No matter what everyone thinks of the last season/episode of Game of Thrones, one of the reasons I’ve so enjoyed the pop culture phenomenon that is GoT – or the Marvel Universe, or really any much-talked-about movie/series/book – is how much time the public spends talking about STORYTELLING.
Here’s a great breakdown of the difference in storytelling styles that made for such a difference in TV versus book.
It’s easy to say this to show doesn’t matter or it’s fluff when we should talk about “important” things or #nerds! But for the last decade, millions of people have watched GoT and discussed human nature, how powerful people’s politics impact “the regular people,” justice, revenge, art, sexism, and on and on. That’s not a small thing.
For that matter, I can’t think of a better topic to have a worldwide discussion on right now than the nature of power, tyranny, and the impact of what powerful people do.
While Tyrion’s speech in the last episode was maybe imperfect, what he was getting at wasn’t the point that Bran’s individual story was literally the best of the bunch, but that Bran has the capacity to represent an entire people’s stories. Who gets to tell the story? Whose story matters? Which parts of the story need to be heard? What stories can we learn from! The last episode was a love letter to storytelling, really.
I don’t think the season or series was perfect, and I appreciate the discussion on racial representation, gender representation, ableism, etc. in the series. I certainly have critiques of my own in those areas. I hope those discussions continue and the next story the public is captivated by is better.
But I also love that millions of people have spent so much time discussing what makes a good story! To hear character arcs and plot lines and foreshadowing and differences in author style and book vs. screen discussed at length makes my writer’s heart very happy!
Everyone has a story, more often many stories, and you were all meant to tell them.