Game of Thrones’ writers love their clumsy-fool characters and big, dumb gestures
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones season 8, episode 5, “The Bells.”
A lot has been written lately about how Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss don’t really understand some of the characters they inherited from A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin — particularly the show’s smartest and most foresighted characters. The behind-the-scenes schemers and string-pullers who shaped the show have fallen on hard times in recent seasons, as Benioff and Weiss have run out of Martin’s source material, forcing them to take on more of the burden of plotting and scripting the show — and bringing their own blunter tastes and interests to the fore.
And that’s radically shifted the show’s tone. Where Martin loves...