A Dream of Spring

[4thofeleven]

So, hey, apparently Game of Thrones' ending was a little unsatisfying?

I don't want to say “I told you so”, but... Well, I didn't bother with the show from the start, having decided half a decade prior (Bloody hell, has it been that long?) that I didn't see the story going anywhere interesting when I finished A Feast for Crows, an 800+ page tome that managed to not advance any major character's story whatsoever and instead started up a whole slew more side-plots, which didn't exactly leave me confident in the author's ability to wrap any of it up in a satisfying manner, and left me increasingly convinced that I was halfway though the longest shaggy-dog story in literary history.

(And apparently Shaggydog didn't even make it to the end of the story, so what's the point of any of it?!)

But what really convinced me to drop the series was the Cersei viewpoint chapters. House Lannister has always been my favorite of the noble houses in the series; Tyrion, is, of course, everyone's favorite, and Jamie's chapters in A Storm of Swords had transformed what had seemed like a one-dimensional thug of a character into a genuinely sympathetic, well rounded protagonist. Even Tywin had his moments; we never got inside his head, but he was a fascinating villain, a master of realpolitik at every level. So I was genuinely delighted to finally get a look inside the head of Cersei, to see how my perspective of her would change once I saw more of her.

Instead, I got a flat villain, every stereotype of an evil queen, obsessed with her beauty, unable to ever consider the consequences of her decisions, being led around by the nose by every character that flattered her, falling from one disaster to another through her incompetence. It was disappointing, it was uncomfortable to read, it felt like a betrayal of the depth the rest of the series had promised.

And so, in the end, I'm not surprised that Game of Thrones failed to defy the cliches it had once tried to challenge. I'm not really surprised that in the end, we got nothing more than a bog-standard heroic fantasy, with the noble Starks of the north arrayed against the threats of depraved southerners, savage foreigners, and overly ambitious women. That, in the end, it would go with “Women be crazy, am I right?” as the resolution of a major plot, that it would fail to give its antagonists the same depth and humanity that it offered its heroes. That, in the end, blood would tell who would carry the banner of heroism and who would be reviled as villains.

(But still... Bran​?! Did they start pulling names out of hats? The last time anyone cared about Bran, he was being pushed out a window...)

I am sorry for everyone who got invested in this story, and stuck with it until the end, and didn't see that final twist coming: that at the end, there was nothing revolutionary about it after all.

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

I admit to a bit of schaudenfreude mixed with my pity for diehard fans too XD I've listened to years of, "It's the most groundbreaking series EVAH!!1! Overturns all your expectations! No one saw that death coming!" while I spent the whole first book going, "Why isn't Mr. Too Damn Noble to Live dead yet? It was foreshadowed in his very first appearance about five different ways!" and then the next three books going, "Yup, I was right, the author has lost control of all the characters and subplots and the pacing is wrecked," and, "I thought we'd already had years-long discussions about how just mentioning rape a lot isn't groundbreaking in itself?"

If I squint, I can see how the Dany thing could be a subversion of the shallow type of "girl power!" stories which think just having a teenage girl technically be the boss and kill people is deep and revolutionary. Or a subversion of the outsider savior trope. But from everything I've heard, if that was the intention, they failed to execute it successfully. I doubt GRRM will do better in his version.

Cersei was horribly disappointing. I think I just about threw the book across the room when I got to the scene where she sleeps with what's-her-name and thinks something like, "Is this how a man feels?" Yes, that is exactly what women think in bed, George... I mean, I am totally on board with the idea that one sign of equality is when female characters are allowed to be just as incompetent/ugly/weak/evil/insert-flaw-here as male characters and not get treated any more harshly for it than they do, but it doesn't quite work if most of the characters who drive the plot are still male and the female characters are penalized more for their flaws. I definitely felt that Cersei was not cut the same narrative slack for her incompetence as male characters like Ned. He's flawed and tragically noble, but she's ridiculous.

There was also a sad lack of Bad Starks to subvert the Good and Noble Family trope. Couldn't Rickon have been so traumatized by events that he a cruel and vindictive kid out for himself with a killer direwolf to back him up? Couldn't Jon have learned about his bloodline and become a Mad Would-Be King clashing with Dany's Mad Would-Be Queen? Or something.

I'm once again reminded that Kate Elliott started writing an epic 7-book series set in pseudo-medieval Europe with lots of difficult characters and grim warfare and politicking and a teenager of unknown parentage and supernatural threats to the world about the same time as GRRM, but she published the last book years ago. A finished series! Success! The subplots did not grow out of control and swallow the series! It's a bit wordy and no doubt I'd find more flaws on a re-read, but it succeeds at so many of the same goals better than ASoIaF. Starting with the fact that none of the rapes are titillating.

[4thofeleven]

I think there's some hints in the novels that Martin's ending wouldn't have the Starks quite as unalloyed 'good'; last time we saw them (sometime in the Bush administration...), Rickon was basically going feral, Bran was becoming something not entirely human, and Arya was taking to her assassin training a little too eagerly.

But yeah, even there it's all a bit undermined by the presence of Jon Snow, the good and pure and noble hero who never seems to break out of that mold even for a minute. It makes the Targaryen reveal feel a little pointless - there's no way we could ever believe Jon was in danger of being anywhere near as interesting as the Targs, let alone going full villain.

(Of course, in the books, Jon's still dead, so maybe Martin's idea was to write him as dully heroic so if he comes back Not Quite Right it'd have more impact. We'll probably never know.)

Not familiar with Elliott, I'll check her out!

[sunnyskywalker]

I like her Crossroads trilogy too for an epic fantasy fix. It has a major character go from a fighting savior-of-the-land to dictator, but it's well set up, not a sudden, "whoops, we sorta maybe foreshadowed this occasionally but mostly forgot until now" turn. Also, giant eagles.

I'm cracking up imagining Pet Sematary!Jon.