There is a certain morbid pleasure that comes from watching a show where you know that any of the characters could, at any moment, die a horrible death. Death is the defining aspect of Game of Thrones. Violent death, well, what other kind is there?
There is a soft kind of logic in Game of Thrones, nothing is ever what it appears to be and you really can’t trust anyone. But there are plenty of times when the show makes no damned sense at all.
There was one death scene in the first few episodes that kind of bothered me. A couple of our heroes were invading a foreign land, and someone had sold the information to their enemies. This is common enough here, it makes sense. Now what didn’t make any damned sense was how the seller of this information was treated. We first see him buried up to his neck in sand with large scorpions crawling about his face. A few minutes later, he is killed in a just for the hell of it kind of manner.
Now this is a puzzling bit of business. If they found his information not worth buying, why go to the trouble of killing him? If they found him a man without honor for selling the information, what kind of honor is there in murdering a helpless man? It was a scene filled with boring exposition, so they use his imminent death to keep our interest. But it was just annoying. His torture and death was purely there so the bad guys could tell us what they were planning on doing. Maybe I’ve been watching too many Everything Wrong Withs, but this is definitely a Sin.
I’m afraid I have also reached some kind of a tipping point. The gorefest that is Game of Thrones is getting to be a bit boring. Yes, people are still killed at every possible opportunity, and a few of them are people we have come to know and care about. But there is still way too much boring bullshit about the Queen of Dragons trying to rule some wide spot in the desert. Who cares? The only thing she has going for her is her dragons, but she seems to have forgotten that she is fire proof and now runs from her fire breathing pets in terror. Really? There is also way too much political intrigue and arranged marriages and all manner of mind numbing details. Some of this stuff would put George Lucas to sleep.
On the positive front we have things coming together. Several of the stories have been running in parallel to each other, but they might as well be taking place in separate universes. Now these far flung bits of the story are being woven together. It doesn’t take an Oracle of Delphi to predict that dragons will be doing battle with ice walkers-but when that might happen is anyone’s guess.
The truth is that it’s all a bit of a let down now. The people we really, really hated are all dead. The ones that are left are mostly shrug inducing in their actions and desires. Oh, there is still The Imp and The Girl, but they spent too little time on stage. I don’t really care much about the Night’s Watch, the New King, Stark’s other daughter, Little Finger, The Lady Knight, and all the endless bits of Court life. So much of the story is just dull. A lot of random people killing each other for random reasons doesn’t really help matters much.
Anyway. I still like Game of Thrones, I just can’t get too excited about it anymore.
