GAME OF THRONES: The Problem with the Penultimate Episode…is all the other episodes
The problem with most third acts is usually act two.
Finales are supposed to stick the landing of a gazillion different story-threads in a surprising and cathartic and inevitable way.
Dany’s ‘heel turn’ is the type of Soap Opera/Pro-Wrestling stunt that gives those respective mediums a bad name.
It doesn’t feel inevitable. Daenerys character arc really had been one of the better laid out ‘coming of age’ stories in TV history. Going from sheltered victim to the ‘breaker of chains’.
Only in the last few episodes did it feel like she was slipping into Mad Queen territory. And it always felt like an off-tone. Forced. Weird. Out of nowhere.
There’s a writing best-practice that ‘all villains think they’re the hero’. It helps writers come up with villains who are not just ‘mustache twitchy’ or ‘evil’. Giving villains justification for their evil-doing, so we get why they do it…even if we don’t necessarily buy in. Think Thanos in Infinity War.
Today, I see people saying Daenerys ‘snapped’ (no Thanos pun intended).
Snapped is sort of what we say when we have zero justification for their actions…so…yeah.
For the tragedy to work, you would expect Daenerys to have been dabbling in the ‘wrong way’ for a while. But just a couple of episodes, she’d been risking her life and her dragon children to ‘save the world’.
With the exception of this ‘bend the knee’ goofiness…she’d even been evolving personally. Wanting love from Jon Snow. Sparing Jamie Lannister in the face of the upcoming war with White Walkers.
She seemed like someone who was reasonable in the face of turmoil.
And while I could have seen her make a horrible choice in the face of a dilemma — ie — kill innocents to defeat Cersei…
That’s not what this was. This was ‘kill innocents’ for no reason but blood lust. It was evil. It didn’t make sense for the character. It was weird.
How did we end up here? Well, I have a theory…and it’s just a theory
I feel like last night’s episode might have been GRR Martin’s answer to ‘how does it end’. He probably said “ Daenerys ultimately becomes a Mad Queen and torches King’s Landing”…it feels very GRR Martin to me. A dark realistic world where the heroes become villains. It feels like the type of unexpected ending the guy who delivered the Red Wedding and stabbed Jon Snow to death (and hasn’t yet resurrected) might deliver.
It also feels like the type of conclusion that a book series that HAS NOT leaned heavy into White Walkers and Night Kings might be leading to (and thusly won’t feel like some weird epilogue after quickly dismissing those apocalyptic and somewhat un-toppable threats). In retrospect, the books plant several seeds for this descent into madness.
Martin hasn’t figured out his entire ending yet. His ending might take 5 thousand more pages. He doesn’t have deadlines and budgets and HBO Subscriber buy rates to worry about. He has time to layer Dany’s psychology and a format that can lay bare her inner thoughts.
There was a time when the HBO show was allowed to breathe too. Where it could spend a season having Jamie Lannister in captivity having character revealing chats and slowly changing from selfish Kingslayer to ‘sacrificing knight’.
They used to completely skip over the battles and leave room for its adult themes, grey morality, and Shakespearean staging and pacing.
Now, it’s in a rush. It doesn’t have time to take a season between killing the Night King and charging to King’s Landing. Instead of political intrigue, we get Navy’s fighting dragons, cities torched, apocalyptic zombie battles.
We’re in the endgame for the show. And the endgame is spectacle. It’s like the Battle of the Bastards and Hardhome have set some expectations that have to be topped.
Martin’s writing books though. In prose, it’s rare that the battles are the best part.
He can still nuance the set-up. Take his time. Justify Daenerys moments, so she doesn’t just snap. Show how the breaker of chains can become a mad woman. And make this ending work.
In short, he can fix act 2.
