Game of Thrones -- "The Iron Throne"
Game of Thrones
HBO
Season 8: Episode 6
"The Iron Throne"
The Nicsperiment Score: 9/10
The first few seasons of Game of Thrones are incredibly ugly television. That streak of ugliness continues for seasons afterward, too. Evil seems to be reveled in. The morally good are punished. The most self-interested always win. Even the apparent hero, preparing in a far off land to return with fire and blood seems...brutal and narcissistic.
Well...that's what I think. Apparently, portions of the audience don't agree. To them, those early seasons are the best, and that dragon-riding, people-burning daughter of a king is an icon and hero.
I'm glad I stuck with this show. Binging it over six months meant that if an episode made me feel icky, I could quickly move onto the next, instead of having to sit in it for a while. Seeing the kind, gentle, meek and wise continuously be punished for those things was difficult. At times, Game of Thrones felt like an anti-Sermon on the Mount.
Despite the way those darker aspects were presented, it was never clear if the show was fine with what was happening. It simply presented an unvarnished look at a cruel world. However, as the show has entered its end game, it, much like HBO's 12-years gone most lauded show, The Sopranos, picks a side. The Sopranos final episodes and finale give a clear look at its characters, just what their actions mean, and how their actions reveal who they are. Tony Soprano's actions that once seemed so cool and visceral are laid bare as the evil acts of a sociopath. Game of Thrones' final season and its series finale, "The Iron Throne," give a similarly clear look at its characters. Some people have appreciated that--and I most definitely fall into that camp. Some have hated it. All I can say is, it's never a great idea to watch a show with the expectations that it will follow a narrative agenda you yourself have constructed.
How I Met Your Mother's finale is derided for a good reason: the show's entire narrative is centered around its title, yet its final episode posits that it was actually about something else the entire time. It also spends its entire final season attempting to make the audience believe its wildest character has settled down, only to say in the last ten minutes, nope, he can't do it. This kind of rug pulling is cruel. Game of Thrones presented an exiled character, who grows more and more powerful, while sometimes doing heroic and laudable things, but whose central motivation is always made clear: my father was in charge, so I should be, too. Turns out, Game of Thrones does have a perspective: hungering for power is wrong. Nepotism is wrong. Violence in the service of gaining power is wrong. Vengeance is empty. This bloody, sometimes vile story ends up being a morality play, which was indeed about its title the entire time--a Game the show does not believe is worth playing.
"The Iron Throne" is a quiet, understated episode, full of powerful moments. The only truly loud moment features perhaps the most powerful use of dragon fire in modern fiction. "The Iron Throne" also completely justifies last week's "The Bells," and follows an airtight narrative logic. Any thread or connection that felt hanging or incomplete is given the needed attention. "The Iron Throne" does share the main flaw of this entire final season, in that it does feel a bit rushed, particularly in a scene where all the lords of the land meet to make a major decision.
However, everything that happens does makes sense, and the emotional components are given full weight. So is the show's newfound sense of justice. Even our good guys who have made boneheaded decisions are called out on their mistakes, and have to atone for them in some very fair, and even-handed ways. And in the service of this--
The cinematography, production values, acting, and music are all top notch. While it's silly to say, "This will be the last time a show will ever be this huge," it's tough not to get that feeling once Game of Thrones' final credits roll. I do feel like, at some point, something else will be able to reach this epic level of world-building and mammoth production. I didn't think a TV show could again feature as thematically rich a musical score as what Michael Giacchino did for Lost, but Game of Thrones' composer, Ramin Djawadi, has proved me wrong. Another fantasy epic will come along at some point and be just as big as Game of Thrones. Until then, though, and even after, Game of Thrones is a show I can see myself watching again and again.
Comments
But honest thought question from someone that obviously doesn't give much about this show or book series (and so won't care about spoilers). Could a fan of this show see the rejection of that worldview as a kind of rug-pulling?
And another thought question: does the final episode or episode arc rejecting that premise of blood and vengeance really make up for the worldview that has been presented for so long? I haven't seen it, but a good criticism of Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge is that it's about a man that follows the path of non-violence, while the movie itself seems to revel in the violence. And a potential criticism of The Passion is that it relies a bit on a viewer's outside knowledge to appreciate what all the violence is being gone through for.
