurable and impressive. While the early seasons were sprawling and uneven (like I’m told the book is), the last two seasons in particular feel as if they were mapped out. It feels like the storyteller is very much in control, as it should be. No one wants to start a show anymore for the same reason they wouldn’t want to get on a roller coaster after the attendant says, “I think you’ll like it… we have no idea where it’s going to end!” 

Oh no... not another X-Files!

Uh, no. I insist all of my roller coasters have an ending planned. That’s kind of important.

There is nothing more gratifying than knowing that the creators have an endpoint in mind, and to see them shuffle things around and make room, all in the name of telling the story in the best, most efficient way possible. 

Take Bram’s story, for example. It was pointed out at the end of season 4 that his story had already reached the point it had reached at the end of the book. They wondered why his story had been accelerated so quickly, and that the showrunners announced he would not be in season 5 for this reason. Yet when I learned of this, I knew why immediately. And it’s a stroke of genius. 

If we can focus on that story and give it the justice it deserves, and doing that means telling it quickly, why is this a bad decision? It does not affect the other stories, so why not get that one out of the way, so that season 5 can focus on everything else. The only other option is to drag it out, and ALL fans hate it when shows do that. 

The bottom line is: There are dozens of stories going on at any given time in the world of Westeros, and the showrunners of GOT have realized that telling them all at once is a TERRIBLE idea. Yet if fans had their way, all the stories would get told, but nobody would stick around to watch them. Because tedious. Because confusing. Because boring.

One of the ways the show fixes it is by combining story-lines and characters. Another is the above-mentioned time displacement of the individual stories themselves (like Bram’s story). But the most innovative is the one people hate the most: killing off characters. 

Here’s the thing… 

I suspect that some of the character deaths will ultimately prove to be better on the show than in the book. Martin likely doesn’t know who is going to die or how or when, until he gets there. But what if the showrunners - acting like prescient Gods who know better - can see that these character deaths might be better served if handled differently. Rather than give all the epic deaths to minor characters, only to let major characters just sort of fade away in the end, or get caught up in pettiness, they make changes. They fix it and make it better, more compelling.

Wanna see what I mean? Stick around. 

I could pick any episode of the show, because they pretty much all make the point as well. Here’s my thoughts on Season 5's finale…

Ok, here come the spoilers…

ARYA

After spending a whole season at the House of Black and White, learning to become some sort of faceless assassin (because she has nowhere else to go, and why not?), she finally picks her target. It is the pedophile, Meryn Trant, and she violates the code of her teaching to kill him. And man is it a good death. It is brutal, like the death of the Viper last season. But she gets punished for this because he was not the man she was supposed to kill. She goes blind, and now her fate is up in the air. 

First of all, the choice to change the man from the more minor character Raff the Sweetling to the incredibly relevant Meryn Trant was one of those strokes of genius I was talking about. Meryn and Arya have a history. Meryn has terrorized her family since season 1, and even smacked Sansa around a bit. When Arya recites her list of names she wants to eliminate, his is first on that list. The moment of this man’s death was one of those moments that made me think “they must have known back in season 1 that, regardless of how he goes out in the books, it would be Arya to end him.” This was very satisfying. 

Also, I’ve read quite a few things concerning Arya’s training, and while the first part of her story in this season was plodding and uninteresting, combining the various threads into one moment like they did was effective. I just wish we didn’t have to wait so long.

DAENERYS and TYRION

In typical GOT fashion, at least one major storyline gets wrapped up in episode 9, and I was glad it was Dany’s. Not many shows are going to end the episode with a heroine flying away on a goddam dragon, and this could have been a season-ending scene in its own right. But Daenarys Targaryen has claimed the final moments of several seasons already, so give the other dog a bone. 

Still, this episode did a few things differently than the book, and they work wonderfully. In the book, Barristan Selmy is left to run the city of Mereen while Dany is M.I.A., except they killed him a few episodes back on the show. I believe this episode kinda shows you why. Isn’t it infinitely more gratifying to see Tyrion in a position of authority instead? How long have we waited for Tyrion to get his day in the sun, where he is able to finally put his political genius to work? And not only that: we’ve been watching Dany struggle without an advisor for some time, and this union is so exciting! And the cunning Verys is there, too! 

With not one but a few effective advisors, Dany (if she survives her recent capture by the Dothraki) just may well get her wish of taking King’s Landing. Oh, and her “Break the Wheel” speech, which wasn’t in the book (or so I’m told), is also exciting. The cliffhanger to Dany’s story is probably my favorite, and it’s totally because of Tyrion. 

One more thing about Dany’s arc that sticks out to me is the love between her and Jorah. I’ve always believed that Dany and Jorah represent the greatest love story on the show. Think about it: Dany’s failures this season, I think, are the result of Jorah’s absence. Many have misunderstood her erratic behavior and lack of clear direction as a fault of the writers, but I think this is actually precisely the point. She’s lost her way. She is nobody without Jorah, who was there with her when she was at her lowest point ever, and turning him out was the biggest mistake she ever made. 

She’s forgotten why she wanted to take King’s Landing in the first place, and it shows in her poor leadership decisions. This is deliberate. She needs to forgive Jorah for his betrayal, and Jorah needs to forgive himself. These two need each other. How many men would be willing to fight to the death in the pits to get back into a woman’s good graces? And Dany knows it, too. Their reunion will be even more overdue than her meeting Tyrion. And I can’t wait. Because I’m a sap.

STANNIS

Poor poor Stannis. His attempt to take back Winterfell from the Boltons did not go as planned. Half of his men deserted him because he decided that barbecuing his daughter was more important than, you know, being a human being. His wife offs herself, Melissandre high-tails it out of there, and Stannis marches into sudden death with so very few men. 

To understand the tragic beauty in all of this, remember how far Stannis has come. He’s been quite successful the last few seasons, and after seeing what Ramsey did to our beloved Sansa, we REALLY wanted him to take back Winterfell from the Boltons. Not because we like Stannis, but because we REALLY don’t like the Boltons. But it’s even more tragic because we spent so much time getting to know Stannis as a human being, only to find that he is capable of filicide. 

He was all ready to show the Boltons what’s up (and boy, were we hoping he would!). But I kept thinking, “How the mighty have fallen.” In the book, the battle is more even, but I think I like the former approach better. Sometimes, battles always have that sense of arbitrary unfairness to them in stories. While war may be unfair in reality, it’s always more interesting dramatically if the failure is tied to a character flaw of one of the leaders. In other words, if the Boltons and the Baratheons fought a mostly-even fight, and one of them came out on top, it is only as interesting as the battle itself. But if it’s tied to a flaw (cowardice, hubris, incompetence, etc), then that is more interesting. 

It’s not just Stannis’ treacherous actions that make this ending fascinating. For me, it’s also the fact that very little of this is even stated. It’s all shown visually. The men desert, but we don’t have to be told why. His wife kills herself, but we are not told - it is shown to us. But best of all, we never need to be told how much the deck is stacked against them. All we need is the line, “There won’t be a siege,” followed by the visual of Bolton’s army flanking Stannis’ small band of men (see: image at the start of this article). It’s told visually, because it’s television. And that’s awesome. 

SANSA and THEON

While Ramsey was off slaughtering Stannis’ men, Sansa finally lights her candle just a moment too late for Brienne to see it. She gets caught, but Theon - in a long-awaited moment of defiance - throws her captor to her death. The two then jump into the snow, where they will presumably attempt to escape. It is the end of a very dark period in both of their lives (we hope), and we are all eagerly anticipating what happens next. 

Sansa’s rape a few episodes back was the topic of much controversy, and I had mixed feeling about it. Or at least, I did have mixed feelings until I discovered that Sansa never marries Ramsey in the book. Then I had a realization: People are only mad that it happened to Sansa, instead of a minor character no one cares about. I don’t understand how it could be a step backward to remove a minor character, and give a trying experience to a main character. 

It ups the stakes. It’s easy to kill or torture characters we don’t really care about and haven’t gotten to know. It’s another thing entirely to do it to characters we’ve gotten to know, and care about deeply. But this is Game of Thrones at its best. It is any show at its best. Think of that scene in the final season of The Sopranos between Tony and Christopher. Or Nate on Six Feet Under. Or any of a number of characters on The Walking Dead. Except, with Game of Thrones, it’s every episode. And all that matters is that the death is done in the service of good storytelling. 

CERSEI

Things don’t go well for Cersei either, although I’m sure Theon would have gladly traded places with her. Cersei’s walk of shame is where this episode, “Mother’s Mercy”, likely gets its name. And it’s really powerful. 

