WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS
Towards the end of the final episode of Game Of Thrones, there’s a moment where Drogon, after a very long
shot of his dragon-face where we are supposed to be able to intuit his emotions
and thoughts based on nothing more than looking at him, breathes blisteringly
hot fire all over the Iron Throne (instead of over Jon Snow, even though he has
just stabbed Daenerys while snogging her).
In a short space of time, something as iconic as that seat is transformed
from a unique, imaginative, well crafted, revered and original piece of
artistry to a hot steaming pile of molten mess.
I don’t know if the producers intended this, but it’s the perfect
summation of where season eight fits in with the other series in the Game Of
Thrones canon. It’s still some of the
best television ever, but it’s a poor imitation of what has come before it.
Let’s be realistic, though, the final series was never going
to please anyone. Hardcore fans, no
matter the ending, were always going to struggle with exactly that: they didn’t
want it to end. In season four, it looked like the storylines could
never be resolved, yet season eight dispatches conclusion after conclusion with
the nonchalance of a housecat knocking ornaments off a windowsill. After the peak of season six , and the exceptional contribution
of season seven, it really hurts. Season eight took a long time coming,
breaking from the annual cycle of its predecessors only to premiere when it was
good and ready. Again, we didn’t have
ten outings to look forward to: there were just six episodes. But each was nearly feature length. More budget would equal more entertainment,
surely. But no, Game Of Thrones lost its
beauty of being the best use of TV as a format ever, and instead felt like a
themed hexalogy of straight-to-TV movies.
At the time, despite needing to witness the biggest event to occur in
television broadcasting, I found myself ill-prepared in a non-Sky household. Each Monday night I would need to voyage
across London to different friends’ front rooms to make sure I didn’t risk
going into the office the next day without being completely up to date on the
latest, until settling on a particular friend whose location, set up and
hospitality suited the best. He’d never
even watched the programme but indulged me drawn curtains and complete silence
for each subsequent instalment. I was
enraptured to find out how it would all end, and therefore in no frame of mind
to give it any serious analytical thought.
But, re-watching this final series for the first time in order to write
this blog, I found myself slowing down in my ability to sit through
back-to-back Game Of Thrones. I must
have seen season one five times now, yet
this second sitting of the eighth series proceeded slowly, losing out to The Walking Dead’s epic tenth season, some Broad City and the last season of Bojack Horseman.
So, what’s not to like about it? The first thing is that it all feels very
rushed. What unfolds in each episode
would have filled a season by earlier standards. Things could have been drawn right out and
nobody would have minded. Sure, it’s
good pacing to build momentum to a final climax, but the characters’ behaviour
becomes surprisingly erratic, squandering hours’ worth of foreshadowing with
contrived moves that prevent any delay to finishing the stories. I’ll refer us to two other sources here who
go into more detail about the two greatest flaws in season eight. The first video here from Screen Rant
cleverly labours the fact we have no explanation for this rush. When such clever quality has come before, it
seems inexplicable that this would suddenly run out. The second is an article here
on the blog of the Scientific American which attributes our disappointment to a
change in the storytelling itself.
Before, Game Of Thrones’ storytelling was sociological: we could clearly
see that the actions of Cersei or Daenerys, while violent, were informed by external
factors such as their upbringing, the prevalent culture, the environment, belief
systems etc. Sociological storytelling
is rarer because it is harder to do quickly, though it often solicits great acclaim,
such as our reception to The Wire. Hollywood favours psychological storytelling,
with people doing things because of how they think and feel internally. Somehow, this pollutant gets into the
bloodstream of season eight and makes everything stricken and uncomfortable. Tyrion, Arya, Jon Snow, Daenerys and even
Drogon have to emote at the camera for longer than usual, pulling faces to convey
inner turmoil whereas before their actions and words in response to other
factors would have clearly shown and justified these moves. It’s cheap and lazy and less than Game Of
Thrones fans deserved.
The internet is already awash with this sort of opinion, so
there’s little more to add, but the geek in me finds closure in being able to
pinpoint what should have been done differently. It’s still epically ambitious telly. The first half of the season builds to and
culminates in the final battle against the Night King. The sense of impending doom and hopeless odds
is maintained well throughout, peppered with longed-for reunions among key
characters, netting these three episodes higher IMDB ratings and the final instalments
(though still much lower than all the episodes before). It’s no surprise that the Night King comes at
night, but I’ll again have to show a lack of originality and join the ranks of
those that cursed the battle in The Long Night
for being too dark. I adjusted my screen
settings three times while watching it and still had no confidence that I was
seeing things properly. It was only
afterwards I realised that I should probably have googled for advice on what
settings to apply on a 55” LG OLED, but maybe someone at Thrones HQ could have
watched the ep back and realised it was overly concealed by its own shadows. Nevertheless, it’s still a thrill-fest from
start to finish. We gasp as some of our
faves are dispatched (Edd, Berric, Lyanna Mormont, Jorah Mormont, Theon) and
cheer when Arya finally ends the whole thing with one stab of the pointy
end. It’s hard to believe it’s over. Just like that, a problem like the Night King
is solved and we’re into the second act, off to King’s Landing to deal with
that naughty Cersei.
