Game of Thones—Why the Rush? It Didn’t Have to Be Like This!

Last season, the show tried very hard to make us think that Arya might kill Sansa, or that Sansa would betray Arya, or some other nonsense. All of the revealing conversations apparently happened off-screen, where Bran told Sansa and Arya that it was Littlefinger driving a wedge between them and OH YEAH he betrayed Ned.

So we got that scene where they put Peter on trial and kill him. Yay! The scene was awesome. The road to get there, though, was dumb. Which was pretty much all of season 7 in a nutshell.

The fight on the frozen lake? Awesome. Dany swooping in to save them? Awesome.

The plan to go and lasso a wight? Dumb. Gendry running for a full day to get to the wall? Dumb.

If you look at the scenes from last season that were super awesome, like the meeting of minds in Kings Landing, they only work in a vacuum.

The show is now very dependent on the groundwork laid for the characters through season 6, as they really haven’t shown the ability to craft a compelling villain or to evolve a character past where they were before the final two seasons. The most character development in that time would probably go to Euron for going from angry guy to cocky pirate guy with jokes. At least he killed the Sand Snakes.

Game of Thrones has tried to remind us that: 1) Dany is an outsider, and the North doesn’t trust outsiders for good reason; 2) Dany is a Targaryen, and they have a bad reputation up North after killing Starks; and 3) They just named Jon the King and he bent the knee, which they’re mad about.  We could definitely use more perspective from non-traditional sources in the show. It’s easy to forget that most of the seven kingdoms still see Dany as an outsider, and believe she will be as cruel as her father. They see her aligned with Tyrion, and most of the common people see Tyrion as a monster and a kinslayer. They haven’t gotten to see what we have. We’re third-person observers to a show driven by first-person encounters.

That’s why even though Sansa’s mistrust of Dany is perfectly reasonable for her to have, it’s met with eye rolls by the fans. That’s why when Davos tells Tyrion and Varys that Dany must “show the North the kind of queen she is,” it’s met with groans from us. We’ve already SEEN what Dany is, which is why it makes no sense for Dany to meet Sansa’s perfectly reasonable question of “what do dragons eat” with such a snarky comeback. Dany is acting like your cousin’s new girlfriend at Thanksgiving who is going to complain about the mac and cheese being too dry and put ketchup to the mashed potatoes strictly to start drama. Dany spent too much time in the desert I guess, fighting for legitimacy. Sansa spent a lot of time in Westeros doing the same thing. Now they both have it, and neither knows what to do with it. Sansa says she trusts Jon, but is skeptical of Dany and doesn’t seem to recognize the impending threat of the Night King, even though Bran already yelled at them. And Dany is so preoccupied with queenly BS she’s failing to notice the same thing.

These interactions feel out of place, and if the Sansa/North vs Dany conflict is going to be resolved in the same way the Arya vs Sansa conflict was, with off-screen conversations and a “surprise twist,” then a lot of the premiere was wasted on stuff that fans didn’t react positively to and that ultimately led nowhere. Which is a shame…because IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS. HBO would have gladly given Game of Thrones the time to tell a full season’s worth of stories. But that’s not what we’re going to get. And I’m beginning to get concerned about it.

We talk about the good and the bad from the premiere episode of season 8 on this week’s Take the Black Podcast. Check us out!

To stay up to date on everything Game of Thrones, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Watch Game of Thrones for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels