Historical fiction author Bernard Cornwell calls Game of Thrones “very, very dull”

Bernard Cornwell is an accomplished author of historical fiction, many of whose works have been adapted for the screen. His Sharpe novels, about a soldier who participates in many of the major battles during the Napoleonic Wars, were adapted into a TV series on ITV starring Sean Bean. His Saxon Stories series, about Alfred the Great’s attempts to unite England in the face of Danish invaders (think the Andals invading Westeros) is being adapted by the BBC as The Last Kingdom. His novels have also tackled subjects like the American Civil War and Arthurian Britain. The guy knows what he’s doing.

That’s why it’s dispiriting to hear that Cornwell doesn’t think much of Game of Thrones, as he revealed in a recent interview with the Radio Times. “So many characters. So many strands. You have to have large sections where the plot is explained, just have to sit there and be told what’s going on,” he said. “This is very, very dull.”

Ouch. Cornwell doesn’t mention whether he’s talking about the Song of Ice and Fire novels or the Game of Thrones TV show, or both, but either way, it’s pretty damning. He also claims that the story trots out a lot of titillation to distract from these tedious explanations. “So they put a lot of naked women behind it all. They’re called ‘sexplanations’ in the trade. My programmes won’t need sexplanations.”

First of all, it appears that Cornwell isn’t aware that there’s already a term used to describe how the show occasionally uses nudity to distract from info dumps: “sexposition.” Or maybe “sexplanations” came first—I’m not sure. Second of all, while it’s hard to deny that Game of Thrones has occasionally indulged in sexposition (let’s all take a moment to remember the infamous scene from “You Win or You Die” where Littlefinger explains his romantic history while instructing topless prostitutes how to fake orgasms), it’s eased off in recent seasons.

As a Game of Thrones fan, I don’t agree that the show features too many info dumps. At bottom, I think it’s a character-driven show, and the best moments usually derive from developments with those characters. At the same time, I respect Cornwell (his Warlord Chronicles series, which offer a realistic take on the King Arthur story, is excellent), so this is unfortunate.

Cornwell’s final comment (“My programmes won’t need sexplanations”) may explain a little of this. As already mentioned, the BBC is adapting Cornwell’s Saxon Stories as a TV series called The Last Kingdom—that’s a trailer for it above. The series is different from Game of Thrones, but there are some superficial similarities—it involves warring kingdoms, political machinations, and a medieval setting. BBC executives have cautioned critics not to compare the two shows, but plenty have done it anyway. While I don’t think Cornwell was thinking of A Song of Ice and Fire when writing his Saxon Stories, I do suspect that the success of Game of Thrones inspired television executives to seek out source material that bore similarities to it.

Unlike George R.R. Martin, who is consulted on the development of Game of Thrones, Cornwell won’t have any say in The Last Kingdom—he hasn’t read the scripts or seen the sets, and will watch it along with everyone else on the BBC. And yet, one assumes that The Last Kingdom is still included under the umbrella of “my programmes,” so he probably still feels some sense of ownership. I wonder if he isn’t rankled a bit by the continuous comparisons between that show and Thrones.

H/T The Guardian

Next: Cinemax is adapting a George R.R. Martin novella about werewolves for TV