Game of Thrones, “The Long Night”
This week on Dear Television:
Aaron Bady, Sarah Mesle, and Phil Maciak (riding up at the last minute like Melisandre, who you forgot for a minute was even on this show) are back to sort through the wreckage of “The Long Night,” the big third episode of the final season of HBO’s hit prestige fantasy series, Bones. There are lots of spoilers to this episode below, so if you don’t want to know the names and personalities of lots of Dothraki soldiers, or the names and personalities of lots of Unsullied soldiers, or the motivations of the Night King, or what Bran’s whole deal is, or precise and logically-consistent descriptions of the architectural layout of Winterfell, then don’t look below, because we will be revealing and discussing ALL of those spoilers.
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Previous episode: season 8, episode 2, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”
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Zero Dark Gendry
by Aaron Bady
Dear Television,
None of this should have been a surprise, I guess. Game of Thrones has been coasting on its reputation as an abusive show that kills darlings and jerks tears for a long time; these days, only the unimportant people get killed in battles that turn out to end in a gritty victory. There was a point, last night — as we were grimly struggling to keep track of that is-it-as-bright-as-it-should-be gloom (“huh, I guess Grey Worm is actually still alive?” and “Were Brienne, Sam, and Jaime still alive? I can’t tell”) — where we started to realize that the battle was going to end the way it ended, and it was so very, very dull. It wasn’t Arya’s leap specifically, but there were no other narrative options: either they were going to kill the Night King (such that all his crew would magically stop on a dime) or literally every character in the show was going to get killed. So, obviously, they were going to kill the Night King. And they did.
But despite the total mayhem wreaked by the army of the dead — overrunning every part of the castle — the death count was startlingly low among the characters we care about. Jon was not killed by the ice dragon. Daenerys was not killed by the ten thousand wights around her on an open battlefield, nor was her dragon by same. Sam was not killed by the pile of zombies he was… on top of? Crying and stabbing? (What?) Brienne and Jaime were both last seen being piled on by dozens of wights, alone; they survive. Grey Worm doesn’t die with most of his retreat-covering unsullied, Gendry doesn’t die, Podrick doesn’t die, Clegane doesn’t die, Tormund doesn’t die, and the Onion Knight stays savory. Arya saves Bran, and lives. When the crypts open and zombies kill a bunch of people, they do not kill anyone we know. Gilly lives, Varys lives, Missandei lives, and Sansa and Tyrion do not — as it sort of seemed like they were going to — do a suicide pact. They all live. Yay!
The little Lady of Bear Island dying was sad, I guess, but there’s not much to the character except shouting at Jon at meetings. Beyond her, most of the people who were killed in the battle with The Literal Army of Death are people who were already mostly dead. Sorry Other Night’s Watch guy, and Flame Sword guy; I guess Jorah is a long-running character, but he started dying many seasons ago, and Theon, too, should probably have already died. We were all surprised to see that Melisandre was still in the show, except when we remembered that she had to fulfill the prophecy of her own death. Nobody (or almost nobody) stans these characters; they are, indisputably, the least important characters to the show’s plot, among the least beloved, and definitely the most expendable.
(And then, of course, a billion and a half nameless grunts and civilians died — and all the Dothraki—but who gives a shit, right? Did you see how awesome Arya’s leap was?)
None of this should have been a surprise. This show has been glorious trash for a while, perhaps forever. But as long as the Night King was still in the game, he was a promise that it might actually be more. From the first scene of the show and the Starks’ “Winter is Coming” to the slow inexorable discovery of the real plot of the show, he was an apocalyptic stakes-rising enemy that transformed this petty game of thrones into something deeper and ancient and more mysterious. His looming presence allowed the show to maintain a very delicate balance between its superficial character service — each person’s petty feuds and backstories — and the destiny that awaited all of them. It made Jon’s parentage matter, and it made Daenerys’s quest for the Iron Throne seem more important than mere power-hunger, and it made the entire story of Westeros seem a lot older and stranger and deeper than it has turned out to be. After all, the last two episodes were nothing but reminding us all of who all these people were and who their loved ones were, in anticipation of many of them getting killed and zombified and then killing (or having to be killed by) their loved ones; we saw the desperate precious smallness of life magnified against the yawning backdrop of oblivion. As Aristotle would want, we experienced terror, empathy, and fear.
And then it was all fine! The slow, implacable, and opaque Night King turned out to be exactly as predictable as Bran said he was, and while he can’t be killed by dragon fire, it turns out, he can be killed by a Valyrian steel dagger. This is because of reasons. He never speaks. He doesn’t have any more backstory, or significance, isn’t time-warged Bran or a metaphor for climate change or death or even a Targaryen. His art — those deeply weird pictograms he loved making — turn out to mean nothing. There’s nothing more to him; he was just a big scary lich king, who smirks, and now we killed him and got a bunch of experience points.
What is this show now? Winter is… over. Before a few weeks ago, one wondered how they could possibly wrap it all up in only six episodes, since so much had yet to be revealed about the Night King and the Gods and the entire Bran-plot. Now, I find myself wondering what they’re even going to do for three more. Euron is a clown and Cersei is doomed to be killed by one of her brothers or something; when she was in the middle of a sea of difficult familial politics, she was interesting; now she isn’t and she isn’t, just a one-note villain. And who else is there in this show? It’s conceivable that they’ll make the drama all about people trying to decide what to do now that they’ve saved the world and the stakes have gotten small again; I suppose we could see Tyrion and Jaime have divided loyalties again, and maybe Jon and Sansa and Arya will break with Daenerys, whose army is mostly kaput anyway. Grey Worm and Missandei can go off and explore non-phallic eroticism and Gendry can leave 17 unanswered voicemails for Arya. Presumably we’ll get Clegane-bowl after all, and Tormund and Brienne will figure out if they’re a thing, and maybe Varys will matter again. Sam will return his library books.
Is any of that compelling? Can it be, now? We’ve spent entire seasons watching Jon convince everyone that nothing else matters but the war with death; now that there is no war with death, are we supposed to pretend that all that other stuff matters again? Having been reassured for seven seasons — eight years — that the battle with the Night King would elevate all this other stuff into something more interesting, are we going to go back to acting like the “Game of Thrones” is the key thing?
I don’t know, but hey, it’s just three more episodes, so let’s watch and find out. It’s entertainment; none of that stuff matters and it’s not more elevated or sublime than masculine soap opera, but it’s fun to pretend. None of this should be a surprise, but if it is, it’s because viewers do such creative and interesting things with a show that everyone’s watching; from the memes and jokes and fan theories and “watercooler” talks, the show becomes something much more mysterious, bigger, and weirder than it ever really was, especially when the yet-unrevealed Night King was still a promissory note for it to become whatever we wanted it to be. Until the end, we suspend our disinterest; everyone’s watching it and so we’re all watching it together, and so we use it to play and to chat and to socialize. For three more episodes. And then we’ll stop watching it.
But not today,
Aaron
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