Why I Find Myself Dissatisfied with “Game of Thrones” as Narrative

Live from La Farine: Matthew Yglesias nails it with the great wrongness that is at the core of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones:

Matthew Yglesias: Game of Thrones: “The overall [Game of Throne’s] story’s great weakness…

…is that… it… [is] just a giant series of MacGuffins until Jon, Dany, and a bunch of dragons face off against the undead horde…

Indeed.

In the books George R.R. Martin has failed and in the TV show the show runners have not managed to repair what is a major failure of narrative pacing and the management of expectations. The logic of the story if it is to be successful needs for it to start out focused on the Wars of the Roses taking place within Westeros. Dany needs to be off to the side, clearly out of the plot but serving as a thematic counterpoint: perhaps her story can be one of building a kingdom in Essos by attempting to rule justly while everyone in Westerns sacrifices both to their lust for the Iron Throne. And Jon Snow needs to be even more off to the side, even more out of the main plot than Dany, with his story also serving as a thematic counterpoint: perhaps his story can be one of trying to keep his honor and finding that doing so means he slowly loses to the wildlings. To make this work, the dragons have to be cool but clearly not superweapons. to make this work, the White Walkers have to be weird and scary but not unstoppable or, indeed, decisively stronger than the wildlings.

Then… just as it looks like the struggle in Westeros reaches its end… with a victor clearly in sight… and it looks like Dany has established her kingdom… it turns out that the dragons are superweapons, and Dany launches her invasion of Westeros more-or-less on a par with the surviving allied houses…

And then… just as it looks like Dany’s dragons have won her the Iron Throne… it turns out that the White Walkers are much scarier and more powerful… and that Dany even with her dragons has a very hard task to fend them off — especially given how much destruction and chaos has been wreaked by first the Wars of the Roses and then the Dance of Dragons…

The problem is that there has been much too much “dragons are cool” and “White Walkers are scary” for the Wars of the Roses — which is the overwhelming bulk of what we have seen so far — to be anything other than, well, dwarfs on pigs jousting with blunted lances. Murderous and amoral, but outclassed.

Mind you, Game of Thrones the series still succeeded as spectacle for the first three books, and the TV show is still doing fine as spectacle. But as narrative? Not so much.