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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the got-books? dept.

Mike Hale writes in the NYT that after Sunday night's Season 5 finale the wildly popular show seems to have lost its way, and to be losing faith with a growing number of its viewers. After two or three seasons of coherent and satisfying action, the show is spinning in place, stalling for time as it crawls toward an ending that will be more disappointing the longer it's delayed. Sound familiar? As with "Lost," there may be a blueprint, but it's not looking very sound. According to Hale, the escalating series of shocks in the season finale was a prime example of substituting sensation for imagination, busyness for drama. "Not content to kill off a mid-major character, the episode moved on to whipping girls, putting a major female character through an excruciatingly long, nude walk of shame and, in its closing seconds, assassinating a fan favorite who was one of the few wholly sympathetic figures in the show."

Amy Sullivan says that the problem is that it's incredibly hard to craft a epic series without getting necessarily bogged down in the middle installments. "Your protagonists are usually in some long-term predicament or up against an enemy who will keep winning until some resolution is reached in the finale," says Sullivan. "So the need to throw in a few shocking moments for the sake of surprise and to keep readers/audiences off-balance is understandable." According to Hale when you look at the overall framework, nearly all the characters are where they were when the season began. "The usurping Boltons are still in Winterfell; Sansa is still on the run; Arya is still hiding in Braavos; the dragon queen Daenerys Targaryen and the sly dwarf, Tyrion, are still marooned in Essos; the Lannisters still occupy the castle in King's Landing," concludes Hale. "This can be blamed on the show's semidependent relationship with Mr. Martin's novels, but viewers (like me) who haven't read the books don't care about that. The question is how much longer we'll care at all."

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Tuesday June 16 2015, @09:10PM

    by zocalo (302) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @09:10PM (#197035)

    It looks like this guy fell hard for the show writers' tricks. We saw almost none of these characters actually die onscreen except Meryn Trant (and good freaking riddance).

    Doesn't mean much. GRRM frequently kills off significant characters (or not) without actually describing their death in the books and leaving it somewhat open ended or just moves them "off the page" never to return, an approach that the TV show has done on several occassions as well. This goes all the way back to S1 with Syrio Forel's death (Arya's swordfighting tutor) which was never really described in the books or shown on screen either, although it's pretty clear he was killed from later events. Conversely, in the books, Selise and Shireen are actually sent to safety by Stannis before the final march on Winterfell, although presumably any future mentions (if any) in the books are minor enough to be omitted or retasked to another character on the show.

    My guesses are pretty close to yours though; I think that that Stannis is really dead, Sansa and Theon are not (snowbank, implausible as that would be from that apparent height), while I'm not sure about Myrcella you're probably right about Bronn to keep in line with the books, and we saw someone wearing Jaqen's face so presumably he will be back during the rest of Arya's outstanding story arc and subsequent events. Jon, I'm fairly sure will survive but I'm 60:40 on whether he gets resurrected by Melisandre (who needs a new champion after losing Stannis) or the White Walkers if they attack the wall early in the next season.

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  • (Score: 2) by boristhespider on Wednesday June 17 2015, @06:34AM

    by boristhespider (4048) on Wednesday June 17 2015, @06:34AM (#197167)

    So far as Jon goes, in the books it seems to me implied that either he'll be inside Ghost, will be resurrected a la Blackhands (who I get the impression is his uncle), or both.

    • (Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:21PM

      by tathra (3367) on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:21PM (#197308)

      GRRM has confirmed that Coldhands isn't Benjen [latintimes.com], and its pretty clear Jon will be saved or revived by Mellisandre. whether he wargs into Ghost for a while before that isn't all that important, but he's not going to permanently be a wolf because his parentage makes him too important to the story.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @05:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @05:33PM (#197386)

        Didn't see that, thanks. That's one theory down in smoke then....

        -- boristhespider