The battle is lost-until Stannis makes a surprise appearance. Again and again, fate, which is to say the show’s authors, collectively, intercedes. In some ways, sure, all that is simply an extension of the disbelief-suspension that has always been a requirement of the show-the deus-ex-machina twists that have been presented not as easy solutions to narrative problems, but rather as evidence of the show’s cosmic surefootedness. Maybe there’s a Home Depot conveniently located next to the Arby’s off the I(ce)-95? And that the army of the dead is as resourceful as it is populous, apparently, able as it was, after the battle was fought, to procure the massive chains with which to remove a dead dragon from icy waters. And that Gendry, on the ground, can somehow do the same. And that ravens can travel, seemingly, at the speeds of turbo-jets. Will Game of Thrones take the good faith it has built up over nearly seven seasons and squander it?Īnd yet here are some things that happened on Sunday’s show: Viewers learned that Arya carries around a set of rubbery death-masks in a tasteful leather satchel. What is dead may never die has long been an element of the show the remarkable thing is that, for the most part, the death-fleeing has seemed a natural extension of the order of things rather than a violation of it. It has been fantasy that has, against all odds, made sense. ![]() That so little of this has seemed the tautology it is has been a credit to the show’s execution: Game of Thrones, with the help of its hefty budget, has proven exceptionally skilled at the art of universe-construction. Arya has become “no one,” we understand, because we have watched her become so many someones. Bran becomes the Three-Eyed Raven because we watch him in the transformation. Wildfire works as a weapon because, in the show’s world, it literally works as a weapon. This is a universe with its own rules to be obeyed-and, for the audience, its own disbeliefs to be suspended. Who knows, in this world, things others do not? Who decides how the stories will play out, and how the games will be played? The Lord of Light, and the Three-Eyed Raven, and Bran, and Hodor, and time travel, and resurrections, and dragons, and magic: Their presence has made Game of Thrones not just a work of fantasy, but also, in its way, a work of logic. In the universe that is being constructed as a setting for the other things-a universe full of its own authors. But it also demands, as any such show will, another kind of faith-in storytelling. Game of Thrones is in many ways a show about faith: in gods, in others, in oneself. So while the show’s current season is establishing mysteries about sororicide, and incest, and zombie-dragons, it’s also establishing a broader one: Does this story still know what it’s doing? Will viewers’ longstanding loyalty to it, in the end, be rewarded? We are not meant to question-this is a fictional and fantastical world, after all-and yet it’s becoming more and more difficult not to. Its stories are cracking like so much zombie-ice. More and more, though, as the show approaches its final season, it has been losing its reassurance of narrative control. ![]() The kinds that come from authors, and showrunners, and the surly demands of narrative. In some ways, those moments are simply continuations of approaches Game of Thrones has long taken in its storytelling: plot twists, destabilized time, a steadfast faith in magic-the kinds of powers that merge the world of the show and the world beyond it. ![]() Or when Daenerys herself arrives on the scene at precisely the right moment: to save the remaining Guardians, Jon, finally, included. Or when Benjen gallops into the battle at the very last minute, sacrificing himself to the zombie-horde so that Jon might ride again, even though both of them totally could have fit on that raft horse. ![]() Nor are we meant to question it when, during the epic battle between the Night King and the Guardians of the Known World, Tormund gets saved, at the last second, by the Hound. The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything Derek Thompsonīut we are not meant to question such things.
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