Spoiler Morghulis: A Song of Subverting Expectations

Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall begins with him telling a joke. The joke goes something like this. Two women are eating at a wedding. One woman says, “The food here is terrible.” The other woman says, “Yeah, and in such small portions.” Woody Allen relates this joke to life. It sucks. And oh yeah, it’s short. I’m relating it to the feedback I’ve seen from the last season of Game of Thrones. “This season sucks!” “Yeah, and only one more episode!”

I initially set out to write a weekly recap with some light commentary, but I became increasingly frustrated with the zeitgeist of popular (or unpopular) opinion, I felt reluctant to include my own. Instead of using film and television as vehicles for escapism (lord knows we need it), movies and television shows have become punching bags for agendas. And amidst everyone’s concern for their own agendas coupled with their own personal desires for resolutions, people are forgetting what Game of Thrones is; an adaptation of a fantasy book series built upon a foundation of subverting expectations. Have you not been watching this whole time?

Season one might as well have been called The Ned Stark Show. He didn’t even make it to the finale. Imagine Seinfeld getting his head chopped off in season one, and then having seven more seasons of Seinfeld without him. Remember Khal Drogo? The most badass warrior on the planet? He died from a skin infection. The great Robert Baratheon got killed by a boar while hunting.

One topic of storytelling that routinely came up during my time as a cinematic arts undergrad and creative writing grad, was that the audience doesn’t really want to be surprised. They want to feel smarter than the characters in the story. They want to figure it out before the main characters do. When the makeup of a movie or show consists of routinely subverting the expectations of its audience, this can have a jarring effect. Over time, an audience may become reluctant to buy in as their expectations get routinely derailed.

While Game of Thrones may currently be getting criticized for its storytelling, the show has essentially stayed true to itself while simultaneously maintaining its ability to go left when everyone wants it to go right. It has repeatedly built up characters only to throw them away, usually within one or two seasons. For those of you blindsided by the events of the latest episode, do you even Game of Thrones, bro? Daenerys chose fear. Must I remind you of what the great Yoda once said about fear? Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate…leads to suffering.

On another Star Wars note, all you Game of Thrones fans screaming, “So much for character arcs and story development,” where were you all when The Last Jedi came out?