So this was originally supposed to be a post in another thread, but after writing it out and thinking about it more I decided it would make a decent discussion topic. Sorry to pollute the site with yet another Game of Thrones thread, but those of you don't care about the show should probably have known this time of year would be insufferable.
I don't know if I'm just in a bad mood here, but is anyone else getting sick of the tone of Game of Thrones? I understand that it's supposed to be grim, and I'm normally a fan of the darker, more cynical, morally ambiguous stories, but for some reason Season 6, Episode 3 just left me wanting to grab a length of rope and practice my noose tying techniques. This isn't really the only problem, just the spark for me to look at the show overall more critically and find various problems have been in the back of my mind for a while now.
Grim is fine by me, but when you have six whole seasons of grim, grim, and more grim it just begins to feel monotonous. The red wedding was shocking because there was still some hope left in the story at that point, but upon thinking about it I've just realized that I genuinely don't know who I'm rooting for (if anyone) and what exactly it is I want to come from this.
As much as people (myself included) have complained in the past about them softening Tyrion's flaws and turning him into a quip machine, he's quickly becoming my favorite part of the show just because there's still some fun left in his scenes. Unfortunately, it's going to take more than well placed quips to make things feel less pointlessly miserable; there needs to be something that goes right for some of the characters and injects some kind of happiness in them. Speaking of which ...
With winter basically here, as has been threatened throughout the show, I've always felt it would get more grim before it gets better, if at all, but at this point if things get worse I'm not sure I can maintain my interest in the show.
Another thing I've been thinking for a while, and I feel is becoming increasingly true, is that the show seems to have lost any sense of purpose. This was the major criticism of A Fest For Crows and A Dance With Dragons to a lesser extent, that they both felt rather meandering without any direction. Every season is feeling less and less like a story in its own right, and more and more like an indistinct slice of a whole; lacking in any form or identity of its own.
In fact, it's gotten so pointless that I'm legitimately unsure of what most of the characters even want now, and how their current actions and situation even relate to that. Does Daenerys even care about taking the iron throne any more? I legitimately can't remember. What exactly is Jon doing at this point? He's alive again, and before he died he was ... being part of the Night's Watch, I guess. I suppose he's still defending against the white walkers ... somehow. What do the Lannisters want? Power? Money? Okay, anything more specific? Isn't that what they've always wanted? I guess they want revenge now, just like everyone else. Even in the book I've forgotten what Arya wants. She seemed to want revenge, but now she's learning to give up her past so she can ... become one of the faceless men, I guess? And once that happens she'll do what exactly? Why?
I'm not saying the show/books don't have answers for these questions, but despite reading every single book, and watching every single episode multiple times, and reading through large parts of the wiki, in the time since the last season I've managed to forget most of this trivia and am now finding the show so lacking in structure that upon taking a step back and looking at it as a whole it just seems to be a blur of events and characters. Not to quote Yahtzee or anything, but "it's just a whole load of people doing stuff."
I've enjoyed the rich political structure of the universe, but I don't think you can just have a story comprised of an endless stream of betrayals and political upheavals. I've always felt this type of thing is better as the glue that holds together a bigger plot, and I used to think that was the case, with the bigger plot being about the dragons and white walkers, but both of those elements seem to be taking a fucking long break in the green room at this point.
People have been complaining about the lack of dragons and white walkers pretty much from the beginning, and I used to dismiss their complaints as childish demands to put more focus on the more fantastical elements. I used to pass them off as a bunch of dumb-dumbs who don't care about story or characters, and just want to see people fight monsters in bombastic action scenes. Well, allow me to put on my dunce cap, because most of the characters are dead or miserable, and the story has been spinning its wheels for the past few seasons, so I'll take the shlock if the alternative is a meandering stream of human misery.
I thought I would have the patience for this, but the painfully slow drip feeding of any elements that have even the faintest veneer of relevance to the overarching story is really getting on my nerves. I feel like we're supposed to just assume all of this will come together in the end and contribute to some overall purpose, even though so much of it just looks like filler and time wasting due to the directionlessness of it all in the moment.
At least we're getting more of Bran at this point, because his plot and Daenerys's feel like the only stories that have any significance.
That's not to say I've given up on the show; I'll still be following it, but the unending grimness of it and lack of any strong overarching plot to distract me from it is beginning to wear down my interest.
Does anyone else think the story lacks direction and structure, and is anyone else getting sick of the constant misery? This post turned out a lot longer and more negative than I thought it would be when I started, but hey, I can think of something else that could apply to ...
