Murder on the Westeros Express: Character Death in Game of Thrones

OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING ATTACHED TO ANYTHING DISCUSSING GAME OF THRONES:

As the title suggests, this is a post about character death in Game of Thrones. If you're not caught up on the series, read on but on your own head be it. Also a confession; I’ve not read the books so if you, dear reader, could refrain from telling me what happens later on, I’d be very much obliged, ta. On with the blog!

Game of Thrones is back and I couldn’t be happier. It’s brilliant example of how, as Hollywood movies trend towards all of their films being as inclusive as possible, Hollywood TV can and will throw money at huge, expensive shows with enormous casts and complex stories and make it just for adults. 

Woooo!!! Political machinations!!! Allegorical parables!!! Dragons!!!

It’s a show full of breathtaking moments (the Battle of Blackwater Bay is probably my favourite scene in any TV show) but cast your minds back to series one, episode 9 where it really stood out from the pretenders. Yeah, you know which bit I’m talking about, this scene right here: 

This might surprise some of you, but watching Ned Stark die in the first series came as a shock to my sister. She’d not really bothered with Game of Thrones and was only watching because it was on the telly, but when the moment happened, she was definitely surprised, saying, “They can’t kill off Sean Bean! He’s the main character!”

And then described how she thought it would have panned out, with Ayra Stark leaping up, killing the executioner and running away to have awesome adventures with her beloved daddy. This to me, after three series and a half series of main characters dying, sounded ridiculous of course. But it wasn’t ridiculous to my sister, who saw all main characters everywhere as untouchable, so why should Game of Thrones be any different? 

Game of Thrones has a serious reputation for being very brutal with its leading roles. Think back to poor Renly; he was built up to be Robb Stark’s partner in battle, only to be slain in the 6^th episode of series two. After him, surely it was Robb who would be gloriously victorious, but one Red Wedding later and he’s off the pitch for good. Joffrey, who as the show’s main villain was vital to the proceedings, couldn’t survive his own wedding. Being a main character in Westeros takes its toll, but what makes this different to other shows which seem to equally enjoy a bit of character death every so often?

Really, what does killing a main character mean? If you take the Steven Moffat route, then it means getting a cheap shock before pushing a big Reset button which takes away any jeopardy, because what’s a story with stakes compare to a mess of clever clever twists? In Bones, it means Booth can be shot and buried by a stalker, but then hastily revived unconvincingly one episode later. Even Life on Mars couldn’t quite commit to it, and had John Simm happily running around with his 1970’s cop buddies after he’d jumped off a roof. This means that death is a revival, and a character faking their death or enjoying a robust afterlife shows that death is not the end, meaning that there can be no consequences.

But death in Game of Thrones always has consequences. The show’s motto, All Men Must Die, is a battle cry against the transiency of TV death, for there can be no last minute revival from a bad case of sword through the neck. There’s only one character, Beric Dondarrion, the leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners, who has cheated death, and he is a periphery, a dangerous symbol of the world outside the known concepts of life and death.

And he pays for every single time it happens, but more on that later.

There are no audience tricking loopholes, no fake funerals, no body switching – people die and stay dead, and each one has severe consequences. Take the orphan children Theon has brutally murdered and tries to pass off as the charred remains of Rickon and Bran Stark. Thinking her little brother has killed two of the remaining Starks, Yara decides her brother is half mad and takes his reinforcements away, leaving Theon at the mercy of his turncoat soldiers and subjecting him to a life of torture at the hands of the fully mad Ramsey Snow. Two orphan children cease the Greyjoy campaign for independence and the War of the Five Kings loses its first contestant. The horrible Janos Slynt, who orchestrated the murder of all Robert Baratheon’s bastard children, is sent packing to the Wall; the consequences of his part in the slaughter is still to be meted out in the show, but seeing as Wildings are surrounding Castle Black and the watchmen tend to panic without Jon Snow around, the night will most likely be dark and full of terrors for the least likable officer of the Night’s Watch.

There’s supernatural death, death by infection, death by zombification, death by dragon:

 And this is my second favourite moment of telly ever

In fact the only character who seems to die of natural causes is Robert Baratheon, who should have known better than harshing his buzz with boar hunting. But the show is never casual about the reality of surrounding its character’s with death, and this is shown through the arc taken by everyone’s favourite little murderer, Arya Stark.

Fun fact, 'Arya' is the fastest growing baby name in the USA!

