It goes without saying that Game of Thrones had a great many strengths on which it capitalized. Everything from its mature rating to its huge budget allowed George R.R. Martin's fantasy saga to come to life brilliantly on the small screen. However, what was the HBO project's most notable strength eventually turned into a weird challenge.
Game of Thrones premiered in 2011 and concluded in 2019, running for eight seasons. While portions of the fan base claim the show became notably worse in its latter stages, most reserve their harshest criticisms for season 8. HBO has been accused of hurrying Game of Thrones to the finishing line, but I think the show started to fall victim to itself far earlier than that. It didn't completely ruin the story, but I couldn't stop myself from noticing the unavoidable attempts to stay afloat in a very specific way.
Games of Thrones' "anyone can die" approach was truly brilliant
This was, of course, taken from the books — the ones that have been finished, at least. Still, live-action adaptations often take creative liberties with their source material. Game of Thrones didn't do this with its death trends, though. And that's a good thing. After the unexpected demise of Sean Bean's Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark, it became incredibly risky to get too attached to any member of the Game of Thrones cast. Whether they were heroes, villains, or taken from the franchise's enormous pool of morally gray individuals, no one was safe from meeting their end at any moment.
Game of Thrones was a show that was comfortably among the minority in this respect when it was on the air, and there aren't really any successors that have adopted the same storytelling trend. Characters are, after all, what really make a narrative so relatable and engaging. Killing them off at such a rate risks alienating fans. Game of Thrones remains as evidence that being precious with the lives of main characters isn't always a good thing, although it takes bold writers to admit that on the same scale as George R.R. Martin and the show's other writers.
Game of Thrones noticeably struggled to keep up its iconic character death rate
It didn't completely stop, but it did slow right down. Game of Thrones started by sending main characters to their deaths at unexpected times, and it worked really well. For example, Joffrey's (Jack Gleeson) death in just season 4's second episode felt like a landmark event that many shows would reserve for a season finale. Thankfully, Game of Thrones had no shortage of characters, with a constant stream of newcomers always entering the story. Joffrey's death was impactful, but it didn't slow things down. If anything, it was a vital catalyst.
Unfortunately, Game of Thrones became so renowned for its unexpected death twists that the frequency at which they took place started to become untenable. They became gradually less frequent, and even when someone did die, it was either a villain whose death was no real pity or a character who hadn't been part of the show long or prominently enough to spark any real emotion. There were exceptions to this, like the season 8 deaths of Iain Glen's Jorah Mormont and Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen, but these were among the outliers.
Perhaps the strongest example of this is Kit Harrington's Jon Snow. While his resurrection in season 6 was unexpected for all the right reasons, the fact that he survived after killing Daenerys seemed like a stretch. Rather than Drogon torching the man who'd just cut down his mother, the fire-breathing beast decided to...melt the Iron Throne instead? Symbolically, it worked. Narratively speaking, it felt overly safe for a saga that had long treated character deaths so casually.
Game of Thrones was right to slow down its character deaths
As mentioned above, Game of Thrones did make an impressive effort to prepare for its various outgoing characters. If anything, it became suspicious when someone new entered the story. They felt like a pre-emptive replacement for someone who was soon to be headed for the grave. For a while, the formula actually worked. The deaths were all masterfully executed, but the show didn't feel light on characters. After all, Game of Thrones was so packed with familiar faces that sometimes entire episodes would go by without even a glimpse of some of them.
Regardless, in hindsight, this was always destined to be an arrangement with a strict shelf-life. It's just not physically possible to keep shoveling new characters into the mix ahead of the death of established Westeros mainstays. At a certain point, the replacements don't have enough time to take root, and therefore don't feel like adequate replacements for those the show loses. Similarly, some of those newcomers then died too quickly, making their stay seem relatively insubstantial. It was a great run while it lasted, but the writers sort of painted themselves into a corner with how long it could go on for. It didn't ruin Game of Thrones, but it's definitely a standout course correction.
Game of Thrones is available to stream on HBO Max.
We're celebrating the 15th anniversary of Game of Thrones all month long at Winter Is Coming, looking back on the show with retrospectives, deep dives, hot takes, quizzes and more. Come with us on a return journey to Westeros, with plenty of reading material to help you guard the realm!