What I expect for a story so intricately constructed as GoT is a conclusion that does is true to characters and to the show’s overall plot development. I want to feel that what I see on the screen makes sense in terms of how the world of the show works and how its characters behave. This has been lacking for a while, and it continued yesteday.
Once the show moved beyond the GRRM source material, it was obvious that the overall quality of the writing dropped significantly. That was to be expected given the time pressure of writing a TV show - and given that GRRM himself has not been able to finish the story that he has spent decades writing. But the show also became qualitatively different.
From season 6 onwards, and especially seasons 7-8, the storytelling became mostly about certain big moments and set pieces. Battle of the Bastards. John and Daenerys meeting. The expedition beyond the wall to get the wight. Littlefinger on trial. The loot train attack. The meeting at the dragon pit. And now the battle of Winterfell.
Now, to be fair, this is true of earlier seasons of GoT. There was always a big moment like Baelor, the Battle of Blackwater, or the Red Wedding, or Hardhomme. But the difference is that those moments felt earned then. They were the culmination of solid plot development, and the storytelling taking you from one big moment to the next was itself the best part of the show (and books). In recent seasons, I feel the writers basically take shortcuts moving from big event to big event. There are still thrilling moments from time to time, because there is such a rich baggage and character development to play with, but it feels like a waste of a final act.
Some examples come to mind:
- Arya’s departure from the Faceless Men/Braavos following those multiple encounters with the Waif. It culminated with the super satisfying “My name is Arya Stark and I’m going home line”, but getting there was frustrating as hell.
- The ridiculously artificial confrontation between Arya and Sansa leading to the killing of Littlefinger.
- The stupid plan to go beyond the wall to recover a wight (!) to take to Kings’ Landing (!!) to convince (!!!) Cersei (!!!) to join the fight against the Night King.
Beyond the Wall is the best example of why I’m frustrated with the show. The whole get-a-wight plan served two purposes: it gave us a thrilling (and incredibly beautiful) episode, and it allowed the Night King to get a dragon to then destroy the wall. But none of it felt earned from a storytelling perspective, because of the terrible and illogical buildup to that point.
[By the way, the reason why I absolutely loved S08E02 is that it had nothing of the above. It was an episode with virtually no plot development, but one that managed to deliver deeply emotional moments like Brienne’s oath.]
The Tyrion character arc is emblematic of how the show has ignored character development in favor of plot convenience. Tyrion, one of the great minds of Westeroos, has become a joke of a character simply because him making bad decisions was convenient to the plot. Because the writers wanted to set up a good guys vs Cersei confrontation at the end, Tyrion repeatedly made choices that are completely out of character. He was outmaneuvered by his brother when Danenerys arrived in Westeroos (splitting his army to conquer an empty Casterly Rock and losing his navy in the process), thus giving Cersei some reason to make it through the end of the show, and then concocted the capture a wight plan without for a second thinking that Cersei would obviously betray them wight or no wight, because it allowed the Night King to get his dragon.
This long preface is to contextualize my problems with last night’s episode.
The first set of complaints I have is that the in order to deliver some gorgeous visual moments, the show ignored some “rules of the world” or made strange narrative choices. The Dothraki attack made no sense in terms of military tactics (why would you send your cavalry, and poor Ghost, into the dark like that rather than keeping it in reserve?), but delivered a breathtaking visual moment. The dragons flying above the clouds for two thirds of the episode also made no sense - and I get that they were initially disoriented by the storm - but also gave us an iconic image. Arya in the library was a thrilling scene, but how are we supposed to believe that such a quiet place even existed when there were hordes of undead creating havoc all over the place. Lighting the trenches was fun!, but why build trenches behind, and not in front of, your troops?
And then my second big complaint is that most key characters, Arya excepted, behaved in strange ways. Daenerys and Jon, both good fighters and battle thinkers (well, Jon used to be pre-Battle of the Bastards) were basically useless. Brianne and Jaime had no purpose in the episode. Bran was warging to get a skycam view of the battle? Sansa and Tyrion had a wonderful moment together, I guess, and Theon had his redemption. But it was too little?
And finally, the Night King’s story feels so rushed. That cannot be what GRRM has in store for the books. It would be so unsatisfying after all the lore and the buildup of this great existential threat that he would (i) be somewhat easily destroyed like that; and (ii) that he would disappear without any credible explanation of his existence (why did they even repeat those NK symbols just two episodes ago?). I’m not even bothered by how he behaved like a B-movie villain at the end, thus allowing Arya’s final action (never hire White Walkers for bodyguards, I tell you).
I still love the show, and liked a bunch of moments in the episode. As I said, the opening Dothraki scene was visually brilliant. Melisandre was amazing in all of her scenes, and the foreshadowing with Arya in that scene with The Hound was fantastic (specially the callback to their encounter in season 2). And Arya being the one to kill the NK and thus finishing her arc was beautiful.