The leaks were true.
I watched Episode 5 knowing every beat that was coming and hoping against hope for a surprise (un-leaked) twist that never came. Visually, it was a stunning and well-acted episode. As a book reader, it felt like a gut punch.
The fact that the show writers are calling the ending “bittersweet” feels like a slap in the face. But we can talk about that next week, I guess.
Look, I know that “book fans” are a vocal and perhaps hard-to-please subset of the GoT audience. And I know that plenty of people (book fans or not) had their own pet theories about their favourite characters’ storylines, myself included. On one hand, it’s human nature to be salty if your theories don’t pan out, but on the other hand, that doesn’t create any obligations on the writer’s part, nor does it invalidate the writer’s own choices.
For me, what invalidates Episode 5 (and, if I’m being honest, all of Season 8) is the dumpster-fire-level sh*tty writing.
Up to a certain point (cough, until the show ran out of book material, cough), the characters as written made sense. I didn’t always like them, I didn’t always agree with their choices, but they were coherent and plausible. I am not here to say that there is no way that we could go from Point A (the characters, as originally written in the books and early seasons) to Point B (Episode 5). But watching Season 8 unfold, I can’t help but feel that the show writers had (a) no idea how to get from Point A to Point B, (b) no real interest in making it a plausible journey; and (c) no actual story-telling talent.
Let me give them their due: Episode 5 was a satisfying spectacle in the way that, say, a Michael Bay movie can be considered satisfying. There were bells (hah!) and whistles, and all kinds of cool-looking explosions.
It was also absolute garbage storytelling.
The easiest way to tell? Consider all the time that’s been spent telling the audience about critical developments, as opposed to showing us those things.
We have been told that Jon and Dany have some great love story. We have been told that Tyrion is the cleverest man in Westeros. We have been told that Jaime is a man wanting to change, until he wasn’t. We have been told that Dany is forever on the precipice of madness. And some of those things may have been true, or may have been potentially true had there been some actual effort made to ground them in the storytelling. Last week, I read that GRRM had said that he thought the show would have to be 12 seasons long in order to accommodate his story. You may joke about GRRM’s propensity to drag things out, but this makes so much sense to me. You want to end the story with Dany’s descent into Targaryen madness? Fine. SHOW ME! PUT IN THE TIME TO GET US THERE!
Ugh.
The funny thing is, I don’t think I would be nearly as disappointed if the books had already been written at this point. Then the show would simply be a crappy adaptation. But because this is the first time that we get to experience the ending, it feels like a much worse betrayal. The negative feelings engendered by the show’s terrible handling of the story will probably always be entwined with the story itself. And for that, I feel bad for GRRM.
Other random thoughts:
- Ok, some things I liked about the episode. I wasn’t invested in Clegane Bowl like some, but that was an appropriate send-off for those two characters. It also provided one of my fave moments of the night – Cersei side-stepping the Cleganes like “uh, don’t mind me, carry on”. Poor Qyburn, though – he was a creep, but he was loyal to his queen.
- Speaking of whom, I also thought Cersei had a good ending. A karmic one, even: destroyed under the weight of her terrible choices, foremost of which was hanging on to ill-gotten power (symbolized by the Red Keep) by any means possible. And it was in character, so to speak. Deep down, Cersei wasn’t mad so much as utterly selfish and cruel; when she realized she’d lost, her only thought was for herself and the fear of her own demise. She was never going to go out guns blazing just for the hell of it. Heck, I could even accept this ending as part of her prophecy – it was Jaime, her younger brother, who led her down to the crypts (or whatever) thereby, not intentionally, sealing their fate. It’s a stretch, but I will take it.
- One of my fave social media responses to the episode was something to the effect of “Jaime throwing Bran out of the window in episode 1 was foreshadowing for how the writers would throw Jaime’s character arc out of the window in season 8.” It’s true. But even assuming that the goal all along was to show that some people just can’t change, or will always revert to their true nature or whatever, tell me this: what was the point of the Jaime-Brienne hook-up? Their relationship as portrayed in episode 2 (when he knighted her) represented the best that Jaime has ever been or could aspire to be; that was the height from which he had to fall again, and it would have been poignant enough. The romantic stuff with Brienne now feels especially gratuitous in a way that just doesn’t sit right with me.
- Gosh, what a waste of screen time Euron proved to be, right until the end.
- They have turned Tyrion into a complete idiot. I guess they are once again pushing the narrative of “I never bet against my family” even though it just makes no sense anymore. I always took Tyrion’s perspective to be “I don’t bet against my family because they’re evil and will always get the upper hand”, which would not seem like motivation to act as he did in Episode 8 when he knows that Cersei is going to lose. I can maybe – MAYBE – see him put his neck on the line for Jaime by intervening on his behalf with Dany … but going behind her back after Varys had already been executed just so that Jaime could go off and save Cersei? No way.
- Jon and Dany have zero chemistry. They are a black hole of chemistry. I don’t buy that Jon is conflicted between his love for Dany and his growing realization that she might be the bad guy. Or even between his love for Dany and his knowledge that she’s his aunt. I get no “conflict” from Jon, only “cringe” and “stoic face”. I will put this down to Kit Harrington’s mediocre acting not being able to make up for the sh*tty writing.
- I can see now why the writers had Arya kill the Night King. Had she not done that, she would have been entirely superfluous this season. I’m not sure why we needed an “audience stand-in” during the massacre-by-dragon; it felt sickening regardless. And now I don’t know what is left for Arya. If this experience turns her away from the death business for good, what else does she have left?
- This is a minor point, but I cannot believe that Grey Worm would violate the rules of combat and strike a soldier who had just surrendered. Or that Dany’s entire army would turn to raping and pillaging in a split second.
- And, finally, Dany. Listen, I was never a Dany stan. I am perfectly willing to believe that she had the capacity to end up the Mad Queen, like her father. But foreshadowing is not character development. If she’s done terrible things in the past, those things made sense in the context – sense not in terms of morality, but in terms of character development. Burning King’s Landing after the surrender makes no sense for a character who was willing to die to save humanity TWO FREAKING EPISODES AGO. As others have said, this was one heel turn that the writers didn’t earn. Not even close. But congrats, because it worked. As a show viewer, I am done with Dany. As a book reader, I mourn the lost opportunity for a beautiful, heart-breaking character arc.
