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stories-aha-blog · 6 years

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Why Game of Thrones, ultimately, doesn’t make it among my top ranking series

There are obviously a whole number of things I like about Game of Thrones --- why else would I’ve been watching every single episode so far, and watched particular scenes over and over again on youtube? It’s always a good idea to start with the things you like about a story, rather than the things you dislike. And I promise I’ll try to deliver on this in the future, but right now, I feel like ranting a bit about why, ultimately, I very much doubt that either “Game of Thrones”, the tv series, nor “A Song of Ice and Fire”, the novel series, will ever make it into my top top ranking stories.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: There is the whole “White Walkers” / “The Others” thing, that consumes a lot of screen time, and becomes a major driver of the plot in the later, and that I find utterly boring or “without potential”.

Okay so it’s important to approach things with an open mind. The fact alone, that that it would never cross my mind to somehow make the whole subject of “manifest supernatural evil”, or “evil menace looming behind the horizon” part of one of my stories alone, proofs nothing. When I ask myself "what’s the most similar thing I can think of, that actually DID end up working for me”, at least one thing comes to mind. The Dominion in “Star Trek: Deep Space 9″. If you haven’t watched it: At some stage, very subtly at first, and very much on the margin of what happens, rumors and first signs start to pop up, that there is some other, alien power looming in some other Quadrant of the Galaxy, that has a record of enslaving other races. As the story progresses, more and more facts start to pop up, until there is actually contact, conflict, and ulitmately full out “world war”, or “galaxy war”, resulting from from this, putting the federation on the brink of defeat.

The reason that worked for me, is that ultimately it becomes revealed ---- I’m not gonna worries about spoiling this here, since the series is so old and dated and not really worth watching any more ---- the whole Dominion thing isn’t simply some featureless incorporation of evil, like, say, it is much more the case for the Borg, but that there is a kind of touching backstory behind it, of the creaturs that started the Dominion,were actually a very week and powerless beings, that, as a result, got “bullied” by other neighbouring races, until they decided to make sure this was never going to happen again, by kind of establishing proxy races, that would lead their wars for them, and enslave the neigbouring races, as sort of a somewhat out of proportion preemptive strike.

You know that you are on to something, when you create something that is uttlerly fantastic, but the proves to be quite valuable as a metaphor for describing certain real life constellations.

I wasn’t aware of it when I watched Deep Space 9 in the 90s, but recently it dawned on me, that the Dominion is actually quite a good metaphor for the policies of the present day Iran ... leadership or whatever you want to call them. (I am approaching this from a strictly storytelling point of view here, not from a political angle, or from an angle “which side would I side with?”.) They are technologically inferior, they had the experience of an ongoing draining war with their neighbour Irak under Saddam Hussein, they experienced the US sacking Iraq with their technologically far superior army ---- and, partly as a consequence of this, partly fuelled by religious zeal, they decide to “defend” themselves by establishing proxy armies, like the Hesbollah or, more recently, their ways of strengthening their ties with Hamas, to direct any kind of military threat away from their territory.

Even if this parallel should not resonate with you, you may still kind of agree with me, that something like the Dominion, has far more story telling potential, than the unstructered, language less, Others, whose character less nature makes them more similar to some menace arising from nature, like a volcano, or and earthquake, or what have you.

White Walkers are a waste of Screen Time.

That for me, would be the most obvious place to start.

Then --- while we are at it --- there is the plot driving element of prophecies.

Prophecies are a perfect means to string people’s attention along. But, like the element of “unstructered, unpersonalized evil” --- they are a bit of a cheap trick, in that they simply can’t deliver. To my best knowledge ---- the real world simply doesn’t allow for anything that comes even close to “real prophecies”. So again, the books and series spends considerable amount of time on something that is of zero value, other than encouraging people to come up with solutions to the puzzles inherent in them. (Who is the Valoncar? Who are the three riders of the dragon? Who is the prince that was promised? etc. etc.)

But it’s not even the most important item for me.