But it all starts to go wrong again for our Daenerys, with
Missandei coming so close to surviving the whole thing and another dragon
getting offed. She’s understandably miffed. Cue The Bells, the
televisual equivalent of the world’s biggest wank as we’re forced to watch King’s
Landing get incinerated by a vengeance-mad Targaryen atop a dragon. Street after street is flooded with fire, burning
alive men, women and children, most of whom end up exposed after tripping over
Arya while she staggers about for no reason.
She’d be chewing the scenery if there were any left. Yes, we’re meant to believe that actually Daenerys
has been bonkers all along. Look at her
face, yeah, that’s how you know. She
mad. Oh, she mad. We lose sympathy for her quickly. Gone is the Thronesian trope of making us root
for morally compromised characters. We’re
now being told clearly who’s a baddie and who’s a goodie. Peter Dinklage has to
act his absolute socks off to bring anything good to the whole sorry affair and
Tyrion’s remorse and disappointment are bitterly palpable. But is he cross about the burning, or just furious
to be involved professionally in the whole affair?
Among the burning, you can spot further Hollywood hacks
woven into our previously precious story-telling. I give you: two leading men having fisticuffs. This ideally takes place amid jeopardy (for
example, a collapsing Red Keep). It’s a
pet hate of mine in films and explains my lack of interest in superheroes. No matter what has come before, the final
stakes are decided by enemies punching each other. It’s just not interesting as the good one has
to win eventually. As King’s Landing
gets roasted, Jaime takes on Euron in a dirty beach brawl for the right to get
side eye from Cersei. Upstairs, the
Clegane brothers finally have at each other because, by the way, Sandor is much
angrier about Gregor burning his face when he was a child than we have realised
at any point up till now. The Hound’s fight
with Brienne in season four was elevated above this nonsense by all the genuine
baggage each character brought to every bone-crunching punch, but the
elaborately choreographed set pieces that play out here leave me so cold I’m
surprised they didn’t put out the dragon’s fires.
I’m feeling guilty about trolling this all so much, but I’m
not even done. After so much post-massacre
faff (and me wondering where that massive Targaryen banner came from and how
any Dothraki have survived this far at all) I almost felt like I would stab Daenerys
to death if Jon didn’t hurry up and do it.
There was no guessing, no surprising.
It was coming a mile off, only it was limping and had a leg off. For this act, Jon Snow, our hero, is banished
back to the Night’s Watch. Now this does
get a strong reaction, as it seems like unjust punishment. But his final shots show him ranging beyond
the wall with Wildling kin and we realise he’s now about as done with Westeros
as we are. Everyone decides Bran should
be king (he’s not arsed), despite a brief moment of considering parliamentary
democracy (LOL), while Sansa at last achieves secession for the North from the
other six kingdoms. Arya is teed up for
her spin off, The Amazing Adventures Of Arya Stark, by sailing off the edge of
the map, and, with that, we’ve said goodbye to each of the surviving Stark
children.
Don’t get me wrong, this is all still an amazing achievement
in television. No show has ever got so
big before that its final season could only be delivered through feature-length
episodes. The cinematic ambition is never
lost. Our eyes can still feast on a
richly imagined world. Every shot, every
set piece, every scene is carefully executed.
The end of Game Of Thrones is triumphant by anyone’s standards. But this dazzling doesn’t distract from a
damaging lane change. By dialling down
the storytelling craft and hurrying to get things over with, any fan can’t help
but feel jarred. There’s short change in
this final visit to Westeros, simply because the standards set before were so
high. Leaving us on an IMDB rating of 4.1, despite
reaching 9.9 more than a handful of times, Game Of Thrones is best remembered
for its other seasons. Just pretend it
never ended.
Best newcomer
Even as the population of existing characters dwindles, we’re
not given anyone new that’s significant enough to mention here. Instead, I just want to question who the
extra ones are back in the dragon pit when the fate of Westeros is decided. They get to say “aye” I suppose.
Most valuable character
While Arya does indeed save all mankind from death, it’s Jon
Snow that ultimately gets left with all the hard jobs. Galvanising everyone to fight the dead when
nobody believes him is one thing, but then having to be the one that kills his
own aunt (that he’s in love with) to eliminate her from ruling, and then being
punished for it with banishment, all while being the rightful heir, just shows
what a stoic martyr he is.
Best death
It’s poor Lord Varys that sticks in my mind here. Conleth Hill provides
consistently understated performances in every season, but he even manages to
bring nuance to Varys’s dawning realisation that the queen he’s risked
everything for isn’t going to live up to his expectations and be the best
choice for the realm. This is despite
the looky-looky nature of the season eight dumbshow that guides us through what
is happening with sheer obviousness.
Scheming (for good) till the end, he is led finally to be fried with a
final dracarys and we can only be glad that he outlive arch-rival Littlefinger. Second place: Qyburn getting his head smashed
in by the Mountain. Splat.
Jaw-dropper moment
You can’t get much more Thronesian than a flaming sword, so
when Melisandre ignites the blades of Daenerys’ Dothraki hordes as the Night
King approaches Winterfell we marvel at this cinematic sequence, if only
because it provides some much-needed illumination to proceedings. What follows is the slow extinguishing of
every last flame as Daenerys’s loyal soldiers ride into the fray. We’re in for a long night.
