Six episodes into Game of Thrones Season Seven, this is my
main take away so far:
ICE DRAGON THEY HAVE AN ICE DRAGON THERE'S AN ICE DRAGON NOW IT’S GONNA GO OOOOOFFFFFFF.
 |
| GET HYPE. |
However, I was stunned (stunned
I tell you, stunned) to find the vast
majority of online chatter concerns not the glory of the ice dragon, the
sweetness of Dany and Jon making gooey eyes at each other and the satisfaction
of Cersei still pulling strong despite pre-season dismissal, but how long it
takes for ravens to get from A to B. Have they all ingested some sort of jet
fuel? Did the lesser known Tony of House Stark create tiny propellers for them?
Is there a Westerosi Amazon Prime that we don’t know of? Because Season 7 is
rattling along at a breakneck pace and, unfortunately, it’s shed some of its magnetism
along the way.
Let’s look at how Game of Thrones used to show travelling.
In the first season, Ned and Robert take the Kings Road from Winterfell to
Kings Landing. Characters were carefully developed (this is the first time
Joffrey is shown to be absolute oike of the first order) and relationships were
established an enhanced. It took a hefty chunk of screen time, but by the time
the party got to King’s Landing, not only had the scale of continent been
established, but so had the characters.
 |
| This took about 3 episodes |
Moving further on, one of my favourite parts of Season 5 was
Verys and Tyrion cooped up together in a carriage winding its way across Essos
towards Daenerys. Along the way, they wax philosophical, crack jokes and become
such good company that, when they all separated, fear of death for the
characters was outweighed by the knowledge that they wouldn’t share any more
screen time together.
 |
| This took the best part of Season 5 |
On a much smaller scale, take Cersei’s walk of shame from
the Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep. Two major landmarks in the city are
connected and the viewer was given a sense of scale of King’s Landing. There is
the Sept, here is the castle, in between are the commoners. It showed that a
person could walk the distance easily (in terms of distance that is, that walk
was brutal) and also established the
two power houses in King’s Landing, more so than the funerals and weddings in
the Sept had before.
 |
| Seems less horrifying from this angle, too! |
Taking time to travel, using these scenes as character and
setting development, made Game of Thrones was it is. The world was shown to be
big, gritty and populated. It showed that Westeros is not an easy land to
travel. Shortcuts could not be found and, when characters went travelling, you
knew that there was a very good chance they wouldn’t make it back. Basically,
it added to the realism and jeopardy and it’s a vital part of the show’s DNA.
Now let’s look at travel in Season 7. Ayra Stark starts in
the Riverlands (bumping into Ed Sheeran along the way), stops at Hot Pie’s gaff,
meets her dire wolf in the snow and ends at Winterfell. The important
difference from previous Ayra travels is that she is doing this alone. Where
before she had Gendry and later on, the Hound, now she has no one to talk to, missing
out on developing key development. When she gets to Winterfell, her go getting,
‘slay the enemies of my family’, can-do attitude hasn’t moved on from the end
of Season 6.
However, she is now psychotically mistrustful of Sansa,
terrorising her with faces and daggers and creepy, creepy games – how did this
switch happen? Wasn’t she supposed to be all for family? The show has Petyr
Baelish plant an incriminating letter as a catalyst, but it would have been
much more successful for a travelling companion to change Ayra’s steadfast
opinion on her family, as it would have done in previous episodes quite
naturally. As it is, the viewer is expected to accept a massive character shift
from Ayra with very little to work with.
And the ships! Euron Greyjoy goes from King’s Landing to
Casterley Rock in what seems to be an afternoon. What previously took episodes
worth of time is now covered in a single hour. The scale of the continent and
the jeopardy of crossing it are sacrificed in order to get to the action
quickly; this is not the Game of Thrones of old.
 |
| One episode. One. Episode. |
Which brings us to episode 6 of Season 7. Ooft. Let’s break
it down. In the time Jon Snow and his Merry Men are stuck in a stand-off
against the Night King (with no obvious supplies and the chill of winter
literally surrounding them): Gendry runs back to the Wall; a raven is sent to
Dragonstone; Daenerys argues with Tyrion; she flies beyond the Wall to save
their frozen behinds.
How long were they there for? It was at least one night, as
Thoros of Myr dies in his sleep. By that point, Gendry has reached the Wall,
but after that, a raven needs to be found, sent and dragons need to come back.
Was it another day? Exposed, with no food and no water? Characters weren’t
shown to sleep, eat or drink, things which, again, would have been shown in
earlier series. The realism of being trapped on a frozen lake is lost, and
without the realism, there was no real tension.
It's been remarked upon by Alan Taylor (the director) that,
whilst fans will happily eat up White Walkers, dragons and faces in bags, we’ve
become quite the sticklers for time keeping. And though it is fun to nitpick, it
means an important facet of the show has been lost. No longer do hero
characters sleep, eat, or travel. They land where they need to be, do their
thing and go home again. The glory days of Tywin Lannister needing the loo seem
to be behind us. They don’t act like human beings anymore.
It’s not a deal breaker though. We’ve have years of
these people travelling, talking, eating and sleeping. We’ve (well, myself at
any rate) have come to know them like our own families. I trust the showrunners
to stick the landing, tie the loose ends and have someone finally tell Jon Snow what his parent situation is.
Hopefully though, not by jet propelled raven.