I honestly can't watch a fair amount of movies and tv shows because of how graphic they've chosen to be, and even the ones that people have said are saying something about that graphic sex or violence... just don't hold up enough for me (or could just say what they wanted to say without the graphic stuff).
(random aside, Martin is saying his books won't end the same way: I'm wondering if he's doing that for sales or what he's got up his sleeves... though I suppose he can take all the time he wants to take criticism of the show into account and rewrite, heh)
Even Arya, who essentially dedicates her life to revenge, sees no value in lording over people. Sansa and Bran both prove to be excellent public servants (though the show most definitely puts Sansa through more than it needs to) who put the people of the North before themselves, and Jon, who is revealed to not even be Ned Stark's true son, ends up following his adopted father's example most purely. He's referred to as the Shield of Men, and he earns the title, ever as he's sort of a dunderhead. Meanwhile, the only thing holding Daenerys back from just burning everybody in her way is her trusted friends and advisers--they're essentially her conscious, and when they die, she has no moral check.
There's a particularly horrific act of violence near the end of the third season, and also one near the end of the fourth, which I think are turning points in how the show treats violence in general--it's generally only glorified moving forward at select moments, mostly involving battles against the army of the dead. Consequently, or perhaps not consequently, this is also around the time that the show starts to let up on the gratuitous nudity.
I think the viewers who feel betrayed, feel betrayed about Daenerys killing thousands of people in the penultimate episode and ultimately not being the moral hero they thought she was...but Daenerys said on multiple occasions in past seasons that this is exactly what she was going to Westeros to do...take it with fire and blood. And there are many, many, many hints and details leading up to that moment that foreshadow her future actions.
To me, ignoring a character's very major flaws to make her a figurehead for whatever you want, then completely blasting the show as garbage when that character, whose actions have been consistent with how she is presented, can no longer be used as that figurehead is ridiculous. Really, none of these characters are great examples of some laudable concept--most of them turn out to be extremely flawed, very human individuals, outside of the handful that are sociopaths.
All that said--I said back in my marathon review of the show's first seven seasons that the first years glorified violence. I don't think there is a defense for it. The show was purposefully lurid. But I do think the way that they began to STOP glorifying it far before this final season more than earns what happens to the actual Game of Thrones...and it most definitely takes a page from Tolkien. The ring gets burned in the fires of Mount Doom, while the one who most lusted after it is destroyed in that same fire. The throne is melted to nothing by dragon fire after the ones who lusted after it most (Daenerys and Cersei...and Littlefinger...and a hole other big pile of bodies) have perished because of it. Frodo suffers deep inner pain as a result of his role as ringbearer, and has to leave Middle Earth. John was seduced as much as anyone by the idea of Daenerys (and holy crap, everyone around him, including his siblings is saying DON'T, DON'T, DON'T, which should set the viewer off more than anything), and though he atones for it by putting an end to her, he has to leave Westeros, as well. Now that I think about it...the tales end up being very similar. I don't think Martin's ending will be much different than the show's--the lede often getting buried is that he's said the changes involve minor characters, most of whom didn't appear in the series. I know he says he abhors violence, and was a conscientious objector in Vietnam...for whatever happens early on in the books (and I haven't read the books outside of the Silmarillion-like Fire and Blood), I can see that perspective shining through the show's second half.
Sorry if this rambled or doesn't make sense, it's really late, and I've felt kind of intense about this finale. I firmly believe half of the audience was truly happy with it, even if they had some issues. However, it looks that other half is going to be very loud for the foreseeable future. This was a complicated show, and honestly, a neat resolution would have been the biggest betrayal.
You know one of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami, and in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a man skinned alive. It goes on for a page or two. He's never reveling in it, the act itself isn't overly detailed, the moment is just... horrifying: you don't want to be there. It's part of a whole bunch of sick, terrible things in the world and you have no doubt about it.
Anyway, back to GoT, your thoughts are interesting. The Atlantic has had a series of editors/writers talking about it, and they were split on the Danaerys stuff. One of them thought she had more of a moral core and thought this was a complete rejection of it (but she did come from a mentally unstable background, they admit...). I read the first book years ago, but given her coming of age through being forced into marriage and then bringing that husband back from the dead... she does have some violent, authoritarian training baked into her.
