In Defense of Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones seems to be facing a lot of very critical accusations this season. I’d be a lot cooler with these sorts of attacks on the show if I thought any of them were justified.

Anyone who thinks Brienne’s sobbing was out of character A. doesn’t understand the very emotional character of Brienne and B. needs to re-evaluate the perception that crying is somehow a show of weakness.

Dany’s downturn has been telegraphed for seasons and was in no way abrupt.

On the subject of sexual violence, the infamous Jaime rapes Cersei over their dead son’s body scene was a perfect illustration of the kind of behavior that regularly takes place in toxic, abusive relationships and further established that however decent a person he was capable of being away from his sister, Cersei brought out a monstrous villain in Jaime, a truth that the show grappled with this week.

My own abuse has affected me in a million ways & forced me to become a stronger person. Acknowledging this doesn’t mean I’m thankful for it. The GoT writers have every right to reflect this reality without being accused of sexism or downplaying rape. The world of the story is set in is full of sexual violence and not all characters are able to recover from it the way Sansa has. A key part of dealing with PTSD is moving forward from a past that can’t be changed and focusing on the future. Understanding that the past shapes us and that different experiences might make us different people is a common theme for survivors of abuse. Nearly all the characters on Game of Thrones are products of years of horrific experiences. This is not irresponsible storytelling and calling out the writers for having one characters who was shaped partially by sexual abuse is unjustified.

One could argue that Theon and Jorah’s deaths wrapped up their character arcs, but if every character died in that way, it would ring terribly false and GoT has a well-established reputation for unceremoniously cutting down characters before their time. These deaths often profoundly affect the people they leave behind, but writing those deaths and characters off as simply being motivation for other characters is ridiculously simplistic, particularly when an audience has developed enough of an emotional connection to the character for the death to have a powerful emotional impact.

Obviously, Missandei’s death will have an enormous effect on Daenerys (and Grey Worm) and Daeny’s character trajectory is largely influenced by her increased isolation as she loses her closest allies and most trusted advisers. Missandei’s identity as a woman of color has nothing to do with the decision to have her executed. The writers are working with source material that deals with a bunch of characters who are simply not very diverse and have actually added or expanded upon characters showing more diversity but are attacked whenever something happens to those characters.

Sometimes, people just seem determined to be miserable. The writers clearly decided seasons ago that the direwolves would not play as large a role in the show as they do in the books, but people complained about Ghost disappearing. So they spend some of their already historically monumental TV budget adding him to this season and explaining where he was going, but people complain even more. They can’t understand why Job couldn’t pet Ghost, as if adding an effect where an actor and CGI character physically touch would be a simple, inexpensive proposition.

And as for complaints of characters acting stupidly, they’re simply acting in their nature, something real human beings do that is reflected in the best of fiction. I adore Gilmore Girls and deeply admire the central characters, for example, but if they didn’t constantly make bad, self-destructive decisions, there would have been no show.

I also find it particularly idiotic how many people felt as though the Battle of Winterfell was too easy and that the Night King was revealed to be no threat. Humanity was within a hair’s breadth of annihilation. Nearly every event in the battle and the series as a whole was necessary to give Arya the chance to save the day. Season 7 clearly established that killing the Night King would end the threat, the plan was always to get him to expose himself, and getting to him with a Valerian weapon was nearly impossible. There was nothing easy about this.

As for the death toll in the battle, Game of Thrones has long undermined expectations about when characters would or would not die. Aside from Davos’s son Matthos, no named characters died in the Battle of Blackwater, yet the Red Wedding was a massacre. Consider also how often Cersei has been underestimated only to execute devastating attacks with high body counts.

When some fans are given enough time, they theorize about what might come next and become so enamored with certain theories that they become married to them, making any other possible outcome disappointing. I always expect greatness from Game of Thrones, and I occasionally entertain theories, but I never base my ultimate enjoyment on specific expectations because at the end of the day, I want to actually enjoy the show. It’s too bad so many people appear to have other goals.