Game of Thrones is facing a time crunch issue, and it’s never felt more obvious than in the premiere episode for the final season. The problem is, no one told the creators they had to do the final season in six episodes…or the penultimate season in seven episodes, for that matter! That was a specific choice the showrunners made and it has fans like myself concerned about the toll the rushed pace will have on the characters.
No character has suffered more in the last two seasons than Tyrion Lannister. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of source material for the writers to work with or if it is just that Tyrion has played his role as a leader and is now relegated to an advisory role, but he sucks at it. Sansa is 100% right, Tyrion used to be the cleverest person on the show, and now he’s literally the only person in the world who would ever fall or Cersei’s tricks.
Remember, this is the character that in earlier seasons fooled Varys and Littlefinger in a ruse that uncovered that Maester Pycelle was a spy for Cersei. For the entire first half of the show, he survived being a prisoner, battlefields, and his family (and took his dad out) and even survived getting crated up and shipped to Abu Dhabi like Nermal. He was tough, witty, clever, and most importantly motivated by a desire to prove his worth.
Now that he’s with Dany, he’s been given multiple opportunities to show his value as her Hand and has failed at every turn. I don’t know what his last successful plot was, but between the truce with the slavers, advising Danerys to not use her dragons, and the siege of Casterly Rock, Tyrion has been wrong a bunch. Like A BUNCH.
Tyrion was the leader of the show’s underdogs. Now he’s an adviser to the queen and his bastard friend is the queen’s lover and gets to ride the dragon. Metaphor definitely intended. Tyrion’s motivations right now are murky at best. Maybe that’s why he’s become a boring one-liner spewing bad-idea-having character.
With only five episodes left, it’s going to be difficult to work to a satisfying conclusion for Tyrion, and that’s a shame. Because it didn’t have to be like this.
Maybe this all leads to one final good idea or an ultimate sacrifice of some kind by Tyrion. Obviously I don’t know how the show ends. But he’s not the only character that has suffered at the hands of the show’s pace.