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The End of Game of Thrones : Spectacle Against Art
Gabriel Black
May 27, 2019
Game of Thrones finished its eighth and final season a week ago.
Since the broadcast of his pilot episode in 2011, HBO's medieval-fantasy drama has become a worldwide phenomenon. The last season has attracted an average international audience of at least 44 million people per episode. It is expected that tens of millions of others watch the series over the next few days, either by hacking or by other means.
While in the US, the season finale was the most-watched scripted final since 2004, the last season also generated a back-and-forth audience. According to Rotten Tomatoes, only 37% of viewers enjoyed the last season, while the rest of the series had an average approval rate of 93%.
The series revolves around George RR Martin's popular novels. two dynastic families, the Starks and the Lannisters, delivering a brutal civil war in a fictitious imaginary world of the late Middle Ages. In the East, Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), exiled daughter of a recently overthrown third dynasty, frees slaves with her three dragons in order to regain the throne and establish a better world. However, far north, an army of resurrected dead is preparing an invasion to destroy them all. (Previous reviews are available here and here.)
The eighth season begins as Daenerys and his army join the Starks in the northern city of Winterfell fight the army of the dead. Over the past season, this coalition has attempted to establish a ceasefire with its enemy Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), who resides on the "iron throne" in the capital, King's Landing. Unsurprisingly, Cersei betrayed them, sending no army. His twin brother and incestuous lover, Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), irritated by his actions, left to join "the army of the living".
Almost all characters in the series, whose life and deeds have been divided into different arches of history for seven seasons, gather for the final battle at Winterfell. In the second episode, the most captivating, written by Bryan Cogman, intimate moments unfold between the characters as they consider their relationship to death. The viewer tastes the healthiest aspect of the series: complicated characters, interpreted by talented performers, presented with compbadion and humor in the dark world that they inhabit.
In the third episode, the Battle of Winterfell, exhaustive preparations against the dead are completely useless. Despite the many tools at their disposal, supernatural and other, the defenders are overwhelmed by the dead, who apparently kill just about everyone. An atmosphere of despair prevails. The struggles and achievements of the various characters, accumulated over the years, seem suddenly ineffective and useless.
The episode ends with one of the main characters, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), who comes out of nowhere and kills the leader of the dead, resulting in the destruction of the rest of the world. Between them. As the day is saved, we end up with a sense of meaningless completion for the central arc of the show.
The last three episodes are devoted to one last turn: the dragon queen, Daenerys, who fell in love with Jon Snow (Kit Harington), becomes more and more avenging, insecure and isolated – one of his dragons is killed by Cersei, as well as his closest badistant. Jon revealed that he is in fact his nephew, making him the legitimate heir to the throne. Although swearing eternal loyalty, he moves away from her.
In the fifth and most controversial event, Daenerys, despite the erasure of his enemies Lannister, attacks the civilians of King's Landing. It burned a city of a million people, destroying it without any strategic value, inciting its own soldiers to rage against the defenseless population, including Cersei soldiers who surrendered. It's a half hour hard to watch for murder and rash without motive. Cersei and Jaime, who have returned to his sister's home, both die.
In the final episode, although he continues to reluctantly follow the "crazy queen", Jon is convinced that he must kill Daenerys – and he does. The throne is symbolically melted by its surviving dragon and devoid of dragon. The entire series ends with Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright), who is now in his twenties, is elected king. Jon is exiled in the far north. Some beloved characters, who currently hold important positions in government, spend one of the last scenes arguing over whether they should spend money on brothels or ships.
Although the viewer's hostility toward the last season is not unanimous and that it contains a heterogeneous diversity. According to the opinions, the most widely shared feeling is that the last season was rushed, making his plot incredible and caricatural. A petition to repeat the eighth season with a "more competent" writing garnered a million and a half signatures, an important phenomenon in itself
Some cast members also hinted at their dissatisfaction. Harrington Kit, for example, when asked in an interview to use a word to summarize the last season, replied "disappointing" before getting clumsy and changing his answer to "epic" . Emilia Clarke, in a widely circulated video, balks and smiles when asked her badessment of last season, responding sarcastically, "the best season of all time".
The critical response seems globally healthy. This suggests that the public would prefer a sophisticated and realistic story, focused on character development and meaningful explanations – and not on gloomy battle scenes, the development of hollow characters and other pillars of the Hollywood show. This also suggests dissatisfaction with the insignificant layout of the central arc of the series, as well as the cynical and bbad note on which the series ends.
Although Season 8 is the worst of the series, it would be naïve to think that these themes and problems came from nowhere. Game of Thrones has always had two sides.
On the one hand, the series presents a relatively complex and morally ambiguous world, in which absurd representations of good versus evil are exposed as selfish lies. l & # 39; elite. Instead of characteristic Christian-patriotic themes of the genre, the series attempts to understand the material motivations of the characters and their intrigues. Not lacking talented actors, the viewer feels empathy for his struggles and his development. Imperfect and initially disgusting figures – such as the Lannisters – are not described as perverse incarnations, but rather as the product of the evolution of their conditions.
On the other hand, Game of Thrones frequently throws an artistic inquiry. , preferring to shock the viewer with sadism, badgraphy and gratuitous violence. For example, writers spend more time hammering the viewer with Daenerys' desecration of Kings Landing than providing a convincing explanation as to why it is happening .
It's not that violence or baduality in various forms is taboo. It is rather that Game of Thrones presents them frequently in order to overwhelm the spectator, not to advance the plot or to deepen the understanding of events and personalities by the public. As in the rape of Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and in the castration and torture of Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) in previous seasons, the show lasts for free to depravity as a substitute and actually Escape from artistic and psychological seriousness. [19659024] Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones
Although the show can be praised for its attempt to understand the social and material motivations of the characters, it also displays acts of absurd violence, "crazy" psychological twists, and wickedness as "realism". Daenerys' inadequately demonstrated transformation into a mbad murderer of hundreds of thousands of innocent peasants, workers, and traders is an example of the ideological commitment of the series to misanthropy . Such views can not be blamed narrowly on David Benioff and DB Weiss. The fusion of realism with cynicism is characteristic of a whole social layer of intellectuals, professionals and artists of the upper and middle bourgeoisie who, isolated, egocentric and pessimistic, make fun of it. idea that society or history could have a progressive logic.
Benioff and Weiss were invited to direct Disney's next Star Wars trilogy . Probably coming to give them over $ 30 million, the financial attraction might have motivated their decision to end the series earlier than HBO or George RR Martin wanted, an encouraging show during the last season.
Game of Thrones Not without merit. Millions of fans rightly feel something for characters like Jon, Daenerys, Tyrion, and Jaime, all of whom struggle convincingly with themselves and those around them to do what's right in almost impossible situations. The central plot, which has woven erroneous but developing characters, against a collective threat to humanity has undoubtedly struck a chord with its audience, including many young people. In addition, the talent and dedication that have governed his production (the cast, the team, the composers, the designers) are indisputable.
In the last season, the worst elements of the series, irrationalism, sadness and the show are decisive. on his best: complexity, explanation and empathy. In this context, the reaction of the general public to the best aspects of the series, but against its narrow, simplistic and seemingly hasty end, suggests a growing critical response to the unsatisfactory nature of the modern film and television industry. in general. [19659030]
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