In its race to the finale, Game of Thrones reveals what it is we actually loved about the show

Zito Madu: It’s not the turn to the Mad Queen that’s the issue here, it’s that it’s all happening so quickly

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys.Helen Sloan/HBO via AP

The most aggravating aspect of this final season of Game of Thrones is the writers talking about the episode afterwards. Instead of offering insight into the thought process of the creators, these clips are being used to fill in the gaps of the story. That they’re at all necessary represents a failure on the part of the writers to provide proper context and fully flesh out what’s happening onscreen.

Talking about this season, and even the previous season of Thrones, has to be contextualized with the fact that the series creators, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, have chosen to run with fewer episodes after announcing an endpoint. They must have also decided in the sped up version of their story that the main villain was no longer going to be the existential threat of the Night King, but instead that of Cersei Lannister, and now Daenerys Targaryen.

Diminishing the Night King’s role means that so many of the fantasy elements, including prophecies and even Bran Stark’s storyline, have been reduced or rendered redundant. The Night King is never fully delved into, beyond suggesting that his sole motivation is to kill the Three-Eyed Raven, which seems like a very silly impetus for a villain who had been teased since the first episode. From the beginning of the show, we’ve heard that he represents the greatest threat that the realm had ever known. And then, like that, he’s gone.

Jacob Anderson, Clarke and Peter Dinklage in “The Last of the Starks.” Helen Sloan/HBO via AP

With the Night King defeated and attention turned to King’s Landing, Cersei is promoted to the role of main antagonist. In order to make her threat realistic, though, Daenerys’s forces have to be depleted as a means of minimizing the gulf in power between the two. This leads to one of the most bizarre sequences of the series that, in turn, prompted an even more ludicrous explanation.

You probably remember what happens: Daenerys is flying on Drogon, with Rhaegal alongside her, when suddenly the Iron Fleet, led by Euron Greyjoy, appears from behind a lining of rocks and shoots down Rhaegal.

Game of Thrones is infamous for its ability to surprise audiences, especially with the death of characters, but the killing of Rhaegal was explained by the writers afterwards as a matter of Daenerys forgetting about the Iron Fleet. This is confounding considering that in the previous scene, she is in a war council with her advisors who — and I don’t misuse this word lightly — literally talk about the location of the Iron Fleet. Her subsequent mind-wipe is as unrealistic as it is seemingly necessary to kill off one of her dragons in a push toward becoming the Mad Queen.

After Missandei is killed, Daenerys finds out that her advisors have been conspiring behind her back. She falls into a brief depression before taking action to kill Varys and launch an attack on King’s Landing, where she destroys the Iron Fleet and devastates the Golden Company. The climax of the episode occurs when bells are rung in surrender by her enemies, but rather than accept their acknowledgment of defeat, Daenerys begins destroying the whole of King’s Landing, murdering thousands of innocents in the process.

The turn for Daenerys feels odd; not because it hadn’t been hinted throughout the show but rather how suddenly it happens. As much as there are clips of her from earlier episodes saying that she would burn cities to the ground, the bulk of the series has been about her growth, about her learning to become a compassionate ruler. Most of her violence had been directed at either those she sees as tyrants or, in the case of the Tarlys, those who refuse to bend the knee to her.

Dinklage in the literal aftermath of “The Bells.” HBO via AP

Yet, within a few episodes, Daenerys goes from fighting the Night King, a task she accepts because Jon Snow convinces her to fight for something beyond her own desires, to having her dragon flame-broil the very people she wants so desperately to rule.

It’s not the turn to the Mad Queen that’s the issue here, though — nor is it that fans aren’t getting the storylines that they anticipated — it’s that it’s all happening so quickly. Making Daenerys the main villain, right after showing Cersei as such, who came after the Night King (in a matter of three episodes), means that there’s no time to digest any of the rising action or its consequences. The story is in the spectacle of the events, rather than in the development and resolution of character arcs.

Prior to this season, it was assumed that Game of Thrones had made its impressive mark on popular culture as much by subverting fantasy tropes as providing shock value. However, in the rushed lead up to its endgame, these have become the only things left of the story. The subsequent mess suggests that what really made Game of Thrones specialty was its dedication to context, its supply of small moments that make the big ones feel earned. Lazy explanations by writers were never necessary before a finale date was announced.

Maybe people would have still been upset had the show ended in a way contrary to their desires, but the anger for what the show has become now is because of the hubris in the writers believing that they could properly resolve so many stories within a six episode single season. Making the episodes longer has been great for the breathtaking visuals of the show but it’s done nothing for its narrative, which if we were aware of it or not, is what drew us to the series in the first place.

Fans were happy and excited for the show in the early seasons, even though favourite characters were killed off indiscriminately. That was part of the excitement of the show: Not knowing what to expect, and sometimes having your expectations completely subverted. But back then, the story was also given a level of care that it no longer receives. What we have now is a show that feels like the writers can’t wait to be done with it, and it’s frustrating to see so many of the stories within the larger narrative be wasted, rushed or completely ignored for the sake of that quick conclusion.

This Week's Flyers