It sure has been an interesting and enthralling journey since HBO's Game of Thrones left George R. R. Martin's book series behind back at the beginning of Season 6. At the time too, there was almost an "and not a moment too soon" quality to the break. Season 5 had caught some notable flack for being bleak. Not that the show hadn't been bleak by design, as part of its actual blueprint, but after four plus years, some fans had reached their threshold.
Once Sansa started getting victimized and brutalized again and then Princess Shireen got burned to death by her own father, there was a cry from the rafters regarding Thrones being too much of an agony parade, especially since those moments didn't come from the books (or hadn't happened in the books yet). Viewers wanted wins. They wanted the good guys to stand tall for once. Then Jon Snow got ganked in the Season 5 finale and it seemed all was lost. Fan theories held firm though (for readers and viewers) and there was hope that a Lord of Light loophole would save everyone's favorite beautiful bastard.
So then, all eyes were on Season 6. This would be the first time that a major fan theory had the possibility of being confirmed, one way or another. Fully untethered from GRRM's pages, Season 6 would proceed to hand out happy moments and payoffs like they were pocket candy. It was the happiest season of Thrones to date, capped off by the exceptional episodes "Battle of the Bastards" and "The Winds of Winter." Still though, the run almost felt too rewarding given what the show, and story, had been up until that point. That vibe, plus some lingering complaints about "fast travel," made Season 6 land in a much different way than other Thrones seasons. David Benioff and Dan Weiss were now finishing the story in a markedly different fashion than Martin would - despite some overall plot beats being the same. Thrones was now more of a traditional TV show than the celebration of audience contempt that we'd all grown to love (despite its knack for traumatizing us).
Enter Season 7, which not only continued to feel more "TV," but also ramped up the fast travel (to a degree where the only way to get past the geographical gaps was to ignore them completely) because there were now fewer episodes. Longer episodes sure (most by 10 minutes, the finale by 30), but fewer chapters overall to tell a story that would usually be spread out over 10. The silver lining to only having seven episodes was the increased frequency of massive battle sequences, which used to only come once a season. The show's seasonal budget was, assumedly the same, but now more money was being put into the episodes.
Now various gripes about the show have reached a bridge too far in the other direction. Thrones can no longer be too depressing and cutthroat, nor can everything play out too close to the way people expect. It's a very slim Venn Diagram here for this tricky balancing act of tenderizing and terrorizing. We wanted people to die, and they surely did but - oh - they weren't important enough to count. Their demise didn't crush our spirits and make us want to rage-quit the series. It's possible that we've all now reached a point, given everyone's varied favorite characters/favorite pairings/theories/predictions, that the show cannot unify us the way it once did, even if that unity came via mortification. Seven years in and we're splintered. Weiss and Benioff have a near-impossible task and a near-impossible audience to satiate.
Most of the major complaints regarding Season 7 can be found within the penultimate adventure episode, "Beyond the Wall" (which even sounds flat as a title). Normally, this expedition would have been spread out over two, or even three, episodes. But here, within the "bell to bell," this mega-quest felt crammed. For a show that literally opens with a map, and has been very much about geography with relation to story, things got super fuzzy regarding where Jon Snow and his men were, how far Gendry had to run, how much time was everyone was stuck out on that island, and how long it can actually take a raven to fly from Eastwatch-By-The Sea to Dragonstone.
On top of this, the bulk of the body count came from unnamed "Red Shirts," who laughably all seemed to be wearing hoods so the main characters could stand out easier, and in a dire situation that was surely one of the most perilous expeditions ever undertaken on the show, only one main player perished -- "main" being a generous term here.
Thoros of Myr aside, it's not that the shocking death of Viserion didn't register as something huge, but the fact that Tormund, Jorah, or (freakin') Beric didn't meet their end during this epic assault made the fact that almost every character now has "plot armor" stand out even more. It used to be that, truly, anyone could die. It didn't matter what traditional storytelling dictated, anyone could get cut down before they completed their arc or met that special someone they had to meet. Now, it's unlikely Tormund will die before he sees Brienne again, and Jorah with Dany, or Gendry with Arya.
Here's something to think about: Is that, inherently, a bad thing? I mean, I certainly want Tormund and Brienne to have monster babies, don't you? And I'd love for Gendry and Arya to reunite, whatever that coupling may bring. Are we disappointed now then that things feel too neat and clean? That's not to say that people won't die, but is everyone now guaranteed to die in a certain way? After a certain thing is accomplished?
It's probably for the best that A: Thrones is ending next season, and B: the season won't come until, possibly, 2019. What happens with everything popular is that, eventually, it lets you down on some level. When that happens, you stop overlooking/forgiving whatever flaws might be there and start noticing them more, even seeking them out. Game of Thrones has reached a tipping point where it's almost damned in every direction.
Enough boo-hooing now. Let's dig into what made Season 7 really pop. Firstly, one has to mention "The Spoils of War." It was the first time major characters collided in such a scene of spectacle and violence, with us viewers torn because representing the side of the Lannisters, the side we're supposed to jeer, were the two guys out of all of them we'd cheer: Jaime and Bronn. It was a crazy chaotic clash of fan favorites and it was exhilarating. Watching the Dothraki finally rampage across the Reach. The debut of the dragons in battle and the look on Jaime's face. Bronn at that giant crossbow. Jaime trying to end the war with one heroic Queenslaying joust. It was breathtaking.