The misogyny thing seems a lot more tenable if you wanted to argue for the whole show in the first couple seasons, and I know a lot of people did (given the nudity being focused on women, etc.), but the treatment of one of many characters in a way does not mean the whole thing is that way. And yeah, it sounds like the show has changed at least some in that regard. If there's nuance to how all the female characters are handled and on par to the males, then that shifts things.
I get feeling intensely since people are so up in arms over things (part of which is the hype of waiting: expectations are so hard to handle, which is why I give Endgame a pass on some things as it does at least handle most expectations well). I just finished Kazuo Ishisguro's The Buried Giant, which apparently split his fans because it's set in recently-post Arthurian Britain, so ogres, dragons, and magic have a presence, and supposedly it's because he was so "realistic" before? He was apparently worried about it as well. But that makes no sense to me because I'm reading Never Let Me Go and that's definitely speculative fiction with cloning.
Buried Giant is great, too, so people can just stick it. Manage your expectations, fans!
Thanks for sharing, too. Maybe it's weird, but I like keeping track of big TV/movie/book trends even if I'm not wanting to follow them myself: I like knowing where things are at culturally.
This hits the nail on the head for me. There is so much objectification of women in those first seasons. It's some of the worst ever put to television. I completely agree with that, and it honestly bothered me to the point that I almost quit watching. But "one of the female characters I liked turned out to be the bad guy--this show is sexist!"? You were okay with the show before, but not when it gives equal opportunity to villainy? At least Daenerys wants a peaceful world, even if she thinks she has to burn down most of it first--compared to the sociopathic Ramsey and Joffrey, the show's two most evil characters, both males, her point of view is nearly saint-like.
I also feel that I don't want to get to high and mighty on myself--I can't pretend that on some level I don't enjoy watching acts of violence on screen, if I don't feel like it's totally being glorified, and if it's not being directed toward the weak--I just cheered Keanu Reeves on in a cinematic killing spree yesterday. When I was working on that sci-fi trilogy, I most definitely enjoyed writing some descriptive dismemberment (and I love gory horror movies, as well)...but if it's something like what you describe in Murakami, I much prefer to go that way. I guess I like violence in the service of cinematic or literary action when it's two willing combatants, but I abhor it in the service of torture, or...I'm rambling again.
The Buried Giant sounds like something I need to get into.
The reason I'm noting that is some airheads on Goodreads were hating it on for being slow (somehow "much slower" than his others), even though it's the same style. Never Let Me Go is really good so far, but on its surface its someone looking back at their time at an English boarding school. If you're missing all the hidden subtext, you really shouldn't trumpet it, man!
I'm also glad to hear Game of Thrones went in this direction, actually. I honestly was despairing a bit that it was so loved when it sounded like it had such issues. Might be a bit silly in a world of all the Transformers movies (sans Bumblebee, of course!), but I did.
I remember having a big debate with another Christian in college about watching violence in movies. He was dead set against any violence (so even PG type stuff, or the Star Wars movies, etc.), but I argued against it being that traumatic, and that depending on the story, it can be worth it. I do think about that conversation a lot, as it was one of a few different moments that got me thinking about the ideas and media I ingest. I actually wish I had taken it more to heart for some things, as I have watched and read some things because I thought I "should." As in, this is seen as an important work, or it has a large impact, and you need to know it and understand it.
You can tell I still think like that some, but I'm not going to watch something for that sake alone: how something is saying something does have bearing on what it is saying. Anyway, I just wanted to put it out there so it was clear I'm not being judgmental about anything.
Yeah, and this is reminding me of conversations with other writers at my Christian college about swearing in our writing: should we do it? I'm even further in the camp of "do it if it's going to add something to the story, but maybe don't do it too often" (even if some people can be almost virtuosic with how much they swear, it still tends to be over-much if it goes on for too long). The people that seemed to be most against it really seem to forget that the writer/creator is not necessarily advocating for the things their characters are doing. Sure, they need to think about what their work is saying overall, but you can't take that so far that you sanitize everything and have no conflict.
Okay, stopping now. I'm tired and my mind was wandering. Hope that made sense!