Into the Woods

Since its beginning in 2011, Ken Ilgunas and I have made a tradition and a sport of watching and subsequently deconstructing each new episode of Game of Thrones. If Ken was here, we watched it in the evening and started our “Thrones talk” at breakfast. If he wasn’t here, we did it in email. As literary confederates, there are many things about which we are in complete accord. But that’s not always the case.

To prepare for the final season (which starts at 9 p.m. Sunday, April 14, on HBO), we each re-watched the previous season, Season 7. Our discussion of the re-watching follows, lifted from email. Hereafter we will “co-blog” each episode of the final season, hopefully by the Monday after each episode.

Ken:

Morning David. You’ve told me you just binged Season 7. As you know, I had some issues with the last season (which I’m sure I’ll get to), but I’m curious: What were your impressions, and what do you think we can expect from Season 8, the final season?

David:

Yep. I binged, and I was transfixed. Two years was enough to make it fresh again, though of course I remembered most of what happens. Somehow the flaws that we’ve discussed mostly melted away. What stood out in re-watching were the incredible quality of the dialogue, the perfect casting and brilliant acting and directing, the settings, the photography, and the detail. Brilliant dialogue, of course, requires more than just the dialogue. It can occur only with strong characters inside a good story. The sibling spats are brilliant — Jaime and Cersei, Sansa and Arya. (There is something particularly vicious about sibling spats.) Another remarkable thing about the dialogue is that it’s just as good whether it’s dialogue about war and affairs of state, conducted by the powerful; or taunting and ribbing by the lowly, as in some of the dialogue while the zombie-retrieval crew were laboring north. I believe I have only one strong complaint. That’s the zombie thing, which I continue to see as an un-original selling-out to a fad, and the tail-end (I hope) of the fad at that. It’s a shame to mar something so original with more zombieness.

Anyway, as for the flaws, I’m a pushover when it comes to suspension of disbelief, as long as the story is not in the here and now. I rarely binge. But re-watching Season 7 put me into a trance.

The New York Times had a piece about how Northern Ireland is now overridden with GoT tourists. Having hiked the Scottish Islands with you since we first watched Season 7, it all looked familiar (and even more beautiful). I’m just glad that all that tourist traffic isn’t descending on Scotland, because those coastal vistas work best when they’re clear of everything but sheep. I paid much more attention to the settings while re-watching Season 7. The settings are incredibly powerful. You’ve heard me say many times that certain kinds of stories can be told only in certain kinds of settings. The example I always use is that the moment a writer chooses to set a story in the American South, it’s a given that somebody is going to be repressed, oppressed, and miserable, and that the story will revolve around social and family conflict and whether key characters can or cannot be true to themselves. It would be much harder to tell a story like that in San Francisco, or Paris. Part of the genius of HBO’s GoT is that the producers understood the importance of epic settings, and they had the budget for it. Now we’ve got those places on film forever, though I hope those places never change. When the producers of Star Wars took us to Skellig Michael, I suspect that it was because Star Wars had to hit the new standard for settings set by Game of Thrones. What a good way to use a big budget! My TV no longer seems big enough. To top Skellig Michael as an epic setting, you’d have to get out among the stars — another setting in which epic stories can be told. Some settings enlarge us; some settings knowingly cramp us and suffocate us. Compare “Angela’s Ashes,” a very different Ireland from Skellig Michael or the seascapes of Ulster. My larger point is that, in HBO’s GoT, story and setting are brilliantly matched. It may be easier to appreciate those settings in a second watching, when the characters and dialogue don’t demand our full attention.

Now I just hope that the final season doesn’t let us down and that we end up happy and satisfied, with another epic for a lifetime, like Star Wars. If that happens, then it will be your curse to watch John Snow (a few years younger than you) and the other characters grow old, as my generation had to watch Luke Skywalker (a few years younger than me) and Leia grow old. These are stories that provide a mythic framework for our lives.