I don't know if I'm just in a bad mood here, but is anyone else getting sick of the tone of Game of Thrones? I understand that it's supposed to be grim, and I'm normally a fan of the darker, more cynical, morally ambiguous stories, but for some reason Season 6, Episode 3 just left me wanting to grab a length of rope and practice my noose tying techniques. This isn't really the only problem, just the spark for me to look at the show overall more critically and find various problems have been in the back of my mind for a while now.
Grim is fine by me, but when you have six whole seasons of grim, grim, and more grim it just begins to feel monotonous. The red wedding was shocking because there was still some hope left in the story at that point, but upon thinking about it I've just realized that I genuinely don't know who I'm rooting for (if anyone) and what exactly it is I want to come from this.
As much as people (myself included) have complained in the past about them softening Tyrion's flaws and turning him into a quip machine, he's quickly becoming my favorite part of the show just because there's still some fun left in his scenes. Unfortunately, it's going to take more than well placed quips to make things feel less pointlessly miserable; there needs to be something that goes right for some of the characters and injects some kind of happiness in them. Speaking of which ...
If Ramsey ends up either killing or torturing Rickon Stark (or Osha, I guess) then it's going to be rather hard for me to feel anything about the show anymore. Seriously, I've never liked either character, and I haven't cared about them up until this point, nor have I ever been one to get upset over a child dying, but I'm just so starved for some kind of levity in the show that I'll take what I can get.
With winter basically here, as has been threatened throughout the show, I've always felt it would get more grim before it gets better, if at all, but at this point if things get worse I'm not sure I can maintain my interest in the show.
Another thing I've been thinking for a while, and I feel is becoming increasingly true, is that the show seems to have lost any sense of purpose. This was the major criticism of A Fest For Crows and A Dance With Dragons to a lesser extent, that they both felt rather meandering without any direction. Every season is feeling less and less like a story in its own right, and more and more like an indistinct slice of a whole; lacking in any form or identity of its own.
In fact, it's gotten so pointless that I'm legitimately unsure of what most of the characters even want now, and how their current actions and situation even relate to that. Does Daenerys even care about taking the iron throne any more? I legitimately can't remember. What exactly is Jon doing at this point? He's alive again, and before he died he was ... being part of the Night's Watch, I guess. I suppose he's still defending against the white walkers ... somehow. What do the Lannisters want? Power? Money? Okay, anything more specific? Isn't that what they've always wanted? I guess they want revenge now, just like everyone else. Even in the book I've forgotten what Arya wants. She seemed to want revenge, but now she's learning to give up her past so she can ... become one of the faceless men, I guess? And once that happens she'll do what exactly? Why?
I'm not saying the show/books don't have answers for these questions, but despite reading every single book, and watching every single episode multiple times, and reading through large parts of the wiki, in the time since the last season I've managed to forget most of this trivia and am now finding the show so lacking in structure that upon taking a step back and looking at it as a whole it just seems to be a blur of events and characters. Not to quote Yahtzee or anything, but "it's just a whole load of people doing stuff."
I've enjoyed the rich political structure of the universe, but I don't think you can just have a story comprised of an endless stream of betrayals and political upheavals. I've always felt this type of thing is better as the glue that holds together a bigger plot, and I used to think that was the case, with the bigger plot being about the dragons and white walkers, but both of those elements seem to be taking a fucking long break in the green room at this point.
People have been complaining about the lack of dragons and white walkers pretty much from the beginning, and I used to dismiss their complaints as childish demands to put more focus on the more fantastical elements. I used to pass them off as a bunch of dumb-dumbs who don't care about story or characters, and just want to see people fight monsters in bombastic action scenes. Well, allow me to put on my dunce cap, because most of the characters are dead or miserable, and the story has been spinning its wheels for the past few seasons, so I'll take the shlock if the alternative is a meandering stream of human misery.
I thought I would have the patience for this, but the painfully slow drip feeding of any elements that have even the faintest veneer of relevance to the overarching story is really getting on my nerves. I feel like we're supposed to just assume all of this will come together in the end and contribute to some overall purpose, even though so much of it just looks like filler and time wasting due to the directionlessness of it all in the moment.
At least we're getting more of Bran at this point, because his plot and Daenerys's feel like the only stories that have any significance.
That's not to say I've given up on the show; I'll still be following it, but the unending grimness of it and lack of any strong overarching plot to distract me from it is beginning to wear down my interest.
Does anyone else think the story lacks direction and structure, and is anyone else getting sick of the constant misery? This post turned out a lot longer and more negative than I thought it would be when I started, but hey, I can think of something else that could apply to ...
