Game of Thrones and Avengers Endgame Show How Real Life Affects Art

Last night was the finale of Game of Thrones--on TV--and just a couple of weeks before that was the finale of Marvel/Disney's first cycle of movies.  One ran for 9 years and another for 11 and what the end of both showed is how real life shapes art.

Avengers Endgame ended with Iron Man dying and Captain America retiring and passing the mantle on.  Why?  Because those actors had contracts expiring and they were getting too expensive (and in Downey Jr's case too old) to keep around anymore.  Hence they had to be written out.  The same probably applies to some extent for Scarlett Johannson even though she probably has a solo movie coming at some point.

As for Game of Thrones, the first five seasons built things up pretty slow.  Season 5 especially seemed pretty meandering.  All the sudden in season 6 and especially season 7 everything began picking up the pace.  Why?  Because a show like that is horribly expensive.  All those sets, costumes, weapons, boats, horses, and dragons are super expensive.  Plus like Avengers there's the cost of the main cast.  Even a show like GOT that killed a hell of a lot of people couldn't kill all of its main characters off, hence it can be costly to keep them around.

Besides these two properties this is an issue that's happened pretty much since the beginning of live entertainment.  Whether it's movies, TV, radio, vaudeville, theater, music, or whatever sometimes the art has to take a backseat to what's happening in the real world.  Often it's financial considerations, but other times it's personality conflicts or health issues or even death that necessitates changes in an act.

This was especially problematic with Game of Thrones as the intricate story that was established in 7 seasons felt especially rushed and sloppy in this final season.  Because this 8th season was to feature some major battles they shortened the number of episodes to only 6, though these episodes were mostly about 80 minutes, so you could consider each one a feature film.

Still it couldn't shake the feeling of being rushed.  After seven seasons the army of the dead finally arrived in Westeros, led by the Night King and his undead dragon.  But after all this time the army of the dead was dealt with in a single 80-minute episode.  There's a desperate battle, the Night King goes to kill Bran, and Arya jumps out of the trees to kill him.  As soon as she stabs him all the zombies die.  The end.  Well, that's pretty anticlimactic.

But wait, there's more anticlimacticness!  For 7 seasons Danerys had journeyed and gathered forces to her.  After she "wins" the battle against the dead, she turns her attention to King's Landing.  Though her forces decimate the Lannister forces and their allies, Danerys decides for...reasons to use her dragon to burn the whole city to the ground, slaughtering men, women, and children in the process.

In professional wrestling there's something called the "heel turn" where a good guy suddenly becomes a bad guy.  Through the 80s Hulk Hogan was a good guy, but in the 90s he took the heel turn to become a bad guy.  Burning King's Landing was Dany's heel turn.

And like probably a lot of those in wrestling it was so sudden and disorienting that it was deeply unsatisfying.  Especially since it was the penultimate episode so while maybe in wrestling a heel can become a hero again, there wasn't really any time for Dany to redeem herself.  Nope, she's mad with power now.  The only explanation is that she's a Targarian and they just go mad.  Like instantly, apparently. 

The final episode they try to justify this by bringing up all the people she killed along the way.  But as Ahhh-nold said in True Lies to justify his murders, "But they were all bad."  It's not like any king or queen in Westeros hasn't murdered an enemy or two--or hundreds.  As Michael Offutt said there was something kind of sexist about it, like a woman would just naturally be so "emotional" that she'd do a one-eighty and snap.

I figured Jon was going to kill her, though I thought it'd be a little more dramatic.  I thought she'd sentence Tyrion to die (which she did) but maybe Jon would stand in front of the dragon and prove his Targarian heritage by not burning in the fire, protecting Tyrion in the process.

They actually went far more understated with Jon stabbing Dany while they kissed in the throne room.  Most of the drama was supplied by the dragon as it nudged Dany and then in a rage destroyed the Iron Throne before flying off with her body.

And then weeks later all the lords and ladies of Westeros meet and Tyrion challenges them to pick a new king.  There's some humor provided when Sam suggests democratically electing a new ruler, to which everyone just laughs at him.

Then of all the people present, Tyrion selects Brandon Stark as the Chosen One.  Which is just like, um, whaaaaat?  The kid who wasn't even in a full season of the show?  Who spent most of the series being dragged around by Hodor?  That's the guy who's going to wind up being the king?  Really?  I mean I could see him being an adviser to the king or queen but the actual king or queen?  Who's really going to respect him?

But maybe part of it is symbolic.  King's Landing is broken, the Iron Throne is broken, and a lot of other shit is broken so who better to lead than someone who is similarly broken?  So I guess it makes a slight bit of sense, but it's not really a satisfying ending.  The whole point of the series was Who Will Win the Iron Throne and then the throne is slagged and some secondary character becomes the high king?  Really?  Seems like kind of a fuck you to the audience after 9 years.  As Tyrion said it doesn't really please anyone so it must be a good compromise.

It's hard not to think if they'd had more time (and as a consequence of that more money) they probably would have done things differently.  They could have stretched out Dany's heel turn a little more to make it more justifiable for instance.  Or maybe found someone better than Bran to end up as the king.  Bran?  Bran?!  WTF?!

It didn't really make a lot of sense when Sansa and the North secede either.  They won't accept a new king...but the king is from the North.  Why wouldn't they accept a Stark?  They're really just trading one for another in the end.  It didn't make sense except that Sansa wanted to be queen of something.

The ending for Jon and Arya made a lot more sense.  Arya riding off into the unknown makes sense for her character.  Jon riding off with the Free Folk makes sense for him too.  He never really wanted to be a king and he was happy hanging around with the Free Folk.  When they first said they were sending him to Castle Black, I thought, Well, shit, just wait a few days and ride off to find the free people.  Yea, verily it came to pass.  I guess it made too much sense for even the showrunners to ignore.

Anyway, two major properties wrapping things up and neither was overly satisfying because of the demands of real life.  I suppose with books it can be easier to control that, but sometimes not even then.  Professional authors have deadlines and they can have conflicts with editors or publishers and they can have health problems--even death.  Like Sue Grafton dying before she could complete her whole alphabet mystery series.  We like to think we're the gods or goddesses of our little worlds but you know what they say, the best laid plans of mice and men.