The trouble with “big”—Why I’m nervous about Game of Thrones Season 6
By Dan Selcke
I am very much looking forward to watching Game of Thrones Season 6. I want to make that clear up front. I’m a fan, I own the seasons on DVD, I’ve read the Song of Ice and Fire novels multiple times, and I love playing in this world that George R.R. Martin has created and HBO has brought to the screen. Come rain or come shine, I’ll be there.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have concerns. Along with many other fans, I saw some cracks forming in the show’s foundations during Season 5. In the words of the The Atlantic’s Spencer Kornhaber, “I think you see more kind of typical TV writing in these later seasons, and you see more coincidences happening that you wouldn’t see in the earlier seasons.”
This concern is borne out when you look closely at the season, which features more than a few plot points that stretch credulity. For example, consider how Brienne of Tarth just happens upon both Arya and Sansa Stark during her wanderings around Westeros, or how Ramsay Bolton sneaks into Stannis’ camp with his “20 good men” and manages to burn a lot of supplies before anybody even knows he’s there. Ultimately, these are just details, and it’s possible for fans to argue their way around them. But if the writing were truly airtight, no argument would be needed—the plot should explain itself.
Kornhaber made his comments during a roundtable discussion with Amy Sullivan, another writer for The Atlantic, and NPR’s Rachel Martin. They discussed George R.R. Martin’s recent announcement that The Winds of Winter, the next volume in his series, wouldn’t be out ahead of Season 6, and wondered what that meant for the show going forward.
One of Sullivan’s comments gets to the heart of the problem the showrunners face as they break with the source material. “I think there will also be more of a temptation for them to create storylines in response to people that the audience likes as characters and people that they like as actors,” she said. “When there’s a character who’s not slated to die and yet isn’t really part of the action, on the shows, they have tended to create a new storyline just to keep those characters around.”
This happened a lot in Season 5. Look at Sansa, who traveled to Winterfell and married Ramsay Bolton. Sansa doesn’t do this in the books, but the producers wanted to keep the character at the center of the action, so they changed things. “We really wanted Sansa to play a major part this season,” showrunner David Benioff said of the decision. “If we were going to stay absolutely faithful to the book, it was going to be very hard to do that.
By the same token, Bronn headed down to Dorne with Jaime Lannister. Neither of these characters do this in the books. Bronn, in fact, is never seen again after he leaves King’s Landing ahead of Tyrion’s trial by combat, but the producers brought him back, presumably because they knew he was a fan favorite character.
It’s easy to understand the thought process behind these choices. Bronn was a popular character—the producers probably figured that the audience would want to see more of him and devised a way for him to return. Likewise, Sophie Turner is a talented actress, so why not give her a meaty plot to chew on? The problem, I think, is motive. When the producers make decisions based on who they’d like to work with and what they think the audience will respond to, they run the risk of the finished product feeling contrived. And indeed, these two plots were among the most heavily criticized of the season.
I would think that a series like Game of Thrones would be somewhat immune to this. After all, it’s the most popular show in HBO’s history, which is saying something. It’s not the kind of show where the producers need to placate the audience—people are going to watch no matter what. With that in mind, I’d figure the showrunners would be free to make decisions based purely on what’s best for the story, even if that meant saying goodbye to fan favorites or letting prominent characters stay on the sidelines for a while.
My fear for Season 6, however, is that they’ll keep making decisions based on what they think the audience wants, rather than what the story needs. That brings me to a bunch of comments Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) has made about the upcoming season.
- From an interview with the LA Times: “It’s just go, go, go, go. Shocking moment to shocking moment. Epic moment to epic moment. It’s mental; it’s epic.”
- From an interview with The Daily Star: “We’re just going to hit the audience with every episode, coming up with something more mental that the last. I can’t believe some of the twists in store.”
- From an interview with E! News: Game of Thrones Season 6 will have “the biggest moments on television that have ever existed.”
Clarke is making some pretty tall claims here. On the one hand, they give fans reasons to get excited. Who doesn’t want to watch television that’s “epic” and “mental” and “big?” On the other hand, after seeing the show stumble a bit in Season 5, I’m nervous those are polite ways of saying “loud” and “sensationalized” and “ungainly.” I’m afraid that the producers think the audience will respond to big, flashy moments and are determined to provide them at the expense of nuance and depth. I’m afraid that, in trying to give us the show they think we want, they’ll turn it into a show we no longer enjoy.
Look, for example, at “Mother’s Mercy,” the Season 5 finale. That episode was definitely big. Stannis Baratheon died in battle, Arya ripped a dude’s eyes out, Cersei took her walk of atonement, and Jon Snow was murdered by his own men. It was a huge hour of television, but in rushing from “shocking moment to shocking moment,” the script ignored the smaller beats that could have given weight to the larger ones.
This was particularly a problem for Stannis’ storyline. For example, we walked in on the aftermath of Selyse Baratheon’s suicide, but missed a moment that bridged the gap between her tearful breakdown in the previous episode and her death. The episode also provided little context for Melisandre’s hasty exit, and only a cursory explanation for why a large part of Stannis’ army abandoned him on the eve of battle.
Or look at Arya’s final scene in the House of Black and White, the one where she goes blind. In outline form, it works fine: Arya, unable to let go of her personal vendettas, killed someone she wasn’t supposed to kill, and the Faceless Men punish her by taking her vision.
The problem is in the details. Think about when the Waif turns into Jaqen H’ghar—since when can the Faceless Men grow their bodies? And how is fake Jaqen wearing an Arya mask under his other dozen or so faces? We were led to believe that the Faceless Men can only wear the faces of people they’d treated after their deaths. My bet is that the writers were focused on coming up with shocking moments (“Jaqen’ll have Arya’s face—that’ll be creepy!”) and didn’t stop to think if they made sense. The unintended consequence is that, instead of being floored, the audience is just confused.
Wait…what?
“Big” turns into “too big” so easily…that’s the trouble with it. Hopefully, the producers have this under control. After all, it’s not like they haven’t excelled at big scenes before. Fans need look no further than the Massacre at Hardhome for an example of a scene that delivers both superficial thrills and intense drama. The Massacre at Hardhome is “epic” done right. As long as the showrunners let those scenes develop naturally rather than forcing them on us just to get a reaction, the future looks bright.
With any luck, my nerves are unfounded and the coming year will be exactly as thrilling as Clarke describes it (also, it should be noted that all these quotes come from Clarke, so she might just be given to hyperbole). I’m nervous, and I don’t think it’s absurd to be nervous, but I’m also very excited. I’m ready to take in the new season, and hope it’s exactly as big as it needs to be.