After giving political power and legitimacy to the High Sparrow for her own political gains (to have her daughter-in-law thrown in prison), it backfires when they throw her in prison. And that isn’t even the half of it. They know about her love affair with her brother Jaime, and they intend to hold a public trial. She confesses to infidelity but not to the allegation of incest, for which she is actually guilty, and is granted the freedom to return to her castle. 

But only after she walks there, through the city streets, completely naked. The chickens come home to roost for the evil, manipulative Queen mother. 

Seeing her in prison the last few episodes was gratifying, for sure. This is an evil woman, after all. She calls her own brother, Tyrion, a freak, and blames him for their mother’s death. She even accused him publicly of killing Joffrey, even though she knew it probably wasn’t him. She’s complicit in Ned Stark’s death, did nothing to curtail Joffrey’s lunacy, and has dozens of political machinations at work at any given time. She is not a good person. 

And yet… I wept for her. 

She walks through hundreds of people, many of whom shout sexual slurs and hurl feces at her. The scene goes on for about ten minutes, and it seems like Cersei is going to endure it all. She forces herself to endure it, and not show weakness. The scene is both big in scope and intimate at the same time. 

In short, the show conveyed the painful emotions women often feel in our own society in a way that a man like me can actually connect to. And they did it with one of the least likable characters on the show! They have succeeded where hundreds of feminist bloggers have failed, even while these same feminist bloggers decry the show for its depiction of sexual violence toward women. Had the show held back or censored any of this scene, it would not have been as powerful. 

More importantly, this scene is WAY more effective in a TV show format than it could ever be in a book. There is less at stake in the imagination, but seeing it on screen adds a gravity that is not possible in the book. Lena Headey is a very real person, and the things she experienced while filming this scene are undoubtedly at the back of a viewer’s mind while watching. Of the myriad ways this scene could have been filmed, that they did not shy away from showing the ugliness of such an event is good. Most of it doesn’t feature music, and they do not use kid gloves. I truly believe that this scene is not any longer or shorter than it needed to be. In 10 minutes, an evil mastermind was transformed into a human, relatable character. And that’s good storytelling.

JON SNOW

Sam and Jon have a little chat about Sam going to learn to be a Master, and it’s clear that one of them is probably saying goodbye to the other for good. It turns out that person is Jon. The other Night’s Watchmen do not take kindly to Jon Snow’s decision to let Wildlings through the Wall, and so they kill him. 

This scene was like Stannis’ battle scene. It was tragically beautiful, if you think about everything that came before it. Jon Snow’s motives are, at this point, 100% pure. He knows the White Walkers are an unbelievably powerful force to be reckoned with, and he’s obviously making all the right decisions in getting the Night’s Watch to work with the Wildlings. 

On the other hand, the bad blood between them has a long history. Jon is, perhaps, naive to think this plan would work. That is why, when the boy who lost his family to Wildling raiders, is one of the last to put a dagger in Jon’s heart, it is understandable. He looks at Jon, as if to say, “how could you?” And it feels right and wrong at the same time. This moment almost moved me to tears. 

Now consider the book, where Jon tries to convince the Night’s Watch to join him in attacking the Boltons, and there’s a mutiny because he in effect is breaking his vow never to get involved in political matters of the realm. Now doesn’t that just seem a tad petty by comparison? Instead of Jon dying for something that we can all agree is a good cause - defending the realm against White Walkers - he dies in pursuit of yet another game of thrones, so to speak. 

This is why the show is better: it knows that heroes have flaws, but it also knows that stories like this need people to root for! It’s a drag when every character you place your hopes on just lets you down all the time. If heroes don’t rise up at all, then it’s just torture porn. We’re just pain addicts. That’s when the show really does become exploitative. So perhaps it’s Martin that’s being exploitative for not giving us at least something to root for.

The way they chose to kill Jon Snow, as opposed to the books, is one of the best examples of why the show is so great. And who knows… maybe the much-talked-about Lady Stoneheart storyline will be combined with Jon Snow, and they’ll bring him back to do everything she did in the book. Who knows? The good thing is that, we’re now at a point where no one knows the rest of the story. Not even book-fans. Maybe now, we can start to appreciate the show, instead of denigrating it for its lack of strict adherence to a book series that isn’t even finished.