Arya’s development as a character comes through her relationship with death. Her Dancing Master Syrio Forel taught her to pray to the God of Death, but it was still a cool game she was playing. Then, when her father is taken and guards are looking for her, she accidently kills a fat boy. She brags about this when Hot Pie starts to bully her, and it’s obvious that it’s still a sort of game to her. But then Polliver kills her friend with her own sword, and it’s no longer a game. She repeats the names of her potential kills, only praying to the God of Death, and the fun, sparky Arya of Winterfell, who could shoot better than her brothers and threw mud at her sister, is slowly replaced by a woman with death in her eyes. 

This change happens when she is talking to Thoros of Myr, when she sees hope for her father after all – if Thoros, a drunk priest, can bring Beric back to life, what’s stopping Ned from being reattached to his head? But she also sees how life after death can change a person too; before, Beric gave Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie a place to stay in safety. Afterwards, he sells Gendry for a bag of gold and the promises of a scary Red Woman. Arya sees no safety with the resurrected and, after watching her old life burn away at the Red Wedding, she makes her first kill out of red hot rage, knifing the man who desecrated her brother’s body. But now, Arya has made a dent in her list of names, coolly seeing off Polliver when he no longer posed a threat, kills out of revenge, not necessity or anger. How long until she kills for pleasure? Or until she gets her own comeuppance? I’m not sure, but I won’t stop watching until I find out.

Normally, killing the main character is a sign that a show has ran out of ideas, which why so many are written back in with little regard for logic. Resting the first series on Ned’s shoulders, when he was always going to be on the chopping block, was a bold move; even bolder was to splinter the stories and follow the chaos of war and politics, turning the show into a true ensemble piece, with everyone seeking different trophies. This is a show that isn’t afraid of challenging expectations of what a telly death means – not for Game of Thrones are the lame excuses of dreams, wizards or ‘timey wimey’ (God I hate that phrase) which are the fallback of other and dare I say, lesser, shows. It’s difficult to say who is the true star is now (although personally, my love for Bronn is as pure as his awesomeness) but on whoever the spotlight falls, I feel safe in the knowledge that their time on top will be spectacular. If, perhaps, short.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2014, Paramount. Directed by Anton and Joe Russo. Starring Chris Evans, Scarlet Johannsson, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Redford.

Super serious hero films where everything is dark and gritty and apparently shot with a Nokia 360 torch are now officially out of fashion. Thank God.  Did anyone really feel the need to explore Batman’s psyche when really we wanted the see him Batmanning about the place like a rich man with time on his hands? Was it truly necessary to witness the rise of Superman in agonisingly dull detail, only for him to simply murder someone? 

If Hollywood had a naughty step for bad movies, these two would still be sat on it.

Hell no, the public cried, and as collective we fed the Marvel machine, giving money hand over fist to bright, cheerful films about improbable people doing fun things. Massive blockbusters should be like this – you’ll hear no complaints about the Thor franchise from me – but in the bright lights of these new franchises spawning across The Avengers universe, Captain America: Winter Soldier works as a cautionary tale of where these fun superhero films might begin to fail.

And it’s not because of his stupid helmet, even though it is incredibly stupid.

It goes something like this: Cappy discovers that SHIELD, the shadowy, secretive organisation that hosts secret operations within secret operations, might not be that moral. Using pre-emptive blanket security measures, SHIELD is now apparently the NSA with knobs on, with Robert Redford lending a veneer of 70s conspiracy to a modern story of security over personal liberty. The problem is, unfortunately, that Captain America himself is just too dull to handle this kind of intrigue.

Try, if you can, to separate the old school Hollywood, infinitely charming and delightfully hench Chris Evans from his character. Cappy is a 1940s piece of propaganda who fought Nazis that spoke with comedy German accents, and he’s not been allowed room to adapt his worldview to that of the 21^st century. He’s always good and always makes the right choice, which is perfect for guiding a country through a global conflict, but not that interesting when you’re watching a film about the grey area between protection and freedom. Though Chris Evans tries to play within these boundaries, he’s given very little to work with and the seeds of development scattered throughout the film are never allowed to grow. Cappy’s fears that he’s an inadequate leader in a modern world? Dropped. His worries that he’ll spend life alone? Goes nowhere. Bouncing from one set piece to another, Cappy doesn’t have what you might call a story arc and this film is crying out for just a tablespoonful of the dreary character moments which made Man of Steel so long winded. There is a middle ground between pretention and nonsense, and Winter Soldier didn’t find it.

Or it may have done – it’s hard to tell since the story is strangely incoherent. The best example of this is that the Winter Soldier doesn’t make an appearance until about 45 minutes in. Casting back to The Dark Knight (and my loathing of Rises is directly inverted to my love of this film) it was abundantly clear that the Joker would be the head villain in a story of mob warfare and police overreach because he’s introduced in the first 5 minutes of the movie. You knew that Batman and the Joker’s story would take precedence because the Joker had a badass entrance and a cool soundtrack, and you discovered everything you needed to know about him through his actions, not because someone sat Batman down and gave a chronological history of his skills and experience.