The New York Times also had an article about how GoT is a new economic model for television, with a budget that would have been unimaginable not long ago. Let’s hope that that model continues … as long as somebody can come up with stories worth that kind of telling.

Ken:

Your cheery take is heartening to read because I hope you’re right and I’m wrong. I’ve re-watched Season 7, and my second watching confirmed my original impressions: It is by far the worst GoT season. I say this for three reasons:

1. The fast pace of the season is out of step with the slow pace of the rest of the series. One can now travel across Westeros instantaneously (whether by horse, dragon, or boat) when, in a previous season, it would have taken a whole season for a character to move from A to B. They are practically teleporting. This isn’t me just quibbling about suspension of disbelief issues. The “slow storytelling” of GoT was one of the things that set GoT apart from all other shows. These were great opportunities for character development, and they made long-awaited path-crossings cathartic or dramatic (like the Hound vs. Brienne). The Jon-Dany introduction could have been a bit more exciting if they took an extra episode or two to cover Jon’s sea voyage.

2. The plot became bonkers. I know this is fantasy, and I’m prepared to generously suspend my disbelief with dragons and fire magic, but the expedition north to capture a zombie to bring it back to King’s Landing doesn’t work on many levels.

3. The dialogue was substandard. In previous seasons, we had interesting pairings of characters. Now, they just shove a bunch in the same room, where they jest and prod and deliver quippy one-liners. The scene with Jon and Dany in the cave was appallingly neat, and corny. The dramatic Jaime “death” and rescue scene, after the battle with the Dothraki, was beneath the writers’ standards. There was little character development. About 85% of the dialogue was exposition, reminding us of everyone’s past, their relationships with one another, and their plans for the future. What happened to stories about their lives or the relaxed and clever banter, such as the Verys/Tyrion banter, which was so good? This all exposes the writers’ need for good George RRRR Martin dialogue, which they no longer have access to.

I say all of this with deep respect for the writers, producers, and actors, and of course Martin. GoT, as a TV series, belongs in a tier of its own, and GoT episodes, during quiet parts of my last eight years (as sad as this sounds), have been some of my intensest emotional events. I fear the show has lost its Martin magic, and I truly fail to see how they’re going to wrap up all storylines, win the war against the White Walkers, and provide satisfying epilogues for the surviving characters—all in a shortened final season. I worry that the season will only be the movement of chess pieces, followed by gory CGI fests. There are only a handful of relationships to be mended; there aren’t many more secrets to be learned; there aren’t many dramatic character reunions to be staged; there are no new love affairs to be consummated.

I think GoT is going to live out the fate of 2007 New England Patriots, who had a perfect 16 win, 0 loss season, but who flubbed it in the Super Bowl against the Giants. I worry a dissatisfying finale will make the preceding seven seasons irrelevant and un-rewatchable. No one wants to be more wrong than me.

David:

Here is a critic in The Atlantic who agrees with you. Whereas I am in denial:

The Old Thrills of Game of Thrones Might Be Gone for Good

Ken:

I agree with everything he says, 100%. In ways, we wrote the same column, but his was far better. Indeed, I felt the same thing about the Littlefinger plot. The Stark sisters plotting against one another was ridiculous. We saw Littlefinger’s death a mile away…. I envy your denial!

David:

Your case is strong, and I will concede and throw in the towel and wail and gnash my teeth if it comes to that. But I also have to hope that the HBO writers and producers are smart, are aware of these dangers and past mistakes, and that they also have access to George RRRRR Martin, who I think would not hesitate to tell them what he thinks, even if his contract binds him to public silence. I do think that stories are safest in the hands of a single inspired writer whose only product is words rather than zillion-dollar productions.

May the force be with us.

Would you like for me to append a link to this piece as an update to our post?

Ken:

Sure, that’s a good piece.

The Old Thrills of Game of Thrones Might Be Gone for Good