Game of Thrones: or why I disliked season five but will keep on watching it.

-Spoilers obviously-

Just at the start of season six of Game of Thrones I’ve come to terms: I didn’t like season five. I’ve thought about it long and hard but I have to agree with the many, it wasn't the best season ever. Now I won’t stop watching like ‘the marysue’ did. Nor do I fully agree with the arguments they gave. But that's fine. Nothing better than to disagree on something. But I do wish to talk a bit about season five. So here it is. 

Hodor is Hodor

Whenever I explain this notion of fantasy to someone I use the 'afterlife tube station' 

from Harry Potter. Here's Harry in a world that only exists in his mind with Dumbledore

telling him again and again not to care for the 'baby' under the bench.

'The baby is crying!'-'Don't you mind it'.

'But it's crying!'-'Don't you mind it.'.

Who would not care for a crying infant? Simply by denying help J. K. Rowling

creates a wonderful weird scene for all the right reasons. And way less grounded by 

the boundaries of simple dragons or firebolts.

The first reason for my dislike of season five is the lack of Hodor. I mean, 'If Hodor dies, we riot' right? He's my pillar of stability in de murderous world of Westeros.

But -joking aside- with him the storyline of Bran. It delves into, what I like to call, ‘deep fantasy’ . This isn’t just dungeons and dragons the boy is dealing with. This kid has visions of three-eyed ravens, imaginations of flying and he can warg into a wolf and who-not.

With Bran there is truly a sense of magic returning to this world of Westoros which somehow strikes me harder than seeing an army a deadites attacking a wildling village (without a doubt the best episode of the season). I really missed his magic storyline. It returned a bit with Ayra's house of nasty people, but overall it were mere glimpses we got. Thankfully next season Bran and Horor are back fighting the Lannister's wizard style. 

Dorne

My next little problem with season five was the whole Dorne storyline. I think we can all agree that it wasn’t up to scratch. The fight choreography was abysmal (especially after Oberyn’s fantastic choreography a season previous) –so I never feared those Sand Snakes And basically all that I expected to happen, happened.

The scenery looked great. And I'm a big fan of actor Alexander Siddig. So there's a lot of potential but it just didn't show this season.

The same goes for Jonathan Price's character. Great to have him on board. Now please let him chew all kinds of scenery -for me- playing the dastardly villain he can play so well. They (the famous ‘they’) didn't but then again, here's hoping.

The scripting

To sidetrack a bit to the script. Usually the script in Game of Thrones is close to perfection. However, this season they messed up a bit. Two examples:

First, I hate (with a vengeance) coincidental coincidences in movies and series. So Jorah spotting Tyrion Lannister in a bar and kidnapping him (without the Spider knowing by the way). No sorry, I don't buy it.

Game of Thrones has been pretty good at hiding these blatant coincidences as 'happenings' (Ayra and the hound meeting Brien, Bran seeing Jon, and others). But this one was so 'in your face' obvious that it felt rather more like sloppy writing than a great flow of the story. But, then again, I must mention, I haven't read the books this far yet maybe it was in it.

Second, There's the finale/pacing of the episodes. I could also place this in editing since I don’t know what went on during post-production.

We ended one episode with Barristan Semly dying in a rather unimpressive manner that left me a bit bewildered. I mean, such a great fighter dying like that? 

Maybe, again, it was the choreography. But something didn’t feel right. It felt like he died far too unceremoniously than his character should have deserved. Especially since those gold mask-villains come across a bit like stormtroopers rather than dangerous foes. And one simply does not get killed by cannonfodder.

But the best example of this argumentation happened a few episodes later the moment the show killed poor little Shireen. I means this was the sweetest child in the whole of Westeros and her father killed her. I wanted him dead (by Davos’s fingerless-hand preferably) the minute I saw it happen.

But the showmakers didn't stop the show there for me to grief. No, they continued into a long spectacular scene of Daenerys looking cool on a dragon. I was still furious over the poor girl and therefore couldn't care less about Daenerys. I believe those two scenes should have been switched around.

The episode should have ended with Shireen's death scream. I even believe that this is so obvious that it serves as proof that the show lost its footing a bit by not doing it. Here's hoping that the next season doesn't do something like this again.

Naked bloodshed.

Alright, another little point. The nudity. Ask my teen self about this and I would strenuously deny having any problem with it. But now, being a bit older, more experience it tends to bother me a bit when there's no real function for the nudity. It annoys me in all kinds of HBO shows (Boardwalk empire, Carnivalé) wherein women keep undressing themselves all over the place. If you have to go to the bathroom, take a shower, have sex- please be naked. But don't drop your panties when making cereal. That's basically my down to earth view on nakedness in media.