 

Fun fact: the academic name for a villain is the Agent of Destruction, and 

as far as I know that isn't already a registered character name.

You would be forgiven for thinking that Captain America: The Winter Soldier would have a similar arc, since their names are right up there in the title. Nope – the Winter Soldier comes in, blows up a car and breezes out, leaving Scarlet Johannsson to tell everyone who he is and what his ideal date would be. It pushes it over the edge of silliness to incompetence and it’s frustrating to see this much talent go to waste.

On the positive side, Evans and Johannsson are as watchable as they are impossibly beautiful, the action is well paced and it does have a lot of humour about itself (Cappy’s list of things to do is quite funny) and there were even moments which were quite moving (Steve Rogers talking to ‘his best girl’ had me reaching for a hanky) but it’s nowhere near the standards that Marvel has set for itself. There was too much going on and not enough of it about the two title characters; too many explorations into a character’s mind makes a film unwatchable, too little makes our heroes unknowable. Come on guys, this should be easy by now.  

 

Escape from Planet Earth (otherwise known as ET Gave Us WiFi)

Escape from Planet Earth, 2014, Rainmaker Entertainment. Directed by Cal Brunker. Starring Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker and Rob Corddry.

So I’m going to break some rules and talk about a film I’ve not seen and have no intention of watching anytime soon, Escape from Planet Earth. Apparently it’s okay, a bit of fun on a Saturday for you and various small people you have lying around, but there’s something about the trailer that annoyed me. It’s around 1.40 in:

If you can’t be bothered watching it (understandable) one scrappy alien says to the other scrappy alien, ‘Who do you think invented the internet? Cell phones? Social networking? We did! You think humans could build this stuff? I don’t think so!’

Since I first saw this trailer I couldn’t put my finger on why this line bothered me so much; not to the point of sleepless nights and cold sweats, but certainly to the point of eye rolling and consternated humming. ‘Human’s are too dumb to invent stuff, it must have been aliens’ isn’t a new joke by any stretch of the imagination, and it’s been used in Men in Black, Paul  and even Independence Day (remember how it made almost no sense that a computer virus could destroy an entire alien fleet? It turns out that in a deleted scene, all computers came from the alien ship that was found in Area 51, so take that, logic fans!) TVTropes call this ET Gave Us WiFi and in previous examples, it’s been a fun little aside and an acknowledgment that humankind isn’t the apex of civilisation in the universe. So why did it irritate me when a silly kid’s film did it?  

There’s something about Escape from Planet Earth that seems too cynical to pull this joke off with any real warmth or affection, and I think it might have something to do with the way it’s being told. It’s not just a funny throw away gag, it’s the entire plot and the reason why the aliens want to escape – they’re being forced to create things for human. So there’s part of the fun sucked out (slave labour isn’t normally a rich field for comedy) but the other part is the Neo-Luddism undertones of the film, declaring all technology must be alien made and therefore untrustworthy. Writer and director Cal Brunker picked the internet as something that human’s couldn’t have created because we’re too stupid to have conceived of it. Ignoring the fact that it’s common knowledge that it was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee working with CERN, it’s interesting that the web was only invented 25 years ago, and yet it’s become such an integral part of modern human life it’s impossible to imagine a world without it. So impossible in fact, that it’s difficult to see how someone could be clever enough to invent the internet without using the internet. 

Tim Berners-Lee is like Prometheus, but instead of stealing fire from the gods, he made the fire

 using his own mind and gave it to the world for free. Apparently he makes a really nice cup of tea too. 

Rather than comprehend how a human being who probably bites the inside of his cheek every so often could achieve such a thing, it is easier to disassociate oneself from the marvel of the modern age and flippantly dismiss everyone who was involved in these inventions as extraterrestrial and weird. It’s as though the creators of the film thought, ‘I don’t know how to make and internet, you don’t know how to make an internet, even Steve from HR doesn’t know how to make an internet – it must be some bizarre alien space magic!’

But Steve can barely dress himself, so I wouldn’t trust him 

with coding the Super Info Highway just yet

The trouble with this attitude (and basing an entire film around it) is that it makes creating wonderful things seem unattainable for human minds. People like Berners-Lee are placed high up on pedestals, so far out of reach that for all we know, they may as well be aliens. But it’s important to remember that he didn’t wake up one morning and invent the web; it took years and years of hard work and creativity to just get to Oxford – more work and effort after that to get to CERN.  Berners-Lee is a remarkable human being, but a human being nonetheless. The same is true for all inventors throughout history, including the Egyptians who built the pyramids. Remember this guy?