One could argue that the fact that Jaime and Bronn both survived (side-eyeing Bronn here, especially) was the beginning of the quick and steep slope that culminated with almost everyone making it out of "Beyond the Wall" alive, but that didn't rob "The Spoils of War" of any of its majesty.
The accelerated pace of the show now, which is a combination of both fast travel and fewer characters to follow in fewer places, definitely had its benefits too. Jon and Daenerys, the two linchpins of the entire series, finally met in the third episode, "The Queen's Justice," when original recipe pacing would have had them meeting sometime in the last quarter of the season. This allowed them to get to know one another and develop the bond needed for them to finally land in each others' arms in the finale (with that Aegon Targaryen secret now dangling over their heads). The pacing also allowed for the war - Daenerys' war - to kick in right away, despite her losing efforts out of the gate.
What was really great here was the fact that Daenerys' temperament, and the brutal history of Targaryens, was a major talking point. The show needed to have a reason for Dany not to instantly ride roughshod all over the realm and fortunately it had a superb one -- her entire arc since Season 1, in fact. The idea that she made her name (her many names) fighting and ruling as a representative for the helpless and unfortunate. She literally took seven seasons to land in Westeros because ending the slave trade thousands of miles away was paramount to her character.
Daenerys may have had three dragons - three "nukes" really - when she started, but it's not like she could use them without serious consequences to both her legacy and dynasty. Yes, instead of supposedly having the upper hand, she came in with a tactical disadvantage. The show did a great job of showing us how difficult her task truly was, despite the fact that the soaring scene at the end of Season 6, with Dany sailing in with that giant fleet and all her allies, made us think it'd be easy pickings for her.
The battles were great this year too. Not just the "Loot Train Battle" (can this not be the official name, please?) but Dany flying in with her dragons to save Jon in the nick of time, Euron smashing Yara's portion of the Greyjoy fleet, the entire closing seasonal sequence involving the east part of the Wall coming down - the Season 7 VFX get a top grade. The money usually meant for more episodes was definitely on the screen.
Game of Thrones: Kit Harington Plays "Betray, Marry, Kill"
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With the war underway came new and game-changing alliances. Everyone of importance was now on one continent and, dammit, they were all going to meet. Dany's faction would find Jon and Davos while Cersei and Jaime would wrangle the Tarlys and Euron. It would all culminate in the season finale during an excellent twenty minute scene involving an ancient Dragonpit and a dozen or more important characters all filling a single space. It was one lengthy scene all about fighting the Night King and his army, which was another element that really worked this year: the fact that the army of the dead, the show's main antagonist that only a handful of people knew about, put a halt to the "Game of Thrones" conflict between Daenerys and Cersei and became everyone's top priority. Except Cersei, naturally, who lied because she's awesome and, pregnant or not, it didn't quite feel right for her to give that much of a damn about anything that she couldn't see and/or wasn't directly affecting her in that moment.
Of course, not everyone was down at the Dragonpit for the finale. The Stark siblings had their own running arc up in Winterfell and while it all ended with a phenomenal scene featuring Littlefinger getting called to account for all of his dastardly schemes and then getting unceremoniously executed, the build to that moment was shaky at best. Arya, who got two of the biggest crowd-pleasing moments this year (on a series that now actually has them) with her Frey massacre and her Brienne sparring session, seemed "off" up in Winterfell during the weeks when we were supposed think she was out to usurp Sansa and falling for Littlefinger's ploy.
She wasn't acting quite right. Either she was putting on a performance or she wasn't, literally, herself (some out there were wondering if Arya had actually been the Waif since the end of Season 6). All of this was enough though for viewers to sense that something was going on and when viewers feel that something's wonky, the theories come out. Then it became a little too obvious that Arya was setting a trap for Littlefinger. The best case scenario, of course, would be that Sansa was too. The last thing any of us wanted was either sister to be played of a fool given their respective journeys on the show. The two of them, many times over, earned the ability to stay a step ahead of him.
In the end, Lord Baelish's demise was fitting and fun, but the fact that Arya showed up acting a bit icy and hostile was a misstep because it immediately alerted us to the fact that the show wanted us to buy her possibly wanting to kill Sansa. In trying to not create a tell, they created a tell.
By the end, I did wonder when it occurred to both sisters that Littlefinger was trying to play them, given that Bran (who himself had become no picnic to be around as the sedated "Three-Eyed Raven") had the ability to see through time and space. Recently though, we spoke to actor Isaac Hempstead-Wright about a deleted scene between Sansa and Bran involving her asking him for advice and answers.
Of course, it's good that this moment wound up on the cutting room floor because it would have given away the Littlefinger scene at the end. Plus, it was only Sansa figuring things out, meaning Arya was being strange and confrontational on her own and wasn't in cahoots with her sister until possibly the end. Meaning that she was possibly being duped. Yeah, good riddance to that scene. Now I can just pretend that the three of them cooked up this plot back as early as when they all met by the Godswood.
The Verdict
Game of Thrones, in its seventh season, both benefited from and was damaged by the accelerated pace and shorter episode count. On one hand, the war started right away and a battle as magnificent as the one at the end of "The Spoils of War" could arrive as ferociously as it did. On the downside, huge moments sometimes got crammed together in such a way that it robbed them of weight and substance. Still, when this show goes for spectacle, or even smaller show-stopping moments (massacres, R+L=J revelations, even just The Hound smiling because he knows Arya is okay), it has no equal.
S.H.
Will be best season for sure!
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