So why throw it in all the time? Which brings me to the example from season five: the shame sequence. Now, I believe Cersei in the books has to walk around naked as well (like Lady Godiva to some extent). Point is, she didn't have to be naked (for me) to get the message across. People throwing stuff at her was more than enough to shame her. More so -to me- it felt like all those blokes showing their parts to her were merely written in to even out the sex. Some boy parts thrown in to keep the feminists happy as it where.

To me it feels far too constructed and maybe they were better of filming it differently. Sex(uality) is a great tool in visual fiction, but not always. 

I loved the woman's reaction to these kids: WTF!

Talking about sex. I did like the fact that Tommen got lucky. Mainly because of the uncomfortable reactions of a lot of the reviewers on the internet.

In the same vein. Was there any need to make Meryn Trant a pederast? Wasn’t his responsibility for killing Syrio Forel enough to justify Ayra’s (bloody) revenge?

As a side-note to this. I'm not much of a fan of bloodshed. I can take it. It just doesn’t interest me that much. So I’m always a bit worried when the choice is made to show something explicitly instead of suggestive. This, because I’m scared that the creators might want to top it in the next movie/tv-show (like Quentin Tarantino movies getting more explicitly bloodier after ‘Kill Bill’).

Of course the famous Mountain versus Viper episode in season three had scared the bejeezers out of me. So there was a fear that it would be even more explicit in this season. Now, It happened a bit (like the gouging out of eyes and slowly cutting throats - Ayra being naughty again). But I do hope that next season they showmakers cut back a bit on the blood and gore.

Sansa

But it think the main reason why season five left a bad taste in my mouth was that Sansa got downplayed. I always cared for Sansa. She was naïve, sweet, caring, -in short- not made for this cruel world of Westoros. But, she was learning –fast.

Now after years of torment she suddenly gleamed like a black star at the night sky the minute she finished her dress at the end of season four. Awesome!

But then she was tossed into the hands of the evil Ramsay Bolton and all of Sansa’s character-development got thrown out the window .

I figured Sansa, by now would know how to use her desirability as a tool to receive more power. That (scared of course) like Daenerys years before with Drogon she would wrap crazy Bolton around her finger. Instead she became a victim once more.

And to add insult to injury the focus during the wedding night (rape) was placed on poor Theon and thus setting him up as the eventual ‘knight in shining armor to save the damsel in distress’. Just one shot of Sansa's eyes making plans (maybe a scene before or after) was all that was needed to reassure me.

Pretty much the same discussion occurred after the rape between Cersei and Jamie a season before. Now whether this was rape or not I won’t delve into it. The point is, however, that the character Jamie had made such progress in the previous episodes in transforming himself from a despicable kinsmen killer to a caring man that it was a shock to see him force himself onto his sister. Like those previous episodes hadn’t happened. An atoned Jamie suddenly turned back to his wicked former self.

But, then again, Jamie is rather messed up in his head so this turn to his vile old self never struck me much as a destruction of character.

 

I guess I just hate that I now have to wait -don’t know how long- before Sansa musters up the courage to finally kick some behinds.

To sum it all up

In short my dislike of Game of Thrones season five comes down to this: 

Things that should have looked cool failed because: 
A) Were downplayed (Semly’s death). B) Were misplaced (dragons after Shireen).Or C) Were underwhelming (the Sand Snakes fight).

Things that could have been cool failed because they: 
A)Were kept in the freezer (please Price come out and play!). OrB) Were denied previous character development (Sansa’s wedding night).

Things that where cool were ruined by unnecessary violence and sex (The shame sequence, Meryn’s  sexual preference).

And, finally, things that would have been cool but were apparently left out (please throw in Lady Stoneheart- get the ball rolling with some real warlocks and magic). 

But, honesty dictates, that the season also did a lot a lot of things right. The Hardhome fight was awesome. The ‘For the watch’-ending was to be expected but nevertheless cool.  And the battering between Jamie and Bron and Tyrion and Jorah were an absolute blast.

But what have we got to look forward to in season six? Well…

Bran is back all magical and powerful. Hodor is "Hodor". Jon will probably return like some kind of snow zombie. Rickon is returning (hopefully he has some more lines). Gendry has finally finished his rowing trip. Ayra is blind and pissed off. Sansa has escaped (and is pissed off). Theon is still insane but at least on the right side of the law insane. Jamie is back in King's Landing to help his sister. Jonathan Price is going to be more evil against Cersei (who has a ‘Franken-mountain’ at her side). And Tyrion and the spider are reunited to govern a new city. Lots of fun to be had. Oh and Daenerys has control of her dragons once more...

If only they could get a scene in with the Queen of Thorns slashing away with a sword and I'm happy.