Hey look! It's that guy who's a joke to his friends
 and a shame to his profession!

He’s famous because he said aliens built the pyramids. Not civil engineers, not royal architects, aliens. And this was broadcast on the History Channel too! 

 

My point is that turning human progress into something that is given to us for free by aliens is a troubling, because it dehumanises the wonderful inventors of the past and present and impedes potential inventors of the future by telling them that they can’t be like these guys, these guys were probably brought up in pods somewhere outside of San Francisco (even the Ancient Egyptians). Well I say nuts and boo to this and the cynical idea that all people are as thick and unimaginative as aliens man up there. We need our inventors to be as human as possible to show ourselves that maybe, with enough hard work, intelligence and creativity, we could create something wonderful too. Am I reading too much into Escape from Planet Earth? Probably, but I'm still not going to watch it.

The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie, 2013, Warner Bros. Pictures. Directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord. Starring Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Will Arnett, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, films based on toys were made slightly differently than how they are today. In a world of Pokemon 2000, Bratz the Movie and Barbie of Swan Lake, the emphasis was most definitely on marketing the brand, kiddiewinks forcing their poor parents to watch under-budgeted and over-hyped feature length adverts for a new piece of plastic which would be most likely forgotten about in a week or so (I should know, I was one of those kiddiewinks. Sorry about that Mum). 

But then Transformers happened. Despite being too long, too enamoured with the military and somehow made giant CGI robots hitting each other dull, it coined a baffling amount of money and changed the expectation and aesthetic of toy films. Gone are the days of sloppy animation and short running times, now films like GI Joe and Battleship have budgets in the hundreds of millions and massive set pieces which have little to nothing to do with the toy they’re selling you.  Seriously, GI Joe 2 blew up all of London, which itself is quickly becoming a trend (what’s wrong with London, movies? Don’t you like the bikes or something?) They’re also overwhelmingly cynical, trying to hide their toy origins with whole scale destruction and strangely dour plots. Toy movies are indistinguishable from the rest of Hollywood action, any spark of genius whittled away to nothing to make the toy fit the mould.  

  

Yay, millions are dead and the entire country’s

infrastructure and soul has been destroyed! Go GI Joe! 

So when a massively budgeted film about Lego was announced for a Valentine’s Day release, I was surprised to see how much people truly loved it. Mark Kermode made it his film of the week, my Facebook feed was littered with gushing reviews; even the man in Starbucks demanded that I see it that day. And after watching it and needing two weeks to digest it fully, I can finally say with thoughtful conviction:

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THIS MOVIE ROCKS!

Ahhhhhh! It’s so damn good!

Ahem.

Directed by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs maestros Chris Miller and Phil Lord, The Lego Movie seems to have a real debt not to Transformers, but to Aardman, its relentless charm coming from a real passion for film making and the medium they’ve chosen. Though it’s totally computer animated, it always looks like Lego, the way that Aardman films always look like plasticine. It appears that the film’s one rule is that it must always be made of Lego, right down to the flames, background buildings and crashing waves. It may sound cheap, but the effect is a brilliant, immersive and three dimensional one.

But don't try an recreate this at home, it'll only lead to heartbreak and alcohol

Its endlessly creative use of the medium to builds an entire Lego universe, encompassing the old with the new with gleeful abandon. Looking around, the only bits of Lego I have in my house are the Wii games for Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Lego has evolved with its core audience of children (and unemployed graduates, apparently) to keep a sense of play and creation at the heart of its brand in an iPad world. And The Lego Movie totally understands this, showing Superman, Darth Vader, Batman and Gandalf alongside unlicensed characters like Space Guy and Construction Worker Man. Original characters like President Business (voiced by Will Ferrell in one of his better roles of late) and Vitruvius (a brilliantly cast Morgan Freeman) fit so well in with this madcap array of famous faces it’s hard to imagine Lego itself without them.

It is an antidote to the super serious and boring toy films of recent years; it’s full of background gags in a way that reminded me of Monty Python, before those jokes became tired from out of context use by nerds who think parroting one-liners is a decent replacement for a sense of humour. It also gently reminds people that whilst it is possible to fully delight in children’s toys and films, taking those things away and obsessing over them to the point where you yourself can find no fun in them anymore is probably not healthy. Or interesting. So I’m not going to talk about the flaws in the film (but the ending is a bit iffy, somewhat implying that girls will always ruin the boys fun, always) and I’m not going to search for great insight in the minute details. All I’ll say now is that it’s massively bonkers, enormously good fun and you’re guaranteed to leave the cinema with a huge grin on your face, singing Everything Is Awesome with only a trace of irony.