The most important thing for me, off the top of my head, would probably have to be the fact that ... let me put this in a denouncing, devaluing way first, and then try to improve on it ... that George R. R. Martin’s characters are simply too boring, and his fantasies are too simplistic, to warrant spending extended amount of times on them.

Think of the Starks. Ned, Catlyn, Rob ---- all complete bores. Just like Bran, apart from the things that are happening to him. The two girls may have a tiny bit more potential, but as soon as we come to Jon Snow, we are back to complete bore.

To me those are characters, that come pretty close to “insignificant young clerk with no distinctive qualities gets thrown into a position where he has to save the universe”.

The characters that maybe come closest to being interesting in my sense, would probably have to be Tyrion and Oberyn. But even with those, similar things apply. Yes, Tyrion likes to hang out with whores and thieves. But, you know ... that by itself doesn’t make him all that intersting. And Oberyn is too much of a clichee, “throw in a little bit of everything, a little bit of martial arts, a little bit of studying at the Citadel, a little bit of traveling the remote and mysterious part of the world, a penchant for sexual experimentation, with just the right amount of bi curious --- and voila, you have your interesting character”. No. What is Oberyn driven by? By revenge for his sister. And also maybe a bit by providing for his daughters, in his own Obery way. That simply doesn’t make for an intersting character. They’ve both been known to act somewhat non harmlessly, or even ruthlessly, at certain times, so I’ll give them that. But that alone is not enough for me.

And those are the best candidates for interesting characters.

Yes, of course, you got Joffrey and Ramsey. But they are too one track minded vicious to count. How many people seriously empathize with either of them? Now very many, I would imagine.

It’s a bit like Quentin Tarrantino movies: Showing people casually committing atrocities --- to me is not a sign of being willing to explore the darker sides of one’s soul; but a sign of simple nerdiness. A slightly childish joy in shocking suprising the audience, and of indulging in urban legends.

Compare this to, say, some of the stories of Hagra here on tumblr, or ???, where you can see much more genuine drivenness and interest in these things at work.

Yes, “Game of Thrones” does have to count as a “day dream story”, that does make an effort to deliver things that are meant to stirr awe in one’s heart. But they are the fantasies of a person, that is ultimately too harmless for my taste. Yes, he kills off his characters in shocking and unexpected ways, that are not just played for their shock value, but actually do a good job of invicting making one --- or at least making me --- feel the tragedy. But that alone is not enough. Compare this to, say, “The Liaisons Dangereuses”, or the novels of Genet, or even people like Pedro Juan Gutierrez or Bukowski, where the very fact that the non harmless events they show tend to be somewhat less spectacular than in the case of people like Tarantino or Stephen Kind ---- and also, in my mind, Martin --- is a strong hint that they are engaging with deep rooted dispositions, as opposed to “visiting evil for the sake of thrills or entertainment, like a tourist”.

“This time, I will write books as big as my imagination”.

Yes a wall made of ice, that is more 700 feet tall, is a spectacular sight. As are dragons. But they are nerdy spectacular.

“Upping the ante, always has to go in the direction of the subtle, not of the spectacular.”

“A Song of Ice and Fire” is good at many things. It’s good at delayed pay-off. It’s good a posing riddles and puzzles, that inspire fans to come up with their own theories and suggestions for solutions. It’s good at creating drama and tragedy, and it’s good at creating “cozy situations” and settings, like, say, Sam and Jon having converations during their night watch on top of the wall. The writers of “Game of Thrones” the tv show are super good at writing strong dialogues, that have perfected the skill of achieving the maximum effect with “not one word too many”.

Game of Thrones excells at the use of story telling devices.

But no matter how good you are at HOW to tell your story, there will always be an upper limit induced by WHAT you tell. What your story is about. How captivating and deep and intriguing the subject matter of the story is.

George Martin writes Fantasy for a reason.

Yes, his capacity for taking his characters seriously and following whereever they make take him, is impressive. But that alone isn’t enough. Yes he paints a larger than life, alluring-with-respect-to-Marin world. But alluring-with-respect-to-Marin is simply too far removed from the things I find alluring, for the story to make it among my top top faves.

#writing #storytelling #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire

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