Everything is awesome indeed.

Frozen

Frozen, 2013, Disney. Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. Starring Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad and Santino Fontana.

In amongst the film awards upheaval this week, with Emma Thompson missing out on her Oscar nomination, 12 Years a Slave ruining my prediction that Gravity would win everything at the Golden Globes and the BAFTA’s continuing to make people scratch their heads with their definition of a ‘British’ film ( it seems like if the director’s grandma went to Edinburgh once, the film is deemed as British as afternoon drinking), there’s one film in one category which no one is betting against. Yep, Frozen will win Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, and it’s been a long time coming for everyone’s favourite corporation, Disney.

Because Disney have never won an Animation Feature award, a hole in their trophy cabinet that must have been noticed by more than a few board members. Since the category debuted in 2001, there have been well deserved winners (can a girl get a hell yeah for Nick Park and Peter Lord for Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit?) and... Not so deserving winners (Happy Feet? Seriously?) but never a Disney Animation winner. It could be because their films haven’t been that great (they did give an award to Rango though, so maybe not), or they were always in Pixar’s long shadow, but this year the stars have aligned and their magic sparkle dust has fallen onto Frozen, since it seems to be reminding everyone of all the good things we love Disney for, as well as being an interesting, exciting and overall modern film about a relationship which just isn’t explored in mainstream cinema.

Frozen’s greatest selling point is its artistry; the whirling snow looks real, the settings and background fully formed and engaged with the characters. Disney spent years getting the technology to a place where their CGI films look as good as Pixar’s, but without losing that style and cinematography which defines their films, and it does a rare thing where the 3D adds a dimension to the overall feel of the film, rather than take away from it. 

In short, it looks bloomin’ gorgeous and it sounds bloomin’ gorgeous too. It’s got Broadway running through its veins, with songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez of Avenue Q and Book of Mormon fame. Both of those shows are said to be the funniest in Broadway history, something which shines through with In Summer, an ode to heat sang by a magical snowman, and Love is an Open Door, an upbeat, reggae pop song which is the precursor to a spur of the moment marriage proposal. Let it Go is Frozen's anthem, a celebration of freedom from fear sang on top of a literal mountain. Idina Menzel sings from the depths of her soul, early doubts that her voice doesn’t fit the character swept away by the second chorus. 

  
Just try getting this song out of your head. I double dare you.

However, the film’s secret weapon is its story, and here is where this new Disney moves on from Classic and Renaissance Disney. Two princesses, Elsa and Anna, live in the idyllic Nordic kingdom of Arundel, but Elsa’s ice powers endanger Anna, and so she locks herself away for fear of what people will do to her if they find out how powerful she really is. Elsa accidentally reveals herself though, and flees Arundel, leaving it in perpetual winter. Only Anna can bring Elsa back and with her, the summer. But there’s something else going on – that spontaneous engagement between Anna and Prince Hans (a dashing sort who has ‘Disney Prince’ written all over him) is rejected by Elsa, because hello, they’ve spent one evening together. Even though Anna and Hans spend just as much time as Cinderella and her Prince do, this injection of reality jolts you awake – are Disney really saying that love at first sight is.... unlikely? Ill advised even? Blimey, they really have moved on.

However, the best thing about Frozen is Elsa and Anna’s relationship. Elsa is cool and confident in her own skin, whilst Anna is flighty and unsure of herself as a woman in power. They laugh, they fight, they stand up to and for each other, they act exactly like sisters do. Just think about it - when was the last time you actually saw two sisters on film and they not be bitter enemies?

Every other mainstream film, when they show sisters on screen, take the Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? path, the elder usually insanely jealous of the younger’s looks/boyfriend/Pokemon cards – not so with Frozen! Elsa genuinely wants the best for her naive little sister and Anna’s song Do you Wanna Build a Snowman? shows that despite growing up and apart, she still goes to her big sister for help. It’s not just refreshing to see a loving, thoughtful portrayal of sisterhood on screen - it’s revolutionary.

The best kind of revolutions always start with plaits.

 So watch Frozen. Watch it because it’s funny, exciting, beautiful and vintage Disney. But watch it because the number crunchers will see how much money it makes and, maybe, Hollywood won’t be so scared of portraying a loving relationship between sisters, and just maybe, there will be more of them in the next few years. We need more Frozens in our collective cinema diet, and there’s a glimmer of hope that when it wins that Oscar, we’ll get them.